AVI Blog

“This is not the Field of Dreams!” is my favorite line from a piece entitled Busting The 10 Biggest Small Business Myths. The point behind this statement is that the “build it, and they will come” motto from the famous 1989 movie is not one that works in the small business arena. Just because someone publishes a novel

“Music and dancing broke out in the streets of Little Italy, ‘confetti’ made of scraps of cloth rained down in the Garment District and in Times Square, two million people packed into 10 blocks to express their jubilation.”~ History.com explaining the end of World War II “... during the war, picking up soldiers was nothing less than

Most have heard of the skilled trades gap. A number of writers, including myself, have shared their concern over the number of skilled trade jobs open versus the number of skilled trade workers available and willing to fill those positions. And if you haven’t read any of those pieces, then it’s possible you heard Mike Rowe,

Elon Musk. Bill Nye. Steve Jobs. Martha Stewart. Bruce Springsteen. Oprah Winfrey. Richard Branson These individuals share a common achievement: They excel at cultivating their personal brand. According to PersonalBrand.com, “a personal brand is a widely-recognized and largely-uniform perception or impression of an individual based on their experience, expertise, competencies, actions and/or achievements within a community,

In September 2019, Harvard Business Review (HBR) released The Top 20 Business Transformations of the Last Decade. Within this piece, HBR reports that a leading factor in a company’s survival is developing and pursuing new opportunities outside of the company’s original core. The number one company to do this in the last decade, according to HBR, is

Forbes rates independent thinking as one of the top twelve qualities employers look for when hiring, and Business Insider lists being intellectually curious as one of the most attractive qualities in a prospective employee. A room of like-minded individuals grappling with issues and pondering the next steps needed to stay ahead of the curve in their particular field is

What do agriculture, the electric light bulb, and concrete have in common? They are examples of how advances in technology increase our opportunity to accomplish more in a 24-hour period. Advances in agriculture: We no longer spend our entire day hunting and foraging for food. Perfecting the electric light bulb: Productivity is no longer limited

Words matter, and thanks to social media saturating our lives, words can and do fly to and from opposite sides of the globe in seconds. As wonderful as it is to shop from the comfort of our living room and to compare businesses online while we enjoy a slice of pecan pie and sip iced

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a man of many memorable quotes, but one of them is the foundation from which countless businesses built and secured their success: "The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang [railroad workers responsible for maintaining a

Although the spirit of the popular phrase work smarter, not harder holds merit, the images and feelings this phrase conjures may be one of the culprits behind America’s skills gap— the number of skilled jobs open versus the number of skilled laborers available and willing to fill those positions. The phrase suggests that working hard and being