Mistake Mondays

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Marvelous Mistake Monday: Complacency

The first Monday of the new year. Let’s kick it off right by kicking to the curb a marvelous mistake of 2010: complacency. In my five years of being a small business owner, I have been fortunate to have gained client after client almost solely on referrals and word-of-mouth. I’ve heard from many of you [...]

Mistake Mondays

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Mistake Monday: Forgetting To Do Pro Bono Work

For the first two years of my career as an entrepreneur, I made a conscious effort to remember to do one pro bono project a quarter. It could be something as small as designing a web ad for a non-profit or as time consuming as redesigning an outdated logo. Whatever it was, I did it [...]

Marvelous Mistake Monday: Entrepreneurs & "Real" Vacations

Mistake Mondays, Strategy

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Marvelous Mistake Monday: Entrepreneurs & "Real" Vacations

If you are a fellow entrepreneur, answer this: when was the last REAL vacation that you took? Now I know everyone’s definition of vacation is different, but in my mind a vacation is more than just a long weekend trip, it’s at least a week, preferably two. It is NOT a staycation. A vacation is [...]

Mistake Mondays

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Marvelous Mistake Monday: Not Setting Boundaries

My work is my life, my life is my work. When you’re a solo practitioner, and you run a family-focused business or two, it’s easy to blur the lines. I’m clear about separating the personal from the professional in business, yet when I first started out I made all of the rookie mistakes that created [...]

Mistake Mondays

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Marvelous Mistake Monday: Working Toward Someone Else's Dream of a Successful Business

{11.8.10} As business owners, it’s smart to seek advice. Informed counsel from neutral parties is critical to our success. We cannot do what we do alone; our success is indeed built by many hands other than our own. Yet I have seen it happen over and over the past year or two to myself and [...]

Mistake Mondays, social media

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Marvelous Mistake Monday: Thinking Your Blog Is Your Business

Repeat after me: my blog is not my business. That is, unless your blog truly is 100% your business, then know that this post is not for you. This Marvelous Mistake Monday is dedicated to all of the fellow business owners — the physicians, lawyers, accountants, virtual assistants, designers, writers, architects, photographers, life coaches, business [...]

Marvelous Mistake Monday: Attracting the Wrong Clients

Mistake Mondays

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Marvelous Mistake Monday: Attracting the Wrong Clients

It can be argued that there are no bad clients, only clients that are wrong for your business. When a small business is first getting off the ground, this can be a common mistake to make — you often take jobs because, well, you need them to pay bills and also to build your credibility, [...]

Mistake Mondays, politics, Strategy

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Messed Up Monday: End Employment Discrimination Now

I had a ridiculously terrible weekend, and I’m a wee bit cranky. The onslaught of poorly made political ads are only adding to my crankiness, so instead of sharing one of my personal business mistakes for Marvelous Mistake Monday, I’m doing a special edition Messed Up Monday about an issue that also makes me cranky: [...]

Mistake Mondays

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Marvelous Mistake Monday #2: Not Getting Paid

I’m pretty sure I have the words SUCKER imprinted on my forehead in special ink that only certain women can see. One of my biggest mistakes is that I let a lot of people into my life, my businesses, and I let people get away with a lot. Perhaps the biggest problem area this manifests [...]

Mistake Mondays

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Marvelous Mistake Monday #1: Enabling Vs. Supporting

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. When I’m feeling especially rah-rah Go-Fight-Win, I like to call them “opportunities” instead of “mistakes.” When I’m in the depths of despair and total humiliation, I prefer to call them f*ck-ups. Regardless of what you want to call them, they are, indeed, learning experiences. Since I [...]