I’ve been having a good deal of conversations lately with students about the concept of the “entrepreneurship” major.  More specifically, whether or not I believe it truly prepares you for start-up life.  I posted my thoughts over on my personal blog.  Feel free to chime in.

Read the full post here.

What Max stated on his personal blog “Let Them Own It” is true in many ways. Not only does molding one of your soldiers into an MVP make the company money and add value to the overall team, but it truly leads that employee to victory and jump starts them into a successful career.

I would also like to comment on the “don’t micromanage” bullet point that Max included. Micromanaging does a whole lot of bad. It scares employees, and the last thing you want is to scare someone into doing their job. Working for a startup is stressful enough, and the added pressure from a neck breather is just not necessary. Giving an employee the tools to do his job is necessary, but if you feel the need to micromanage, then you need to re-evaluate your hiring process, as well as your own managerial skills, or lack thereof.

Please study these “Do’s” and “Dont’s”. If taken lightly, you simply will not succeed, but if you take note and apply these particular strategies into your overall business model, good things are to come. Scratch that, GREAT things are to come!

I am a firm believer in the Everybody Sells model but sometimes the more technical people in my circle need some convincing. I am a marketer at heart and while technology fascinates me and I like to think that I am knowledgeable enough to be technically “dangerous”, the appreciation of the sales process comes naturally to me. This is especially true in a start-up environment. If you are a technologist like Vivek Wadhwa and you aspire to stretch your wings, consider what he says in his recent post: It’s All About Selling for Survival.

Excellent post by @cdixon reminding us that pitching yourself and your team is more important than pitching your idea. Ideas are all over the place but the credibility of a team with a track record is significantly more valuable to a potential investor. Further, when building that core team, make sure that they have the “it” factor with demonstrated ROI.

Budgets are tight and money is scarce. You need to build an incredibly driven workforce and an incredibly effective sales team. Start-ups and established organizations deal with this reality every day so how do you build the right sales culture?

The answer is to create a viral environment of good tippers.

Read the rest of this post on Max Sobol : Brainwork.

I’ve written previously about Personal and Professional Branding. In my universe, the two are closely related. My hobbies are as much about business as my professional career is. Further, I find that my network gets the most value out of my status updates when they relate to interesting business topics rather than random and useless (in my opinion) rants. I enjoy marketing my business’ brand as an extension of my own and vice versa. For those that can relate to this counterintuitive insanity, I offer my preferred time-saving solution…

Read the rest of this post on Max Sobol : Brainwork.