Grow Your Business Newsletter

What’s the one thing you simply can’t afford an hour before a wedding reception if you are the caterer? For the van you are driving that contains nearly all the food to break down on the way to the venue. It simply can’t happen. But that’s exactly what happened to me. Back in 2004, I…

Nothing in business happens unless you make a sale. Before that, it’s just an idea, and expenses, and time, and effort. Once someone decides they’re willing to hand over their hard-earned cash for what you are offering – then you have a business. It may still not work, but it’s at least a lot closer!…

I recently had two back-to-back conversations with people that really highlighted how people can use the wrong metric to decide what to buy. In the first case, a potential client decided that spending money to work with us was too much for their small business, although by his own admission, there was a lot he…

I work with business numbers every single day and see all kinds. I also see some business owners who have a great grasp on their numbers and others who don’t seem to have any idea at all what they are looking at when it comes to this part of their business. I get it can…

I was thinking about our plans for 2026, and one of the ideas that I think will be central to our outreach for building referral partnerships will hinge on the old Zig Ziglar quote. Zig Ziglar’s famous quote about helping others is: “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help…

I used to ride bikes a lot. When I say a lot, I mean at one point my friend and I rode our bicycles from the Ocean Beach pier in San Diego all the way to the beach in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a fun challenge. Well, it was a challenge, anyway. Lots of good…

I was speaking with a marketing pro a few days ago and he was talking about the onboarding questions he asks potential new clients. A lot of it was pretty standard but one of his questions stood out to me: “What bold claim can your business make?” It’s not an easy question and I suspect…

So in trying to decide what to write about today, I decided I’d ask AI what the number one concern small business owners are facing now and tackle that. I had a hunch what the answer was going to be, and it turned out I was right: cash flow. This is the AI response (edited…

I came across an article I wrote nearly twenty years ago the other day. What’s interesting to me is that everything I wrote then is still true and just as useful! I’m reposting it here with a note added to the end. Will this still be useful twenty years from now? My guess is yes!…