The Blog - Where Business Collides with Human Nature

Success…how bad do you want it?  My guess would be probably be pretty badly.  Business success is founded on the concept of building and maintaining relationships with other business people. 

Relationships hold a real value when it comes to business practices.  A recent network survey by the Referral Institute of over 12,000 business professionals from all over the world said that networking played a role in their successes -- and spent 6.3 hours every week in activities related to networking.  So what are some business relationship blunders you should avoid?  We recommend steering clear of these three big sins of building business relationships:

The challenge of creating a success for most is not in a lack of ability to tell a story.

In fact, they tell any story regardless of whether it is funny, big, impressive or even their own.  Before social media tools, everyone loved to talk about the new stuff they bought or the best restaurant in the world.

An entrepreneur’s life is a windy, twisted road.  Starting a business is exciting but for the less experienced entrepreneur, there can be traps and pitfalls.  Here are five business success tips to keep your focused and give you hope.

Key Takeaways:

• Expanding your company takes careful planning, research and consideration.
• Only expand when your company is properly financed and you are emotionally prepared.
• Expansion does not always mean more profits, but does bring more overhead.

A company that has achieved a limit to what they can manufacture, sell or service is not always in a position to expand. Before you expand your business, you must do a lot of research and consider everything possible. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), taking risks to grow or expand your company is not always a good idea if that risk moves the company away from its core.

Guest blogger Marianna Ashley shares tips for entrepreneurs on how to handle rejection:

Recently I met a man named Chris.

Is your small business not big enough?  Rely on speed.  Not rich enough?  Rely on personalization. Prioritize speed to market and personalization for all things related to marketing, service and delivering the product. 

It is impossible for an entrepreneur to win based on smarts, size and money.  There is always another business with more smarts, better research, a bigger team and more money. 

If you have speed to market and personalization top of mind, your competitors will find it difficult to compete. Many small businesses scaled quickly with speed to market and personalization but forgot the very thing that grew their brand and reputation.

Change is never easy, but greening your business may be one wave easier to ride than being caught in its undertow.  Already many companies are coming under fire for being inconsiderate of the environment.  Others, like General Mills, Unilever, and even the Philadelphia Eagles are realizing that making one’s office or online business energy-efficient is about the most cost-effective thing they’ve done for the company.  As you can read in this article, countless companies are finding innovative ways to save money and the environment, but here are five easy ways to green your business to get you started.