Paywalls aren’t just for consumer products and media companies. Every business has one, and it’s important to understand how yours works.
Every Business Has a Paywall
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Independent Thinking Blog
business models
Building Strategic Partnerships
Does your business develop strategic partnerships? I'm in Atlanta this week for the Solo PR Summit, where I had the pleasure of presenting this morning on the topic of strategic partnerships. We looked at why a partnership might make sense for your business, how to...
Independent Workers Pump $1 Trillion into the U.S. Economy
I've written before about how the small business haters have it all wrong. Now comes a study that puts new economic muscle behind this assertion, revealing that solopreneurs and other independent workers generated over one trillion dollars in income in the past year....
The Problem with RFPs
Does your business rely on Requests for Proposals (RFPs)? Law practices, management firms, PR agencies, and other big consulting-based businesses rely a lot on getting and winning work this way. It’s a numbers game. Respond a lot. Win some. Lose some. There are...
Can Jeff Bezos Reinvent Journalism?
By now you've probably heard that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is purchasing the Washington Post. It's always noteworthy when a major media company changes hands--and often, in my opinion, this has not turned out to be in the best interest of journalism, readers, or an...
The Problem with the NFL
Is your business incentivizing employee collaboration? The NFL does not have guaranteed contracts. This means that you can negotiate your multi-year deal, but if your get injured, sneeze the wrong way, or otherwise lose your marketability, then you end up on the...
Does Your Corporate Culture Make Sense?
Does your corporate culture make sense? There was a terrific interview with Evernote founder Phil Libin recently in which he said, in part: We always try to ask whether a particular policy exists because it’s a default piece of corporate stupidity that everyone...
It’s Not Just for Apple and Amazon: An Interview with Author Phil Simon on How Small Companies Can Adopt Platforms
I had the pleasure of talking with author Phil Simon this morning. His latest book, The Age of the Platform, looks at four 21st-century powerhouse companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google) which have managed to grow big while keeping their competitive edges and...
3 Strategies to Excel in a Tough Market
How do you manage uncertainty when, by definition, it involves wrestling with stuff that's difficult--and sometimes impossible--to predict? It all starts with understanding (and then leveraging) your competitive advantages, says Keith Bickel, author of Mastering...
The Secret to Ultimate Competitive Advantage
I recently reviewed Beyond Performance. It's an interesting book in which co-authors Scott Keller and Colin Price argue that: “Performance-focused leaders invest heavily in those things that enable targets to be met quarter by quarter, year by year. What they tend to...