“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Right? It’s a phrase that we as owners tend to model when things get comfortable. It can also be a phrase that acts as a brick wall, cutting us off from opportunity and the drive to push forward. I would like to introduce Kelly. Kelly is a clea
In celebration of U.S. Small Business Administration’s National Small Business week the Seattle SBA is holding our annual “Jump Start Your Business” workshop series, May 15, 2014, and I will be presenting two topics: “Marketing 2014 – What is working now” “How to get your first 20 clients” C
As Care.com recently became a publicly traded company in January 2014 (CRCM), and now has an army of more than 9.7 million members comprised of 5.2 million families, and 4.5 million caregivers, it begs the question “is the playing field changing for independent residential cleaning businesses?” Let
Let’s face it… we all have months in our business that are slower than others. And this slower business time can be quite stressful as we see a decrease in income. But with a bit of forethought and optimism, you can take advantage of those quieter times and make them into genuine product
Everyone is on Social Media these days. If you made the jump, you made the right decision. You didn’t want to get lost in the past. It might have been a confusing and rough road keeping up with those millennials but you’ve made it! Social Media has changed the game of marketing and prope
Mother’s Day is coming up again very quickly – in 8 days, in fact. I won’t ask if you are prepared. The more important question is: Are your prospective customers? As a mother of two small children, I would take a completely clean house over flowers any day (after all, who is going
In the marketing world advertising gurus like to throw around big words like “branding” and “positioning”. Are those only for the big corporations like Starbucks or GM? Nope. Everyone can have a brand and — as a small company – yours may even be more important tha
You Are Not Making the Big $$ Money That You Should – “A high percentage of businesses fail”, is what we have all heard. Some even say as high as 90%. However, I couldn’t find any statistics to actually back that up. What I did find was a study done by NFIB that says that over the lifetime of a busi
“How can we compete with the cash-under-the-table cleaners?” is a question that I hear at least once a week. And, my short answer is “don’t” compete with them because they are not your competition. Let me tell you my experience with this. For a while I was in that same
You may or may not have heard the term “Viral Marketing”, but I bet you’ve seen it in action. Block long lines outside of a new Krispy Kreme grand opening, X-boxes being released at midnight that draw crowds of thousands, the buzz about the Blair Witch project movie a few years back, and even the sp
