Many small business owners start out on the wrong foot. They begin with the erroneous assumption that they will be able to sell to everyone and they market their business accordingly, trying to reach every single person they can. Even the largest retailer in the world, Walmart, cannot reach everyone. There are many people out there who have never even …

When you work in a technical industry, like home inspection, there is a certain language, a certain vocabulary, that is used between practitioners, allowing them to be able to adequately explain things within that realm. So, if we’re conversing with someone else who also speaks the language (another home inspector, for example), things will easily proceed in a normal manner, …

Quality is inconvenient. Exceeding expectations is inconvenient. Putting our best out there is inconvenient. Giving our client more value than they feel like they’re paying for is inconvenient. Doing more than we’re required to do so that we can be one of the best in our industry is inconvenient. It’s easy to be just another run of the mill business. …

Growing a small business is hard and typically involves putting our product out there and seeing what happens. Older people would have called it “running it up the flagpole to see who salutes.” Regardless of what we want to call it, we need feedback from others in order to get any better. Someone, a client, an associate, or maybe a …

We’d like to think that all customers are intelligent, using their keen powers of observation to weigh out the available options and choose the one that makes the most sense given their particular needs. We’d like to think that clients utilize all the available resources they have, comparing and contrasting the positive and negative attributes between competitive offerings to choose …

Lots of businesses say that they’re the best in their field. It’s an easy claim to make, and very few consumers are smart enough to ask to see the evidence. Far too often, in today’s digital world, a post somewhere is all the proof that’s needed. That works great, if you’re looking to work with customers that aren’t smart enough …

Operating a small business in today’s environment is a daunting task. There’s so much that we need to learn that, at times, is can seems overwhelming. We do the best we can, but it feels like there’s always something new to try, read, or listen to. The incoming information never seems to stop. Maybe the problem’s not the endless tide …

Lots of times we get caught up. Caught up in the idea that we’ve got to win. We’ve got to be the biggest. We’ve got the be the best. We’ve got to leave every one of our competitors in our dust. While striving to lead the pack can be a worthwhile consideration, it isn’t always our best course of action. …

It’s tough to start a small business that can sustain us over the long haul. It’s temping, and often a really good idea, to simply mimic what other successful businesses in our industry are doing. However, if we stop a minute to think about it, if we’re just replicating something that’s already available, that turns us into an easily replaced …

It’s unfortunate, but when you’re a small business owner there’s a target on your back. There are some people out there who see us as an easy meal ticket; basically a way to get free money. They know that they can accuse us of doing something, or not doing something, and sit back and wait. They are well aware that …