Most things in our lives are pretty simple. There’s usually an easy explanation for why things happen. We’re late for our appointment because we hit the snooze button three times this morning. That customer is upset because we didn’t make sure that he understood what was happening before we left the jobsite. We’re stressed out doing our taxes because we …

It’s tough to grow a small business. If we’re good at what we do, it means that sooner or later, we’re going to be overwhelmed. We’ll be faced with more work than we can handle, not only doing the thing that we do for a living, but also dealing with all the other tasks that come along with running a …

All the great football players have coaches. And the best tennis players. Golf pros have people who work with them on their swing. Multi-platinum singers have voice coaches. Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, and Oprah Winfrey all have coaches. Cambridge online dictionary tells us a coach is “someone whose job is to teach people to improve at a sport, skill, or… …

If we’re in business long enough (usually a few days or so…), we’re going to run into problems. We’re going to have to deal with a customer who’s not happy with how things went. As I’ve said before, it’s usually best to pay them to go away as quickly as possible and move on with our lives. But that doesn’t …

Decisions. It’s a word that most of us spend our lives avoiding. Making a decision is hard. It forces us to choose. It compels us think about our options. It obligates us to figure out which direction we’re going to take. Commitment is difficult. It’s intimidating. It’s exhausting. It means we’re on the hook for the results. And we don’t …

New business owners are often frustrated by the amount of competition they’re faced with when starting their companies. They (erroneously) think that things would be so much easier if there weren’t so many other companies out there contending for the same business. And they would be wrong. Unless we’re creating a brand new industry that’s never before been invented (and …

It doesn’t take a large monetary investment on our part to be nice to our clients; to provide exceptional customer service. No, we’re not required to go out of our way to make sure that everyone feels taken care of, to verify that they understand what we’re trying to tell them, or to make certain that they believe they’ve gotten …

Many business owners decide to take the plunge, making the decision to grow their business. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to grow your business, it’s best to make sure that we’re going in with our eyes wide open. There are some important questions that we’ve got to ask ourselves before making that decision: Are we comfortable with our …

We get upset when things break, usually right after the guarantee runs out. Planned obsolescence, it’s usually called. The car starts giving us problems once we reach that magic number of miles. The dishwasher stops cleaning the dishes after a year. The roof starts leaking once our new home warranty period is over. And on, and on, and on. We …

We work hard to get in front of more and more people. We spend all our time (and resources) attempting to show up on the radar of every possible customer out there. What if, instead, we tried hard to please just those people who would appreciate what it is we do? Less work. Less stress. Less overhead. More satisfied clients. …