If you’re reading this, you’re probably in the same boat as every other business in your state, if not the country. We all want more customers, but how do you get them?

Interviews can be tricky for either side. If you’re being interviewed, once you get past the standard “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” questions, you never know what will be thrown at you. If you’re an interviewer, how do you get past the pre-scripted answers to the standard questions to see the real person and make the right hire?

Hiring and firing. Neither are decisions I take lightly. If you hire the wrong people you risk upsetting the balance of your whole team, while firing someone obviously has serious consequences not just for the individual involved but for staff morale in general.

I don't think there's any question that it's a lot harder than it was 30 years ago when there was no real alternative to shopping locally, but I still believe there are things that we, as businesses, can do to make it less likely for our customers to hop online and leave us.

Personally, I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions since I was about 13 and determined to get onto the school soccer team. As you get older, you realize that choosing January 1st to change yourself or the world is a little restricting.

When making a new hire, it’s important that the onboarding process is handled carefully. If it is not done correctly, then you could end up with a number of issues: hiring the wrong person for the job, seeing a rapid turnover rate, or having clashing expectations of the new employee’s productivity and role, for example.

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that I could do with a few more hours in the day? Recently I noticed that I was getting to the office earlier and leaving later, but I still seemed to have things left on my to-do list every night.

We all face crippling deadlines from time to time, and no matter how hard we try, there never seems to be enough time to get everything done. Some of us feel the pressure building up day after day as we accomplish mind-numbing task after mind-numbing task, never actually getting close to our to-do list finish line.

I’m always amazed when I talk to people from other businesses and they’re complaining about some of their customers. I think to myself: “Whoa! Have you ever thought where you’d be without clients? You wouldn’t even have a business.”

What’s your small business brand identity? Sure, you’ve got a logo, a website, business cards, signage and perhaps even a storefront – but your brand is so much more than the “look” of your business. While all these can help you project a carefully crafted image to your customers, true branding runs a lot deeper.