Without a doubt, the most important thing we need to do when starting our business is determining who’s going to be our clientele. Sure, all the other things we’ve got to do are important, but without clients paying us for our product, none of that other stuff matters. No clients; no business. While we’d all love to count everyone as …

Big goals. We’ve all got them, but we’re often so overwhelmed by the enormity of our aspirations that we fold under the pressure. We stress out over the number of things that we need to get done, a seemingly endless to-do list, and we buckle under the weight of our tasks. I’ll never be able to get all this finished… …

Talent is something we’re born with… Skill is earned. Seth Godin Some people are born with a specific talent, and they are able to perform at a higher level than others without even breaking a sweat. For the rest of us, we’ve got to work at it. Whatever it is we’re doing, we can get better at it by doing …

We’ve all heard some version of the saying “It’s the little things in life that make it worth living.” We can certainly bend this adage a bit to suit our needs, changing it to “It’s the little things you do for your customers that allow your business to keep living.” While doing some small, fairly insignificant thing for a client …

You can’t talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into. Stephen Covey Some people like to run and gun, doing as little as they can get away with and quickly moving on to their next client (victim?) When their customers have problems (as customers are wont to do), they try their best to wiggle their way out of …

The easy sales aren’t always the important ones. Seth Godin Most new business owners work the same way. They go into an area (or an office, or a channel, or an audience) and they try to hustle as many quick sales as possible. Grab as much low-hanging fruit as they can carry, and quickly move on to the next area. …

When we were kids, trolls were scary creatures that lived under the bridge in grand fairy tales. We were scared of them, but we (hopefully) knew that they were make-believe. Today, trolls seem to be all around us. They do their best to push our buttons; to get under our skin; to provoke a reaction. They exist for the sole …

It’s all around us; everywhere we go and in everything we do: the race to the bottom. Who can do, sell, or provide the least amount they can get away with? What’s the bare minimum amount of work I can do and still be able to make the sale? Will I still meet spec? Can I do less and still …

How do we know if we’ll pass the test of time? Our new business; new relationship; new ideas; will they pass the test of time? The key word here is “test”. Thinking back to our school days, we all remember getting ready for a big test: the reading, the note taking, the studying, the test prep, the stress and anxiety. …

We’ve all heard the old axiom about using the right tool for the job. If we’ve ever worked with our hands, we know that the right tool makes the job easier, saves us time, and can keep us from getting injured. Then why is it so hard for some of us to use the right tool? All too often, like …