Theodore Roosevelt’s, “The Man in the Arena”, is an excerpt from the speech “Citizenship in a Republic” delivered in Paris on April 23, 1910.  I have modified the excerpt to be non-gender specific.  Is the small business owner in “The Arena”?   The Person in the Arena It is not the critic that counts; not the person who points out ...

One of the joys of being a small business consultant is sharing and learning with small business owners.  We certainly work together to solve business problems, but we also work together to help each other through life. I have had many business-related blessings thus far in 2017.  However, I think from time to time it is good to take a ...

Recently, I participated in a Junior Achievement (JA) event called the JA Investor Challenge.  JA is an organization that teaches young people skills in work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy. The JA Investor Challenge is designed for high school students to learn about the stock market through an exciting “hands-on” simulation.  This gives them a chance to experience the excitement, ...

The Experience Economy was written by B. Joseph Pine and James Gilmore.  I read the 2011 revised edition.  Their basic theme is that relying on the production of goods and the delivery of services are no longer enough to foster economic growth, create new jobs, grow businesses and maintain economic prosperity.  They say we live in a commoditized world and ...

Of course, the simple answer is from customers.  However, having excellent financial records can help you understand in much more detail where your revenues and profits come from. Not all customers are created equally.  It would be helpful for you to know what each customer provides to your business in terms of revenue and percentage of total revenues.  This might ...

The Win Without Pitching Manifesto was written by Blair Enns.  His intended audience is creative firms like ad agencies, graphic design firms and marketing firms.  All businesses should have some degree of creativity, but these types of businesses rely on it more than most.  The book made many good points in the areas of expertise, target market and prospect / ...

Recently, we had the opportunity to help kids get ready to go back to school through an event held at New Heights church in Owasso, OK.  It was an all-day event called the Back to School Mission and here are the results.   1285 kids received backpacks stuffed with school supplies (pictured are some of these backpacks) 750 children received ...

We recently utilized the System of PiTM (Profitable ideas) to assist Industrial Solutions in reaching their strategic initiatives.  Industrial Solutions is an Oklahoma based lean thinking and management consulting firm. On our first step, we met with the business owner to get a general feel of current business conditions.  We reviewed the firm’s website and developed a confidential custom questionnaire ...

Greg Conder, owner of Conder Business Solutions LLC, is scheduled to present a learning lab on July 27th, 2017 for the Tulsa Area Human Resources Association (TAHRA). Although anyone can attend, the session is designed to teach HR professionals how to utilize team creativity to solve problems.   Please come learn and experience: How to strategically plan for fresh and ...

Growth by adding new services can benefit small businesses.  Consider this example. We recently worked with the good people at C&C Machine.  They are a precision machine shop specializing in heat sinks, bus bars and other machined components.  C&C has been in business for over 35 years, yet sales had become stagnate. We utilized concepts from the System of Pi ...