Two months after launching Brand Thunder, Patrick Murphy sensed that sales were sluggish because he was charging too high a fee for his sole product, a customized Web browser. So he temporarily slashed the price by more than 75% and gave the product new, income-generating features, including ads and a search tool, by forming partnerships […]
Tag Archives: wsj.com
Why So Many People Can’t Make Decisions
Some people meet, fall in love and get married right away. Others can spend hours in the sock aisle at the department store, weighing the pros and cons of buying a pair of wool argyles instead of cotton striped. Seeing the world as black and white, in which choices seem clear, or shades of gray […]
10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make
When it comes to starting a successful business, there’s no surefire playbook that contains the winning game plan. On the other hand, there are about as many mistakes to be made as there are entrepreneurs to make them. Recently, after a work-out at the gym with my trainer—an attractive young woman who’s also a dancer/actor—she […]
The Gift of Gab: Speaking can be a lucrative path to more business
Give a speech. Win a client. As simple—or even scary—as that formula sounds, a host of entrepreneurs have found that conquering public speaking can be the route to more contacts and customers. Impressing people with your expertise at a conference, in a classroom or over the radio can sometimes win more business than making sales […]
Résumé Overload? A Shortcut to Spot Best Hires
If there’s one thing we small-business owners need it’s more time in our days. If you’re like me, you’re constantly on the hunt for the secrets to doing something faster, better or cheaper. Hiring employees is no exception. Finding the right people is never easy, but in today’s turbulent economy, job seekers are responding to […]
Getting in the Slow, And Stress Free, Lane
If job stress is wearing you down and you want more leisure time, but you can’t—or don’t want to—quit altogether, it can be easy to feel stuck. But there’s an alternative to consider: a voluntary demotion. Plenty of professionals dream of scaling back on their workload or ceding management responsibility, here’s how to do it: […]
Summer Calls, But Getting Away Is Tricky
The official start of summer may be just days away, but for many small-business owners, relaxing at a beach resort, touring a foreign city or camping in a remote forest is still tough to picture – at least not without a cell phone, laptop or other communication device by their side. More than half—55%—of 750 […]
So Many Links, So Little Time
While toiling over what you are now reading, I scanned my three email accounts dozens of times and wrote a handful of emails; I responded on my cellphone to a score of text messages from my girlfriend and kids; I checked the balance of my bank account to see if a promised payment had arrived […]
‘The Cat Hid My Car Keys’ – Excuses Workers Make
Last year, an account executive dozed off during a training session at Strategis LLC, a small marketing-communications company in Stoughton, Mass. Co-owner George Irish says the employee explained the bizarre incident by claiming to suffer from narcolepsy. “What he had was a case of partying too hard the night before,” says Mr. Irish, noting that […]
