Recent Articles from Pat Wiesner
On Management: How your team measures you
After 50 years of being managed and managing, this is what I learned you must do as a manager to earn loyalty and get a person’s best work: You mustρ Understand the difference between management and leadership. You manage things, you lead people.ρ Be a leader who creates an atmosphere of approval and acceptance and high expectations […]
On management: The people part of business
When Wiesner Publishing was about one month old, we decided we needed to move from the house to an office, which we rented on the second floor of Littleton Electric. The “we” was me and my wife, Janet (who would work on the development of our circulation lists using a new computer I bought, the […]
On management: Where do you go after you blow through your startup money?
Out of work, a 45-year-old consultant (read: engineer without a job), in the beginning funnel of what would become a deep recession, with something like $3,000 in the bank, three kids in college and a keen desire to be in my own business. Sounds like the conditions of today. But this was me in 1981 when […]
On management: Small-company financing
Sometime in the next few months I will retire fully and maybe take up writing in a different mode. I have to quit writing about business and sales and marketing because I’m not in the thick of it anymore, and so I don’t get as much new material as I used to. Perhaps I’ll try […]
On management: Take the high road
I have begun my last year as column writer for ColoradoBiz. Perhaps you have noticed that I have tried to move a little up-market and have been writing about things that I felt were important in the formation of the company and the people. I have begun to write about things that have been important […]
On management: Starting your own business—step one
Every once in a while someone will ask me how I got started in business. In the early ’80s I would have considered myself a pretty good salesman and a pretty good electronics engineer. I started my own little business because we were in a sort of recession, and I had always thought I would […]
On management: I will teach my dog to read
How can I justify writing about a dog trick in a business magazine? Well, there might be a couple of reasons like, a) I’m on vacation in a foreign land (Florida), and it’s the only thing different I’ve seen in the last month or, b) watch the cool way I try to develop a business […]
On management: Googling ‘better management’
I almost never do reviews, but I think everyone who would like to be a great manager or build a team of great managers ought to read “The Quest to Build a Better Boss” in the March 13 Sunday New York Times, written by Adam Bryant. It is the story of how Google Inc. drew […]
On management: Simplify?
As I get older, I seem to want to make things simpler. I went to a seminar recently that lasted three days; it would have fit better into one. Some books I have read would have been better as pamphlets. When I was in Florida I saw a kid about 10 years old on the […]
On management: In a changing world, three rules for sales success
“You will never find a finer company than this,” the salesman on the other end of the line said. “Not only are we really nice people, we’ll get your car to Florida in just five days, and save you a lot of money to boot. “Why don’t you let me shoot you a copy of […]
On management: A letter to a grandchild having trouble in school
I hope you will read this. It is sent with love and belief in you, but I wouldn’t blame you if you tossed it because I should have tried to make a better connection with you long ago. The next couple of paragraphs are about my high school and college days, and we share some […]
On management: 50 years of selling
My first sales job was in 1958, 52 years ago. I was educated as an engineer (a physicist really), and I thought that the title of “Sales Engineer” was cool. I remember my first day selling industrial plastic. I was sent out with Bernie because Bernie knew everything about sales and sold more of our […]