The McRib is back! I heard the news on the radio this morning that McDonald’s beloved rack-of-ribs-shaped pork sandwich is back in some 9,000 stores for another limited run, and knew that millions were rejoicing in the magical barbeque patty’s return. McRib’s triumphant return also reminded me of a stroke of brilliance McDonald’s did a […]
A couple of years back a Gallup release about employee engagement left me dumbstruck: in the firm’s survey of worker sentiment, for the first six months of 2015, engagement figures hovered steadily between 31.5% and 31.9%. What was almost more sobering was that only 40.4% of managers reported feeling engaged in their jobs. In other words, […]
One of the first sales trainers I ever heard speak on the subject put it this way: “No one ever says ‘I want to be a salesman when I grow up.’” Apologies to the speaker, because I can’t recall who it was that said it (it was probably an author named Chris Lytle, come to […]
There are just 11 weeks left in 2018. In other words, 78.9% of the year is already over. Done. Gone. That is time we will never get back. …and really, when you factor in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, we’re really talking about 10 weeks of business left to do this calendar year. […]
Nineteen years ago, a legend of agricultural education informed me in no uncertain terms that I was not only a member, but a leader of one of the biggest cults in the United States. That cult? The National FFA Organization, known still by many by its original name, the Future Farmers of America. That legendary educator, […]
It’s not much of an elevator speech, but distilled to a single sentence, I sell advertising for a living. I’ve been involved in the profession of sales in one way or another for at least 10 of my 16-plus years in agribusiness media, and it is both one of the most challenging and most rewarding […]
It’s something of a joke in my family, built over the years from one story to another, that I am a master of what we like to call, “The Sternly-Worded Email.” Originally, The Sternly-Worded Email was something I thought of like a letter to the editor, or a response to a customer service survey. Mom, […]
Kyle Snyder is, without a doubt in my mind, the best active wrestler on the planet today, and perhaps the greatest wrestler of all time. The only reason I hedge a bit on the latter pronouncement is that Snyder is finishing up his senior season at Ohio State, and I’m presuming that he’s going to […]
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Americans, as a population, are too fat, and obesity is one of the greatest challenges facing us as a society. Oh, you’ve heard that, too, huh? The “obesity epidemic” situation is significant enough that military leaders face a growing challenge (pardon the pun) in finding enough recruits […]
When discussing career advice, we’re often told some variation of the adage, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” That certainly seems like sensible advice, but when you consider that nearly 70% of U.S. workers are not “engaged” at work, it becomes clear that we’ve either ignored the wisdom of the sentiment, […]
