When does an entrepreneur’s innate optimism create expectation management challenges, and how do you mitigate those risks effectively?

The idea of interns is often the Holy Grail to small businesses. Bootstrapping entrepreneurs think of interns, and immediately think of all the ways they could use free labor to help get their business off the ground. Be careful, though. Internships come with rules that most entrepreneurs don’t understand — and even fewer comply with.

Are you prepared for what will happen to your business if your partner dies? What about if they divorce their spouse? In community property states, did you realize that your business partner’s divorce could mean that half of his share of your business could now be owned by his soon-to-be-ex? Are you ok with that?

Is the freelance economy cause for concern or celebration? Arguments can be made either way, but I think that, by and large, the freelance economy represents freedom, flexibly and opportunity in ways our former standard economic models never managed.

For some people entrepreneurship is a philosophy. For others, it’s the price we pay for an idea we are passionate about. But what’s the difference?

There are many potential perils of mixing business and family. For some families they are just par for the course, for others they are endless heartaches. One of the biggest problems can be in assuming that everyone could or should be compensated the same way — especially among siblings.

Customer service can be the silver bullet that distinguishes a small business from its competitors. What is good customer service versus bad customer service?

“If I build it, they will come” is a dangerous sales and marketing strategy that all too many entrepreneurs try to rely on to build a new business. What should an entrepreneur do to build a sales pipeline for their new venture?

What does it say about your business if you bans access to Facebook and Twitter? I think it says a lot about your culture — most of which isn’t good.

The single biggest struggles I encounter with entrepreneurs trying to build a business is marketing.  Some small business owners don’t think about it; some don’t understand it; some don’t like it; some cling to the belief that it simply shouldn’t be necessary, as long as their product is good enough.  One way or another, though, [...]