I’m a die-hard Philly sports fan.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, I was indoctrinated at an early age, living, eating and breathing the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers and Flyers (much to my parents’ chagrin). I stuck with them despite a family move to the New York area, and got a second fix returning to Philly for college. And despite subsequent moves to other fan-fanatic cities like Boston, New York and now LA, I remain loyal to my teams.

When HighPoint Senior Advisor Jim Bennett penned a HighPoint InSights article last year on the importance of corporations building trust, who knew it would become such a hot topic in recent months? As Jim pointed out, trust isn’t just a nice perk achieved while growing market share and profitability. Trust can directly impact your ability to retain and grow your business.

I’m probably not alone in noticing that written communication has gotten, frankly, sloppy. We could chalk it up to any number of culprits. Maybe it’s the proliferation of instant messaging that’s forcing abbreviations, conjugations and the like to become the norm. Or maybe it’s voice-to-text messaging, an over-reliance on auto-correct, big fingers on little screens, the list goes on.

Outsourcing is like a marriage. At the beginning, the relationship promises so much potential. But without good communication and mutual respect, it often struggles and can even fail. In the early 1990s, outsourcing was going to keep America competitive. But…

The question of leadership style has been recently addressed in the business pages as well, and it’s easy to see parallels between Trump’s brusqueness and the corporate culture at Amazon highlighted in a recent New York Times cover story. Some would argue that the approach taken by Jeff Bezos of Amazon is too harsh. But given his enterprise’s success, perhaps there is some merit to his “articles of faith” that demand excellence, candor and unerring commitment.

In my last post, I offered some guidance on weathering business downturns, based on my experiences at HighPoint during the recession. This month, I want to move to the next phase of the cycle – stabilizing ahead of the upswing.

Today’s customer journey has become an increasingly complex maze for marketers to follow, with multiple entry points into the purchasing cycle and new influences that can detract them from reaching the end point. Customers can simultaneously bring their digital shopping experience in-store, share product insights on social media and compare competitor’s products across physical and digital channels.

Merger activity is at a fever pace this year, on pace to hit new record levels. But are many of these deals doomed to fail, driven more by fear than coherent strategy? Overcoming market pressures to pursue M&A activities that are both strategic and successful in driving business results takes more than simple due diligence. You need to understand the pitfalls along the path, have a strategy for success and a playbook that helps to guide the process.

Economic downturns are one of those events for which there are no written rules. There are no courses that prepare you for the multitude of “what if” scenarios that can unfold when it strikes. I’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of experiencing two downturns in very different ways, but I’ve learned a lot from the journey and emerged stronger for it.

A recent chat with my colleagues about our kids turned into a great lesson about building resonant brands. I’d mentioned my daughter’s recent obsession with everything Ivivva – the Lululemon spinoff brand for tween girls – and one of the folks around the table suggested the company must be losing out on a lot of brand equity by going with the “Ivivva” brand, instead of calling itself “LuluKids.”