When navigating through dangerous waters a wise captain keeps an eye on certain signs. The shape and size of certain waves, the color of the water at critical points, the presence of rocks or sandbars, things that can be difficult to spot for the unt...Continue Reading »

It started because my 16-year-old son had outgrown the length of his twin bed. He needed a longer, larger mattress and box spring set. We thought we needed a full mattress, but we did our research and discovered that while a full mattress is wider th...Continue Reading »

I do not possess a "natural" selling ability. Actually, I'm quite sales averse, having had many bad encounters with many bad salespeople. I'm jaded. I'm always distrustfully on the lookout for "the pitch." Unfortunately, this is the resistance that ...Continue Reading »

One of my clients, a chiropractor, recently decided it was time to hire an Administrative Assistant for his growing business. When it came time to announce the job, I asked him to send me the ad first so we could review what he’d come up with. ...Continue Reading »

A few years back I watched a movie called The Stepfather. Until the final five minutes of gore, it’s a wonderfully constructed psychological thriller. The title character is a man who is forever searching to fulfill his vision of the perfect fa...Continue Reading »

The purpose of a business is to create a customer. —Peter Drucker While this statement may be quite true at the most basic level, it also serves to underscore the reality that one of the ongoing purposes of a business should be to keep a c...Continue Reading »

"I need more sales." If I had a dime for every time I heard that from a client… Well, I’d probably have $20 by now. But seriously, the issue of sales (or lack thereof) comes up all the time; most often from clients who are just beginnin...Continue Reading »

One of the critical instruments in any transaction, whether between a vendor and a customer, an employer and employee or even two private parties, is the basic contract agreement. For some business owners however, the basic contract agreement isn&rsq...Continue Reading »

Owning and operating a business isn’t something that one undertakes lightly. It requires a huge leap of faith. It’s both exciting to live your entrepreneurial dream, and at the same time scary because there's no guarantee you'll succeed. ...Continue Reading »

Did you know that your chances of obtaining business financing can increase by more than 250% if you have good business credit? The problem for many business owners is that they think that just because they're in business, they're automatically build...Continue Reading »

// Nora Chapman's story was typical of most business owners. At age 54, she was ready to leave her 25-employee advertising business. She was thinking of selling to one or two of her key employees and when we met her, her first question was: &...Continue Reading »

A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship. John D. Rockefeller Lewis and Clark, Sears and Roebuck, Hewlett-Packard, the Wright Brothers. What do these names all have in common? Aside from being...Continue Reading »

P & L   COGS   EBITDA   BEP   CR & QR No, those aren’t text messages from your teenager. And they aren’t computer parts, or government agencies either. If you look at t...Continue Reading »

We continue our podcast series with exit planning expert and author, John Warrillow whose book Built to Sell, outlines the eight steps he says are critical to creating a sellable business. In previous podcasts with John, we discussed the importance o...Continue Reading »

Every small business faces challenges. Every business owner must deal with issues and problems in the course of building and running a successful operation. In many ways though, the challenges—and advantages—in a family business are uniqu...Continue Reading »