Rick's Blog - Common Sense Experience for Small Businesses

All of us are in the business of selling and delivering a product(s) and or service(s). The question I would like to explore today is what do you do once the customer says yes? Every company at this point should be prepared to deliver the product(s) and or service(s) that the customer has purchased. Unfortunately, there are a number of companies believe it or not that are not ready at this point to deliver. The…

How often do you get it right in your business? Everyday a business owner is challenged to “get it right” on a multitude of decisions. Each decision involves having the ready knowledge of a variety of subjects. You not only must have the right information, but you are expected to make the right decision every time. I would suggest that we are holding ourselves as a business decision maker to an impossible standard. Once we…

IT Managed Services can be sized to fit any business – even a business with only one (1) computer! The main benefit of Managed Services is that the business turns over the care and maintenance of its IT systems to an expert or group of experts. This in turn frees up the business to utilize its time and assets in building its business. Many business owners or managers believe their particular business is too small…

How do you go about building your business? Many of us use previous learning such as what we learned from school, books, or “experts” to direct our building process. I suspect a larger number just jump in and start building their business. Yes, they may take a class and or read a book, but if you talk to them they have a difficult time relating almost anything in their business building process to what I…

How do you go about building your business? Many of us use previous learning such as what we learned from school, books, or “experts” to direct our building process. I suspect a larger number just jump in and start building their business. Yes, they may take a class and or read a book, but if you talk to them they have a difficult time relating almost anything in their business building process to what I…

This week’s blog is obviously directed at those small business owners who have employees. However, I believe that even those who do not have employees can benefit themselves from the information in the blog. There are several factors that motivate all of us to do the work we do. Each employee is a human being and what motivates them in most cases motivates all of us, including owners, to be successful. I believe that one…

I was reading an article this past week by John Jantsch entitled, “The Biggest Marketing Challenge for Small Businesses”. In his article, John provides an ‘ABC’ on putting together a viable marketing plan for small businesses. One of the items on his “checklist” is to create a description of your ideal customer. The question of who is my ideal customer comes up in most marketing discussions. My question to you is have you really identified…

Accountability has become somewhat of a buzz word in the business world. Business people talk about holding teams accountable for their work. On the other end of the spectrum, we hold individuals accountable for their individual behavior if it violates current society norms. All of this accountable can be confusing to the individual small business owner. Accountability can be a powerful tool if it is defined and used in a productive manner. A business owner…