Talking about AI is all the rage right now, but it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll ever have an AI home inspector. There’s simply too much to do, too many places to crawl into, too much stuff to handle, and too many personalities to juggle to ever imagine someone figuring out how to turn that much computer programming into a profitable …
Ignored
Many people recoil from choice. They would much rather have things decided for them than to have to choose themselves. Many of our potential customers fall into this category, allowing someone else to decide for them who they’ll end up working with. Unless we make ourselves impossible to ignore, we’ll often find ourselves ignored.
One Things
When running our businesses, we can often fall into the trap of wanting to do too much. We’ve got grandiose ideas of being everything to everyone, and we end up so distracted and overwhelmed that we find ourselves being nothing to nobody. Better to pick one thing and do it to the best of our abilities. And then, maybe we …
You Do What, Exactly?
“So, what is it that you do?” It’s a question that we get asked. A lot. And not just when we meet someone new. It’s a question that potential clients ask all the time. They may not use those exact words, or any words for that matter, but it’s the number one question in their mind. And the better we …
That’s So…
We’ve all got something that makes us stand out. Something that’s different. Something that makes people think of us when the come across it. Something that’s uniquely us. So, why aren’t we using that thing (whatever it is) to help market our business? Being known for it is already half the battle…
The End of the Enterprise
Here’s another day of ranting about rules… One of the difficulties of running a small business, particularly a service-based business, is trying to figure out all the rules. Undoubtedly, there are going to be rules that are written down, likely imposed on us by some type of regulatory entity overseeing the people practicing in our field. One problem with written …
Playing by the Rules
Remember the excitement of getting a new game when we were young? It was always kind of rough when we started playing, because the rules were usually foreign to us and (if we wanted to play the game properly) we had to keep referring back to the rules to get our bearings. Running our business is a lot like learning …
Benefit of the Doubt
We all like to think that we’re right about everything. But we’re not. “To err is human” is ingrained in our psyche, but so is “I got this.” When we make mistakes, which inevitably is going to happen, how our clients respond to our errors depends on how we came across to begin with. If we were loud and boastful, …
The Real Mistake
We all make mistakes. It’s part of being human. No matter how much practice and preparation we subject ourselves to, it’s still gonna happen. Making mistakes isn’t the bad part. The bad part is what happens when you refuse to learn from your mistakes, and you keep making the some ones over and over again. That’s the real mistake.
Get a Move On
We all want to solve issues as soon as we can. Get ’em in and out the door as quickly as possible. Often, it’s a good move. Taking care of potential problems when they’re small, before the explode into a major production, is always good practice. But, just because we’re in a rush to get to the finish line doesn’t …