Posts Tagged ‘Flathead Beacon Newspaper’

Warming Up Your Cold Email

By MARK RIFFEY - With double digit below zero weather arriving in Montana this week, the last thing any of us need is a cold email.... more

Brainstorming A 2017 Business Roadmap

By MARK RIFFEY - Ready to start working through the first task on the detailed 2017 business roadmap that you painstakingly carved out over the last month? ... more

Preparing to Sell Your Business…Or Not

By MARK RIFFEY - As you get a little older, one of the natural things you start to think about is “What am I going to do with this business?”... more

The Smell (or Aroma) Of Sales

By MARK RIFFEY - Sales is tough work. One of the things that makes it challenging is starting a conversation with someone you don’t know.... more

Focus Isn’t Enough

By MARK RIFFEY - When it comes to your business, what drives your decision to let something slide a little, be it a day, a week or "forever"?... more

Don’t Forget the Ice

By MARK RIFFEY - Does your merchandising save your customers a trip? It should.... more

Are you Using Your Marketing Data Effectively?

By MARK RIFFEY - Presumably you have a budget and as a part of it, income / revenue goals. How certain are you that you’ll hit them this month?... more

The Ups and Downs of Complexity

By MARK RIFFEY - Business people (myself included) seem to have a habit of making projects more complex than they should be.... more

It’s Time To Sell Something

By MARK RIFFEY - Selling the right product to the right person so they can do what they need to do (or get what they want) is honorable work.... more

What Are You Afraid Of?

By MARK RIFFEY - Is your business clinging to fear-driven artificial barriers? Limiting thoughts had my software company stuck on a sales plateau.... more

New Project Idea? Do This First

By MARK RIFFEY - Wouldn't it be nice to know if a project was going to fail after two weeks rather than two years?... more

The Danger Of Presumption

By MARK RIFFEY - There are many ways that assumptions can endanger your projects. The key is to have a process that does as much as possible to eliminate them.... more

The One Sentence That Can Make Or Break You

By MARK RIFFEY - How are you spending your downtime? You may not have any influence over your team’s downtime, but you can still set an example.... more

Christians, Lions and Wives of New Jersey

By MARK RIFFEY - How are you spending your downtime? You may not have any influence over your team’s downtime, but you can still set an example.... more

A Recipe For Teamwork

By MARK RIFFEY - If you had to make up a recipe for teamwork, what would you stir in?... more

Are you Hiring Millennials?

By MARK RIFFEY - Where will your company be in 15-20 years if you don't hire, groom and train 18-34 year olds over the next 10 years?... more

Take Ownership

By MARK RIFFEY - Whether you like it or not, anyone who sells for you, advertises for you, reps for you or in any way helps you sell what you do REPRESENTS YOU.... more

Crispy Pork Shank

By JONATHON HARTIG-We are lucky to have such great local pork products here in the Flathead Valley. Incorporating fresh pork in your menu is as simple as visiting one of our local butchers.... more

Context Equals Opportunity

By MARK RIFFEY - When your client is under pressure, you have an opportunity to create a memory that can last a lifetime.... more

How Do You Protect Your Business?

By MARK RIFFEY - Business owners protect their business by reducing risk, managing cash flow, getting appropriate legal advice and insuring their people and assets properly.... more

Roasted Garlic Tomato Soup in Puff Pastry

By CHEF HOWARD KARP-This soup has all the flavors, aroma, and presentation for a perfect winter entertaining dish.... more

Great Style Never Gets Old

By DILLON TABISH-Maggie Voisin, one of the nation’s best slopestyle skiers, is back on snow and stronger than ever.... more

Strategies to Improve Your Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday

By MARK RIFFEY -The rushes are over. What did you learn? What can you fix now? What needs to be fixed for next time? Write it down.... more

Lessons From Working at Home

By MARK RIFFEY -Geoffrey James put together a list of 10 lessons learned from his working from home. I’ve worked at home and in my kayak since 1999 so I thought I'd chime in. ... more

Your Referrals Leave An Impression

By MARK RIFFEY -Only a fool would believe that a referral doesn’t reflect on the one who makes it. So why do it poorly?... more

Making Employees Feel Safe

By MARK RIFFEY -When people don’t feel safe, it damages every conversation. Often they say nothing, as if they have no opinion, have nothing to add, and agree with whatever’s already been said.... more

Sweet Potato Enchiladas

By JAMIE LIPHARDT-Break away from the revolving door of proteins and go meatless. Sweet potato enchiladas are hearty, satisfying and crowd pleasing.... more

The Ones You Can’t Trust

By MARK RIFFEY -Stop putting up with them. Stop encouraging them. Stop tolerating them.... more

On The Playing Field, Little Things Matter

By MARK RIFFEY -Little things drive the quality of your customers' experience but they don't happen by accident.... more

Selling, Marketing and Wyoming’s Cutt-Slam

By MARK RIFFEY -The fish rejects your fly for the same reason that prospects ignore your message.... more

Experience Management Matters

By MARK RIFFEY -Delivery of a product or service is about far more than the act of your client opening the box or getting the service they paid for.... more

Beware Of National Distraction Season

By MARK RIFFEY -National distraction season is upon us. Are you ready? I’m referring to election/political season and the drama it brings to the workplace.... more

Extinguish Employee Drama

By MARK RIFFEY - It’s critical to the long term success of your career as a manager, or as an owner, to create a culture of drama non-proliferation at your business.... more

When The Smoke Clears, Will Your Reputation?

By MARK RIFFEY - How your business delivers when things are tough sets the tone for your future.... more

Brown Sugar and Strawberry Scones

JONATHON HARTIG - A scone has always been one of my favorite baked goods. The combination of flaky, buttery dough, sugar topping and fresh fruit leaves little else to be desired.... more

Get One More Per Day, Week, Month

By MARK RIFFEY - Doubling the sales of a business tends to result in doing things the same way, but doing them twice as often, or somehow doing twice as many of them.... more

Communicate When Fire Threatens

By MARK RIFFEY - Send the right message to the right guests in a timely manner in the right way. Build trust. Practice, automate, document, delegate.... more

Summer Fire Communication Can Burn You

By MARK RIFFEY - Even though the Reynolds Creek Fire is only 65% contained, the Going-to-the-Sun road is mostly open. 99.97% of the park is not burning and it remains more than capable of wowing.... more

Nicoise Salad

This versatile Nicoise Salad is perfect for entertaining guests and can be used as an appetizer, a first course salad or an entrée.... more

Why Do They Want To Disrupt My Business?

By MARK RIFFEY - The big word in the startup world is disruption, as in “We will disrupt the what-cha-ma-call-it market.” ... more

No Customers Beyond This Point

By MARK RIFFEY - I’m in the market for a new-to-me rig. I don’t switch rigs very often, so it’s a slow process to make sure I buy it right.... more

What Do You Do About Bad Competitors?

By MARK RIFFEY - I don’t talk much about competitors. First, because you have far more to gain by investing time and effort into improving your own business.... more

Filling Cracks With Automation and Metrics

By MARK RIFFEY - Metrics tell you what happened and in some cases, what is happening, but they don’t tell you what to do next. By themselves, metrics can get lonely.... more

Good Metrics, Better Metrics

By MARK RIFFEY - Hiding inside most good metrics is better, actionable information.... more

The Importance of Performance Metrics

By MARK RIFFEY - Quality and performance metrics drive your business. Do you know your critical metrics?... more

The Care and Feeding of Leads

By MARK RIFFEY - Coming up with the right question can be a lot harder than not having the answers. And answers are better than assumptions.... more

Park Service to Open Iconic Sun Road On Glacier’s West Side

By DILLON TABISH - Summer is Here! The National Park Service announced Wednesday that the Going-to-the-Sun Road, is expected to fully open on the west side on Thurs., June 11.... more

The Care and Feeding of Leads

By MARK RIFFEY - How are you caring for the warm leads that you get each day? It matters.... more

Sunshine Marketing as Self-Defense

By MARK RIFFEY - Have you ever signed a non-compete, non-disclosure clause as a condition of employment? Do you make your employees and / or contractors sign one?... more

A Forecast of Shadows

By MARK RIFFEY - Warning: I’m about to discuss some technology things (yes, again), with good reason. IT affects every business niche, including yours. This isn’t about IT. It’s about everything.... more