In this article, my friend and mentor, Les Deck shares the one activity that will give you more return on your time investment than any other activity you can do…and I’ve convinced him to share his simple, but highly effective worksheet to help you achieve more this year…

As a kid, my friends and I used to play in the woods at the end of the block. We’d set up a fort and put out trip wire’s tied to tin cans to alert us when anyone came along the trail to the fort. Today, I use “trip wire marketing” to alert me when prospects take action so I can move them closer to the sale. In this article I explain how you can improve your sales by installing some “trip wire marketing” in your small business.

Research shows that businesses that market through a recession see greater growth in the recovery than those who pull back. In this article I share why this recession makes it even easier for small businesses to market aggressively against even the biggest competitors.

Over at Remarkable Communications, Sonia Simone has a thread going on why marketing is so hard. It’s worth a read. There was a time in my business life when I found marketing to be the biggest mystery I faced. And as I work with clients 1-on-1 I’m finding that it’s a mystery to them too. Even, clients who I consider experienced marketers are finding it hard.

But it doesn’t have to be hard.

Is your customer list spread all over the office? In this article I share our method for organizing our customer list, our preferred tool and why we chose it.

If you’re a regular reader of this site you’ve noticed some changes. With the beginning of the new year I’m undertaking a new project titled “1000 Small Businesses.”

The goal of the project is to impact 1000 small businesses by the end of 2010 through the resources, articles and ideas shared on this site. It’s been said by politicians and economists that small businesses are the key to our economy. I know this first hand.

I’ve experienced the highs and lows of small business for the last 15 years. I’ll continue to share what I’ve learned about what works…and what doesn’t. I’ll also be enlisting friends and experts to share their knowledge and experience.

To make it free and easy for anyone to use and share the information published here, it’s now licensed through Creative Commons. Feel free to share any of the articles on the site. All I ask is that you give credit to the author and 1000smallbusinesses.com and don’t sell it.

I won’t reach this goal alone. I need your help to spread the word to the business owners you know who would appreciate what we share here. There are two ways you can spread the word.

1. Send them a link to 1000smallbusinesses.com and tell them to come over.
2. Sign up for our e-Letter (see the form on the right). We’ll send you the latest articles from the site each week, and you can simply forward it on.

Here’s to a profitable 2010!

Hey, who's working for who here? Do you feel like your employees are running the show...I share 3 things to do to right your ship.

One of the secrets I've found to setting and reaching goals is clarity...in this article I share 2 questions I learned from Bill Liccione to make it easy to get just enough clarity, quickly.

Want to grow your business in 2010 and need some inspiration? In this short video I share an inexpensive and easy to implement small business marketing plan for 2010.

If your website is like many of the ones I visit on a regular basis, it needs an update.  Just today I was on a website that had so many different directions I got a headache reading it.  Far too often as entrepreneurs we try to cover EVERY possible target customer, but end up with no focus and no customers (I know because 5 years ago that was me).