Give advice to your children while they're young enough to believe you know what you're talking about. - Unattributed

Business rules of thumb can be immensely helpful for quick business analysis. During negotiations I frequently fall back on rules I have learned. Rules of thumb are those unscientific standards to apply as an estimate in any given situation. For example, going into business for yourself a good rule of thumb is to plan for 30 - 35% of your gross to be attributed to federal, state and local taxes, self-employment taxes and other taxes (adjusted by where you live). Or, the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule) worked up in different ways such as: 20% of your customers create 80% of your income.

The other day I found the Business Rules of Thumb Wiki. It is entertaining, useful and allows you to contribute your own rule of thumb to share with the community. Some of my favorites:

• Rather than telling an associate, "You look good in that suit," tell the person, "That suit looks good on you." - Dale Carneigie


• A bad reference is as hard to find as a good employee. - Robert Half

These may be more quotes than rules, but you get the point. The site is driven by PBWiki an open source wiki/collaboration application. PBWiki is coming out with version 2.0 soon and you can read a bit about the application at the blog. Of course, my roaming did not cease after exploring PBWiki. If you are interested in creating a collaborative site for your business or group take a look at this post which does an excellent job comparing PBWiki, Wikispaces and the soon to come Google Spaces.

Finally, Widgetbox has a Rule of Thumb Daily Quote Widget by if you are in the mood for a rule a day.