Your website; your best salesperson

An order placed on Amazon.ca in Ontario lands on a doorstep in rural Nova Scotia the next day. Not in two to five business days. Not "allow extra time for remote areas." The next day. That's not a fluke — it's the new baseline. And if you run a small business, it...

Way back in the sixteen hundreds, Thomas Sydenham — a British physician and author of Observationes Medicae — observed: "The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than 20 asses laden with drugs." Nearly four hundred...

There is no truer adage than "First impressions are lasting impressions," and one of the unsung characters who shapes that impression is your janitor. Business consultant and author Tom Peters once remarked that a coffee-cup stain on the flip-down tray in an aircraft...

Let's say that you've been offered the opportunity to purchase a small business as a going concern - a turnkey operation - and the asking price is $1 million. It's apparent to you that the net tangible assets value - that is, the tangible assests such as equipment,...

Regardless of the size of your small business, if you use an accountant for financial recordkeeping and tax return preparation, make sure the paperwork you hand over is complete and orderly. Find out how your accountant prefers to receive your material and comply with...

Here's the one thing I wish someone had told me when I started my business: take a day off. Like, an actual day off. Every week. Put it in the calendar, guard it like it's a client meeting, and actually show up for it. That's what I call the "fishing friend" idea. And...

The recent attention on the Middle East war has revived memories of my time working there as a young chartered accountant. One in particular stands out—a business experience that offered a revealing glimpse into the forces that can drive regime change. It was 1978,...

Sometimes, when trying to explain one’s introversion and resultant impatience with trying to get things done via structured groups of invariably inflated egos, it’s easier to point to someone well known and credible with similarly-expressed views and say, ”Exactly!”...

A while ago The Guardian reported the findings of a survey of passwords by the tech company, NordPass. The results explain why hacking is so widespread and apparently lucrative. According to NordPass, “ . . . about 80 percent of data breaches are caused by...

Is viewing a creative work a creative act? Yes, it is, according to the late psychologist, Rollo May (1909 – 1994), as quoted by Victor Strecher in his book, Life on Purpose. May apparently said: “When we engage in a painting . . .  We are experiencing some new moment...

The assumption that any bureaucracy, particularly government bureaucracies, are wasteful and inefficient, is not new. It’s been around for at least my lifetime and probably a lot longer than that. And it’s reinforced anecdotally almost daily. Based on the...

A well-known author, journalist, and marketing consultant who focuses on marketing communication strategies for the printing industries and who often writes on sustainability in the textile industry, recently published an article about whether we’re really serious...

Real life stories are a great way to make a point. And the point I want to make (yet again) with this story is that if small businesses don’t match big businesses in certain aspects, it will undermine their growth and survival prospects. Of course, there are aspects...

I forget who it was that said something like this, "If it's common sense how come it's not more common?" It can so easily be applied to an issue that arises way too often among small businesses—not answering the phone. Surely it's common business sense to make sure...

I was recently involved in a customer service incident that’s not only worth repeating for the learning opportunity but also for the laugh in a you-can’t-make-this-up kind of way. I’ll tell the story but to avoid embarrassing anyone (though they deserve to be...

The full title to a recent Shopify article is "Why Mental Health Is Essential to Your Business Strategy." I'm pleased to see an organization as influential as Shopify highlighting this issue. I addressed it in the context of our industry in my book, Characters Who Can...

Mahatma Gandhi apparently had something to say about customers, though I for one would never have guessed that he had any interest in business generally or customers specifically, at all. He was much better known for being an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist,...

I met with a friend recently in the local village coffee shop. At the next table were three people discussing a proposed gift store. They were so excited by the ideas they were coming up with that they seemed to forget that everyone else within earshot could hear...

I recently had a discussion with a small business owner about a difficult customer. The situation had arrived at a point where the customer was no longer worth the stress they were causing. In situations like this, and given that it’s impossible to tease your personal...

Given the aversion to reading that owners and executives of businesses of all sizes apparently have, you'd think that b-o-o-k were a four-letter word. In this context it isn't. And nor is i-d-e-a. And it is from books that ideas come. So if you don't like reading...

This is not the first time I've written about how small acts of thoughtfulness can secure a future sale, and it won't be the last because it's such a simple yet powerful concept. It bears revisiting. Regularly. As I have so often written, small acts of thoughtfulness...

From time to time I've been asked why I abandoned my white collar productivity (office productivity improvement) practice and launched a business in the textile industry instead. The short answer is that office productivity improvement was too hard a sell, spectacular...

Twice I've had to file insurance claims after major disruptive events—once after the revolution in Iran and once after the 2013 flood in Calgary—with the result that I know whereof I speak when I say, "Be prepared!" You can expect a claim process to be tedious, time...