I learned the critical importance of networking, and discovered my natural aversion to it, early in my career. I was a new college graduate working in the strategic planning division of a $10 billion company, and our business unit had been invited to a retirement party for one of the top executives. The gentleman retiring was someone I'd looked up to during my brief tenure, and I wanted him to know he'd made an impact on me.

Last month, I described the first five of the 12 Relationship Principles that you should use to guide your relationship-building efforts. You can read them here. Here are the remaining seven.

This summer, I heard a panel of three experts speak on a business topic. The panel had thirty minutes to present. Unless I've forgotten everything from second grade math, that's ten minutes for each speaker. If you deduct time for Q & A, that leaves about 7.25 minutes for each presenter to get his or her point across.

This article is written for you and the thousands of other executives across America who are age fifty or over and lost their jobs. The unemployment rate for this age group is now higher than that of any other and at the highest rate since the depression. Why is it that America’s most skilled and experienced workers struggle to find work?

"Great moments are born from great opportunities," said the late Herb Brooks, one of the world's most famous hockey coaches.

It’s true that Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) such as Google’s “Adwords™” and Microsoft’s “Bing™” can be a remarkably effective, low-cost advertising solution that can almost instantly bring a flood of eager buyers to your website, if done correctly.  However, it’s also true that you can take a terrible beating in a very short time if you’re not careful and don’t know what you’re doing.