https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/rss en-us This interview with Ben Chestnut, C.E.O. of MailChimp, an email marketing service, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. What were your early years like? A. I grew up in a small town near Atlanta called... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/3474 Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:33:30 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/3474-ben-chestnut-of-mailchimp-learn-to-love-the-job-you-ve-got Jason Sauey calls them lemmings - all the American companies that rushed to China to make things like toys and toilet brushes, only to be searching now for alternatives in Mexico and the United States. His own family-owned plastics company, Flambeau, nearly made the same mistake around 2004, he said, when competitors contracting with China undercut prices and seized market share. Flambeau resisted, turning instead to its factory here in central Mexico. And now the company... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1798 Mon, 10 Nov 2014 07:11:58 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1798-as-ties-with-china-unravel-u-s-companies-head-to-mexico MEXICOECON 1 Yesware is a four-year-old company that designs and sells software intended to make it easier for sales teams to record and analyze essential data. Released in late 2012, Yesware's basic version, which can be downloaded free, quickly attracted more than 100,000 users. The challenge: Converting free users into paying customers. By early 2013, even with a newly hired 10-person sales team, Yesware's sales were abysmal and the company had yet to turn a profit, casting a pall over pending efforts to raise venture capital. Because he was struggling to sell a product built to make sales easier, Matthew Bellows, a co-founder, felt like the shoemaker whose own children pad about barefoot. The background:... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1772 Fri, 31 Oct 2014 09:06:40 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1772-a-leader-struggles-to-sell-software-meant-to-aid-sales Matthew Bellows The way we're working isn't working. Even if you're lucky enough to have a job, you're probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don't feel much appreciated while you're there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don't believe that what you're doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you're pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep. Increasingly,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1634 Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:38:44 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1634-why-you-hate-work Work Master Here is my frustration: There are opportunities to grow the service lines of our part-finishing business, but we can't seem to get our arms around them. True, most lines in the plant run well: good quality, on-time delivery. The clients are happy. I am happy. Yet, on some lines there are quality issues, communication issues and delivery issues. For most parts we finish, there are both cosmetic and functional specifications. It is our responsibility to meet those specs. For example,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1560 Thu, 07 Aug 2014 10:39:14 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1560-we-re-about-to-miss-a-manufacturing-deadline-who-s-responsible-for-this-mess Fred Blog My T-shirt tells me things. My heart rate, for instance: 62 beats a minute. And my breathing: 17 breaths a minute. Unless I drink too many cappuccinos or a deadline looms. Then my T-shirt tells me my that heart rate has jumped to the high 80s, my breathing to 22. My T-shirt is connected to me and also to the Internet. So along with an iPhone app, it can remind me to take a breath, relax, chill. Seriously... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1454 Thu, 26 Jun 2014 10:54:04 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1454-my-t-shirt-told-me-to-take-a-chill-pill In recent posts, I have written about my attempts to get better at pitching for investment capital in general and closing deals in particular. A related issue that I'd like to address is my body language and what it says about me. I have long been plagued by self-doubt. I have found... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1422 Tue, 10 Jun 2014 07:55:10 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1422-how-changing-my-body-language-helped-me-close-deals Employers are hiring at a more aggressive pace again after a winter cold snap, but the pace of job gains is only slowly making up for years of lost ground in the labor market. Nearly five years after the end of the Great Recession,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1322 Tue, 22 Apr 2014 06:16:30 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1322-hiring-rises-but-number-of-jobless-stays-high Jobs Master CORPORATE profits are at their highest level in at least 85 years. Employee compensation is at the lowest level in 65 years. The Commerce Department last week estimated that corporations earned $2.1 trillion during 2013, and paid $419 billion in corporate taxes. The after-tax profit of $1.7 trillion amounted to 10 percent of gross domestic product during the year, the first full year it has been that high. In 2012,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1321 Tue, 22 Apr 2014 06:08:52 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1321-corporate-profits-grow-and-wages-slide When technology companies like Apple and Samsung Electronics go to trial, one significant price they must pay is giving up some corporate secrets. Take a 2010 email written by Steven P. Jobs, the former chief executive of Apple,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1311 Thu, 17 Apr 2014 10:26:57 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1311-email-from-steve-jobs-hints-at-how-apple-ticks 7Bits Jobs This week the Federal Reserve took a major step toward establishing a more sensible set of rules for global banks operating in the United States. Yet in a separate and almost simultaneous smaller announcement,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1182 Thu, 27 Feb 2014 10:43:09 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1182-two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back-for-the-federal-reserve Dane Atkinson used to own a bar. Like many bar owners, he occasionally had problems with "shrinkage." When this happens, some bar owners measure liquor bottles and some employ fancy point of sale systems. Mr. Atkinson learned to track limes. He figured out that by tracking how many limes were used in a given evening,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1170 Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:41:11 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1170-every-business-has-a-special-number-or-metric-do-you-know-yours Sheilah O'Donnel tells herself that her new home, a townhouse in a development in Chevy Chase, Md., just a stone's throw from a Safeway, isn't really all that bad. Sure, it's near a gas station. And the front window, with its cheerily upholstered cushions, overlooks a dreary parking lot. And yes, it's kind of small - "an apartment," O'Donnel, who is 44, sometimes says bitterly, when she's reminded of her former life with her ex-husband in their custom-built, six-bedroom home. But then again, it's perfectly maintained and impeccably furnished, and most important, it's rented with her own money, from the first real job she has had in almost a decade. It's a midlevel sales job, a big step down from... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/894 Tue, 03 Sep 2013 06:50:38 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/894-the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in Optout Custom Like dozens of other brick-and-mortar retailers, Nordstrom wanted to learn more about its customers - how many came through the doors, how many were repeat visitors - the kind of information that e-commerce sites like Amazon have in spades. So last fall the company started testing new technology that allowed it to track customers' movements by following the Wi-Fi signals from their smartphones. But when Nordstrom posted a sign telling customers it was tracking them... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/869 Wed, 28 Aug 2013 05:13:24 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/869-attention-shoppers-store-is-tracking-your-cell Articles in a series on Mashable.com called ï؟½Whatï؟½s Insideï؟½ looked for all the world like the hundreds of other articles on the digital media site. But journalistically, they were something very different. The articles, about technology topics in a wide variety of products, including modems and the Hubble Space Telescope, were paid for by Snapdragon, a brand of processor chip made by Qualcomm, and the sponsor of the series. Most were even written by Mashable editorial employees... [Advertisers and publishers have many names for this new form of marketing ï؟½ including branded content, sponsored content and native advertising. Regardless of the name, the strategy of...] http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/633 Mon, 20 May 2013 12:35:07 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/633-sponsors-now-pay-for-online-articles-not-just-ads This interview with George Hu, chief operating officer at Salesforce, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. You worked your way up from intern to chief operating officer at Salesforce in a decade. Where did you get your drive? A. Itï؟½s interesting, especially with all the publicity around the ï؟½Tiger Mom.ï؟½ My parents are first-generation immigrants, and they were very laid-back. They gave me a lot of freedom, which actually allowed me to find myself. One trait I noticed that I had early on was that I always... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/631 Mon, 20 May 2013 11:52:13 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/631-using-just-one-word-try-to-describe-your-career-dna LAST week, I glimpsed the future. I tried on Google Glass, the much-anticipated computer eyewear that lets you skim e-mail and shoot video. After some awkward fiddling, I managed to make the device work for me. It was a dazzling taste of something Iï؟½d previously seen only in science-fiction movies. I marveled at many things, but mostly at the... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/609 Wed, 15 May 2013 08:05:06 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/609-google-glass-more-tech-magic-if-you-can-afford-it