Small Business Consulting

Help Google to send customers who are searching "[your product/services] near me ". This article if for brick and mortar businesses that have not claimed their business on Google Maps yet. It's free and will only cost you some spare time. Have you wondered why so few people come to your business after a search on Google?  Stop blaming your webmaster, the website he created for you isn't the one to blame. There is a feature setup by Google called Google My Business  that is free and will help you to gain customers that are using Google, which mean practically everyone. The time of the Yellow pages is over. Get over it !  The Yellow pages are now extinct because no one is using them anymore, they use google on the go.  Why?  Because it's free, convenient and far easier : everyone has google on their phones and it can instantaneously give you what you ask, with the location and an itinerary to get to it.  The explosion of Near Me searches. Google is not only a...

Most of the weekends I spend some times wandering in the street of the little town I can now call "home". As many well advised citizen, I'm a member of several Social Medias groups build around this town. The topics that are discussed are very broad, from local event to dog poop inadvertently abandoned on the pavement by a pet owner (how dare him?!). At my deepest regret, I barely see any local business owner taking part to conversations in such groups. That's like they live in another dimension and have no clue of where are the local influencers water holes. That's well known to any hunter: the best way to catch good game, it's to hide near their natural drinking places and wait for them to show up, which usually happen at least once a day. Same is valid for members of the public you try to catch and convert into customers. So during my weekends discussion, I kinda like to tease business owners about their social media use. That's are my conclu...

That's a question I've heard a lot in the past and I believe many of you would too. What is the secret of a successful business ? First of all, I'm surprised that people think there is some sort of a secret ingredient that would make a business successful and that is you're missing this very unique ingredient, you're business will fail. That would give business losers a good excuse other than themselves to justify their tremendous failure: "I haven't uncovered the secret of successful business yet". So well, it's not your fault, let's moving on: keep searching. That's a typical reaction of someone who hasn't really understand what a business really is. For those kind of people, a business is something that will bring fortune to his owner if he master the secret ingredient and a good dose of luck.  I am always bemused to notice how many people identify the reason of success of certain businesses: it's either luck or ha...

My Grandfather was famous for being able to draw plans and projects for all of us at various stages of our life, but Grand-Ma was nearby to calm things down with her legendary: "One day at a time, Henry !" When we build up projects in our life and become enthusiastic about it - would it be the next holidays, buying a new home or setting up a business- we have this incredible tendency to not focus on what is essential. We take the good points and dream about it. That's a good feeling I would admit, I do that everyday. Envisioning what your life would be in a near future is good. That helps you to get the necessary motivation to put things on the move and accomplish what you dream. Self development books are full of quotes about dreams. Dreaming is a way of travelling in the future at no cost... but not at no risks. Keep you head in the sky but your heels dug in the ground. Echoing yesterday's post about  the importance of planning , this post is about the i...

Your journey to success begins by learning how to plan. I can't emphasise enough on the importance of planning in our everyday life. Some people sent their entire life wondering why some people are more successful than others and my explanation is quite simple: successful people do plan. Failure is something natural and should not scare people. In order to mitigate risks of failure, one technique that will never disappoint is planning. Plan for everything and you'll live a better life. Planning is a proven process to improve things, however it's not taught at schools and we are not doing it naturally on the most efficient way. The benefits of planning in your everyday life will soon offset the hassle of doing it. Process of planning is quite easy: 1. Resources Valuation. Before acting, stop and think. Deconstruct the task, job, project into several steps. Then evaluate the resources that would be needed to accomplish each step. Available resources are: ti...