What is happening?

Walter Robb and I will now share the title of Co-Chief Executive Officer (Co-CEO), while A.C. Gallo will now have the title of President and Chief Operating Officer (the title he previously shared with Walter). Walter will also join me as a voting member of our Board of Directors.

CEOs must assiduously guard against ideology. They should avoid choosing a path for their business based on a rigid worldview. Ideology has killed many great industries, from railroads to word processors to fax machines. It interferes with logical, market-sensitive thinking, leading CEOs to ignore, and ultimately offend, their customers.

Google's announcement of its Chromebook constitutes a real-time case study. Chromebook hinges on the idea that we no longer need local storage or applications on our computers -- that the Web can handle most tasks.

In my opinion, the most impactful sales tools are customer stories that demonstrate tangible business outcomes.

That's why I'm so excited about Casey Hibbard's new book, Stories that Sell, in which she details exactly what you need to do to turn satisfied customers into your most powerful sales and marketing asset.

Look, I don’t really think that the mySpaces and Facebooks of the world are that important for the typical small business as they stand today. There may be very practical business reasons for some to actually use these and other, what are called social networks, for business gain, but most people that have jumped on the social network bandwagon have found themselves left with a “is this all there is” kind of feeling.

Every day, you do a hundred or a thousand jobs, some of which are occasionally handled by specialists. You make a sales call or give a presentation or answer the phone... you design a slide or create a simple spreadsheet. You get the idea.

When you are busy being a jack of all trades, you're competing against professionals. The recipient of your work doesn't care that you are also capable of doing other things. All she wants is the best she can get.

What happened to New Year’s resolutions? For many of us they were made like a long held ritual and now we are past them… while, still being where we were before the resolutions. Whatever the resolutions, however, they are tossed or forgotten in the second month as they were in the past years … at least for some of us. It’s time to do a reality check.