- About Lea
- Articles
- 2004 Articles
- Beyond Planning – Setup
- Cash Management – Not Paying the Bills
- Diagnosing Enterprise Risk from the Operating Perspective
- Financial Projections (Part 1)
- Financial Projections – (Part 2)
- For Profits versus Not-for-Profits – Competing for Clients
- From the e-Mailbox: Can The Business Have Moving Targets?
- Gathering Your Thoughts and Resources
- Operational Aspects – The Business Plan
- Payroll Systems – It Pays To Get It Right!
- Planning Your Business
- Right Role, Right Person, Right Deliverables
- Service Providers – Start as You Intend to Go
- Strategic Plans and Budgets – Performance Tools
- The Business Cold
- The Business Plan “Audience”
- The Business Plan – More than Planning the Business
- The Business Plan – A Direction for Your Business
- The Business Plan – Adding Dimension
- The First Step Is the Biggest
- Validating Your Business Concept
- When No One Answers
- Where Is My Cash Flow?
- Who Is Running Your Business?
- Working In and On the Business, the Equation of Success
- “You Should Make Me Participate”
- 2005 Articles
- A Target on Your Back – When the Competition is Out to Get You
- Adding Basel to the Debt Mix
- Business Management Systems – Critical to Long-term Success
- Call Me
- Check 21 The Myth. The Reality.
- Commercial Lending: Business Borrowing – Risk and Relationships (Part 1 of 2 Articles)
- Damaged Relationships
- Distinguish Between Your Role as an Owner and an Employee
- Does Your Business Have One Blue Shoe?
- Establish Credit Criteria for Customers
- First? Best? Service Providers Show Me the Content!
- Four Elements of Establishing a Successful Business
- Full Moons Rising
- Hiring Skills Not Bodies – Constraining Organization Success
- Insurance – 20 Questions and Answers for Your Business
- Investor Due Diligence
- Late Again! What Message Do You Send?
- Managing to Mediocrity and Madness
- Moonlighting
- More of the Same
- No Limit Texas Hold’em – Business Style
- On a Bad Day I Take Action
- On-shoring – Keeping Business in US
- Part Two on Commercial Lending with John Wroton, Assistant Vice President of Harrington Bank, Chapel Hills, North Carolina
- Phone Spam – What Are You Paying For? Be Sure the Value is There BEFORE You Buy
- Proof of Concept – Poised for Success
- RETURN ON INVESTMENT – Structure and People
- Return on Investment – Strategy and Action
- Reworking Retirement – A Dream and Business of Your Own
- Sequential Success
- Shams, Shells, and Charlatans
- Shoot the Corporal
- Size Doesn’t Matter – Sound Business Practices Do
- Small Business Minefields
- Software Is a Tool, Not an Answer
- The “X” and “Z” Factors
- The Company You Keep
- The Funding Gap – Early Stage Life Science and other Technology Companies
- The New Bankruptcy Law and Small Business
- Tough Lessons
- Women Mean Business – Seek Investors or Be an Investor
- Your Next Career – Entrepreneur
- Your Next Career: Moonlighting
- 2006 Articles
- A Matter of Opinion (Look for the Self-Interest)
- Be Wary of “Open Forums”
- Beware the False Not-for-Profit
- Blessedly Inexperienced, Critically Impaired
- Bringing Together the Parts
- Business Analysis – Identifying the Issues and Opportunities
- Can You Hear Me Now?
- Cash Flow Not Flowing? Don’t Cut Your Marketing Efforts!
- Clients and Conflicts of Interest – Professional Service Firms Divided Loyalties
- Commercialization: Viability, Visibility, Capability, and Credibility
- Complying with Securities Regulations – Federal and State
- Corporate Firefighting – Prevention, Suppression, and Response (Long-term Perspective, Short-term Realities)
- Cost Cutting – A Traditional Approach to Poor Financial Performance
- Customers, Shareholders, Employees, and Community – Who Matters Most?
- Danger, Danger Will Robinson
- Employers Beware of Compensatory Time Off Instead of Overtime Wages
- Expecting the Exception and Not the Rule
- Getting Ready for Investors
- It’s Not Fair – Then Don’t Sign the Agreement!
- Kamikaze Sales – Beginning with a Lie
- Location, Location, Location
- Lofty Goals, Bottom-feeder Behavior
- Micromanage to Failure
- Munchausen Management
- Not Every Event Is A Networking Event
- Organically Grown, Professionally Managed Entrepreneurial Companies
- Ready to Raise Businesses or Children – Common Threads
- Reputations – Correcting “Bad Press”
- Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh
- The Business of Technology
- The Coffee Pot Syndrome
- The Lessons of Family-owned Businesses
- The Tortoise and The Hare – A Fable for Our Times
- The “Girls’ Club”
- To Compete You Must Be In the Race
- Too Big, Too Soon – Too Far, Too Fast
- Tools Required – Capability Imperative
- What Are Friends For – Not Free Services and Products?
- You Are Successful, So Why Do I Have to Pay
- “Ideal” Customer
- 2007 Articles
- “My hands are tied” – Use your head
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
- All or Nothing – Adding to Regulatory Requirements
- Business Interruptions and Their Impact on Profits
- Choices
- Closing the Tax Gap – Congress and the “Carried Interest” Tax Controversy
- Commercialization: Capability, Credibility, Capitalization
- Commercializing Your Business: A Primer
- Complimentary (Free) Consultations from Qualified Service Providers
- Congress Settles the Debate Venture and Institutional Backed Firms are Small Businesses
- Consumer Protection Or Too Much Regulation
- Dancing with the One that Brung Ya
- Defining “Green” in Business and Life
- Differing Perspectives
- Driving the Business
- Earmarked for Results
- Everyone Has Baggage
- Excuse Me for Interrupting! I’m “Just” A Customer
- Excuse Me – I’m in My Own World and Dancing
- Finding Resources – Investors, Funding, and the Story to get Them
- Frustrated Consultant Seeks Cooperative Client Who Listens
- Get Ready – The First Step Is the Biggest!
- GRAB for Success – Gratitude, Resolve, Attitude, Belief™
- Hand Out or Hand Up
- Hovering around “The Answer”
- If You Knew Where You Would End Up, The Trip Would Be Easier
- It’s the Details that Matter
- I’ll Call You Right Back!
- I’m Not Uninformed – Don’t Treat Me Like An Idiot
- Lame
- Lessons Learned While Trying to Fly
- Lifestyle or Growth (Exit Opportunity) Businesses – Which Are You?
- Look Around There Are Lessons Everywhere
- Making Sense of Saving Dollars and Cents – Evaluating Expenditures in Terms of “Investment”
- Momentum Slowing You Down?
- Need Customers – Fourteen Things to Do to Connect
- No One Can Do It for You
- No X, No Z – No Business
- Not Everyone Will “Get It”
- Price Taker or Price Maker – Cost Matters
- Product, Resources, and Customers – The Three-fold Objective
- Resolution – Intent and Action
- Riding a Pterodactyl and Chasing the Dodo – Is Your Business Model Extinct and Your Business an Endangered Species?
- Ripple Effects of Take My Advice
- SOBs (and DOBs) at Work – Role Confusion in Multigenerational Success
- Standing in a Queue, Lining Up for Services
- Taking Objective Perspectives on Bad Experiences
- The Business Plan – A Direction for Your Business
- The National Single Audit (A-133) Sample Project Results – Good Audit Results May Not Mean Your Audit Measures Up
- The Retail Conspiracy
- The Starting Point – Action
- Validating Your Business Concept
- What Are Your Employees Saying About Your Business?
- Why? Just Be-Clause
- “NORMAL”
- “Should”
- 2008 Articles
- A Journey of Gratitude
- Born to Run, Born to Innovate … But Learn to Walk First
- Building a Better Business
- Business Advocates: The First Customer
- Business—Not Rocket—Science Powers Innovation
- Can the Government Teach Small Businesses to Do Business?
- Cash Flow Not Flowing? Don’t Cut Your Marketing Efforts!
- Cash: Survival in Tough Economic Times
- Coming to Terms: Getting Your Good Idea Funded
- Corporate Succession: The Abbott and Costello Method
- Customer Satisfaction: Perception of Product and Service Quality
- Defective Service
- Do You Own Your Business?
- Economic Incentives Focused on Big Business, But Where Is the Future?
- Emerging Competition, And the World Goes ’Round
- Entrenched, Entitled, Political
- Every Generation…And the One Before and After
- Fair Sustainable Trade
- Fatal Customer “Service”
- Financial Profitability, Sustainability, and Growth: From Sales Efforts to Bottom-line Returns
- First-Time Adventures
- For This I am Grateful …
- Gatekeeper or Dam?
- How Big Is Your Business? 20th Century Metrics in the 21st Century
- How Credible Is Your Organization? Are You a Yahoo?
- How to Grow Your Business, One Relationship at a Time
- It’s About Time: Employee Classification and Proper Time Records
- It’s About Time: Employee Classification and Proper Time Records
- It’s All Theoretical, But the World Is Real
- Learning from Experience – Other People’s Lessons
- Lightning Strikes and Lotteries: Gambling on Noncompliance with Government Rules
- Make a Mistake; You Might Learn Something
- No More Independent Contractors – Senators Seek to Make Everyone Employees
- Nothing to Fear from Change
- Old Shoes, New Shoes: Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone
- Ooh, Ooh, Pick Me! Pick Me! From “Me Too” to Innovation
- Opportunity Knocks: Be Prepared
- Recognizing the Need to Grow: The Business Expertise AND the Business
- Resilience Training: Corporate Survivor
- Second Chances After Bad Results
- Served by Eeyore®[1]: Customer Service with “Voice”
- Service Providers: You Can Lead a Horse to Water But You Can’t Make a Client Listen
- Show Some R-E-S-P-E-C-T
- Small Business, Competitive Markets
- Stay Tuned to the SBIR Program
- The Complexity of Business Compliance
- The Façade
- The Heart of Innovation: Leadership
- The Light, the Tunnel…OH NO! The Train! The Train!
- The Long and Winding Road to Success
- The New Small Business Innovation Research Grant Program Reauthorization Bill: H.R. 5819 “Modernizing” Grant Programs
- The State of the Corporation
- The Sustainable Business, Defined
- The Tax Man Cometh: A Major Milestone to Becoming Profitable
- The Third Arm of Networking
- The Tyranny of Customer Choice
- The Variability of Weather and Women: It’s All About Perspective
- The Way We’ve Always Done It
- The “Free Service” Philosophy – Misconceptions about the “Right” to Misappropriate Service Provider “Product”
- Think B.I.G.™ (Bold Innovative Growth) Business!
- Time Is a Constant – It Runs One Way
- Timelines and Deadlines: Customers and Investors Wait for No One
- Traveling with Animated Characters
- Vision, Strategy, Structure, and Results
- Walls and Bridges
- We Were Radicals—Now We Wear Khakis
- When Vendor Services Fall Short
- Where Was the Board?
- You Can; But Should You?
- Your Customer the Cow? No, the Golden Goose!
- Your Rules, My Rules, the Government’s Rules
- “Owning” the Business
- 2009 Articles
- A Debt-Free Business
- Auto Bailout Leads to New Car Color: Budget Deficit Red
- Boing! Bounced Checks and Other Check-Writing Practices
- Business Plans Are Not Academic Exercises
- Business Plans: Not Fill-in-the-Blank
- Caution: Securities Transaction Ahead
- Checks: No Kites, Bounces or Post Dates
- Communication: Making Things Happen as a Business
- Consumer Protection?
- Customer Service and Revenue Growth
- Do You Love What You Do?
- Economic Stimulus Fund to Flow to Businesses: Grant and Research Programs Open Taps
- Employee Misclassification: Small Businesses At Risk
- Government Audits: Post TARP, Banking Meltdowns, Going Concern Assessments, and More
- Leadership Requires Decision-making
- Let’s Make A Deal: Creating Value for the Investor from Day One
- Making It Through the Obstacles
- Mysteries of Life: Just Where Do E-mails “Hang Out”?
- Needs Analysis: Too Needy to Succeed?
- Old Dogs, New Tricks: The Hard Sell to Investors and Lenders
- One Percent Success Rate: Perpetuating Failed Models
- Perspective
- Poised for Success: Five Steps to Ready Your Business for “The Comeback”
- Raising Funds: No Plan Required? Think Again
- Responsibility – Government The Last Line of Defense
- The Banking Crisis: TARP This
- The Employee Free Choice Act (Also Known as Card Check): Streamlining Unionization or Bypassing the Right to Vote?
- The Grant Proposal Budget: Seven Things to Remember
- The Pros of Cons
- Time Out for Innovation
- Grants
- After the Award – The Work Begins
- At-Risk – Non-compliant SBIR Recipients
- Audit of Federal Fund Recipients
- Follow that URL – Grant (SBIR and STTR) Recipients Need to Read
- Government Grant and Contract Recipients – “Invest” in Your Business
- Government Grants and Contracts: The Award – Now What
- Government Grants or Contracts?
- Grant Accounting Practices Under Scrutiny
- Grant Compliance and Accounting – It’s not Rocket Science!
- Grant Recipient Consideration
- Grant Requirements – Impact on Organization Infrastructure
- Grants and Contracts – Compliance Required
- Grants – Don’t Take the Process for Granted
- Pennywise, IP (Intellectual Property) Foolish
- Seed Funding Needs Fertile Ground
- Small Business Innovation Research Grants
- The Clock is Ticking – How Much Time Do You Have?
- The National Single Audit (A-133) Sample Project Results – Good Audit Results May Not Mean Your Audit Measures Up
- Venture and Grant Funding
- What Does an Auditor Do During an A-133 Audit?
- Where Does Venture Capital “Fit” in the Competitive Equation of “Small” Business
- Profitability and Sustainability
- Everyone Has a Role in Profitable Business Growth
- Keys to Competitiveness
- Managing Customers for Profit and Long-Term Growth
- Pricing for Profit and Market Position: An Industrial Products Perspective
- Pricing for Strategic Advantage, Customer Value, and Profit
- The Lifetime Value of a Customer and Meaningful Metrics
- The Value of Customer Relationships
- Thin-Profit Enterprise
- Underlying Profitability, a Sound Cost Structure
- Value-Based Performance Metrics
- 2004 Articles
- Books
- Contact
- Events
- CED Grants Workshop
- Compliance from Day One to Closeout: Mitigating Financial Risk through Compliance
- Found & Fund: New Venture Formation and Financing
- G.R.A.B.™ for Success! – Gratitude, Resolve, Attitude, Belief™
- Grants Budgets
- Grow Your Business: Making the Choices and Establishing the Structures that Make the Difference
- Lunch & Learn Experts Series: Grants
- QuickBooks – Creating the Company File and Structuring for Results
- QuickBooks: Company Preferences, Navigation, and Quick Tips
- Expertise
- News
2005 Articles
Women Mean Business – Seek Investors or Be an Investor
Return on Investment – Strategy and Action
Four Elements of Establishing a Successful Business
Late Again! What Message Do You Send?
Managing to Mediocrity and Madness
Proof of Concept – Poised for Success
Check 21 The Myth. The Reality.
The Funding Gap – Early Stage Life Science and other Technology Companies
On-shoring – Keeping Business in US
Reworking Retirement – A Dream and Business of Your Own
A Target on Your Back – When the Competition is Out to Get You
RETURN ON INVESTMENT – Structure and People
Size Doesn’t Matter – Sound Business Practices Do
First? Best? Service Providers Show Me the Content!
Your Next Career: Moonlighting
Software Is a Tool, Not an Answer
Establish Credit Criteria for Customers
Your Next Career – Entrepreneur
The New Bankruptcy Law and Small Business
Distinguish Between Your Role as an Owner and an Employee
Phone Spam – What Are You Paying For? Be Sure the Value is There BEFORE You Buy
No Limit Texas Hold’em – Business Style
Hiring Skills Not Bodies – Constraining Organization Success
Commercial Lending: Business Borrowing – Risk and Relationships (Part 1 of 2 Articles)
Does Your Business Have One Blue Shoe?