lsquo;CHANGE OR DIE! THE CULTURE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION by Mike Manes Should you attempt to change the culture of your organization? Mike Manes recommends that you restruct...

10 BASIC PLANNING INITIATIVES THAT WILL ADD TO YOUR BOTTOM LINE by Ken Buehler The need for planning has never been greater. While planning focuses on profit...

There's nothing better for business than a booming economy. Unfortunately, it often encourages faulty thinking and spawns erroneous ideas. When sales are strong and profits meet projections, we're quick to take the credit. When things go sour, external forces get the blame.
A good economy tends to mask distorted thinking and inappropriate ideas. For example, personal computer sales have been drifting downward, even while prices have been dropping. Manufacturers are petrified. Out of near desperation, they jack up power to a sizzling 500 MHz to try to capture customer attention. Just as this happens, free PCs appear. In the midst of all this, one company rediscovers itself. To IBM's credit, it figured out what business it's in: solutions.

A CPA firm spends $11,200 on a Web site that attracts only a handful of visitors. An insurance agency invests $80,000 in an advertising campaign and no one sees the ads. An alternative health clinic sends out 8,000 direct mail fliers and gets 26 responses. A manufacturer spends $28,000 on an attractive brochure that no one uses.

'Call it whatever you like-re-engineering, restructuring, transformation, flattening, downsizing, rightsizing, a quest for global competitiveness- it's real, it's radical, and it's arriving every day at a company near you.' (Fortune April 5, 1993)

ADJUSTING EXPECTATATIONS --- AND THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND by Jon Persky Back in the 1960s and 1970s, it wasnt unusual to find people who worked for the same company for their entire...

AGENCY DEVELOPMENT: BIG SPENDERS VS. INVESTORS by Al Diamond Agents come in distinct varieties when it comes to spending money on agency development. Some agents are penny-pinchers, preferring ...

AGENCY PRODUCER RECRUITING: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS by Sharon Cunningham Its a classic conundrum: As an agency grows in size, it becomes harder and harder for its producers ...

AGENTS FOR CHANGE: WE CAN MAKE THE WORKPLACE SAFER by Arthur Moll More agent involvement in safety programs can be the single most important way to reduce accidents in the workplace. Small co...

ANALYZING CUSTOMER PROBLEMS by Mary Beth Bolen The best customers are your existing customers. Some agree with that statement and some don't. There are some customers you'd probably rather b...