You may want to laugh when you read what I’m going to suggest, but these things are exactly what you need to do, and they will help you build your business.

1) Take a deeper interest in your customers.

A much deeper interest.
Their success is required for your success.
The more you can help them the better.
And don’t call it “customer service,” it’s much too important to be considered that.
I’m talking about taking it several steps further…
Be their doctor, mechanic, and gofer…
How can you help; who can you call?

You may never know what results come from your action.
But if you do nothing, there will be no result.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

2) Get healthy

You’re no good to your business or to the world if you’re not.
Avoid any food product containing high fructose corn syrup.
That stuff will kill you.
(It turns off your stomach’s natural mechanism telling you that you are full.)
If you cannot see your feet…
Find an exercise that you enjoy and look forward to doing it like bicycling, tennis, kettlebells…
I highly recommend an active martial art
(one where you learn to stop the bad guy as well as defend yourself.)
To revise your eating strategy, I recommend Primal Nutrition.
Why be successful in business only to have a failed body?
Remember, if it doesn’t make you stronger, it will kill you.

3) Pay attention to your security

I’m not kidding. Invest the time to protect what you have,
your personal luxuries as well as your business assets necessary to earn more.
Cyber criminals are preying on small businesses because they know you
haven’t got the resources or think it’s important enough to defend against them.
We’re else can these guys go?
All the big corporations have bulletproof firewalls and teams of IT professionals to protect them.
What have you got?

4) Make crazy deals to stay busy,

keep money coming in and stay in business.
This is no time to be sitting around waiting for a better offer.
Not when you have inventory costing a fortune to keep and finance.
Move more merchandise and your suppliers will cut better deals
because you are the only one buying from them.
We all need help, all the help we can get these days – help us afford you now.

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached,
don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
~ Confucius, 551-479 BC, Philosopher

5) Hire people on a % basis

Many people are uncomfortable being paid on straight commission,
but it’s better than sitting around the house with no prospects.
Think about how you can hire people and pay them a percentage of the value they add?
You get something done, they’re motivated and you both profit!
This may be a prefect opportunity to hire people as independent contractors.

6) Take your level of respect up

First for yourself, then, for the many people around you
who may be on a short fuse due to life’s pressures.
Reread Marianne Williamson’s quote “Who are you not to be brilliant…”
Dig a bit deeper and reach a little higher in all of your encounters.
Release any negative energy, take a deep breath, and let it out.
Clean up your space – get rid of anything not used or not usable; make room for the new.
(2nd Law of Physics: Two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.)
Review: Desiderata

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you;
be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.
~ W. Clement Stone, 1902-2002, Businessman, Philanthropist & Author

7) Seek to be part of something bigger than yourself

How is your business contributing to a greater need in the world?
How could it be?
Aligning with a greater cause, even if it is one you invent,
will attract others like minded and like-hearted.
A higher purpose will also guide you and lift you in moments of doubt.
Choose a charity your company can support…develop “cause marketing”
to engage the charity in your mutually beneficial marketing efforts.

8) Recalibrate your integrity

What will you do and what won’t you do.
Simplify your life.
Make some new decisions about how you will respond to situations,
and take your time before responding to consider your options – at many levels.
What impact will your choices and actions have on yourself and others?
Are there some patterns in your life – it’s clear that you are the common denominator?
Seek a good therapist.
(You may be blown away at how many people you know are
exercising their minds like it was a weekly yoga class.)
Find out why you do what you do.

I’ve always believed that a lot of the troubles in the world would disappear
if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.
~ Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004, 40th President of the United States

9) Make a better product

Sure, slick marketing seems attractive,
but when word gets out about who makes what and
why one is better than the other…
if you’ve backed your product with your heart, mind, body and spirit…
when the smoke clears and the dust settles, there you’ll be.
On top and in demand.

10) Sort out your friends

Who is a friend and who is an acquaintance.
Who takes you seriously and is there for you?
Who would get you out of a 3rd world prison?
To whom would you loan money or invest in their business?
Think about how you identify true, real friends — by their actions, intention, desire…
You may need to let a few go to make room for new ones.

Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list
of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.
~ Robert Orben, magician and comedy writer

11) Clean up your accounting

This may seem like a rainy-day project, but now is a good time to get reacquainted with how/where your money is coming and going.
If/when you need to make a radical surgical procedure, you will cut the right thing(s) in the right place(s).
We’ve always heard how we learn from our mistakes, but it’s also good to learn from your successes and focus more on what works.