Jerry R Mitchell’s Blog

You hear the phrases all the time: ‘The CPI is up,” “the prime is down,” “the GDP is fiat.”  Though your first impulse may be to change the channel, such numbers are at least as relevant to most consumers’ lives as the latest sports scores.  Here’s a quick guide to some of the most influential [...]

Read the rest of What these numbers mean.

I. “We have to have the money by Friday.”  This point out to the venture capitalist that you manage your money so poorly that you don’t plan more than a week ahead.
2.  “You’ll have to sign this nondisclosure agreement before we can talk.”  This request will make it clear that you are naive about the [...]

Read the rest of Here are some tips on what you ought not say to a venture capitalist when seeking his help.

Picture these scenes: An angry customer calls you to complain about a defective system.  Or a customer walks into your office upset because he thought the system you sold him would do something it can’t.  Or you receive a letter complaining about poor service at one of your sales offices.
Whatever the scene, whatever the gripe, [...]

Read the rest of When Criticism Fails.

Some of you are in your teens or 20 something, and to you the number of years you’ve gathered here on earth is remarkably incidental.  Collecting years is no more on your mind than collecting string.  Yeah, well, live it up.
Turning 30 will probably get your attention (Who am I, where am I going, and [...]

Read the rest of You’re only as old as you allow yourself to feel.

Earning money for your shareholders should be your first corporate goal.  This philosophy needs to be married to an unwavering commitment to your customer, building the strongest of employee/employer partnerships, being a good corporate citizen, and increasing shareholder value to build your company’s foundation.
In reality, probably 95% of all early stage companies do not have [...]

Read the rest of Earning money for your shareholders should be your first corporate goal.

Attitude, commitment, education and genetics are the primary factors psychologists suspect that determine just how far you’ll get in your quest for becoming a successful entrepreneur or small business owner. What’s nice is that all but the last are under your control.  What’s even nicer is that with a little help from your friends you [...]

Read the rest of Choose Your Friends Carefully.

Great leaders inspire.  They pull in talented and high-performing employees. But behind each leader you’ll find something equally powerful, a company culture that motivates people to work hard and stay with the company.
As long as you have a business, you have a company culture.  Instead of leaving it to grow on its own, you can [...]

Read the rest of What is your company’s culture?

Companies are operating in a state of constant change. And I don’t think it would be reckless to predict that it will stay that way for the foreseeable future.  So how do you succeed in business without really trying?  The answer is: You don’t.
Flexibility and focus. That’s what you’ll need in the new business environment.
First, [...]

Read the rest of Changes I see in corporate America.

When you find yourself facing a new challenge, there are quite a lot you have to take on trust. 
There’s clearly quite a lot to that little word “trust”.  And the more you examine it, the more important it becomes to our overall sense of security, the sense that we really are standing on solid ground. [...]

Read the rest of Trust.

A strange phenomenon occurs as we move slowly through life-memories drift into nostalgic set pieces, neatly summarized by songs, events, catch phrases, movies, and television shows. Certain images become clear, crystallized by time, while others fall away, buried in our pop culture subconscious.
Entrepreneurship too can be characterized by eras: Mary Kay Ash, P. T. Barnum, [...]

Read the rest of Legend.