I talked to a man the other day who has cows — Jersey milk cows to be precise. As part of his desire to be self sufficient, he wants to open a dairy. he lives just a couple of miles from the creamery which would give him a bit of advantage to be sure, but [...]
A.J. Proctor sent me this one. I haven’t verified that it really came from the St. Petersburg Times, but even if it didn’t, it makes you take a step back and think. Even if you doubled the offer, it wouldn’t cost one-tenth of what we just spent and it would have an amazingly bigger impact [...]
I got a call from a friend the other day asking if I thought $800 was too much for his business to pay for a monthly phone bill. Of course the answer could be yes, and it could be no. It's depends on where you're coming from. I have worked with companies where, if they'd [...]
It’s true for things as well as people. Everything and everyone’s for sale. That’s true in both good and bad ways. But for today’s purpose, I’m referring to the sale of your business. Anita Campbell over at Small Business Trends blog answered a question from a reader regarding how to go about selling the family [...]
My father always used to preach that those who understand money earn interest, those who don’t understand pay interest. I think that’s pretty good advice, especially in today’s world. Though I’ve lived that philosophy in both my personal and professional lives, I’ve often been challenged by entrepreneurs about the concept’s validity for small businesses. In [...]
As I talk to young entrepreneurs, partnerships are a common topic. There seem to be a lot of questions about when and why to take a partner. After 30 years of watching partnerships (and being involved in several,) I have strong feelings about the subject. When my son came to me a few weeks back [...]
Chances are you use metrics to measure the progress of your business. If you don’t, your banker and accountant do. While bankers and accountants have the metrics that are important to them (and by extension are important to you as CEO,) here are some ways of measuring your business you may not already be using [...]
Do you really know who your best customer is? Chances are your answer would be based on who your “biggest” customer was, in terms of total sales. Struggling businesses are almost always wrong when you ask them who their best customer is. Let me give you a good example: While it may be true that [...]