MarquisParker.com // Business Strategist, Speaker, Advisor, and Coach

A few months back, I received an email from Rose King, who manages content for Bschool.com, to pass along a link to one of their articles listing the top 20 blogs with information about Six Sigma.

For those of you who have never heard of the Six Sigma concept, here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of

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Recently, my friend Eric Sforza, who some of you may remember from my video interview of him, reached out to share an article that he thought would be interesting to my readers. Eric studies a range of business topics, but one of his biggest areas of focus is at the intersection of customer orientation and strategy. In this article, he analyzes a case study of how customer segmentation helped to drive sales of milkshakes and shows how a lighthearted topic can lead to useful business insights.

If you enjoy the guest article below, please check out Eric’s blog at … Read the rest

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For the past few years, I’ve noticed that I’ve developed a strong following of people who view this blog from India. I’ve received many emails with questions from Indian natives who are considering pursuing MBA degrees or business careers, but have concerns because of their academic or professional backgrounds. This blog entry is a prime example –The story of the pigeonholed techie. While there is a lot of general MBA applications advice available on the Web, I have yet to come across anything specifically developed for the Indian applicant segment…That is, until now.

Given the unique profile and … Read the rest

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In today’s entry, I bring you the third installment of the “Conversations” interview series, featuring a discussion with Linda Abraham, Founder and President of Accepted.com. Those of you who have applied to business school in the past few years or are currently applying likely know about Linda and her organization. Those of you who don’t should definitely start learning about her because she’s one of the best admissions consultants in the game today.

Since the mid-1990′s, Accepted.com has worked with tons of applicants to undergraduate and graduate programs over the years and has seen significant success with its focus … Read the rest

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I’ve devoted several posts to important business topics over the past few years, but one topic that I don’t think I’ve covered is the “elevator pitch”. For those who don’t know, an elevator pitch… Read the rest is a short (usually 30-120 seconds in length) overview of some concept that gets its name from the fact that one should be able to deliver it during the course of a ride in an elevator. Because of the fast-paced nature of business, the elevator pitch plays an important role in communications and is a necessary component to one’s overall business toolkit. In fact, the ability

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Back when I was applying to business school, I thought that I didn’t have a legitimate shot because I had no background in business. Until then, my professional career had consisted of several years’ worth of plugging away at Java code and an academic background focused on Technology. According to what I’d heard from other applicants at info sessions and on online message boards, business schools would never consider someone like me to be a viable candidate for admission to business school. I now know that those people were likely trying to pysch me out and throw me off my… Read the rest

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Recently, I came across a blog produced by a young lady named Karen Flowers, who calls herself “The Resume Chick” and provides resume writing services for clients. After reading some of her entries, I’ve become a big fan of her site. I know that she’s technically a competitor of mine because we both offer resume review and advisory services, but game recognizes game… Read the rest and her resume advice game is strong. She’s providing her readers with some great tips and, as my long-time readers know, I care more about passing along useful information to my readers than holding that info back

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When a friend of mine posted the article below on Facebook, I was about to ignore it, but the title caught my eye and I’m glad that I took the time to read it. As my longtime readers know, networking is sort of my “thing” and I spend a lot of time building and cultivating personal and professional relationships…because one never knows when a relationship can yield benefits. This article dovetails very well with the idea of networking as an important career building tool.

The writer of the article, Katherine Brooks, Ed.D, has been working in career services for the … Read the rest

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