Middle managers' engagement key to company success

Middle managers' engagement key to company success: Curse all the trash talk about middle managers. Show them some love, and your company will love you back.

Networking tactics to advance your business

Networking tactics to advance your business: Four tactics that are key to building a robust network.

Effective business tools to help startups keep costs low

Effective business tools to help startups keep costs low: Startups have to get by without much money. Established businesses don’t want to spend much money. Whichever you run, try these tools.

How critical reviews online impact your business

How critical reviews online impact your business: Consumer-review websites like Yelp are the first stop for many shoppers.

7 Ways to Avoid a Poor First Impression in Business

7 Ways to Avoid a Poor First Impression in Business: Entrepreneurs are all about firsts, and the most important is you making a great first impression – on investors, customers, new team members, and strategic partners. Poor first impressions can be avoided, but I’m amazed at the number of unnecessary mistakes I see at those critical first introductions, presentations, and meetings.

Will your company back your new business idea?

Will your company back your new business idea?: "Intrapreneurship" can keep your job and your company interesting and competitive, but it comes with its fair share of obstacles. How to pitch your idea to the powers that be.

Want to Stand Out From the Crowd? 3 Tips on How to Do It.

Want to Stand Out From the Crowd? 3 Tips on How to Do It.: I recently received an advance copy of Lindsey Pollak?s book, the revised edition of Getting From College to Career. Though my college days are long behind me and I?m now on my second career, I find Lindsey?s advice on how to stand apart from the competition to be extremely valuable ? especially as it relates to entrepreneurs.  There are a lot of similarities between those building businesses and those taking the first steps to build their careers. Whether you?re in college looking for a job or trying to get a new venture off the ground, you need to be relentless, proactive, informed and mindful of perception.  You also need to figure out your points of differentiation.

Swagger! 6 Keys to Negotiating Success

Swagger! 6 Keys to Negotiating Success: Every entrepreneur must excel at negotiating. Follow these six tips from a recent book.

How to Get Unstuck

How to Get Unstuck: Are you stuck? Here's how to get unstuck.

Sales compensation plans: How to motivate your employees

Sales compensation plans: How to motivate your employees: Does your sales compensation plan encourage all the right outcomes for your company?

Ten Questions You'd Better Ask Your Boss

Ten Questions You'd Better Ask Your Boss: I once worked on a team that helped produce a nightly television news show. The format didn't vary much, the deadlines were the same every night and my colleagues and I were experienced pros. But our senior producer had a tough time letting us just do our thing. Even though we sat in offices mere feet from the boss, she wanted us to send frequent e-mail updates on our progress. We could've been the most crackerjack TV producers. If we didn't keep the boss in the loop, she thought we were falling down on the job.

Three strategies to build employee engagement

Three strategies to build employee engagement: Wouldn't you love to employ a loyal, turbocharged team that's always in it to win it? Here's how three star employers got theirs.

For entrepreneurs, the greatest challenge is anticipating their own weaknesses

For entrepreneurs, the greatest challenge is anticipating their own weaknesses: The resignation of RIM’s co-CEOs does more than end a troubled chapter in the tech giant’s story. It reminds us how easy it is to make crucial mistakes.

5 Tax Planning Tips for Small Business Owners

5 Tax Planning Tips for Small Business Owners: 1. Do your research or hire an outside consultant.

Seven Ways To Cope With Indecision

Seven Ways To Cope With Indecision: Ever feel that gnawing pain in your stomach because you…just…can’t…decide?

Startups need great personal relationships and friends

Startups need great personal relationships and friends: Getting a little help from your friends is one way to get your startup rolling.

Can Sears Be Saved? Four Strategies For Success

Can Sears Be Saved? Four Strategies For Success: You may have missed it, but during the week between Christmas and New Year's, Sears Holdings announced that it would close up to 120 stores amid bad holiday shopping results.  As Miguel Bustillo and Ann Zimmerman report for The Wall Street Journal, investor and Sears Holdings Chairman Eddie Lampert has a dismal track record with the venerable brand:

Sales at stores open at least 12 months have slid every year since the company was created by the well-known hedge-fund investor in 2005. But its deteriorating condition has accelerated this year—it posted a $421 million loss last quarter—and it said Tuesday that same-store sales for the eight weeks ending Christmas Day dropped 5.2% compared to the year before.

An easy lesson to learn from Lampert's struggles is that investing and operating companies are different skills.  Or that retail chains, like restaurants don't suffer fools gladly.  With one of the nation's oldest retailers poised to close 120 stores, it's fair to ask the bigger question - is there a place for Sears as a brand?   As a department store specializing in hard goods, Sears is battered from one end by Lowe's, Home Depot and Best Buy, from another by Target and Wal-Mart and ultimately must fight Amazon for Internet sales.  All of those companies have clearer brand missions - and some of them have questionable futures as well.  So where does Sears fit?

An engaged employee is a happier, more productive employee

An engaged employee is a happier, more productive employee: The trick is to hire people who are entrepreneurially inclined.

Great Ideas: 4 ways to thrill your customers

Great Ideas: 4 ways to thrill your customers: Lining up financing and writing a marketing plan are among the crucial standard steps that entrepreneurs take to launch or fortify a business.

Are You a Slave to Your Business? Uncover 3 Ways to Break Free Today

Are You a Slave to Your Business? Uncover 3 Ways to Break Free Today: Feels like jail sometimes.

What? Well, owning a business.

On one hand, so much freedom and control; on the other, chained to our desks. I mean, at the end of the day, it falls on us, right? We’ve got stuff to do and sometimes we’re the only ones to do it.

More emails to send. More phone numbers to dial. More decisions to make.

Well, the other day, I said, “Enough.” Here’s the story that woke me up…