How often have you entered a store only to experience one of these two scenarios? You can’t find anyone to help you or a salesperson descends on you and just won’t go away so you can shop. You hear a lot about the importance of customer service. Yet, much of what you read and hear…
Seems like there’s been a lot of retirements announced in my small town newspaper lately. There’s usually an ad giving a profile of their career, their smiling photo, and details of the retirement reception. As I read the latest one, I thought it seemed like a shame. Here was the story of a well-qualified person,…
Whether you are starting a business or looking to grow your business, there is always a need for capital or financing. With the advent of Internet, new opportunities for capital have developed. Plus all of the old methods are also still a possibility. Typically, you, the owner, make the first investment into the business. It…
What’s being said about your small business online? Many small business owners have made the decision to not get involved in the growing social media trend. Their reasons include: the time or money it takes; don’t understand it; doesn’t seem necessary; or their customers aren’t using it. Avoiding the online world is the wrong path…
Do you steer away from the competition? Or do you embrace the opportunity and locate beside your competitors? Often small-business owners will tell you that they would be happy if they had no competition. Yet having no competition may mean you are selling something that no one wants. Given that thought, the same owner may…
What event will we celebrate on Nov. 26? Pat yourself on the back if you said “Small Business Saturday.” No, there isn’t any cake (well, there could be) and no one is getting any presents (at least not on that day, although we hope lots of them are purchased from your local businesses that day)….
“There never is enough time.” You probably would agree with me that we hear this phrase repeated over and over by people everywhere. Because time is a limited resource and we feel we never have enough, we’ve been bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of suggestions on how to make the most of the time…
Have you ever had a customer waiting for something? How did you respond? Did you provide an answer based on your work schedule, or did you respond quickly, without any thought of whether you could deliver as promised? Making promises is easy. Keeping those commitments is much harder. Your response puts you on a slippery…
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