We all want to leave a legacy that will live on without us. For those of us who are dyed-in-the-wool entrepreneurs, the focus (and our joy) is on creating a valuable business.

As a carpet cleaner you work hard, you play hard and you make good money, too! Life is good …for now. But deep down inside, are you worried about “growing old on the wand”?

It is the “good news/bad news” of the carpet-cleaning world. The good news? Most carpet cleaners make more money per hour than they ever dreamed possible.

We’ve all been there, fully engaged in what I call the “Triple B”:  the Big Boneheaded Blunder. Simply put, you or your employees have screwed up big time.

Good old Wikipedia defines a commodity as“a good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is fungible, i.e. the same no matter who produces it....

My mother was a woman before her time. As a young boy in the early 60s, I was continually mortified as she would ask store clerks everywhere, “Will this item be on sale any time soon?” “What if I buy two? Can you give me a better deal then?” “So, is this your best price?”

We might as well face up to it. Thanks to what the media has dubbed the Great Recession, Americans have become more frugal and “value conscious” than ever before.

Few would dispute the notion that America's economic success over the last 200-odd years has been due to the lone entrepreneur. So the United States has suffered a "fiscal hiccup" over the last few years; even so, we are still the financial success story of the world!

It seems like just yesterday when I first went into business for myself. The sheer joy and excitement of starting my very own company still overwhelms me with nostalgia.

Just what do you want out of life? This is a tougher question than you might think. Many people are content to fall into – and then stay in – what has been correctly called a “comfortable routine.”