There are lots of things in business driving you toward saying “yes” but that is often not the best idea.

For example, everyone’s heard “the customer is always right” but that isn’t always the case and you can be led down the wrong path by mindlessly following that saying. Sometimes the customer is right, but not right for you.

And sometimes the customer is just plain wrong . You don’t want to make enemies but if you can extricate yourself from the situation you can move on to better things and not go through the brain damage of trying to make a bad situation livable.

Learning how to say no is a matter of figuring out Continue reading →

The question of how to grow a business is one that nearly all of our clients ask themselves on a regular basis.

Very few businesses can survive for long if they aren’t growing because costs never stop rising and there is virtually always attrition in sales no matter what you are selling.

So some amount of growth is necessary just to stand still. And most small business owners are looking to do more than stand still.

It’s also a question I ask myself frequently, since I too am interested in growing CapForge well beyond its current size. The basic response to the question is usually in the form of your choices for growth:

• Sell more of the same to existing customers
• Sell new things to existing customers
• Add more customers

For us, I think we are doing the first two pretty well, although of course there is room for improvement. But I want to focus on the third option for right now, and so then the question becomes: what is the best way to add more customers?

Continue reading →