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Dealing with Customer Complaints – The ‘Act Now’ Policy
A business coach, when explaining to a group of entrepreneurs how to deal with a dissatisfied customer, asked how serious is the following customer complaint? (Add complaint here_________________.) Answers ranged from an easy fix to unrecoverable. The coach replied the actual seriousness can be immaterial; it depends on how long you wait to deal with [...]

How To Be An Extra-Special Manager
Regardless of how “normal” you may regard your business and how you run it, you may have a unique set of traits that can set you apart as a manager. It may be the way you interact with others or your ability to sell anything to anyone. It may be a bit subtler than that. Bringing that little bit extra to managing a business can make a significant difference in how your company operates and how you are perceived as a manager and boss. Bringing something extra to the table can give you a hands down advantage.

How Luck Figures Into Things
It isn’t all about an MBA, a solid investment from somewhere or how innovative you may be. Luck is a factor, and most successful business people believe that luck had something to do with their success. What’s interesting about this is that the average person in a full-time job or even in a small business puts education first and discounts luck as a factor.

Businesses That Learn Grow
Many small business owners don’t see themselves as particularly innovative. A very good approach for all entrepreneurs is to be observant, always test things out and assess what works and doesn’t work. In the end, it’s learning the basics that pay off for small businesses.

How Small Businesses Can Make It Big
Everyone loves a great success story, and there are many stories about little companies that took off and made it very big. Apple started in a garage. It comes down to strategies that suddenly take hold.

Who are Treps? What You Should Know
People under the age of 30 are building businesses faster than any generation before them. We hear about business success spawned from a university dorm room, but there is much more to this. A new breed of entrepreneur is using familiar technology and a booming economy to start prosperous businesses.

How to Build a Real Network
Networking sits near the top of any list on how to run a business. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs see networking as building up numbers. This isn’t how to go about networking effectively.

How to Succeed as a Start-up
There is no easy answer to how to make a start-up business successful. 96 percent of new businesses survive the first year. 85 percent survive three years, and 70 percent make it to five years. Are there ways to ensure success? Well there is no silver bullet, but there are some things that every new entrepreneur should pay attention to.

What’s Hard About Running A Business?
What’s hard about running A business? Almost everything. Ask business people what the hardest things are about running a business and you’ll get dozens of answers. There are many challenges, and nobody is perfect. Some are bad with finances. Others are nervous about hiring and delegating. Many lack organizational skills.

Is Your Business On Track?
It’s very important to assess your business at least once a year. Look back at the goals you’ve set. Which ones were achieved? Which ones were not? How many are ongoing? Examining the goals you set and how the company has done in achieving them is essential to future planning.

How to Move Your Business Up a Notch
Every business owner wants to move forward and take the business to the next level. It’s something that you can control with a few simple moves.

Keys to Big Success
Being extremely successful in business is often the result of doing things differently than others. There are several things you can do to improve the chances of real success.

How to Build Profitability
Profitability depends on many factors – converting leads, adding additional sales to single sales events, offering products and services that matter to people, and controlling overhead all influence your margin. Margin is your gross profit per sale.

Should Your Business Stay Small?
Growth is on the agenda of most small business owners. “Grow your business” is trumpeted everywhere. It’s unavoidable, but in reality, some small businesses are better off staying small, and not aiming to grow bigger, maybe richer and more visible.

Problems Facing Small Business Start-ups
Small business start-ups face a significant set of problems that must be dealt with. They range from the general economy to insurance to employee skills. The number of issues faced by all small businesses can be addressed.

Planning to Make Money? Understand The Basics
It’s business math 101. Understanding gross profit, net profit, and deductions will keep you and your business on track for financial success. We go over the basics of business calculations so you can keep your books in order from day-to-day, and to keep you primed for tax time.

How to Create Repeat Customers
It’s great for a business to have a stream of new customers, but the real backbone of any business is repeat customers. Repeat customers remove the worry of having to rely on new customers all the time. It’s important to have a plan in place to ensure repeat customers.