The following is what I found based on my personal experience in my local city, Pensacola, Fla. Just so you know, I never dismiss any option without first reviewing my goals crunching the numbers and deciding what's best for my company.

Mystery shopping is a powerful, positive tool. It can help business owners address customer service challenges, improve training programs and ensure the team is paying attention.

As a small shop owner, do you have any idea how your technician is behaving, home alone with Mrs. Fernwicky?

Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind when posed with that question, is, where is there? Most business owners are so immersed in the day to day operations of their business that they really don’t know where they are going. Could that be true of you?

Let’s imagine for a moment what 2010 will bring. Hopefully you’ve set aside some time in the next couple weeks to create an advertising plan for the coming year. To create the plan, you surely need to consider trends in media.

Whether last year was a boom, bust or merely average, now is a great time to dedicate yourself to a fantastic new year. Believe it or not, our industry has not been affected by the downturn as much as many other businesses. Have you talked to any builders, carpet retailers, car salesmen or Realtors lately? 

You should take a day off. Not even think about business. It will be so good for you! A mental health day: no work, all pleasure. A day for family and spiritual renewal. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?

There's one rule you should never break, or it might well kill your advertising budget. It's no wonder so much advertising ends up as wasted dollars. Like Michael Gerber says, small business owners are so busy being busy, they don't take time to plan.

There is no better sound in the office than hearing that beautiful phone ring. However, there is no more horrific silence than the lack of that noise for a long period of time. So let’s look at ways to make sure that your phone makes that wonderful sound.

Here’s how you can plan the most profitable advertising for your cleaning business.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Well, it’s not really a secret. Chances are, you’ve already heard about this but didn’t quite understand what it really meant because it wasn’t broken down into the proper terms.

It’s 8:15 am. Your experienced, professional, sales oriented, customer service focused, technically masterful cleaning pros are still at the shop. Ready to go…with nowhere to go.

Now what?