Yelling and Screaming

We’d all like to see change happen now. In our jobs. In our government. In our relationships. In our lives. We’ve been conditioned, in today’s modern age, to want everything to happen immediately. That may be how things work on the internet, but it’s not how it works in real life. Change happens, but most of the time it happens …

Happy Day

After countless requests, I’ve finally decided to do it. I’ve put together a short book with all my business practices, including all the language from my home inspection report and contract, and I’m giving it away for free! Click here for your copy of this Guide to a Successful Inspection Career. Stop stressing and start running a successful business! Oh, …

Where’s My Prize?

Most of us would prefer to work for customers who care, people who understand the value of what it is we do, somebody who’s in on the joke. Alas, an engaged client; that’s a prize that’s hard to find. Simply doing average work for an average audience; that’s a whole lot easier to pull off, albeit much less rewarding. In …

In the Gutters

Many times we think that we’ve got to do something (or somebody else will). We reason that we should price our products cheaper than everyone else so we can get more business (or somebody else will). We decide that we’re going to take ethically questionable shortcuts to grow our clientele base (or somebody else will). We make up our mind …

Living Rent-Free

Have you ever noticed that lots of people like to talk bad about their competition, degrading them, putting them down, trying to smear their reputation? What do we really know about someone that’s bent on using this type of negativity in their business? If we stop and think about it for a moment, this action is really telling us a …

For the Rest of Their Lives

Marketing. It’s something we all do, to varying degrees of success. Maybe it’s time that we rethink our approach: our website, our business cards, our fliers, our advertisement, our social media, our elevator pitch. Maybe the main purpose of our marketing isn’t to let people know we’re here; maybe it should be to make it abundantly clear that if they …

Beer and Cigarettes

Many business owners despise the regulations imposed on them by the regulators. Why can’t I just do what I want to do? If we stopped bitching for a minute and looked around, we’d see that civil society is full of regulations. We go when the light’s green and stop when it’s red. We can’t take something from someone else simply …

Don’t Freak Out

Many new business owners freak out when their launch date finally arrives. They’ve been building it, working on it, and fretting about it for so long, that when at long last the date of their grand opening finally arrives, they lose their mind. It’s really not all that bad. We just have to remember, the launch is not an isolated …

We’ve Always Done It That Way

As humans, we’re often at the mercy of our brains, subject to whatever crazy, irrational thinking is going on up there in our heads. The mind is an amazing thing, but sometimes it can “think us” into a bad place. One of those bad places is called The Sunk Cost Fallacy, which basically means that we’re hesitant to make changes …

And Then What Happens?

We’re forced to make lots of decisions every day. Most of them are pretty benign: Where do you want to eat tonight? But some of them are much more important: What are you going to do about this problem? Many times, these decisions can have long-term implications for us and our future. All too often it seems, we default to …