Want to keep your customers from running away to your competition? Here are twelve things you never say to them.

photo credit: seanrnicholson

1. Don’t worry…we forgot your name too.
2. If we throw a stick, will you leave?
3. You don’t belong here. You’re just a customer.
4. Awww. Did we step on your poor little bitty ego?
5. Can we trade you in for what’s behind door #1?
6. How about never? Is never good for you?
7. We’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
8. It sounds like English, but we can’t understand a word you’re saying.
9. We’re already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth
10. We’re not being rude. You’re just insignificant.
11. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
12. You are validating our inherent mistrust of customers.

Ever feel like telling a complaining customer to go to hell. Sometimes you are better off letting a customer go rather than trying to please him/her. Here are fifteen choice statements to use to persuade him/her to leave and never return.

photo credit: HikingArtist.com

1. Don’t worry…we forgot your name too.
2. If we throw a stick, will you leave?
3. Oh, okay! We take it back. Unscrew you.
4. Awww. Did we step on your poor little bitty ego?
5. We can see your point, but we still think you’re full of shit.
6. How about never? Is never good for you?
7. We’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
8. It sounds like English, but we can’t understand a damn word you’re saying.
9. We’re already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth
10. We’re not being rude. You’re just insignificant.
11. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
12. Can we trade you in for what’s behind door #1?
13. You look like shit. Is that the style now?
14. You don’t belong here. You’re just a customer.
15. You are validating my inherent mistrust of customers.

The political season is once again upon us and we need to be ready for those who insist on representing us in congress. Here are fifty things you should be ready to say to your budding congress person.
1. Can we trade you for what’s behind door #1?
2. If we throw a stick, will you leave?

photo credit: olgaberrios

3. You need to be faster than a herd of turtles stampeding through cottage cheese.
4. It may be that your single purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.
5. Tell them you have PMS and a gun. They won’t question you?
6. Your office will be the insane asylum for the universe.
7. Your office will just be a padded cell.
8. Congress has too many freaks, and not enough circuses.
9. Yours isn’t an office. It’s Hell with fluorescent lighting.
10. Oh, okay! We take it back. Unscrew you.
11. Learn to practice random acts of intelligence and senseless acts of self-control.
12. Don’t worry…I forgot your name too.
13. You look like shit. Is that the style now?
14. Awww. Did I step on your poor little bitty ego?
15. I can see your point, but I still think you’re full of shit.
16. I don’t know what your solution is, but I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.
17. How about never? Is never good for you?
18. I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
19. We’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
20. You don’t work here. You’re a politician.
21. It sounds like English, but I can’t understand a damn word you’re saying.
22. Ahhh…I see the screw-up fairy is visiting us again.
23. Your day will not be complete until you have terrified a total stranger.
24. We know you love deadlines – especially the whooshing sound they make as they go by.
25. I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.
26. You are validating my inherent mistrust of politicians.
27. You have plenty of talent and vision. You just need to give a damn.
28. I’m already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
29. We will always cherish the initial misconceptions we had about you.
30. Thank you. We’re all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
31. The fact that we don’t understand you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.
32. Any connection between your reality and ours is purely coincidental.
33. What are your constituents? Flypaper for freaks!?
34. We’re not being rude. You’re just insignificant.
35. It’s a thankless job, but you’ve got a lot of Karma to burn off.
36. And your crybaby whiny-assed opinion would be….?
37. You don’t look like a people person?
38. You started out with nothing upstairs and you still have most of it left.
39. Sarcasm is just one more service you can offer.
40. Yes, in fact YOU ARE an agent of Satan. Thank God your duties are largely ceremonial.
41. So you’re a feminist…isn’t that cute.
42. Don’t worry about errors you’ll make. Others will be blamed.
43. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
44. I’m trying to imagine you with a personality.
45. We’ll tell you what we need, and you’ll tell us how to get along without it.
46. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
47. Chaos, panic, & disorder – your work here is done.
48. I thought you wanted a career; turns out you just wanted a pension.
49. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?
50. Oh I get it…like humor…but different.

It is more difficult than ever before for small business owners to obtain the business financing needed in order to start or expand their business. Capital is an essential part of any business and keeping the cash flow positive is a must to ensure ongoing success. Many small business owners no longer meet the increasingly arduous requirements of traditional business loans, and they need to turn to alternatives to secure the necessary funds.

photo credit: 401K

It is more difficult than ever before for small business owners to obtain the business financing needed in order to start or expand their business. Capital is an essential part of any business and keeping the cash flow positive is a must to ensure ongoing success. Many small business owners no longer meet the increasingly arduous requirements of traditional business loans, and they need to turn to alternatives to secure the necessary funds.

Merchant cash advances are attractive to small business owners for many reasons. Merchant cash advances are based off of future credit or debit card sales with a percentage deducted from each sale as repayment for the loan. This makes them viable options for small businesses that are already established, new small businesses and those with little or poor credit. Also, there is no long-drawn out approval process which makes it a better option for emergency financial situations.

Unlike merchant cash advances business financing, bank loans have very strict requisites for approval and an intense and long approval process. By the time you do get approved, if you get approved, your company could be on the brink of bankruptcy. Once you are in a financial hole, it is more difficult to get back into the black. The expediency of merchant cash advances can save you from this threat and provide the cash needed in a prompt fashion.

Applying for a merchant cash advance is easy and most lending institutes require no collateral and no personal financial guarantees. Your credit history will not be taken into account and your financial history is only used to project future credit card sales. The length you have to repay the cash advance is based on the average amount of credit or debit card transactions expected and the percentage of each transaction taken. The payment terms are flexible and there is no fixed monthly interest rate. Many merchant cash advances have no predetermined set amount of time that it must be repaid as well.

This all adds up to offer an excellent tool for business financing for the small business. There is less stress involved, no large monthly payment to worry about achieving and no time frame to worry about. Upon the approval of a merchant cash advance loan, terms including the percentage rate of each transaction will be settled. The more credit or debit card sales your company does, the faster the loan will be repaid. A higher rate of credit card transactions will qualify the small business owner for a higher amount of cash advance.

Smart and savvy business financing is an essential part of owning a small business. Merchant cash advances are an attractive tool to gain the capital needed for your small business.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an arm of the US Department of Commerce, published a NIST Definition of Cloud Computing.

photo credit: Miran Rijavec

The NIST definition of cloud computing can be broken down into 3 facets: the essential characteristics, the service models and the deployment models.

Essential characteristics:
• On-demand service
• Broad network access
• Pooling of resource
• Elasticity
• Measured service

Service models
• Software as a service (SaaS)
• Platform as a service (PaaS)
• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

Deployment models
• Private cloud
• Community cloud
• Public cloud
• Hybrid cloud

The NIST definition does not include a pricing model for cloud computing services since this has nothing to do with the nature of the service. The pricing model may be subscription pricing, a perpetual license, or some other form of pricing.

I enjoy watching people and how they interact with each other. Yesterday, while eating breakfast at one of the upscale neighborhood eateries, I kept tabs on a family a few tables away from me. A thirty-something mother, a slightly older thirty-something father and a teenager about 13 pushing 21.

They each had a smart phone and were very intent on interacting each with his/her device. They seemed to be conversing albeit not directly but rather via their devices. This continued for the entire meal. People eating at the same table and communicating via their devices while enjoying a meal.

photo credit: iandeth

It made me stop and think of how our communication habits have changed with time and technology. There are no longer direct person-to-person conversations but rather conversations via technology devices. We no longer look directly at each other and if by chance you make eye contact with a stranger, it is as if you are encroaching on their personal space and this is simply because you are making them uncomfortable since they are no longer capable of this kind of direct contact. Try it and you will most likely be accused of staring at someone. If you sit in a bar and make eye contact with people they become uncomfortable. Direct interaction is no longer something we look forward to but rather encroachment into our private space.

Fifty years ago, before the technology devices descended upon us, we had no option but to communicate directly and this is the way we sated our innate desire to be gregarious. Today, even children communicate with parents via devices in this new language of ‘texting’. The satisfaction is coming from interacting with the device and not with another human being.

Makes me wonder how soon the day will come when humans will make love via our devices. It is just a matter of time before a male will deposit sperm in his device and the female will collect sperm via her device. Don’t laugh…this will no longer be called artificial insemination but how we in future make sexual contact with each other. Makes me so glad I’m on the down side of that slippery slope.

Every small business should try to understand and document the impact of each of these disasters on the business and put into place a set of procedures to respond in case this happens.

1. Arson
2. Civil disorder and riots
3. Terrorism
4. Building structural failure or collapse
5. Power outage
6. Water or gas stoppage
7. Data or network sabotage
8. Email stops working for a prolonged period.
9. Order entry system goes down
10. Hardware, software and system malfunctions
11. Identity theft
12. Bank account compromised
13. Unauthorized access to data by insiders (employees)
14. Unauthorized system penetration by outsiders (hackers)
15. Theft of hardware (computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc)
16 Virus or denial of service attacks
17. Software piracy
18. E- Commerce site crashes
19. Telephone communication goes down
20. Customer information is stolen or compromised

If you can think of others, please list them in the comments section below.

I follow Ari Herzog and have much respect for what he writes. Nevertheless, a statement he made in his post of today just doesn’t sit well with me Why There is No Social Media Scorecard

photo credit: araza123

Here is the statement that set me off: “We all — people and organizations — do what we do because of rationales specific to ourselves”. This is a very personalized approach to running a business And therein lies the problem.

If businesses and organizations do what they do because of rationales specific to their customers, there would be more success in business. We are too tied up in ourselves as businesses and we are too tuned in to the station WIIFM (me) and not to the station that matters WIIFC (customers).

When the challenges of growing your business are simply too much for you to handle and you have weak spots that could hurt your chances to succeed, then this 4 step process is exactly what you need.

photo credit: fazen

1. Evaluate your current business conditions and gain clarity about where you want the business to be in three to five years.

2. Analyze your customer base to find your best customers and develop a marketing message for them.

3. Understand and monitor your business revenue, cost of sales and expenses by analyzing profit and loss reports.

4. Determine your personal strengths and weakness as the manager of your business.

If you are thinking of starting up a new business, here are ten crucial steps that should be taken in this order to assure a successful launch,

1. Determine your Target Market and its size
2. Run the numbers to test financial viability
3. Get a name and register the domain name
4. Register the business entity with the State
5. Write a business plan and cover all business issues
6. Select a site for the business & negotiate a lease
7. Calculate start-up capital needed and go get a loan
9. Calculate revenue needed to be profitable
9. Shore up your skills with a board of advisers
10,Put a launch plan together and go for it