Your Customers Need This

It’s almost too simple. If you want a healthy marriage, first, you need to treat your spouse well. Put their needs first, check in on them often, make sure you’re going out on regular dates, and always be thinking how you can make their life better. By putting your spouse first, you create attraction. Selflessness…

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Secret Bedfellows

You have to find out. “How much should I be charging?” I couldn’t tell you how many times I have been asked that from small business owners. My answer is typically: “that’s complicated”. There are a lot of factors that go into what you can charge: what are people expecting, what can they afford, what’s…

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Cheers To A New Way

It takes two, babe. When two small business owners come together (often over beverages), we talk about either of these topics (or both): Common challenges New ways to grow I have been a part of too many of these conversations to count. The heart of most small business owners is to create a healthy business for themselves,…

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Small Change, Big Liftoff

A single ounce. In 2018, Delta Airlines made one simple change to their business that saved millions of dollars per year. As you can imagine, the cost of jet fuel is one of the biggest drivers in an airline’s ability to make money. Someone in the organization took a creative approach to reducing costs by…

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Shortcut To Market Share

Be masterful. Acquiring a competitor is a master chess move. It’s like adding an entire chapter to your business story in a single stroke of the pen. It allows you to quickly increase market share, gain access to an established customer base, and streamline overlapping operations for better efficiency. Plus, the knowledge and resources of your…

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Time To Get Vertical

It’s the Chick-fil-A way. A very common way for a brick-and-mortar business to mature is to own the land it sits on. When a business is well rooted, you can really control your destiny (and save $$$) by buying real estate. It’s also a great way to retire, when the time is right: sell the…

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Touch Grass

When was the last time? I recall seeing a study a few years ago about how you can change your mood, anxiety levels, and blood pressure simply by standing within 10 feet of a tree for a few minutes every day. My reaction? Uh, yeah. I do it all the time. But I have realized…

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Shedding Overhead

I’m gettin’ too old for this. My favorite example of rethinking your entire business is a shed business that I learned about. The owner of the business had been building sheds for years and decided to get out of the day-to-day of construction life. The shed builder had years of knowledge, experience, and business tools…

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Everybody Is Creative

Don’t be jelly. As a creative professional, I have heard it my entire career. “Oh that’s neat, I wish I was creative like you”. Professional artists have hijacked the term. Even if you don’t see yourself as “a creative” (noun), you are absolutely creative (adjective). I have come to learn that everybody is made in…

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The Prince of P.R.

It’s almost too simple. In the early 2000’s, Prince was a household favorite despite not having published a hit album of new music in over a decade. In 2004, however, Prince released an album called Musicology which became his best-selling album in quite some time, with over half a million sales in the first 5 weeks. This…

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