Last week's email - 'Why you should let bad clients go' - totally jinxed me (here's a link, in case you're the sorta monster that doesn't read every single one of these 😤). I hit send, checked my inbox, and was greeted with a client tirade. They were...
‘The Best Damn Small Business Newsletter on the Internet’ archives
Strategy Article Archives
Why you should let bad clients go
You should let bad clients go. But, you already knew that. The hard part is actually letting them go, especially when they're paying you a lot of money. Our egos and our monthly bills (both the business and personal ones) make letting clients go easier said than done....
Why you should write weekly memos
As kids, there's plenty of obvious milestones, events, and memories to mark our progress. There's semesters, tests, graduations, big birthdays, and all sorts of other major happenings. And, we keep all those report cards, syllabuses, exam grades, pictures, postcards,...
Thoughts on the Y Combinator email that’s floating around
The economy hasn't been stellar these last few years. We've had to deal with the COVID pandemic, constantly changing regulations, the entire world suddenly working from home (and, many clients/vendors not being prepared for it), confusing grant applications, and...
Collect more reviews & testimonials before raising prices
Increasing your prices is one of the easiest ways to increase your profit. It significantly increases your revenue while also minimally impacting your expenses (as opposed to outright selling more where you'd need to hire more employees to complete the work). But,...
Throwback ⏰: Numbers lie like a dog
Mark Twain famously said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," meaning you can manipulate statistics to prove just about anything. That's also true for every number you see out there. Every report, every graph, and every tax return can...
Throwback ⏰: Keep a running ‘progress & goals document’ so you can more easily look back on your growth
True growth is incredibly slow. It's a series of marginal improvements over a long enough period of time until you finally become proficient or successful. For example, they say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert (which is debatable, but this is just an...
Throwback ⏰: Pick 3 business metrics to focus on – then ignore the rest
There's a near-endless supply of business metrics to choose from. Every single software now includes some sorta metrics dashboard. There's financial metrics, operating metrics, marketing metrics, sales metrics, project metrics, human resources metrics, metric metrics,...
Make paying invoices easier for your clients
Friction slows things down. That's true in physics, your car's brake pads, and small business cash flow. All those seemingly little annoyances and difficulties clients put up with, while paying your invoices, create friction and opportunities for your clients to pause...
Hiring an employee isn’t always the answer to business overwhelm
For all my yapping about profit, cash flow, and small business finance, I still do a lot of tax work. Business tax, personal tax, catch-up accounting, the works. So, you could definitely say this is a busy time of year for me. But, in a way, I'm lucky. I know tax...
How to intentionally review financial reports
Financial reports are the bee's knees. They give you a solid, big-picture understanding of all the little financial details and moving pieces in your business. Then, from there, you can start making educated decisions, working on problem areas, and improving your...
What to do after ranking your clients
This is the third email in a series on ranking clients. Check out the previous issues: How to rank your clients and What you can learn from ranking your clients. If you enjoyed this series, feel free to share it! You can learn a lot from ranking your clients....
Trust but verify (aka how to spot check a Profit & Loss report)
Profit & Loss reports are one of the most common small business financial reports. They are relatively easy to understand, can be generated with a few clicks in your accounting software, and are the starting point for your financial decisions, tax returns, bank...
Test your client-facing tech (instead of assuming it works)
Technology is great and can be an absolute gamechanger,... until it isn't. Then, there's all sorts of frustrating little hiccups, glitches, and weird UI bugs where the software that you bought to make your life easier, now makes your life much much harder. And, when...
Writing a mission statement that doesn’t suck
Traditional, structured business plans usually include business descriptions, SWOT analyses, market research, financial projections, and various strategic breakdowns (eg sales strategy, marketing strategy, etc). And, at the veryyy beginning, in the executive summary,...
How to constructively think about your business without totally ruining the holidays
Great business planning (and New Year's resolution-ing) involves a lot of intentionality, self-reflection (on both yourself and your business), and reviewing business stats (like financials, CRM data, etc). You need to take a hard look at your business, what's...
Getting more value out of a SWOT analysis
Everyone's first experience with a SWOT analysis is terrible. It's typically your first real exposure to business strategy and you just don't have enough experience in your business yet (because you're a business student, new entrepreneur, new to business...
The symptoms of disorganized cash distributions (and how to correct them)
Small business cash flow is an incredibly complex topic with lots of nuances. Every single aspect of your business impacts your cash flow. That's what makes rooting out the core cause of your cash flow issues and fixing them such a difficult process. It can take...
An intentional, targeted mini-budget is better than a half-assed full-business budget
Budgets play a vital role in big businesses and startups. They keep everyone on the same page in those hectic or unwieldy environments where there isn't one point person (like the owner, a controller, CFO, or director of operations) calling all the shots and approving...
Reader question: “Should I send clients gifts during the holidays?”
Halloween is behind us, everyone is gearing up for the holidays, the radio is playing entirely too much Mariah Carey, and business owners everywhere are wondering if they should send client gifts because "that's what real businesses do". But, like most other "that's...
What you can learn from ranking your clients
"Rank your clients then fire the bottom-tier ones" is classiccc business advice. And, it's relatively good advice (as far as soundbites go). You shoulddd periodically prune your client list and fire the clients that are causing excessive hardship, stress, and internal...
You need to do a pre-goal-setting assessment
There's all sorts of goal-setting frameworks and theories (eg SMART criteria, OKRs, BHAGs, OGSMs, etc)*. They're supposed to help get your rough goals & dreams out of your head, onto a piece of paper, and into a standardized structure that makes sense which can...
Worry about your business and not ‘what the market can bear’ when increasing prices
When discussing pricing, people frequently mention 'what the market can bear' (aka the max people will pay for your product/service) as the upper threshold. Because, in theory, if you charge more than what the market can bear then no one will buy from you. But, 'what...
Demonstrating value doesn’t end at the sale
Clients are usually the happiest with and most excited by your services when (and shortly after) they hire you. That's when they're most convinced that you can solve whatever problem or pain-point they're currently facing and feel the relief of getting it off their...
Reader question: “I raised my prices and a few of my clients are upset. How do I fix this?”
Raising your prices is one of the most common bits of internet small business wisdom. The general idea is that you're almost always undercharging because people are bad at determining their own value and, even if you lose a few clients, the increased billings will...