Nate is a web designer. Allie is getting married. I’m helping an organization with their web presence. Trista arranges flowers. All these stories are linked. And all of them tell something about small business. 1. Nate Reussercame to tell me (and the staff of the organization) about passwords and their website. In the course of…
“I love to sit in these chairs.”My friend and I were at church for a meeting. The two of us were meeting before the meeting. We were walking toward some chairs and couches in one of the large “milling around” spaces. The chairs my friend was talking about are nice chairs. They are nice for…
He smiled when I walked in. “You brought me Play-doh?”“As a matter of fact, I did,” I said as I stood by the counter and opened the small yellow plastic container. He just watched. He could have started laughing at me. After all, he was the counter guy at a tire store. They sell tires…
I seldom rent cars. Seldom means twice in my life. However, because a couple of us needed to take a trip for work, we rented a car. It was half the price of paying mileage. I picked up the car at the airport on Sunday afternoon. That location was further than others, but it was…
Two examples of customer service opportunities. The other day I walked into a donut place for a cup of coffee. I was pretty focused on my next task as I ordered a small decaf. I got my coffee, paid my $1.39 plus tax. As I turned to walk out, I saw the sign. “Large coffee…
People wonder about developing an online presence. People question the value of using twitter. People debate whether twitter should be used for marketing or PR or anything significant. One such conversation was happening at a conference on blogging one Saturday morning recently, with marketing professionals passionately making claims. During the conversation, I leaned over to…
Gino’s makes great pizza. They take a long time baking it. We’re not talking 20 minutes long time. We’re talking 45-50 minutes from the time the order is taken until you start to eat. That’s a long time, no matter how good the pizza is. So Gino’s, in Chicago, somehow came up with a great…
Jon looked at the spilled coffee, jumped up, fetched paper towels and began cleaning up. Ten minutes before, all seven people in the circle had been talking about store appearance. One person was talking about employees who stand around talking. Another told of being required to carry a rag, so he could front, face, and…
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