Questions and requests:

“Hi Mark, what’s your opinion on mastermind groups? I’m wanting to connect with more experienced business owners and raise the bar of my business and my skills. Do you recommend any?” – AB

My Response: I’m all for them. I’ve never been to any sort of “mastermind” session, formal or informal, without coming away from it with at least several good ideas. Growing a business means creating constant change and constant change requires a constant source of new ideas. No one idea is a placebo. And many ideas are not appropriate for a given business at a given time. But that’s not a problem for the entrepreneur that is willing to consider new ideas and test them intelligently. More is better when it comes to business- and wealth-building ideas.

“Dear Mr. Ford – What is the biggest challenge any of your companies is facing that’s keeping you up at night and you must solve now?” – SV

My Response: Biggest challenges change as companies grow. When you are starting out, the biggest problem is finding out how to sell your products/services profitably before you run out of money, time, and/or patience. At other stages, the biggest problems are related to scaling. Or management. Or talent. If you’d like to know more, you should read a book I wrote about the big changes and how to deal with them. It’s called Ready, Fire, Aim.

“I’d like to create winning health promotions for The Agora Company. But I’m not sure how to go about it. Please, I’d love your advice and guidance. Looking forward to your response. Thank you.” – HO

My Response: I don’t pass along requests like this to my colleagues in Agora or to any other colleagues in any of my businesses. Not because they might not be useful, but because if I did I’d begin to get a hundred a day and my colleagues would stop talking to me. If you want to write advertising copy for Agora’s health publishing division, you should do some research and find out how they want to be approached. And then learn as much as you can about their products and their advertising so that, when you approach them, your letter will stand out from the rest.

Re the Amazon drone delivery video in the July 22 issue: 

“The Amazon drone delivery video was super futuristic for a baby boomer like me. Having once owned a business, I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Does Amazon get the box used by the drones to carry the items back, or does the recipient keep it? It can’t be cheap to use those boxes one time only. Are they recyclable?” – AS

My Response: Amazon has made a big deal out of its efforts to make its packaging recyclable. So, once the drone delivery service is up and running, I’m assuming there will be some way to recycle whatever packaging they’re going to use for it. Most items will probably be in the usual cardboard box. For items that have to go in the plastic bin shown in the video, I’m guessing there will be an extra fee for the bin that will be refunded when you return it to one of Amazon’s already established drop-off locations (Whole Foods, UPS, Kohl’s stores, etc.).