Interview with Lisa Armstrong, New Owner at Eat Local West Michigan
What did you exactly do in Sacramento? I created a start up culinary tourism company, Local Roots Food Tours 7 years ago. My company offered culinary walking tours in 3 different cities and different neighborhoods within those cities. Each tour consisted of 6 to 7...
Lean Thinking Remains a Critical Business Concept
In today’s competitive economy maximizing customer value and minimizing operational waste is a necessity. The working term for this is lean. Organizations that are lean recognize what customers value and the ways in which to increase that value. Whether a product or...
Incorporate Your Elevator Pitch Into Conversation
In Liz Lynch’s Networking Smart: Attract A Following In Person and Online, Liz explains how to incorporate your elevator pitch into a longer introduction sequence when networking. By relaying your “pitch” through one-on-one conversation, it becomes “a set of blocks...
3 Questions to Employ When Networking
For inexperienced networkers, attending a networking event to achieve certain business outcomes may seem like an uphill battle. They may circulate the room after brief introductions, distribute their business card to many, and still wonder what they accomplished in...
The Best Business Coffee Venues in Grand Rapids
As Executive Director of GRAPE, I make it a point to meet with a variety of people from the Grand Rapids area nearly every day. Not surprisingly, this has necessitated getting to know the best places for casual business meetings. A variety of good places to have...
It’s Not Just About Money: Starting a Philanthropic Conversation with Your Client
In Grand Rapids, be sure to check out "It's Not Just About Money: Starting a Philanthropic Conversation with Your Client” on Wed, March 9 from 1-5pm at The Gillette Auditorium (@ the lower level of the Fifth Third Bank Building). The event features Scott...
The Art of Coin Collecting
“In coin dealing, a company’s integrity and honesty will drive a business’s success. If you don’t treat people right, if you’re not fair in what you’re doing, it will catch up with you, and you won’t have a business. (Mullen Coins) approach is simple, in that we try to look at coins and let people know what we would pay for them, what they’re worth to us as a dealer, and what we would expect to sell them for (what they’re worth on the retail market.)”
Tax and Record-Keeping Tips for Your Small Business
Small business owners face a great deal of challenges, but taxes always appears at the top of the list. Small business owners need to make sure they are paying what they should and taking the appropriate deductions to reduce their taxes.
A Jewelry Store with a Soul
Paul Medawar Fine Jewelry store on Plainfield Avenue exemplifies a jeweler with an effective marketing strategy. This includes all the elements a good marketer ought to offer: a defined target market, excellent products, interesting packaging, and superior customer service.
The Insidious Nature of Competing Corporate Myths
Competing corporate myths are the less-than-glowing myths employees hold about their employer. Often flying below management’s radar, competing myths are also prone to self-fulfilling prophecy. And being somewhat insidious to company health, this means that they’re especially damaging.
Five Apps That Increase Employee Productivity & Engagement
Is the annual performance review dead? Such reviews place undue weight upon an employee’s recent performance, generate unconstructive anxiety /defensiveness, and have little to no developmental impact. Quickly taking its place are instant feedback apps that allow for frequent employee evaluations.
How Unchallenged Assumptions Imperil Workforce Productivity
Unchallenged assumptions influence how a company engages its workforce as well. This is especially true for executives in larger companies, notorious for insulating themselves from their own workforce.