Hey guys. Now that the Labor Day holiday is behind us, the rest of the year will feel like a blur. It always does (at least for me). If you haven’t reached all your strategic goals yet, there’s still time. Read my post about how to get your company focused: “Finishing 2016 Strong“.

And as always, here’s a roundup of some of the best stuff I read (and wrote) last week. Enjoy!

• Good ideas for how to generate PR (and readers) for your blog: bit.ly/2bINheT
• Interesting question: How much do people TRUST your content? bit.ly/2cb25pq
• The secret to finding more clients may be very simple – lots of meaningful conversations: entm.ag/2bS9pZN
• I love how director David Lynch compares finding a great idea (and expanding upon it) to fishing: on.inc.com/2bBOnxV
• Employee empathy toward customer problems leads to higher satisfaction – for both: bit.ly/2bSiUGJ
• I like these simple questions to help kick-start your strategic planning process: bit.ly/2bPu8vI
• When thinking about the managerial activities of operators vs. visionaries, does this sound right? bit.ly/2byRDIM
• Do you really need a co-founder for your #startup? Perhaps not. tcrn.ch/2bxr4QU
• I love how Sephora looks for change and knows what their competitive advantages are: trib.in/2bxmHua
• How to handle a hostile board. I’ve seen it and had it happen more than once. bit.ly/2bRmQH4
• When explaining what your company does, keep it SIMPLE! entm.ag/2c3pwzx
• I really liked this author’s perspective on strategy as an adventure “through the fog”: bit.ly/2c4lB68
• Sharing your vision and your leadership to develop a culture of trust and loyalty: bit.ly/2c9i21h

Last week I was thinking quite a bit about how a small company can work with a board of directors or advisors. It can truly help your business push ahead and stay focused. I shared a few tips on how to make that happen:

• You should have a review process to assess the effectiveness of each advisory/board member.
• If you’re having trouble working with your advisory board, don’t hide from it. Deal with it head-on, quickly.
• Limit the number of board members/advisors your company has. Too many can make it hard to keep the company focused.
• Identify what advice and assistance you need…THEN go searching for board members/advisors that fit those skill sets.
• Lining up the right advisors, board members for your biz are critical decisions. Find people you can work with & trust.

And I followed that theme into my latest blog post. In it, I discussed how you might go about developing and working with a board of directors. You can read that post here: “Developing the RIGHT Board of Advisors“. Feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you think!