Small Business Basics
Stay on Top of the Little Things
I’m going to let you in on a secret: running a business (any business) is a huge amount of work. Crazy, right! Now that we’ve gotten that bombshell out of the way, it’s time to share some more insider knowledge with you: If you’re a business owner, you’re going to run into hurdles along the way.…
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Bad News is Never Great News: How to Deliver Bad News in the Best Way
Many years ago, I received a letter from my trash company. I was surprised to see the letter since, up to that time, my relationship with the trash company had been limited to the occasional wave when they came by to pick up the cans. The letter almost ended up in the junk mail pile,…
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Are You Stuck in the Past? The Costs of “Sunk Costs”
As I sit across the table from a prospective client, we can absolutely agree upon one thing: Her business would be far better off if we built a fresh website from which we could promote her business and grow. I also know something else: she is not ready to do so. It isn’t that her…
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Analytics: The ABCs & 123s of Your Business
And just like that, it’s school time. The most wonderful time of the year, as a memorably accurate Staples ad in the 90s once put it. I love this time of year, and not just as a parent. As a kid, I always looked forward to the return to the books, the excitement of learning…
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First One In, Last One Out
Hello everyone! I’ve been spending a fair amount of this month relaxing poolside, cocktail in hand, celebrating my birthday with loved ones in Hawaii. Lest you think I was completely idle during that time, let me assure you: I was. But occasionally, I devoted some quality clear-headed time to thinking critically about Spring Insight. As we’ve been…
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I Virtually Never See You…
Often when I describe the work that Spring Insight does with organizations, I talk about how we take small businesses with a strong offline culture and translate it online. Last week, we flipped that formula on its head and took the strong Spring Insight online culture offline. The Spring Insight team was created as a virtual team and for…
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Forward Movement is the Antidote for Uncertainty
“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. There’s plenty of good advice out there about setting a goal before you take action. At Spring Insight, for example, we wouldn’t dream of launching a marketing campaign without a clear idea of the target audience…
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How Do You Communicate You Have Capacity Without Sounding Desperate?
Isn’t it amazing how being “busy” has become almost a mystique? The assumption is that if you aren’t busy all the time, you aren’t important enough, or working hard enough. So we hang this badge of honor around our necks like a yoke and tell ourselves we are really going places. While there has been…
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Dealing with Ugly Skeletons in Your Company’s Closet
As the news on various political figures and celebrities always likes to remind us, The Internet never forgets. And despite the best efforts of Europe’s highest court to enforce a “right to be forgotten,” in the US there is not even a vague law giving us the ability to permanently erase our online histories. Even…
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Tips For Managing Your Marketing Strategy
With the Labor Day weekend behind us, the carefree days of summer are gone once again. Oh. Who am I kidding? When you own a small business, there are no actual carefree days. (How is it that our kids “busy” makes us so busy? That doesn’t seem fair.) The business world has a cycle to…
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