The recent death of Margaret Thatcher tugged at me in ways that I didn't expect. Perhaps it was because it was during her later years as Prime Minister of Great Britain that my business was born. When I was struggling to pull the elements together to launch a small business...

This first reading material that I picked up this morning contained an article with the provocative title "The American Dream: What went wrong?" I happen to think the dream is still intact and can be as real today as it was 50 or even 100 years ago. But today there...

During any heatedly contested political battle, passions and rhetoric run hot and it's easy for the combatants to stumble off the page and into the ever present political quicksand. I write about small business, not politics, but the candidates vying to occupy the White House have been talking about the...

Recently, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company invited me to lunch at a very nice private club in Los Angeles to pose a rather interesting business question. After hearing me give a speech on the subject of small and big businesses helping each other, he wanted to explore how...

I was fortunate enough to know Dick Clark and receive the benefit of him sharing a number of his experiences as a business owner. Like so many others, I first became aware of Dick as the host of American Bandstand and a Saturday night show sponsored by a chewing gum...

If ever a business buzz word has been mashed and hammered into something unrecognizable, it is "networking." Some people see a networking event simply as a hundred-yard dash to give and receive as many business cards as possible in one hour or less! And then they wonder why no meaningful...

Right now political discussions are like so much confetti that seems to be dropped on us every day whether we want it or not. This is the season when political aspirants show their love and attention like no other time. However, in the lives of most small business owners there's...

A few days ago I read an interview with the famed Russian ballet dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and one of his comments sent me into an hour of business thinking. It may be the first time that a person often seen in public wearing tights has given me a business lesson!

I love the hopeful feeling of having a new calendar and fresh plans laid out in front of me. But of course the New Year doesn't wait long before euphoria subsides and it begins testing your resolve, persistence and plans. Whether your goals for 2012 were written in indelible ink...

In response to a recent email question regarding how to succeed in a small business venture, I began to distill what I've learned from over one-thousand business owners of all sizes, categories and ethnicities. They are people whose television stories I've presided over as executive producer of the Making It!...

Many thousands of words have been written about Steve Jobs as a visionary and titan during the past week. They are well deserved. Today however, I'm looking in on his life as an inspiring story for the small business owners of today and tomorrow.

Like many other people, I was...

A motion picture titled The Help is proving to be a surprise late summer box office hit and after watching it recently, I wanted to know more about the author of the book on which the film was based. Among the things I found in the book, the film and...

It will probably surprise most people to know that small business actually has a week of its own, officially declared by the president of the United States. On one hand, Mothers Day doesn't get the presidential proclamation, but Small Business Week doesn't get the publicity or the spending...

Just when you think that you've heard everything about Donald Trump, there's another chapter being written in the semi-fictional book of his life. Last week, I was in New York, the place where he has marked out his most prized territory with tall, expensive buildings. Though his recent dust-up with...

If there is or was a favorite "first business" in America for the past one hundred years, it is probably delivering daily newspapers as a newsboy. Now, that business has shifted from eager youngsters on bicycles to less enthused adults in pickup trucks. I think that's too bad. Every young...

In the world of small business, a large percentage of owners are sole proprietors who operate with minimal full-time staff or the trappings we often associate with larger businesses. Whatever brand equity these individuals have is connected to them in very personal ways; often they have to be the brand...

My TV screen, like yours, has been filled with images of chaos and anger from the streets of Cairo. I think that many Americans feel a kinship with Egypt because we've heard about the country's history since childhood. Since the nation's small business history stretches thousands of years, I expect...

I'm writing this on Martin Luther King Day which is a widely celebrated holiday but my office is open for business today. Like many national holidays, ML King Day is anticipated by many as a day to sleep in a bit, putter around the house, perhaps a parade or just...

Conflict is what I feel about the current plight of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder. I'm an advocate for small business and believe that he is a fellow small business owner. On the other hand I'm not sure that his pursuits are business driven.

Looking at the various reactions...

We are in that hazy netherworld that seems to sneak up on us near the end of every year. We wonder where the time went, what the New Year will hold and how we can take our enterprise to what we euphemistically call the next level. This year there is...