If you’ve studied any poetry, you are likely familiar with the quote below: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost The poem is an analogy for life – we can take the route that everyone else has tried, [...]
There is a saying that I had painted on a coffee mug: The road to success is always under construction. I used this mug during the end of high school and the five years I spent at university, which is appropriate, considering that education is often considered to be key to success. Granted that achieving [...]
Perhaps the most important decision you will make in a business is when you bring in the second person, either as a partner or as an investor. Done correctly, and your business will flourish; make a mistake, and the repercussions can haunt you for years. Unfortunately, this fact is often ignored when selecting partners or [...]
This post is a little different than usual. I’ve just taken inventory of my online presence, and wanted to share it with you. Each network or site has strong points, and weak points. I’ve tried to adapt each so that I’m getting as much benefit out of it as possible, and would love to hear [...]
There are few, if any, situations in life which do not have rules. Sometimes the rules are vague, others are very specific. But there are always rules, although a new inductee into the field may not be able to discern them. Business has its own set of rules. Some govern how we advertise our business [...]
As I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, I spend a significant amount of time on various Q & A sites, mostly on either LinkedIn, or on Answers on Startups. Recently, I’ve noticed a few questions come up where the answers all came down to a very simple point – what is the ideal [...]
I recently had my site added to Small Business on Alltop (scroll down to the bottom – I’m not the last site on the page, but close). This got me thinking about the concept of the site itself, and what it represents. First, for those of you who don’t already know, Alltop is essentially an [...]
Several months ago, I wrote an article The Customer is Always Right… Sometimes in which I discussed many of the reasons a business should be listening and obeying its customers, even when it seems to go contrary to what the business stands for. However, there are times when not only is it inappropriate to listen [...]
Elie Kochman is the author of Advice for Small Business Owners and the founder of Optimal Upgrade Consulting. Using his experience working in the corporate world along with his exposure to the world of small businesses, he writes these articles to assist others avoiding common pitfalls of growing a business. His experience in the corporate world, building his own business, and working directly with other growing businesses has given him some perspective on the trials and pains of running a business.
