For all of our American friends, let me start off by saying a belated happy Thanksgiving to you all! Thanksgiving being yesterday means today is one of the most important days for retailers in the US (and now in Canada), Black Friday. Traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year in the US, today is the day on which many businesses turn so much of a profit, that in a...
Ever wondered why big budget blockbuster films always seem to come out in the summer or winter, while horror films are generally autumn fare? Why entertainment media in general tends to release in the holiday window, or in the three months directly following? The reason for this is simple. The various companies responsible for their release have tracked when they do well and when they don't, and adjusted their release...
As the leader of your business, you are its public face. When people think of your business, you are who they picture in their head. You're the general, the president, the alpha lion, and a few hundred other things too (I could write an entire series of articles listing them, and each post would be very, very long). So when you're out there in the world, you are the key...
One of the best bits of business advice I can possibly give is to prioritize your work. Get the most important, time sensitive stuff finished first, and then work your way down the list. Well, that's today's article. See you all next week! In all seriousness though, when it comes to prioritizing your workday, there isn't much more that needs to be said. But there are other things that are...
Looking at the current weather report, perhaps I should have titled this article "Winter Is Here", but it just doesn't have the same ring to it (nor does it reference Game of Thrones, which is where I shamelessly stole the line from). So, November is here. For many of us that means the temperature is dropping, and the first flurries of snow are beginning to fall. Time to batten down...
A topic that’s seldom come up on this blog before, though one that is incredibly important, is what to do when a business fails. We’ve already established that things will go wrong, and that there’s a good chance that your business might actually fail. We’ve even discussed how to know when it’s time to pack up your things and quit. But it’s not exactly quite so cut and dry as...
Everybody loves doing a good deed. I don't think any of you out there can think of a single time where you did something for someone for altruistic reasons and didn't feel great about it after. Well what if I told you that altruism could also help your business? As we talked about earlier this week with cross-promotions, a little bit of a partnership can actually end up being a...
They say two heads are better than one, and in most cases this is true. In the world of business, it can be especially true. Marketing can be a tricky business, especially in today's world. You need a big, creative hook. Something that will draw people in, and then most importantly, keep them coming back for more. So you've got a solid marketing campaign, and you're doing alright for yourself,...
Crisis management is a topic that has come up in several forms on my blog before. We've talked about using great customer service to avert disaster, how to properly deal with debtors, building rainy-day funds, and even creating time buffers. All of these are important skills to have should a crisis arise. But there are always more skills to learn on this subject, which is why we're discussing it again....
I think it's a pretty safe bet that most of us in our working lives has had one of those bosses who sits back and doesn't do any of the work themselves. They sit in their office playing on their phones, or otherwise doing anything else but working, while everybody else gets things done. Every so often they'll poke their head out of their little hidey-hole to issue commands (which...