Small Business Coaching & Training
Has this ever happened to you? Here’s the scene: My husband and I are standing at an elevator with a male tour guide . A woman is walking towards us. The tour guide sees her and says, “You look lost. Can I help you?” She looks at him awkwardly, drops her head down and says,…
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Auntie Grace was technically not my real aunt, but she was family to me. She could not have had a better name because Grace described every bit of her: her hair, her nails, the way she walked, her immaculate and elegant wardrobe and the way she spoke. Her daughter Anna and I were childhood best…
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I visited a client the first week of December. I walked into his office and sitting on his desk were boxes of cookies, candy, pretzels and Harry and David. You know what he said to me? “I’ve got a ton of this stuff. Take whatever you want.” Stuff? Someone spent their hard earned money buying…
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A few weekends ago my husband and I were driving from San Antonio to South Texas. If you haven’t traversed that route, there are stretches of flat highway interrupted by little bitty towns. Our trip gave us unfortunate, visible evidence of what the recession has done to small business owners. Many of the places where…
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“How do I choose a name for my business?” It’s an important question. Run your ideas for a business name through some of these filters and see what you get: 1. Is the url available? If not, look for something else. The synergy of having your company name match yourcompanyname.com is too important to ignore.…
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True story: With high expectations, I recently attended a conference held by an internationally renowned company. Surprisingly, the company’s speakers weren’t very good and most of the curriculum was rehashed information I’ve seen in other programs for years. The company was shocked by the lack of enthusiasm from the attendees. And we were shocked to…
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I’d like you to meet someone very special. Her name is Coco and my husband took this untouched, non-photoshopped picture of her. Coco is a gorgeous Cocker Spaniel with the sweetest personality and everyone falls in love with her. I don’t want you to be like Coco. Don’t misunderstand, be sweet and gorgeous if that’s…
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Welcome to March Marketing Madness! All this week, you will have access to several marketing experts’ opinions and ideas. And today, I am happy to introduce you to Eric Fletcher. Eric is the Chief Marketing Officer of McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, a national corporate law firm. He is a former broadcaster, advertising agency creative director and…
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It’s funny how being a coach causes me to turn inward and examine my business practices. I regularly have to ask myself if I’m taking the advice I give to my clients. Unfortunately, the answer is “not always,” particularly with regard to niche markets. You see, I’m doing a lot of work with clients (and…
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In case you have not read “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin, go get it – today. It’s about being remarkable, how to exceptionally market yourself, your products and your services. The idea is that in a field full of cows, if you’re purple, you’re going to stand out. Long-term business success requires more than purple…
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None of us ever wakes up, looks in the mirror and says, “Today, my goal is to be irrelevant.” When you go to a networking event or a Tweetup you don’t introduce yourself by saying “Hi. My name is Rose Pineda. I’m a mortgage lender with Mortgages Are Us and I’m irrelevant.” Of course not!…
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I had a couple of friends who are emotional vampires. Take “Sherry” for example. We started out as great friends! We’d laugh together, shop together, support each other and just hang out. Something started changing though. Sherry started having serious drama in her life. Over the course of a year, I realized that we always…
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October, 1996, an upset happened in the boxing world that no one expected. Heavy-weight champion Evander Holyfield hit Mike Tyson, knocked him out and Evander won the much anticipated match.The media, the fans and Mike all asked for a rematch. They got it on June 28, 1997. It was a $100 million rematch. We had…
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