Did you know that statistically, 80% of businesses will fail within their first 5 years in business.  And of the 20% that survive, 80% of those will fail during their next 5 years.
Here are the top 5 reasons that business fail….

There is no clear and concise vision and mission which is communicated to and understood by [...]

Every business I speak with wants to increase sales in their business. Who wouldn’t? But increased sales is not necessary the goal. We don’t really want more sales, what we really want is more profit, right? Well not necessarily, because you can’t really do anything with profit. Profit is just a theory. The question is [...]

Sales are tough to generate in a good economy or bad.  Nevertheless, why does it seem that some sales people seem to do well in all types of environment? 
When the economy is good, it is relatively easy for even bad sales people to make a living.  The reason for this is that in good [...]

What do all businesses want?  More customers, more revenue, more profits and more cash!
These are all outcomes.  What are the drivers of these outcomes?   
By breaking down these outcomes into their lowest common denominator, we can then determine what strategies we can implement to improve these drives.  Let’s take a closer look…
The 2 basic drives for [...]

Does networking work? That depend on how you do it. Are you net-working or net-socializing or net-selling?
Too many people go to networking events to socialize or to find their next sale. I don’t know about you but I don’t go to networking events looking to be sold something.
Real networking is about making connections that [...]

Perceived indifference is what cost’s most companies their best customers.  It’s 6 times easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to obtain a new customer.
Did you know that on average 63% of your customers will leave not because of price but because they perceive that you don’t care if they stay or [...]

This past week I attended ActionCOACH’s North American Conference.  This is where approximately 300 ActionCOACH coaches from the United States, Canada, & Mexico come together to learn best practices, celebrate our wins and to discuss our challenges and losses.
The founder of ActionCOACH worldwide, Brad Sugars shared with us the lessons he learned from businesses working [...]

With the challenges the economy has presented, many small business owners may find themselves working longer hours, trying to do more with fewer resources. This can lead to burnout. How do you personally avoid burnout and (hopefully) establish a good balance between work and the rest of your life?
 
Let’s first look at what is the [...]

Someone once told me that to be successful that sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. This is definitely true when it comes to advertising and marketing.
In my opinion a lot of marketing and advertising for small and medium sized businesses are not successful because businesses don’t take the time to focus [...]

I was listening the other day to Brad Sugar’s Master Mentor Series (http://www.actioncoach.com/master_mentor/) where he was interviewing Keith Cunningham. Keith is a business profitability expert who is responsible for writing the course seminar that world-renowned Robert Kiyosaki turned into the best selling book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Of the many gems I received [...]