Hughism: Most people take a sample of one.
I once knew an older gentleman who had been fairly successful in real estate. He had bought apartment buildings over the years, leveraged them well, used the rents to pay down the mortgage and now had a large income stream every month that surpassed his needs by [...]
Year after year, we hear that the number one reason businesses fail is they are under capitalized. That is much like saying all people die of heart failure. It is a technical, if very misleading, truth.
Yes, the reason they close is because they ran out of money, but they had other causes [...]
Hughism: Do Not Sell What It Is, Sell What It Does
I was at Home Depot the other day, wandering around in the power tool section, looking at tools I would never use, cannot operate, have no place to store and yet feel an overwhelming urge to buy… anyway, I digress.
As I stood there, enraptured [...]
Hughism: Actions are to feelings as 9 is to 1.
Everyone wants to talk about feelings. It is everywhere you look. People are saying things like:
I don’t make more sales calls because it makes me feel bad.
I don’t open my own business because I would not not feel safe.
If I started my own business, [...]
Hughism: Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
The man I overheard at the concert said: “I would do anything to be able to play the piano like that“.
Anything, apparently, but take lessons and practice.
“It costs to be the boss” - James Brown
If you want to drive a ball like Tiger Woods, [...]
Hughism: The way things look is the way things are
Here is a confession: I am NOT the world’s neatest person. When I was in the [tag]Marines[/tag], I always had trouble with inspections; always, that is, until I met Staff Sergeant Britt. He had a reputation of being something of a hard ass and virtually none [...]
Hughism: Everybody wants to be a regular somewhere.
Community is disappearing. 60 years ago, most people shopped at the neighborhood market, went to the neighborhood bars and they worshiped in the neighborhood. Everyone had all these places where they were a regular. Not any more.
As the Cheers song says, sometimes you want to go where [...]
If you have been in business for any length of time, you have discovered certain rules that work for you. I have a rather long list of things I believe about business and life that I try to instill in my people: My employees have come to call them Hughisms.
They are short bits of wisdom [...]
…die by price.
As much as I like lists of 5, there are only 2 real reasons you never want to market your goods or services based on price:
Someone could be smarter than you: If they are, they will get better and better, more efficient and drive the price lower than you can go. Wal-Mart springs [...]
My recent post with the Simple 5 Point Plan for Success stirred up some action in the comments, so I thought I would address them here. The biggest question is over the subject of planning. I thought I would take a little time and give my thoughts on the subject.
Generally, I think planning is Iraq. [...]