I've been trying to read a lot more lately. Don't worry, though, I don't have "50 Shades of Grey" on my Kindle. 

I try to exclusively read business and/or marketing books that are directly related to to my everyday life. If it's not something I'm trying to improve, it has to at least be something NEW I'm trying to learn.

Miraculously, I found a book that's a perfect mixture of both. It's a new concept based around something that every businessman and entrepreneur is exposed to. 

The book is called Smart Customers, Stupid Companies written by Michael Hinshaw from MCorp Consulting and Bruce Kasanoff (and published by Business Strategy Press). 

Before you go ahead and take my word on this book, you can read a teaser chapter before you decide to purchase Smart Customers, Stupid Companies on Amazon.com. Just follow the aforementioned link to find out more information on the book.

As a business leader, there are plenty of takeaways for me in this book. I can't wait to be able to deploy some of the ideas I have garnered from reading it. 

Leave your comments below on whether or not you decide to buy the book. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on it and new ideas you've thought of from it. 

When you go to the beach (a seemingly FREE activity), the following intangible costs often apply:

• The opportunity cost of doing something more valuable (something that makes you money or is more enjoyable).
• The cost of gas to drive to the beach.
• The depreciation of your vehicle (mileage and the future cleaning that will be necessary to remove all of the sand tracked in).
• The pain of a sunburn (and/or the cost of sunscreen).

This concept is universal and applies most demonstratively for a consulting business. See the scenario below:

Business XYZ possesses a mission that you are personally passionate about. They are looking for guidance and come to you for consulting. However, you quickly find out that they don’t have the budget necessary to pay you what you’re worth. However, you grow conflicted for you stand behind their core values far beyond business and money and really want to see them succeed.

While the entrepreneur in us all never wants to undervalue our services, these situations often leave us with an internal struggle.

My advice: Always do the right thing. If you can lend your expertise at no cost to Business XYZ, they will not only be forever grateful to you, but the following will also occur:

• You’ll feel happy and fulfilled for your benevolence.
• You’ll get referral clients from Business XYZ.
• Business XYZ will hire you as soon as they can afford your services.

It might not always apply, but it’s easier than you think to do the right thing and help others out when necessary.

From the above graphs (albeit from 2001), you can see that 1% of the country occupy almost half the pie, while 80% are forced to fight over the last tenth of it.

Is this disparity in the distribution of our dollar fair? Is it sustainable? Should it be regulated?

While I agree that hard workers should be rewarded accordingly, I do feel that something has to give here. We can’t continue to walk-by the homeless individuals sleeping on the street on our way to the office every morning. We also can’t continue paying undeserving CEO’s of large companies both huge salaries and wealthbuilding stock options.

What’s my big idea?

Set an annual cap for each income source per household.

It’s true that the wealthy invest and build their riches strategically over time. Since that’s the case, most brilliant and well-diversified individuals won’t be impacted tremendously by this change. Some will just have to take less of a salary or earn less in dividends from that one single source.

Where would all the excess funds go?

The surplus would become Government money. And I don’t mean this in an “increased regulation” way. These funds would be treated separately to help increase jobs in the public sector. More teachers; better education programs; more technology incubators; more charitable organizations – All in all, MORE JOBS!

Rewards For the Rich

And those that reach their cap? They wouldn’t have to pay any income taxes on that specific income source.

Thanks for the charitable donation, Warren Buffet! The rest of the country appreciates your benevolence!

Maybe they retired their penny for any of the following reasons:

• It costs 2.4 cents to mint a penny. In other words, creating the product is an operation functioning at a loss.
• Average wage in the U.S. is $17 an hour. That means it only takes two seconds to earn one penny. We don’t need to transact at that level anymore.
• Pennies aren’t accepted by many machines (i.e. tollbooths, vending machines, etc.).
• Eliminating the penny would not have an impact on the overall value of cash.
• The penny is worth less now than ever before in history.
• It’s a hazardous piece of zinc that children can accidentally swallow.

Perhaps we’re holding out for the benefits that pennies bring to charities. Who doesn’t donate their loose pennies in the open jars at the grocery store? Although even that charity doesn’t want to have to deal with a heavy load of metal, every little bit counts – even in the form of pennies.

Give it a few more years. As more people continue to use debit/credit cards more often and digital innovation evolves into a more accepted form of mobile payments, I foresee the end of of the penny.

At least that’s my two cents.

It all started with a voicemail from my insurance provider. They urgently told me to call them back. That’s it. No other information.

Somewhat panicked, I did just that.

I immediately asked the representative if everything was alright. She assured me that all was well and that she was just calling to talk about the company’s new “corporate credit card” that grants “points” and eventual cash back to users that pay their monthly bill with it.

It was bad enough that she disrupted my day with this nonsense, but to trick a customer into calling you back by leaving an ambiguously urgent message is inexcusable.

My anger ultimately led me to a different insurance provider. I prefer to work with companies that understand my needs and appreciate how important my time is. I’m uninterested in constantly being upsold against my will.

So, the next time you want to make that sales call to a current customer, think about the type of customer they are. Will they definitely be interested in what you are offering? Is the value added even worth the conversation to them? As you can see, not thinking about things ahead of time can actually have an adverse effect.

In short, the “Knowledge Graph” uses very sophisticated logic from a searcher’s keyword query to determine attributes that are consistent throughout the top search results. As a result, a basic search for “Albert Einstein” yields me a brief biography and other indisputable facts about the man. Because this information is known as fact, Google now serves it up in its own panel on the right side of the search results as seen below.

As if Google wasn’t already controlling the way we obtain information, they are now using their powers to essentially sabotage the big name sites that are leaders of information on the web. In other words, although unintentionally at the surface, Google is potentially taking a great deal of traffic away from Wikipedia.

They’re doing it for you.

I am on the boat of the people that believe Google is only doing what they believe benefits their customers (the searchers) the most. As a technology company, it is their right to make significant improvements to their innovations, even if they come at the cost of others. In this case, the searcher is able to find their desired information much quicker and without any clicks. I’d consider that a value-add for their end customers.

Being too presumptuous can always backfire.

The question for the future of Google’s algorithm is how it will expand this logic into more arbitrary searches. It’s obvious that Google uses the information collected from the most clicked on results for a query that might cover more than one item or topic. I searched for a common name like Kevin Brown as an example.

By the look of the results, it’s apparent that Google believes that the most popular Kevin Brown in history is the right-handed MLB pitcher. But what if I was indeed looking for information on the actor (green arrow)? Will Google eventually have ways to identify that through other surrounding information about me? My social connections? Even my geography?

Google goes above and beyond.

My favorite example of the Knowledge Graph in the wild so far is a basic search for the word “braves.” Google is not only able to determine that I am, in fact, looking for information on the MLB team, the Atlanta Braves, but they are also able to feed me information that is well beyond the necessities.

The green arrow above points to the most interesting subsection of the Knowledge Graph results. From the keyword “braves” alone, Google is able to tell me the entire roster for the Atlanta Braves. Players’ names would be impressive enough, but to relay to me their uniform number and position is extremely intelligent.

Google will only get smarter.

However Google is able to sort through the web’s massive amounts of information, it’s obvious they’re doing a great job at it. If this is merely version 1 of a major search upgrade, I am excited to see future iterations of it.

Without anyone to turn to, I did the next best thing. I ALWAYS LEARNED.

I’d read new blogs, take online courses, and PRACTICE what I wanted to improve upon.

There’s no shame in substituting a mentor for a teacher – even if you have to pay for it.

If you’re in the UK, check out Tutorhub.com for online tutoring UK services.

It’s better than never evolving as an entrepreneur.

Full transparency. I have all kinds of crazy and expensive insurance coverage. Not only do I need insurance for many of the necessary personal reasons, but all of my businesses are protected from almost any terrible event or occurrence. 

A few weeks back, I talked about the importance of security in business. To me, that is still one of the most important and overlooked elements of running a business. You have to PROTECT your assets however you can. You DATA is essential, especially when it comes to Intellectual Properties. 

It's in your best interest to read up on CDW's important list of the 4 Fatal Gaps in your security network. No longer can you sit back and trust that your cloud services are protecting you from harm. 

After reviewing all of CDW's offerings, I'm most interested in their Software Asset Manager. Feel free to check it out on their site and go through the free demo of it. 

CDW is a leader in the security space. To learn more, check out the embedded video below. You might just learn a thing or two.