Reading Time: 2 minAt GreenMellen, our team is almost entirely full-time employees, as that type of structure works well for us. However, also pull in some contractors from time to time to help with additional work, as that can be a huge benefit. From our perspective, those are a different kind of employee (W9 vs 1099, not in […]
Business
Success is a lousy teacher
Reading Time: < 1 minIf you become successful, whether in business or athletics or somewhere else, you undoubtedly had some luck along the way, which is easy to forget about. Bill Gates and Kent Evans are great examples of that. Kent Evans? When he was 17, he was best friends with Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, but […]
At least there will be peace in my time
Reading Time: 2 minA recent episode of the 2Bobs podcast was talking about promotions and management, and the type of people that should be promoted to manager. It was a great episode (go check it out here), and David made an excellent point about something that we might overlook. He tried to reference a passage from the Bible […]
That never happens (usually)
Reading Time: < 1 minMuch of what happens every day is brand new. Google sees over a billion search queries every day for phases that have never been searched before (8B searches/day, roughly 15% are brand new). Or like I shared earlier this year, people keep beating insane odds to win the Powerball, and a freshly sorted deck of […]
Keep your issues in the open
Reading Time: < 1 minSimilar to the idea of “bring me problems” that I shared last year, having a culture where problems are welcomed can be a great thing. It reminds me of a story I heard about Alan Mulally and his work to turn Ford around in the 2010’s. One big thing that he did was encourage problems […]
Great communication is built on trust
Reading Time: 2 minIn his book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things“, author Ben Horowitz shares simple yet powerful way to speed up communication: trust. Ben simply says: “In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust.” The more you trust someone, the easier the communication. If you know their […]
When you’re up, go down, and vice-versa
Reading Time: < 1 minDepending on the role in your organization, you may have people above and/or below you in the hierarchy of the company. A good use of your emotions is to remember “when you’re up, go down, and when you’re down, go up“. If you’re feeling great, that’s a perfect time to chat those lower than you […]
Watch the seeds more than the harvest
Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s good to watch the harvest come in. For your business, that likely means seeing new clients sign up and your revenue head in the right direction. This can be a dangerous time, though, as it can cause companies to ease off on sales efforts while they enjoy the fruit of their labor. In many […]
You probably don’t need that NDA
Reading Time: < 1 minI’ve been asked to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) a few times, and I’m always happy to oblige, as it’s really no extra effort on my part. However, 99% of the time the document is completely unnecessary, because the person asking for the signature is weighing their idea far above the level of effort it […]
Business isn’t a zero-sum game
Reading Time: < 1 minIn some areas of life, particular sports, the results are zero-sum; for one team to win, another has to lose. Every year, some team makes it to the Super Bowl and loses, but that’s the only way to make winning possible for the other team. Beyond sports, though, most of life and business isn’t zero-sum. […]