Sad Truth #1: Your Friends and Family Will Say They Support You. They Will Be Lying. Unless your friends and family are a bunch of self-made entrepreneurs themselves, they won’t really get why you’re doing what you’re doing. Sure, they’ll say they’re proud of you and they may provide warm words of encouragement and support. But they will do this mostly because they love you. On the inside, they’ll silently wonder why you’re leaving that cushy corporate job, or whether you harbor some...

“Ok, before we get started. Let’s go over some ground rules.” The atmosphere in the room just dropped a couple of notches on the congenial barometer. I can almost hear each and every one of the people seated at the U-shaped table in front of me thinking the same thing. Uh-oh. Ground rules? Ground rules suck. Ground rules mean you’re going to tell me to do something I don’t want to do. Or worse, you’re going to tell me NOT to do something I love doing. I want to tell them, “No, these...

The practical wisdom and real-life advice offered in the 30 Steps to Build a Better Business blog series is now available in a paperback or instantly downloadable eBook! Here’s what’s inside: The 6 business building blocks every small business must have Strategies and techniques to help you transition from ‘the dayjob’ to being a full-time business owner 20+ innovative marketing and promotion methods for first-time or part-time entrepreneurs Low-cost or free small business productivity...

Yesterday was the first edition of Sage Small Business Solutions’ “What’s Your Problem?” Wednesday, where I invite readers of this blog and Facebook and Twitter fans and followers to submit a problem they’re having with their little business to get answers from me and anyone else in the community that can help them ‘get over the hump’. Yesterday, I received a whopping 1 question! YAY! It’s only the first week, though, so I expect that the list of questions...

Over the years, I’ve had the chance to see and work with a number of different businesses. What I’ve noticed is that most small businesses often hit a wall within the first 1-3 years of existence. They have a good product, paying customers, but for some reason can’t ever seem to move from being a surviving business, to being a thriving business. But the truth is, most of these businesses could readily move to the next level, just by fine-tuning some key areas of their operations. After...

I’ve spent most of my career working as a consultant. I started out over 10 years ago at one of the big 4 accounting and consulting firms. When I first started out, I worked almost exclusively with small to mid-sized, regional clients. Later on, my focus shifted mostly to large, multinational corporations. After having experienced both ends of the spectrum, I can honestly say that I much prefer working with smaller companies for 2 key reasons: 1. When I work with a smaller company, both my...