There’s a saying that is often heard whenever business is discussed: “It’s all in the details.” (Read More…)

Reading A.J.’s post last week about how hot it is where he lives hit me as a bit ironic. The East Coast is having the hottest year on record and there they are complaining about heat in the 90s. I’m laughing because living in the Central Valley of California, we think of any temperature that can be expressed using only two digits as “barely warm.” (Read More…)

Is it just me or are auction sites (one in particular) designed by devious minds with unquestionable Machiavellian leanings? (Read More…)

It used to be that word of mouth was just that. One person talking to another. And in most cases the people knew each other. They were friends or neighbors or relatives who had some sense of who the person they were taking advice from was. (Read More…)

It has been said many times that the best form of advertising is word of mouth. We all know what that is. You do a job for one person and then they tell their friends about you and the friends hire you to do their job too. (Read More…)

Reading A.J.’s post about tact got me thinking about the whole subject. I’ve never been a candidate for any awards in this department. Whenever I have been asked for my opinion, I have always tried to offer it honestly. I know there have been times when what I had to say was not what the other person wanted to hear. And I know that, sometimes. I was not really being asked for my opinion but rather for praise. (Read More…)

In the past couple of months I have had occasion to order a number of items from various online vendors. Most of these arrived at my doorstep without any delays of other hitches. But two of them got hung up. (Read More…)

My post about Homer got a lot of response, most of it focusing on the “ColossalMarts” and their detrimental effect on smaller local businesses, which was, I guess, the point I was making. But there are a lot of other disadvantages to the invasion of “ColossalMart.” (Read More…)

This from a recent article in the L.A. Times: “In every recession over the last three decades, it has been America’s small businesses – those Lilliputian companies with fewer than 100 employees – that stepped forward, began hiring and pulled the country out of the mire. Not this time. (Read More…)

I have a way for you to become one. Yes, I can hear you thinking, but if it’s so easy, why not do it yourself? That’s the rub. I didn’t say it would be easy. (Read More…)