By Brad Harmon on March 9, 2010
As small business owners, we are forced to wear many hats in our growing organizations – often, we find ourselves wearing many of them at the same time.
While it certainly gives us the sense of productivity, I wonder what toll it takes on us and our business relationships. Personally, I am not a good multi-tasker; although I would have told you otherwise throughout most of my business life. Becoming a blogger has opened my eyes to all of the dropped balls that I never saw while struggling to maintain my juggling act.
I came across this article, Task Master: Is doing it all, all at the same time, really the best way? (originally published in Today’s Christian Woman in 2005), and it started me thinking about whether all of this multi-tasking is really good for my small business. Continue reading “Is Multi-Tasking Really That Good for Your Small Business?”
Posted in Featured Posts, Small Business Entrepreneur | Tagged building relationships, effieciency vs. effectiveness, multi-tasking, productivity
By Brad Harmon on February 4, 2010
You may have noticed the new poll feature on the sidebar of this blog. The question for this month is whether you are more or less likely to visit a business that advertises as “Christian-Owned and Operated.”
Several months ago I asked the question Should Your Small Business Advertise as Christian Owned?, and I pointed out some of the issues that may arise when one chooses to do so. Now, I want to know if making that choice translates into more business. Continue reading “How Does “Christian-Owned and Operated” Change Your Buying Decision?”
Posted in Announcements | Tagged advertising your faith, christian operated, christian-owned
By Mike Holmes on February 4, 2010
Our inaugural guest post is written by Mike Holmes. He is the author of I Shall Raise Thee Up: Ancient Principles for Lasting Greatness and operates a blog by the same name where he writes about business and leadership development from a Biblical perspective.
Mike has written posts for several respected Christian business blogs, and is currently working on his second book entitled Biblical Strategies for Marketing Success. He has been a very active member of our blog community adding interesting insights through his comments and tweets.
And now, without further adieu, here’s Mike …
Continue reading “What does the Bible Say about Salesmanship?”
Posted in Featured Posts, Guest Posts | Tagged biblical salesmanship, guest post, mike holmes, the sales process
By Brad Harmon on February 3, 2010
In December, I wrote a review on a new book by up-and-coming author Michael Holmes called I Shall Raise Thee Up: Ancient Principles for Lasting Greatness.
Some of you know Michael through his comments on this blog where he always brings an insightful dynamic to the conversation. I thought you might enjoy going deeper into his book with the author himself and learning more about him in the process.
If you haven’t had a chance to read my review of Michael’s book, you can read it by clicking here. Continue reading “Going Deeper with Author Michael Holmes”
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Entrepreneurship, I Shall Raise Thee Up, interview, Michael Holmes
By Brad Harmon on February 3, 2010
How many times have we seen a young entrepreneur cross our paths who is just full of passion and out to conquer the world. He has big dreams, big plans, and is naive enough to think they are all going to come true.
A few years later, after the world has kicked him in the teeth a few times, we put our hand on his weary shoulder and say, “Welcome to the real world kid.”
I started thinking about this scenario today while I was reading the first chapter of Psalms. It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how many times I read a passage from the Bible I take away some new insight I hadn’t seen before.
I guess this could probably be said about all great literary works to some extent, but none more so, for me, than the Bible. It’s not only the literary aspects that speak to me, but the historical, philosophical, and spiritual as well.
My revelation today was that there, in one simple verse, was the reason so many entrepreneurs lose their passion – not only lose it, but become cynical in the process. Continue reading “How to Lose Your Passion and Become a Cynic”
Posted in The Christian Entrepreneur | Tagged cynicism, getting good counsel, how to regain your passion, passion
By Brad Harmon on February 1, 2010
The parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16:1-13 may be one of the most difficult parables told by Jesus Christ. I doubt that many Christians have ever heard a sermon preached on this passage.
Why? Because it appears that Christ is giving tacit approval for the unjust servant to defraud his master after being given his pink slip. Let’s just jump into the parable and you’ll see what I mean. I’ll be using the King James Version (KJV) today because there are some translation issues with the New International Version (NIV) on this passage. Click here to see the parable in the NIV. Continue reading “Jesus Says Use Your Boss’s Money to Make Friends?”
Posted in Featured Posts, The Christian Entrepreneur | Tagged defrauding the boss, God and Mammon, Luke 16:1-13, stewardship, unjust steward, use the boss's money to make friends
By Brad Harmon on January 26, 2010
Last month, I asked Just How Valuable are Customer Referrals Anyway? I used a real world example to show how easy and profitable it is to grow your business through word-of-mouth referrals alone.
I’m not suggesting that referrals should be your only source of business growth; however, given the low acquisition costs associated with referrals they should be a major source of that growth. In fact, they are the low lying fruit on the tree of business growth that take very little effort to harvest.
Why do so many small business entrepreneurs miss out on referrals? In my post, Is Your Small Business Kissable?, I pointed out that one of the reasons is that we simply fail to ask for them. Another reason is that they lack an effective client referral system. Continue reading “My Proven Client Referral System – Part 1″
Posted in Small Business Entrepreneur | Tagged client referrals, customer referral system, target customer profile, word of mouth referrals
As small business owners, we are forced to wear many hats in our growing organizations – often, we find ourselves wearing many of them at the same time.
Thank you to all my readers, my friends, and my followers. It is you that makes this site great with your participation.
Jason
Laurie Neumann
MikeHolmes
January 2010 Recap – But I Don’t Wanna Blog!
By Brad Harmon on February 1, 2010
My plan at the beginning of December was to take off one week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, but that wasn’t exactly how it worked out. Once my wife and son were on their winter break from school, there was little hope of keeping up my two-a-day posts.
There was no hope at all when my laptop crashed. To make matters worse, all of my social networking came to a screeching halt as well.
My routine was pretty well set. I would write one post in the morning, and in the afternoon after I picked up my son from school I would write the second post. I would do my blogwalking and social networking on the laptop while watching television or carrying on a conversation with the family.
It’s not that I didn’t want to blog, but the extended break started a new routine that was hard to break without the laptop being available. Continue reading “January 2010 Recap – But I Don’t Wanna Blog!”
Posted in Announcements | Tagged google analytics stats, monthly recap, top 10 commenters, top 5 commented posts | 12 Responses