Are you Undervaluing your services?
One of the problems that business owners face with pricing is a tendency to undervalue their services. Indeed, I have to admit that I have undervalued my services at different times and I’ve always come away feeling unhappy because even if I got the business I know I’m not getting paid what I feel my services and time are worth. So why do business owners undervalue their services? I can’t speak for everyone else, but I can say that I’ve undervalued my services because I wanted to get the business and I...
read moreGet Big-Business Tools from Web-Based Software for your Small Business
Running a small business isn’t easy, but there are new options that give small businesses more might. With web-based software solutions coming online every day, small businesses have more and more ways to manage its finances, grow its businesses, and reach its customers. SaaS Web-based software offers a compelling business case to small businesses, according to iPlanner.net. Most companies don’t have the resources or justification for a full-time IT department or manager, but need IT support services on an intermittent basis. In a traditional...
read moreHow to handle firing someone
The other day a client of mine told me that s/he was feeling some misgivings about firing a vendor. The vendor wasn’t doing the work up to expectations, but the client had a personal relationship with the vendor and felt bad about having to fire her. Firing someone, whether its a client, employee, or vendor is never easy because you are also making a change in the relationship that is a negative change. On the other hand, the negativity has likely been there all along and the firing is just bringing it to the surface. I offer the...
read moreProperty Damage Restoration Proves Flooded Documents are not Dead Documents
This blog post is courtesy of Polygon, a property damage restoration firm serving businesses worldwide. With highly trained technicians & project managers, Polygon provides a variety of disaster clean up services. Property Damage Restoration Proves Flooded Documents are not Dead Documents Property damage restoration experts hear it all the time from business owners: “Why should I worry about flood damage? It’s not like I live in a flood zone.” The reality is that water damage is up to eight times more likely to impact the interior of a...
read moreSales adventures
4-1-13 When I get ready to cold call or do any kind of sales there is a moment of apprehension and fear, a subtle twist in the stomach. I stop myself and ask: Is this the emotion I really want to embody? And I find that even with clients, there is a similar moment of emotion that speaks more to the desire of being able to supply a meaningful solution to what my clients need. With both kinds of interactions there is a thought: Am I providing the value they need? I want to be of service to my clients and to the prospects that I think of as...
read moreWhy being overwhelmed shouldn’t become your normal state of business and life
All of my clients have on trait in common. They all feel overwhelmed by the problems they are dealing with, both in their business and life. And what’s worse is that they’ve gotten to a point where the feeling of overwhelming has become an everyday phenomenon for them. They have developed a degree of comfort with their discomfort because it is all they know. I note that sometimes what stops someone from making changes to their life is just how comfortable they’ve become with the level of discomfort in their life....
read moreCan Your Business Benefit from Celebrating More?
Note: This is a guest post from Melissa Ortiz: Meli has lived in six states in her 30+ years and prefers the Southwest, where snow doesn’t turn to slush and ruin good shoes. She is a lifestyle reporter for her local paper. I was recently watching the film “I Hate Valentine’s Day” and I got thinking about small businesses. The film centers on Genevieve, a florist played by Nia Vardalos (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”). Sounds off-topic, right? Well, not so fast. The progression of time in the film is cleverly...
read moreBusiness transparency and decision making
Another business book I just finished reading is the Decision Maker, which explores the thorny question of who should really be in charge of making decisions. The author argues that the boss may not have the requisite knowledge or insight to make a decision on a different level of the business. It’s an interesting insight and it leads right into the topic of transparency and decision making, specifically in determining how decisions are made, why they are made, and who makes them. In a top down organization the executives and management...
read moreThe evolution of transparency in business
One of the books I’m reading is the Slow Fix. One of the topics that the author discusses is the importance of transparency in business, especially when it comes to making mistakes. He goes onto explain that companies which focus on actually helping people learn from mistakes (instead of punishing the people for the mistakes) get more productivity because the people feel respected and empowered. This makes perfect sense to me, and yet it’s apparent as well that some businesses rely on a model of punishment, which is used to keep...
read moreAre the people you delegate work to producing the results?
One of the lessons a business owner inevitably learns is that you need to learn how to delegate some of the responsibilities of running a business to other people. If you don’t, you can get overwhelmed and overworked. However, at the same time you need to know that those people are producing results, because if they aren’t they are wasting time and resources your business can’t afford to waste. One of the reasons that business owners sometimes pick the wrong people to delegate to is because they fail to fully articulate what...
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