Category: Customer Service

Few things get a business owner’s attention quite like a bad Google review. It is public. It can show up when someone searches for your business. And whether you think the criticism is fair or not, you do not get to control how other people interpret it. The natural reaction is often to figure out […]

Last week, a small business owner client told me that some of his participants in a service-based program reported frustration and disappointment in the end result. He was very careful to explain what this program can and cannot do for them - and he was sure they understood that his job was to position them to acquire a result, […]

It's been the ongoing assumption, a joke in part, that social media professionals spend their day 'playing on Facebook.'  But, we know the truth, especially social media managers. An average day as a social media manager is often mundane - and much less glamorous than it sounds.  The majority of our time is spent  executing  […]

I’ve been managing social media accounts for about two years now, and I’ve seen successes and failures.  As a classic overachiever, I will never give a client less than my best, so failure is difficult for me.  If social media isn’t working to a client’s liking, there are modifications that can be made, but the […]

I met a business friend for dinner while he was in town last week. He told me he soon plans to strike it out on his own and he asked for some pointers about starting a service-based business. He was most interested in learning about how to establish pricing his forthcoming consulting business. This takes […]

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in November 2013 and was updated in September 2026 to reflect what I’ve learned since then. When I first wrote about firing clients more than a decade ago, I approached the subject by identifying the kinds of clients who might need to go. There were clients who didn’t […]

I’m not one to often complain on social media. Chronic whiners tend to damage their own credibility and cause people to eventually tune them out. There are times, though, when I feel like it’s warranted. My litmus test for this: if I want to prevent a bad experience from happening to others. Such was the […]

You went into business for a fundamental reason – perhaps to be your own boss, to make more money, to have more flexibility, or maybe you felt you had no other option because of the economy. And, whether you realized it or not, you established your business on a set of core principals or beliefs […]

Having spent the last few years managing social media for various clients around the globe, I’ve been humbled by what my customers have taught me.  The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that there is a way to work with just about anybody, and it comes down to communication – both in managing expectations and delivering […]