Outsource What You Don’t Know As a small business owner, you want the best people managing the necessary tasks for your business. Because technology has advanced, enabling jobs to be completed from anywhere, outsourcing private contractors can be more practicable and cost saving than hiring regular employees. During the 2007-09 economic downturn, thousands of professionals… Read more »
Tag: business tips
How Belonging to a Trade Organization Adds Value with Benchmarks
The Beauty of Benchmarks If you are in a business that has a strong trade organization that provides industry benchmarks, it is certainly worth joining. If the trade organizations are national, in many cases they will be structured so that they will only have one member in each competing market. That way you can… Read more »
Are You Always There For Your Customers?
Be a Hero to your Customers More than likely, there will come a day when one of your customers will call you with an emergency and ask for your help. It’s good business to be ready to go above and beyond when this happens. This isn’t a customer asking for free stuff, or special response… Read more »
A.B.R…….Always Be Recruiting
Always be Recruiting (c) Can Stock Photo / Mazirama We all know how important good employees are to the success of your business. It is a good idea for all managers to create a recruiting funnel of potential employees with which to stay in contact. Often, non-sales managers ask why they need to do this… Read more »
Do You Rely Too Heavily on a Few Customers?
Be Prepared for the Unexpected One danger that many small businesses flirt with, is the over-reliance on one or two large customers. Especially if those customers are currently sending enough business to keep things busy. The obvious risk is that the customer might suddenly disappear. As unlikely as it may seem at the time,… Read more »
Disaster Recovery Plans. Worth the Time and Money? Yes!
In the wake of the destructive hurricanes that have hit the United States recently, I thought an appropriate topic this month would be disaster recovery. It’s not normally in the nature of an entrepreneur to be a pessimist, but to protect your business you must at some point imagine what a worst-case scenario looks like.… Read more »
Is It Time To Expand? Questions To First Ask Yourself And Your Team.
The very nature of the typical entrepreneur is to think big and take the risks necessary to be big. It is this trait in the many who have built America’s small businesses, that has made this country what it is today. After a few years of success, most are looking for ways to expand upon… Read more »
Are You Promoting Your Customers??
Give them a shout out! There is no question that life is much easier when your customers love you. Obviously, the number one way to make them love you is to provide a quality product or service in a timely manner. However, another path to your customers’ hearts is by actively promoting their business anytime… Read more »
Cultivate Creativity!
I saw the greatest quote the other day. “Don’t think outside the box, think like there is no box”. For most entrepreneurs, personal creativity is probably not in short supply. However, creativity is not always encouraged among the staff in a small business. That means the owner is left to come up with all of… Read more »
A Message To Truly Bad Customers – “You’re Fired”
First of all, let me make this very clear. There are very few customers who can actually be defined as bad customers…. Don’t make the mistake of confusing a challenging customer with a bad customer. Challenging customers are those who may be having a legitimate issue with your product or service and are at the present… Read more »