There’s a reason that drug company advertisements always start off talking about our pain. If they started every ad by telling us how great they are, how big their company is, or how much they’ve invested in R&D, we’d tune out immediately (and never buy the product they’re selling.) No, they start off talking about us: our pains, our troubles, …

Why are advertisers so successful in getting us to buy things we probably don’t need? It’s because they study human nature and know exactly how to touch our imagination. They know what we want and they figure out the best way to play off our desires. Being a student of human nature and knowing how to read someone’s verbal and …

Sherpas are a Tibetan people, traditionally nomadic, who are known for their mountaineering abilities, often attributed to a genetic adaptation to living in high altitudes. Historically, their access to schooling was limited, so for the most part they can’t be described as the most educated people in the world. While we probably wouldn’t hire a Sherpa to tutor us in …

It’s important to know what’s going on. We’ve all got an elaborate method devised to get the word out about out business, but many of us put little thought into how we get the word in. Staying up to date on all the big discoveries and little nuances of our industry is incredibly important, for our sake and our clients’. …

It’s a fairly common problem for many people in business: pricing our products too low. All too often, the problem lies with us. It’s quite likely that we’re afraid to charge more for our services because, deep down, we’re afraid that our product is not worth the money. If that’s the case, then there’s only one thing that we can …

If your business is anything like mine, there are days when you wish people would just go away. Sometimes, dealing with problem customers can be a bit overwhelming! But, it’s important to remember that a problem customer is still, at the most basic level, a customer. And that means we’ve got to listen. More often than not, when someone feels …

All too often, when things don’t break our way, we start looking for someone to blame. We take the easy way out. But, more often than not, we’re the one steering the ship. We’re the one setting the course. It’s all right there for us; we control our own destiny. Now, we’ve just got to step up, take responsibility, and …

Solitude prompts us to all kinds of evil. Seneca Why is it that we act differently when someone is watching us work? Shouldn’t we be doing the same thing, on every job, no matter the audience? Acting at all time as if we’re being watched is the easiest way achieve consistency. And that’s really what our repeat clients want, isn’t …

Problems can come from anywhere. We never know exactly what it is that’s going to push us into an uncomfortable situation. It could be a misunderstanding. Maybe miscommunication between us. Perhaps it’s an oversight. Possibly it’s something that we simply haven’t learned yet. Or, it may well be that we did something wrong. We can never know where the next …

We all like to think that we’re well-versed in our field, but are we really? Do we know absolutely everything there is to know about what we do? Could we explain every aspect of our profession to a novice, and have them comprehend every single word? Probably not. Even the best of us don’t know everything. So, what do people …