A six-mile wide chunk of cosmic trash came screaming toward us faster than a missile. In 10 minutes, the face of the earth changed forever. No one could have seen it coming, telescopes being short in supply at the end of the Cretaceous period (and T-rexes not being very good at fiddling with the focus knobs). The year that followed was literally … [Read more...] about How to Survive the End of the World
Dumb Things Small Businesses Do #5: The Worst Number
Primordial marketing guru Dan Kennedy likes to say that "One is the worst number in business." I agree with this, and I'll take it a little farther. If there's an important "one" in your business, you don't have a business. You have a project that may or may not continue to make money. Especially in times of rapid change and uncertainty, "one" is … [Read more...] about Dumb Things Small Businesses Do #5: The Worst Number
Dumb Things Small Businesses Do #4: Thinking It’s About You
Remember my hapless entrepreneur from last week? He dug himself a giant scary financial hole because he was so in love with his vision of his product that he didn't bother to get any feedback from actual customers. In fact, he tended to think of his customers as an annoying necessity. They kept calling with their stupid support questions, keeping … [Read more...] about Dumb Things Small Businesses Do #4: Thinking It’s About You
Dumb Things Small Businesses Do #3: Getting Upside Down
A few years ago, I did some consulting for a business owner. We were throwing around some ideas for PR and word of mouth marketing. (I didn't end up working with him, for a variety of reasons.) He was dead sure he was creating the next Amazon. He'd built his product from scratch. He had some experience in the same business as his customers, and he … [Read more...] about Dumb Things Small Businesses Do #3: Getting Upside Down
