If you don’t understand your company’s financial statements, you’re at a disadvantage as a business owner. For example: When you talk with your bookkeeper or CPA about financial reports and numbers in your business, do you know what she’s saying? Do your eyes glaze over? Are you using your financial statements as a useful tool [...]
Business People: I invite you to Start Something in 2016. Be a beginner*. Newly. What’s important in your business in 2016? For that matter, what’s important in your life in 2016? For most of us, we’re in business to fund and fuel the entirety of our lives. Business is the vehicle we use to create [...]
I'm researching meeting space for seminars that Catalyst will be holding in the coming months. Most often, when I've made an appointment to see the physical layout of a venue to determine its suitability, I've often been directed to see The Front Desk and "They'll tell you where to go." My experience has usually been [...]
I had a thought in the middle of the night, a few weeks back. Sometimes my thoughts are really good ideas, so I’ve created a habit of always having a notepad and pen next to my bed. That’s the easy part. The hard part of it has been to sit up, turn on the light, [...]
Consider the oyster. (Yes, that’s a book by MFK Fischer, but we’re not talking about that!) So, consider the oyster. The legend is that sand gets into an oyster, which is irritating, so the oyster responds by creating nacre to insulate itself from the irritation of the sand. (Brief research on Wikipedia says that it’s [...]
Mark Nyman, President of FOODGUYS. Number 81 on the Portland Business Journal's List of Fastest Growing Companies. (With Tim Haskins, Partner of COPIOUS, Number 32 on the List, PHOTOBOMBING!) CONGRATULATIONS to two of Catalyst's clients: FOODGUYS and COPIOUS. Both companies made the Portland Business Journal's list of 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies for [...]
Imagine that you and I are going to a barbeque party at a friend’s house this afternoon. You pick me up at my house and as we drive away I turn to you and say, “I hope they have potato chips at the party!” You look away from the road for a moment, to look [...]
Two men, looking at a third one, dead, in the trunk of a car: Louis: Who's that? Ordell: That's Beaumont. Louis: Who's Beaumont? Ordell: An employee I had to let go. This scene, from Quentin Tarantino's 1997 movie, "Jackie Brown" has stayed with me, with its brutal and dark humor. Samuel L. Jackson brilliantly and [...]
This is a long post, ...and may only be interesting to people who see the power in rigorous thinking. If you're someone who likes to operate in "Just give me the answer!" you might want to skip this one! I’ve learned about business from many amazing teachers: One of the best is my Dad, Bill [...]
I was driving home from a meeting last night at about 6:30pm. The gauge showing the outside temperature kept varying between 31 and 33 degrees. (I'm hyper-sensitive when there's a threat of ice--when things freeze, the hill I live on turns into a luge-run.) The weather report, earlier, had said that the temp was going [...]
