We’re making it, but obviously we’d like to be making more. The internet abounds with money advice, most of which revolves around cutting back on frivolous spending (buying fancy coffee every day?) and socking that money away for a rainy day. But what if we enjoy our fancy coffee and the resultant caffeine boost that kick-starts our day? While small …

It’s really difficult to make it in this world. Now when I say “make it” I don’t mean becoming world famous, I simply mean being successful. Earning a living, supporting yourself, and taking care of your family and your business. That kind of making it. All too often we start out with an idea on how we’re going to make …

Throughout history, we’ve been faced with a dilemma, a frustrating burden that has often kept us from trying new things. This problem is that whenever we have a novel idea and decide to undertake a risky venture, the odds that we’ll fail are considerably higher than our odds of success. The deck, it seems, is undoubtedly stacked against us. For …

It’s hard to compete in today’s world. There are so many options out there for clients to choose from, and they’re easier to reach than ever. Just a few clicks, and they’ve got an overwhelming choice of options available, and most of them are going to be pretty good. How can we ever hope to compete in a world where …

Many people I know (including myself) have some great ideas on how to make their businesses better, but they never get around to implementing them. Something’s always getting in the way, and that something is usually fear. Mostly, fear about what other people are going to think. We resist trying something new, doing something different, stepping out from the crowd, …

If we really care about what it is we do… If we’re more concerned with our client’s wellbeing than we are with chasing a dollar… If we’re striving to be a professional instead of a scammer… Then we shouldn’t be worried about whether everyone knows who we are. We should concentrate instead on making sure that we matter to enough …

I’ll get to it tomorrow. Most of us are notorious for putting things off. It’s easier, we reason, to finish what’s at hand and worry about that other stuff later. Problem is, we never have time for “later.” We believe (for better or worse) that we’ve always got more than enough stuff on our plate to keep us occupied. I’ll …

If we’re committed to getting better at anything, especially at running our business, then we need to ask questions. And the main question we should be asking is “What’s wrong with my business?” If our answer is “Not a single thing; everything’s great!” then we’re doing nothing but lying to ourselves. If we truly want to improve, we need to …

We’ve all likely either thought or uttered the words “I’m not smart enough to do that.” It’s quite unlikely, with all the knowledge instantly available to us today, that we couldn’t find a way to learn what it is we’re “not smart enough” to know. A more accurate statement would be: “I really don’t care enough to do that.” That …

If we wait until the shit hits the fan to deal with customer problems, we’re likely to end up covered in it. Why not regularly spend a little time proactively making sure that there’s fewer things hanging over our fan, waiting to drop? It’s time well spent. And our dry cleaner will thank us.