I have an entrepreneur’s admiration for Steve Jobs. Despite setbacks, despite illness, he is still among the most vivid and interesting entrepreneurs of our time. While Shamrock’s been around a lot longer than Job(s) (yeah, the pun’s intended), I believe that, if he had taken a slightly different path, Jobs could’ve worked here as an…
A person’s management style is driven by time, learning from others and what just feels right. When I became CEO at Shamrock I had already learned what I thought was my best management style. Then, it was based on books I’d read, people I’d learned from, and people I had talked with. Now, I’m not…
There’s an old Mexican proverb that says, “One must learn how to lose before learning how to play.” If I hadn’t met Neil Bennett, the founder of Shamrock Companies, this proverb might have been nothing more to me than meaningless words. Neil taught me that losing was the first step in learning how to win…
Zig Ziglar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zig_Ziglar) is one of the best salesmen our world has ever known. He’s quoted often, but one of his quotes sticks with me as I go about each business day. Ziglar often said, “Rules are important, but example is the great stimulus.” I learned that observing by example is among the greatest teachers…
There have been days when I’ve wanted to chuck everything, call in sick, and play a slow round of 18 holes with just a flock of fairway birds cheering me on. And I’ll admit, sometimes I’ve given in to this wishful thinking, and it helped me recharge my workday batteries. But, if I did this…
When I started my career, I worked for a very successful entrepreneur who always enjoyed the social side of the business. He would throw an office party to share success with the group and show his feelings of appreciation for his employees. One thing he said to me, though, struck me as a little off…
Actually, we could substitute the word Business for Golf, and the same would hold true. Others, more witty than I have been drawing comparisons between golf and business for years. That’s because golf is a unique sport with an almost mystical ability to let us observe a person’s integrity, decision making abilities, mental fortitude, honesty,…
Do you trust your CEO? I recently read an interesting article on the Fast Company website that ranks how people trust. In 2009, 47% of the people surveyed trusted people like themselves while 31% of the people surveyed trusted CEOs. In 2011, the survey states that 43% of respondents trusted people like themselves while 50%…
We decided to call our blog “the rock” because it’s easy to remember, and it’s also a shortened version of our corporate name. But, “the rock” symbolizes more than just a name. When I hold a rock in my hand, I see something that will last a long time, and I imagine where it’s been—its history—and…
In Part One, I shared some statistics about the ravenous appetite mobile has for gaining new followers. Here’s just one more. ABI Research (a marketing research firm in New York), estimates that mobile marketing will explode during the next five years. ABI suggests that display ad budgets will especially skyrocket, with mobile ad spend bursting…
