A group of college kids volunteered for an interesting psychological experiment. They were told to walk into a room where a bathtub was overflowing with water and clean up that water as quickly as they could. Immediately, most students went straight for a mop, bucket and towels. Only one in five thought to turn off [...]

You may think you keep your customers happy, but there is a 52% chance they would disagree with you. A CRM Guru survey questioned thousands of customers and hundreds of businesses. Of the respondents who said they had stopped using a product or service, 74 percent blamed customer service as a major factor in their [...]

Achieving business success is the goal of every business owner I’ve ever met. But how is success defined? “If I’d wanted to make $25,000 a year I could have just worked at a design shop 40 hours a week,” a client recently told me. Instead, he’s working almost double those hours running his printing company [...]

When you’re in the market for a new house, to whom do you turn for assistance? Most likely, you seek a realtor who comes highly recommended or someone whose services have been helpful to you in the past. That’s because people buy from those they like and trust. In last month’s article I explained the [...]

I’m surprised at the number of people I meet who think marketing and sales are one in the same. But they can’t be lumped together, just as a used car salesperson and a car mechanic can’t be. Although the two professions are interrelated, their goals are distinctly separate. In the world of small business, marketing [...]

In last week’s issue I talked about my work with frustrated business owners who do not get the results they want, but have no idea why.  I noted that the first two things I look at are their business strategy and their action plan. Part One focused on the importance of a solid strategy in [...]

I’ve often worked with frustrated business owners who’ve been consistently losing sales with no idea why. The first two things I look at are their business strategy and action plan, crucial elements that must not only be in place but must function in concert to be effective. A business may have the best action plan [...]

A business without a vision is like a computer without a display. It may be performing, but unless you can see how to direct it you won’t get very far. Professor Lakshman-Madurasinghe, author of Organizational Behaviour, said the number one trait of Fortune 500 companies is vision. Where do you see your business six months [...]