A System of Pi (Profitable ideas) Lunch & Learn workshop will take place in Norman, OK on August 11, 2017.  Although the System of Pi can be utilized by companies in any industry, this workshop is geared towards small and medium sized manufacturing businesses.       Please come learn and experience how to: Utilize your team to generate innovative ...

I enjoy having a look at larger companies to see what we smaller businesses can learn from them.  For this blog post, I am going to review Apple and Coca Cola.  Research revealed information in the following table in regards to each company’s 2016 revenue and advertising expenditures.   CompanyRevenuesAdvertisingAdvertising as a % of Revenue Apple$215.6 B$1.8 B.83% Coca-cola$41.9 B$4.0 ...

A lack of collateral may cause difficulty in a service based business’ attempt to obtain a loan to finance growth. To assess a borrower, lenders use what they call the Five C’s of Lending: Character, Capacity, Capital, Conditions and Collateral. Character is the payment history of the business or owner from credit reports and other sources. The lender is trying ...

A business viewpoint article, authored by Greg Conder, was recently published in the Tulsa World. For the full article, please click here   The article discusses four organization types and how they resist or embrace change and innovation.   Large businesses – their comfort with their current market position along with very bureaucratic processes can stymy innovation. Taxpayer-supported organizations – ...

A System of Pi (Profitable ideas) Lunch & Learn workshop will take place in Tulsa, OK on April 25, 2017. Although the System of Pi can be utilized by companies in any industry, this workshop is geared towards small and medium sized manufacturing businesses.   Please come learn and experience how to: Utilize your team to generate innovative and Profitable ...

A growth through acquisition strategy is not just for big business.  You may have heard the terms “mergers & acquisitions” or “M&A activity”.  Smaller businesses can merge with or purchase other companies, product lines and service lines as well.  Consider this real-world example. We recently worked with the fine folks at Contech Enterprises on acquiring another business for growth and ...

You never know where innovations will come from… Have you ever played with silly putty?  I have.  As a kid, I played with it and made small copies of newspaper print.  Then, I would wad up the silly putty, flatten it out and make another copy. Other people used the stuff for more practical uses like picking up dust and ...

I have discovered three basic reasons why small businesses fear change and innovation.  We have a fear of failure.  We do not want to put forth the effort.  We do not know how to properly change and innovate. We Have a Fear of Failure We don’t like taking risks because of a fear of failure.  While risk can’t be totally ...

Jim Collins’ book Good to Great is another excellent business book that discusses concepts from large business points of view. As I have noted before, I am interested in how these large company concepts can be applied to your small business to help you survive, grow and meet your goals. There were many great points in the book and here ...

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