In this issue of The Independent Consultant, we again offer practical and topical articles to appeal to the Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section (EAS) membership.

It is hard to believe that my year as section chair is just about up—it has gone by very quickly. I am fortunate to have another year on the section council, and I will be continuing as secretary/treasurer.

The Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section (EAS) has sponsored sessions on starting a business, featuring entrepreneurs who tell their own stories. We are following up with a series of interviews, this time with Michael Frank, president of Aquarius Capital.

You are vulnerable to inappropriate price comparisons and perhaps to the loss of customers when a substantial portion of your company’s true value is hidden from customer view. Here’s a cautionary tale to illustrate how this happens.

During the first week of my employment, my boss took me aside and gave me advice that has remained with me ever since: “Actuaries automatically have two strikes against them when they walk into a room with other company staff.”

I’ve written more than once that an independent “risk audit” would be a more useful exercise than the independent accounting audit with which we are all familiar.

Learning how to say “no” is a critical skill in work life, so let’s briefly explore why it feels so hard for some of us to do and then learn a couple of techniques that will make saying “no” much easier.

As part of the Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section’s (EAS’s) ongoing aim to assist actuaries with starting a business, we sought input from business creators via a summer 2012 survey of the EAS to help guide fellow entrepreneurs.