Work, Eat, Sleep, Repeat – is This All There is? Society has become a fast-paced, difficult place to live, never mind to actually thrive in. For the majority of people, excessive work hours have become the necessity in order to meet basic financial obligations – with many not even being able to meet those obligations. Every day seems to be a struggle just to get by. This type of life...
You've crunched the numbers. You've fine tuned your product. Every i has been dotted, every t crossed. Every conceivable thing you can think of has been taken care of. You've planned, you've budgeted, you've built your team, your marketing is ready to go. It's time for you to put your business out there in the world for all to see. Nervous? Don't be. This is probably the hardest part of...
As I previously discussed in my two part post on The Art of Negotiation (Part 1 here, part 2 here), everybody loves a good deal. There isn't a person alive who can resist a sale or special, especially on a product or service they've actually been looking for. Or even on things they haven't. Impulse buys play a big role in pulling in business during a special offer as well....
You hear about it almost every day. Another company faced with a multi-million dollar lawsuit, brought forth by a former customer or employee. Another business owner facing charges for illegal practices (more often knowingly than not). Now fortunately, as a small business, your chances of being waylaid with a gigantic seven figure lawsuit are extremely low, though the possibility of being sued should something along the way be less than...
The world is cyclical. This is scientifically proven fact. Ice ages come and go, weather patterns change, and then change back. Animals migrate to one area, only to later head back to where they started. This is as true in business as much as it is in nature. Look at how many products that were once popular, died away almost entirely, only to come back again years later. Bell bottoms...
As I'm sure we've all noticed by now, the quality of products and services available these days is dropping at an alarming rate. Extremely expensive consumer electronics appear engineered to break, call centers where clients expect competent and timeless conflict resolution are instead outsourced to countries where the Customer Service Representatives barely speak English and read almost everything from a script. And when was the last time you heard about...
Last week we talked about the art of negotiation from the point of view of the person with a product or service to offer. But there are two sides to every coin, and this week we'll be looking at the other one. That of the person trying to do the haggling, trying to score themselves a deal, and as such, hopefully earn themselves a slightly larger piece of PIE. The...
So you've decided to step out of the 9-5 world and take your first step on your path to PIE. You're motivated. You're focused. You feel ready for anything. You're Muhammad Ali, and the world is Sonny Liston. You have a plan. You have a goal. You have absolutely no idea what you're going to sell. You have a problem. Fortunately, it's not really that hard of a problem to...
Forget every racial stereotype you've ever heard. Everyone on the planet loves to haggle. Everyone loves to try and get a deal. Some may be more aggressive than others (and again, this has nothing to do with race), but in general, everyone will try to get something from you for cheaper than what it's offered. Make no mistake my friends, this is going to happen to you. It is unavoidable,...
We're just about into August now, the last full month of summer vacation before the young ones head back to school. Feel free to take a moment and breathe a sigh of relief. All done? Okay, good. Now down to business. There are many people out there who do the stay at home parent thing, while their partner works. And that's fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you...