Blog

8 Things You Need to Know About Your Business
New business owners often launch into entrepreneurship with wild abandon, fueled by enthusiasm, adrenalin and sheer will power. They start their businesses full of hope, often bringing in enough business in the early days to have them dreaming of sports cars and early retirement. Then, the problems of running a small business start to set […]
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7 Tips to Starting a Social Enterprise
First things first – what is a social enterprise? There are many definitions but we think this one from Social Enterprise U.K. sums it up best:  Social enterprises are businesses that trade to tackle social problems, improve communities, people’s life chances, or the environment. They make their money from selling goods and services in the […]
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6 Ways to Improve Your Financial Security
If you’re like most companies your financial strength can be excellent one month and worrying the next. Cash-flow is the bane of many small business owners. You can be making a good profit and doing well with sales, but if there’s not enough cash to pay your staff or suppliers then you’re in trouble. How […]
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Be Thankful for Customer Complaints
A True Story Mandy had an awful customer service experience. She hired movers to help move her elderly and ill father from a two to a one-bedroom apartment in the same building. When she initially called the movers, she asked if they would like to come to the apartment in order to do an estimate, […]
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5 Ways to Deal with Difficult or Negative Customers
There’s nothing more frustrating in business than difficult, or intransigent customers or clients. Whether it’s your fault, one of your staff members, a supplier, or simply an impossible-to-please customer there’s no way to avoid them from time to time. Given that we all have to face these people, here are a few ways to minimize […]
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The 3 Phases of a Customer Buying Decision
Have you ever used all your best sales techniques with a prospect, convinced they were going to bite – only to have them walk away without purchasing anything? It may have had nothing to do with your pitch, your process, your product knowledge, or your strategy. But, it could have been your timing. If you […]
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Tips for Hiring and Retaining Good Employees
One of the hardest things about running a small business is building a good team of people. And, even if you do manage to pull together a good team, how do you keep them? There are four key elements required to grow a business: i) increase revenue; ii) hire the right people; iii) improve performance […]
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We Blew It! – How to Recover from Customer Service Mistakes
No one is perfect, so chances are you will, as a company, make a mistake and upset a customer from time to time. It’s not if, it’s when. Obviously, you will have processes in place to avoid this happening and if you haven’t, now might be a good time to start putting some in place. […]
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