From time to time, someone at our office will have something worth celebrating, and we'll do a happy hour at the end of the week. They'll buy the staff lunch, and we sit down for an hour and talk about the product. More
Some business owners who aren't particularly strong in financial management rely on their office staff and outside consultants to help them understand and analyze the data that could have significance for their company. Walt Mathieson, CPA, and president of Mathieson Consulting, Brookeville, Md., says, "If you find yourself getting continually frustrated because you're just not able to get the answers you're looking for from your existing office staff -- or you find yourself using costly outside consultants too often, a controller (aka comptroller) might be the answer." More
If a niche is something specific, Helmut's Remodeling, a Milwaukee general remodeling company that takes on a broad range of projects, has what you might call an anti-niche: "Our niche is to help whoever calls us," says Ken Connor, a football coach before he joined the company 20 years ago. "We want customers to look at that job and see it as better than they thought it was going to be," says Connor. More
For years we've been located in Phoenix, and from there we serve the entire metro area for jobs of every size. We set up the computer network system so that all processing was done at our Phoenix location. More
Dan Bawden, owner of Legal Eagle Contractors in Houston, wasn't surprised when his office manager quit the day the 1099s were due. As months passed without a new office manager, Bawden began spending less time with his normal sales and marketing duties and more time at the office "playing catch-up." Now that the administrative functions are under control, Bawden hopes to have a quarterly newsletter ready to go soon. More
