Small Business Ru!es

When the call comes, it may not be convenient. When the call comes, it rarely comes with all the exact information. When the call comes, you may not know all the answers or have the time. It sounds like a preacher on the mount talking about the call …

As the end of the financial year approaches, it is a great time to question if we are thinking critically about our business or just doing things the same as we have always done them. Rita Mae Brown once said that that if you do the same thing over a…

Focus on making your initial customer service the absolute best in the market. This service will lead to incredibly loyal clients, and your business will succeed as a natural result of this. Cisco Systems is a prime example of an incredibly successfu…

With the Cricket World Cup just finished, I thought I would bring a cricket flavour to my Ru!e this month. Adam Gilchrist retired holding the world record for the most number of dismissals in the history of Test cricket in addition to the most dismis…

An excerpt from the 2008 book What I wish I knew at eighteen by Daniel Gregory & Marty Wilson. Thanks! What a magical word. Imagine you only have one minute left to live. What do you do? Some people conjure up images of jumping off the Empire Sta…

I recently purchased a very small MP3 player—the type with no screen and designed for extreme portability. I wanted to use two different playlists on the device. Despite my doubts that it was possible, the salesperson assured me that I could cr…

If you want clients who drive BMWs, go out and buy a BMW. If you want clients who focus on buying quality products, then make sure that you are a purchaser and user of quality products. To be prosperous, you need to look prosperous. Conversely, if yo…

When I first opened our mobile phone retail outlet, we made some calculations on how many staff we would need. Being a very small store, we calculated that two full-time employees with a third permanent part-time staff member would be sufficient. We …

To be an effective businessperson, you need to check your ego at the door as you come into work. There is no prize for boosting your own ego and proving to a client you are right and they are wrong. There is a very subtle difference between giving go…

Ask me to cook a meal for 50 people, and I would have either a lot of hungry people or enough food to feed an army. Ask me to design a training program for an Olympic athlete, and I hope that person doesn’t plan on winning a medal. Ask me to cl…