Small Business Owner

When you should absolutely not discount your proposal or quote

I got a call from a customer recently asking about whether to discount a proposal. The brief background: after some great initial conversations, the prospect had asked my customer to create a proposal for a mid-sized project. The initial discussion … Read More

What Small Business Owners Should Learn from Apple

Apple earns praise for churning out cool gadgets and generating mountains of cash. The company has also created a whole industry of pundits and authors trying to tell people what they should learn from Apple. As much as I don’t … Read More

How can I make clients respect my time?

We all get frustrated when other people don’t respect our time. Unfortunately, many small business owners and freelancers, people who are already short on time, find themselves in situations where their clients aren’t respecting their time. How many meetings, discussions, … Read More

The Real Election Lesson for Executives, and Why Most of Them Won’t Pay Attention

This morning, Americans of all political leanings can come together an rejoice that the presidential campaign is over. While pundits and policy wonks will discuss the campaign endlessly in the days, weeks, and months to come. They will talk about … Read More

What we do and what customers want

What you do versus what your customers want

Want to include in a post? Here’s the embed code: <br /> <img src=”http://mimiran.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/What-we-do-what-they-want-Venn-diagram.005.png” mce_src=”http://mimiran.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/What-we-do-what-they-want-Venn-diagram.005.png” width=”540″></p> <p>What you do versus what your customers want Venn diagram – An infographic by the team at <a href=”http://www.mimiran.com/small-business-owner/what-you-do-versus-what-your-customers-want/” mce_href=”http://www.mimiran.com/small-business-owner/what-you-do-versus-what-your-customers-want/”>What you do versus what … Read More

Premium Pricing Gives You Much More Freedom

3 Reasons to Improve the Way You Price Your Services

A lot of consultants, designers and other service providers ask me about pricing. They usually start by saying that larger competitors are charging $X, say $200/hr, so they feel they should be cheaper, say $125/hr. “Is this right?”, they ask. … Read More

small business owner selling

Small Business Owners Think They Suck at Sales, but They’re Wrong

Like many people who started a business based on their area of expertise, I had no idea how to actually run a business, especially when it came to sales. I heard that a “pipeline” was helpful. I heard you were … Read More

Can You “Have it All”? Of course not.

A recent cover story in The Atlantic called “Why Women Can’t Have It All” has generated a huge amount of buzz (see the debate at The Atlantic, on Slate, and on any Facebook wall with young, ambitious people who have … Read More

Easy up-selling and solution selling for small business sales

Sometimes, we are our own worst enemies. (In previous posts, I’ve discussed how we often start discounting before we even know if the buyer thinks we are too expensive.) Today, I want to talk about making sure your buyers know … Read More

2 Sentence Pricing Advice for Small Business Owners

1. Be better, not cheaper. If someone in your market doesn’t think you’re better, you’re a commodity and have no pricing power. If you’re small, you probably have less costing power than the your larger competitors. Commodity pricing + uncompetitive … Read More