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Nobody goes to a restaurant for scrambled eggs.  It is both easier and faster to make scrambled eggs at home.  People go to a restaurant for everything else: the atmosphere, the service, not having to do the dishes.  Chances are: your profession has a DIY option too.  What makes the difference to buyers between DIY…

Nothing you tell your employees should ever come as a surprise.  This is especially important with bad news.  If you are telling an employee that they are at risk of being fired, and they had no idea, then you are the one who made a mistake, not them.  But don’t tell your employees about their…

What makes a small business work?  Information.  Whether it is information about clients, about projects, about people, about jobs, about plans, or about goals, that information has to move throughout the business for everybody to know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.  But when is information reliable? Here are…

“Our customers love us, we have never had a complaint.” Ahem.  The speaker, here, is drawing a rather unscientific conclusion. Just because clients have never complained, does not necessarily mean that they love the service they are getting.  To be able to say “Our customers love us”, collect some empirical evidence using one of the…

I’ll get straight to the point: company values become harmful when they are not enforced.  This happens more often than you would imagine, and usually because of good intentions. But the harm is always greater than the perk.  The wrong way to use values Let’s say you claim a core value at your business is…

I received my first garlic crusher in my later 30s. Garlic is a common ingredient in my cooking, but I could never purchase a unitasker gadget like a garlic crusher. Then I received one as a gift, proving that thoughtfulness is not about price, and not only do I crush garlic on the regular, I…