Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Recently I was asked to review a client proposal for a consultant who works in China's sports market. I was so impressed I decided to share it with you. The names have been changed to protect the guilty, but Party X is a major world sports company, and the consultant is a former Milwaukee resident (not me).

For years, clients have been asking me if they needed to get on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Google Plus. Now everyone's asking about Pinterest. My answer has never changed: “Don't even think about any of them until you define your strategy.”

Entrepreneurship is a risky field because not everyone makes it. However, it is possible to save a struggling business, whether brand new or established.

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) are creating an early-stage venture capital fund focused on information technology.

What was the smartest thing your company did in the past year?

"Well that would be putting the cheeseburger slider in the already overloaded Sobelmans Bloody Mary. This alone has gotten us international attention, and business is up about 25 percent or so."

I facilitated a TEC mediation recently between my TEC CEO member "Frank" and his controller "Jim" (names changed to protect me!). They were very frustrated with each other.

Sure, we'd all love to win the lotto, possess prodigy-level talent, or be born into royalty. The luck of the draw can seem painfully unfair as some are stricken with disease while others grab an oversized helping of fame and fortune, and then come back for seconds.

Many families dream of the possibility of building a business enterprise that can support and be enjoyed by many generations of the family. But making important and sometimes necessary transitions along the way can be difficult. Many advisers know the best techniques to make those transitions in a tax-efficient and legally beneficial matter, yet it is still notoriously difficult to maintain a family business through succeeding generations.

Tiffany Weber @tiffanyannweber I JUST QUIT MY JOB! A lot of it because of @stevejagler. ow.ly/hKJxu.

Strong leadership is more than a competitive advantage. It separates world-class companies from the rest.