Howard_Arnold's blog

The vision of our first company was to build programmer productivity tools that would facilitate building and maintaining large scale application systems.  The only problem was it would take tens of millions of dollars and years to build the necessary suite of products and support materials. ...

Right there, already a part of what you do, is one of your biggest assets in terms of building additional revenue streams for your company.  It is simply a question of taking a step back and considering what the customer’s point of view was when you were hired.  More importantly, what ...

Passionate about building small companies the right way and for the right reasons, Plus Point Partners is in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills, experiences and credentials to make a difference in a select group of entrepreneurial companies.   The lofty Vision is ...

This being a tough market finding creative ways to open new doors of opportunity is a necessity.  Use of the internet as a networking tool is something we have all be been thinking about but many have not had the time or inclination to sit down and try to figure out.  I recently decided ...

When you think about what else you could be doing to push your company to the next level of growth where do you think the opportunities are?  Many would say the answer is to sell more.  Sure that is the obvious answer. But there is a much broader view that should be taken.   First, ...

Often overlooked as a source for working capital to start and build a business is revenue, and yet it is the cheapest form of capital.  It costs nothing in terms of equity or interest payments, and it carries an obligation to others whose goals are not always congruent with the ...

The sizzle is what sells the story.  But without the beef, there will be no sizzle.  This is a hard lesson I learned as we neared being acquired by one of the largest most prestigious consulting firms.  I was so busy building the “sizzle” that I lost track of “beef.”  In ...

I continue to be amazed by the answer I get when I ask a CEO how much time he/she spends with the really good customers.  Too frequently the eyes drop to the floor, perhaps even slightly ashamed, with the admission of guilt that “well, it has been a while.”  I ask myself “how can ...

We all agree these are challenging and interesting times. This is also a time filled with opportunity.  Growth is critical for a company’s survival yet tight cash flow is the reality, squeezing business development initiatives.  The solution is to streamline the sales process.  ...

Necessity is often the mother of an innovation.  Interestingly, innovation then becomes the engine for growth, and it this engine that will be the source for great ideas.  It would therefore be wise to foster an environment that will identify and surface innovative ideas.   A ...