Good enough is good enough, that is until it’s for us. Inspecting the roof from the ground is fine, until we’re the one that’s buying the house, then we’re sure to walk on the roof. Checking a minimal number of outlets is good enough, until we’re moving a king-sized bed to check all the outlets in the house that we’re …

It seems like there’s been an unfortunate shift occurring lately in the real estate industry. Agents, particularly new ones, have moved their focus from what’s best for their clients to what’s best for them. If the agents that we’re working with seem to fit this new selfish mold, maybe it’s time for us to up the level of our real estate clientele. While …

We all want to put our best foot forward. We all want to look like we know what we’re doing. We all want to put on a good show. We all want to look like we’ve been doing this job forever. We all want to stand out from the crowd and look like a winner. Looking or acting like we’re …

Wouldn’t our jobs be wonderful if every one of our customers was the same? We’d know exactly what we needed to do and say and how to act to satisfy everyone. But that’s simply not the case. And while variety may be the spice of life, it’s certainly a pain when it comes to our clientele. Being able to think …

All too often we overthink things in our business. We spend a considerable amount of time thinking about our logo, thinking about our tag line, thinking about our mission statement, thinking about our marketing, thinking about how we’re going to get more business. Maybe instead of thinking so much, we should be doing.

We’re faced with difficult decisions in our business (and in our lives) every day. All too often, we choose to respond with the first idea that pops into our head. A better plan would be to stop and try to imagine how the situation will end. If the ending is not something that’s going to make our lives better, then maybe …

We like to think that the arc of progress in our careers is linear: we start at the bottom and gradually work our way up; that our graph moves steadily up and to the right. But it’s really not that simple. While growth quite often happens in a predictable fashion, sometimes it doesn’t. We can get stuck in a rut …

Fear is a great motivator. Whether we’re afraid of failing or (even worse) of succeeding, these feelings can destroy any chance of success. And regretting never taking that chance is something that will haunt us the rest of our lives. No one ever finds themselves on their deathbed wishing they’d streamed a few more episodes on Netflix, but staring down those …

We’ve got our best resource built right into our business: our customers. Asking for (and getting) feedback from them is more valuable than any ad or poll we can run. Good or bad, the opinions of our clients matter. The big question for us as small business owners is what, exactly, are we planning on doing with all that priceless …

While new business owners are taught to emulate those that have gone before them (which is not a bad way to get a business off the ground), it can put you in a tough position: trying to compete with those same businesses in an already crowded space. Why not put on our thinking caps and figure out how to offer …