New business owners are often frustrated by the amount of competition they’re faced with when starting their companies. They (erroneously) think that things would be so much easier if there weren’t so many other companies out there contending for the same business. And they would be wrong. Unless we’re creating a brand new industry that’s never before been invented (and …

It doesn’t take a large monetary investment on our part to be nice to our clients; to provide exceptional customer service. No, we’re not required to go out of our way to make sure that everyone feels taken care of, to verify that they understand what we’re trying to tell them, or to make certain that they believe they’ve gotten …

Many business owners decide to take the plunge, making the decision to grow their business. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to grow your business, it’s best to make sure that we’re going in with our eyes wide open. There are some important questions that we’ve got to ask ourselves before making that decision: Are we comfortable with our …

We get upset when things break, usually right after the guarantee runs out. Planned obsolescence, it’s usually called. The car starts giving us problems once we reach that magic number of miles. The dishwasher stops cleaning the dishes after a year. The roof starts leaking once our new home warranty period is over. And on, and on, and on. We …

We work hard to get in front of more and more people. We spend all our time (and resources) attempting to show up on the radar of every possible customer out there. What if, instead, we tried hard to please just those people who would appreciate what it is we do? Less work. Less stress. Less overhead. More satisfied clients. …

It can be hard, especially in today’s world of overwhelming information, to stay up to date. We decide that we want to stay educated on our subject of choice, but quickly become bogged down by the sheer volume of information we think we’ve got to tackle. First, we’re intimidated by the amount of knowledge we think we need to acquire …

We think that we’ve got a great idea. In reality, we’re probably not the first person who’s ever thought of it. Most likely, we’re borrowing stuff from others who’ve gone before us. In all likelihood, it’s not gonna be an instant win. The odds are that it’s going to take us longer than we thought it would. Chances are that …

Figuring out what to charge for our services is quite often the most difficult decision faced by new business owners. Unfortunately, there’s no guide book for us to lean on and lots of stress involved in making this important decision. We think if we go too high we’re going to price ourselves right out of the market, but if we …

When we produce a product that’s not as easy to use as it should be, we’re wasting our clients’ time. When we come to the job unprepared, without having done our homework before we arrive onsite, we’re wasting their time. When we force our customers to pay us in person instead of using their credit card online, we’re wasting their …

We all want to move forward, but quite often we believe that there’s something blocking our way. It could be a real impediment to forward progress, like a multi-vehicle pile up that totally blocks a road we’re travelling on. But often it’s not a roadblock, it’s just an obstacle (like a wind-blown trash can that we’ve simply got to drive …