Business - General

The 80/20 rule pops up all the time. And for good reason. It works. If you really take the time to analyze your customer or client base, you will find that 20% of your customers or clients are generating 80% of your revenues.

And the other 80% are costing you way more than they are worth in time, trouble and expenses.

So what’s the solution?

You need to really dig into that 20% and find out why they keep coming back to you. Because they are the answer to growing your business with only low cost, high return, premium clients or customers.

Intuit Sucks. in case you missed that first part, let me repeat it. Intuit Sucks. Allow me to explain.

I bought 2008 QuickBooks Pro and installed it. It opens fine, it does what it’s supposed to do. And then I click on the “close” button and it just sits there on my screen. It refuses to close.

So I have to open up my Task Manager, find the QuickBooks .exe file, and shut it down.

Now, I know a bit about computers. I know that the problem is probably a conflict of some sort with a driver on my computer. It’s probably not Intuit’s fault.

Trusting small business over big business shouldn’t be a stretch for anyone. There are a number of good reasons:

1. Resposibility - when you deal with a small business, there’s nowhere for them to hide. In most occasions, you either are dealing with the owner or are only one person away from the owner. The buck stops there.

With big business, you are often many layers of people and management away from the owner if there even is an owner. We’ve seen plenty of examples in the media of large corporations committing all kinds of unethical acts and the government has spent billions just trying to figure out who to blame.

Common sense in the workplace is not something I usually write about but in this case, I think it’s fitting. Besides, I was thinking about my favorite pens and this common sense story came to mind.

I use these fabulous pens from Uni-Ball called the Power Tank RT. I use them exclusively. I hate gel pens because they smear too easily.

Not only do these pens not smear, but they always write. Always. No matter if you’re writing upside down, right side up or somewhere in between.