“There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” – Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” – Samuel Johnson, English writer in 1700s Building your dream

“Pull up a chair. Take a Taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.” – Ruth Reichl, American chef, food writer and editor at the LA Times and NY Times. Think about the last time you tried a completely new-to-you food. I’m betting you started with a bite. Why a bite? Likely because you

“Perhaps the reason price is all your customers care about is because you haven’t given them anything else to care about.”  – Seth Godin “Pricing is actually a pretty simple and straight forward thing. Customers will not pay literally a penny more than the true value of the product.”  – Ron Johnson, the former chief executive officer

"Life is beautiful not because of the things we see or do. Life is beautiful because of the people we meet." —Simon Sinek "Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't." —Bill Nye All of the successful refinement of your product/service offering, all of your marketing effectiveness – copywriting, offers, website, SEO, everything –

“Respect is how to treat everyone.” —Richard Branson “Men are respectable only as they respect.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Of course, you respect your customers. That’s a hallmark of business success. I’d like to suggest an additional way to think about respect in building relationships with your customers. Giving respect requires having respect for oneself. And

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." —Albert Einstein "Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust." —Zig Ziglar All relationships are built on trust. The level of trust depends on what’s at risk in the relationship: a cup

"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them." —Khalil Gibran Sometimes serving our customers feels more like a drain than the satisfaction we’d rather have. We might be able to turn that around… read on for some ideas on that. We all fall into the trap of taking customers as they come.

"Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor." —Hesiod Sales and marketing efforts are more effective if they follow a particular sequence to build trust and relationships that lead to purchases. Why? Humans form relationships in a well-defined sequence of behaviors, as studied and documented by Desmond Morris. One