Can you believe this is Thanksgiving week? Thanksgiving traditionally marks the official beginning of the holiday season and I’m excited. I have already hauled all the boxes up from my basement to begin the decorating process. In my home the holidays are much more than a couple strands of lights, a sprinkling of garland, and a tree—it’s a seasonal event filled with family and friends.
“The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” Thomas J. Watson
No one likes to fail. So when you start your own small business and it doesn’t work out, it’s a difficult pill to swallow. I know because I’ve had my share of business failures. After sacrificing so much of your time, energy, passion and resources, a failed business venture can make you feel like crawling under the covers and never coming out again.
Some people think you can’t teach customer service. That may be true, but only if the person you’re trying to teach doesn’t have the right attitude or mindset to begin with. There is no doubt that some people “get” customer service, while some people don’t.
Thanks to the Internet, we can find out with a click of a button if anyone has had a bad experience with a product, a service, a small business or a local professional. A number of websites have sprouted up to provide a forum for online reviews. Some, like Angie’s List (www.angieslist.com), charge users a small fee in order to weed out bogus reviews. Most of these sites, however, including Amazon.com and Yelp.com (www.yelp.com) are free, which encourages anonymous postings. While most of these postings are valid and genuine, there’s a temptation for people with an “axe to grind” to post false reviews knowing they cannot be tracked down.
We hear a lot about classroom bullies. But what about bullies in the workplace? It happens and it can have a serious affect on your small business. Small business expert, Susan Solovic, shares tips on how to deal with a workplace bully.