Invest In People

For years, I have been trying to impress on growing businesses that their people are their greatest asset. People think; people create; people solve problems. They lead to the dollars we generate.

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Hustle or Hurry – Focus or Worry

Speed kills. A recent survey highlights the statistic that the majority of deaths involving teen-age drivers result from excessive speed. Rushing through a retail transaction, a clerk fails to thank the customer for a purchase or offer a smile to the next customer. Both customers take note of the experience. Going straight for the close,…

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How the Best Get Better, Part II

In our previous article in this series, we covered five key elements of how the best get better. Let’s further consider the topic of continuous improvement with four additional strategies and some tips on how to implement them immediately. How the best continue to take their results and performance to the next level: They create…

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Analyze Before Every Major Solicitation

As Socrates once famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Discipline and introspective examination were among the greatest virtues for the ancient Greek philosophers. Those concepts are just as critical for a productive life today, particularly in fundraising. Before every major solicitation, I sit with the volunteers and staff members who will be…

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How The Best Get Better

The Japanese have a word for it—kaizen. It means continuous and incremental improvement. The top performers, those who accept the best and nothing less from themselves and their organizations, live kaizen as an essential part of their lives. How do you, as the best performers do, improve yourself professionally? Read on for some tips on…

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Having a Meeting Correctly

Meeting our fundraising potential requires that we attend to many details, very regularly—not one or two magnanimous acts of great impact or importance. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.”

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