What beliefs or values guide you as you build your relationships? The right principles can powerfully inform your day-to-day behavior. Over the last several years, I’ve been assembling what I call “The Relationship Principles.” These are around a dozen statements of belief and intent that will help you engage with others and build a strong network of trusted relationships. Here are the first five…I’ll describe the final seven next month.

Recently, I read the book Seven Foundations of Time Mastery for Attorneys, by Julie Fleming, J.D.

Your English teacher isn’t going to like this.

Get New Customers and Keep the Old. One is silver and the other is gold.

All kidding aside, things have been tough for businesses, especially small businesses during the past several years.  Funding is tight―okay, really tight.  Government at all levels seems to be staying up at night thinking of new ways to make “doing business” more difficult, and consumers are more reluctant than ever to spend.  This is the toughest economic environment that most of us have seen in our working lifetimes.

With many emerging business models, it’s easy to get confused these days. There is a lot of buzz about social entrepreneurship, social innovation, social change and social enterprise but what do they all mean and why are they important?