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I emailed Les Brown and asked him to speak at Big Ooga. I was shocked when the phone rang a few minutes later. “Hello, this is Big Ooga.” “Hello, this is Les Brown.” I must have been drinking the motivational Kool Aid when I reached out in the first place. “Why not give it a [...]

When Big Ooga opened for business its guiding principle was to bring really good entrepreneurs and small business owners together across industry and specialty. I’m sure you know from experience that working with new people is risky. If you’ve hired someone to provide a service, they have to meet your standards and expectations. If you’ve [...]

Our companies are different but the Phases of our journeys are remarkably the same.  Our time and head-space fluctuates between grappling with challenges, actual work, success, insight and agony. We are constantly inventing and reinventing ourselves (beyond Phase I and back to Phase I) – searching for best practices and fine tuning messages, methods and [...]

If one of your clients asks you for a professional referral – you’re not going to say, “I know someone who sucks! Take their number.”  You’re going to say, “I know the absolute best person to call.” The more skilled your network, the better your reputation.  If you hang with great people, great people will [...]

You don’t pick your family but you do pick your business community – and they are a second family of choice.  Surround yourself with good people and they will up your game, watch your back and genuinely help you succeed.  Good people will talk about what is tough and noodle how to get through it.  [...]

Image via Wikipedia Let’s say you have the most brilliant business blog on the planet.  It is well written, well researched, optimized and rich with SEO words like business networking, small business marketing, Chicago professional networking, social media tools AND it is a great read with deep insight and usable tools that will impact your [...]