It’s Summer and the sun’s out. 

But the customers? Not so much. 

They're at the beach, sipping fruity drinks, and ghosting your business like a bad Tinder date. Meanwhile, you’re sweating through your spreadsheets, wondering if anyone still wants what you're selling as you inch closer to August.

Spoiler: they do. You just need to give ‘em a reason to care when they'd rather be day drinking on a boat. So, let’s fix that.

Here are 5 simple, summer-proof ways to boost revenue and keep your business hot…even if the foot traffic’s melting faster than your ice cream inventory.

1. Run Flash Sales (That Don’t Suck)

This isn’t about slapping “15% off” on your homepage and praying for PayPal pings. Your summer sale needs sizzle.

Here’s what works:

• Time-sensitive offers: “48-Hour Sizzler Sale” feels urgent. “Summer Sale Ongoing” feels like a clearance aisle at a sad mall.
  
• Theme it up: Tie your promo to events…think “Too Hot to Handle Sale” during a heatwave or “Independence from Bor...

Let’s be real for a second. You’re halfway through the year.

And you’ve either been crushing it, coasting… or clinging to dear life on the back of a flaming dumpster truck labeled “Q1 optimism.”

Wherever you land, now is NOT the time to play ostrich and bury your head in the sand. It’s time for a no-BS, take-your-financial-temperature moment: your mid-year financial check-in.

Whether you’re a scrappy solopreneur, a growing agency, or somewhere in between, this is your opportunity to stop, check under the hood, and make sure the wheels don’t fly off in Q3.

Let’s break this down like a tax-deductible expense…

1. Revisit Your Financial Goals: Still Realistic or Pure Delusion?

Remember those goals you set back in January? The ones that sounded hella inspiring while you were sipping champagne and lying to yourself about “work-life balance”?

Yeah. Those.

Pull 'em out.

Are you anywhere close? Did you overshoot? Undershoot? Completely forget they existed? Be honest.

Mid-year is th...

Figuring out the right prices can be a real headache for small businesses. Charge too much, and you'll scare away your customers. Charge too little, and you'll end up eating more instant noodles than a college dorm room during finals week. It's a make-or-break decision that can impact your profitability. To help you out, we've put together this blog post to help small business owners get a better handle on pricing strategies. Give it a read and see how it can benefit your bottom line.

Understanding Your Costs:

Before diving into pricing strategies, it's essential to understand your costs. Calculate the cost of goods sold (COGS) and consider overhead expenses. This includes production costs, labor, rent, utilities, and more. Knowing your costs provides a baseline for pricing that ensures you cover expenses.

Market Research:

Conduct thorough market research to understand your competitors and target audience. What are similar businesses charging for similar products or services? Wh...

If you're a small business owner, you know how important it is to stay ahead of the game. Thinking outside the box isn’t a one-and-done move, and you can't just rely on what's worked in the past or stick to the same old ideas. You've gotta keep evolving and finding new ways to stand out from the competition. Perpetual innovation, friends. If you’re not changing…you’re falling behind.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the importance of continuous innovation for small business owners and provide practical steps you can take to ensure you stay ahead of the competition.

The Dangers of Complacency

Not to be overly dramatic, but complacency is a silent assassin that gradually erodes a business's competitive edge. Complacent = stagnant =  failure to adapt to the evolving needs and preferences of customers and missing out on some serious growth opportunities. A lack of innovation leaves you vulnerable to emerging competitors who are eager to disrupt the market with fresh ideas and ...

Pivot: /ˈpivət/ /ˈpɪvət/ to turn or rotate like a hinge or a successful business owner.

During a recent episode of our Podcast, The Liquid Lunch Project, my partner Matthew Meehan and I addressed the need for a business to be agile and its ability to effectively Pivot when the needs arise.

This is the tale of one of the greatest Pivots of all time.

In 1967, five students from Charterhouse, a boarding school in Surrey, England formed a rock band that would go on to transform the style of rock. Imagine a graduating class including Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Steve Hackett! Incorporating innovative themes and nontraditional instruments, Genesis went on to becoming one of the most sold and highly decorated bands of all time.

From 1970 to 1975, Collins played drums and percussion for the Band. 

In August 1975, following The Lamb Dies Down on Broadway tour, Gabriel left Genesis. The band placed an advert for a replacement in Melody Maker and received ar...

A great article was written by our very own, Matthew Meehan (CEO, Shield Advisory Group) being featured in #Forbes today!

 Check it out and let us know your thoughts. 

Three Team-Building Tips For New Business Owners

The Truth (Ahem!) Behind the First Assembly Line

“If I Have Seen Further, it is by Standing Upon the Shoulders of Giants” Sir Isaac Newton

The notion of organized systems is ages old with brilliant examples across history.

Adam Smith discussed the division of labor in the manufacture of pins at length in his book The Wealth of Nations published in 1776, apparently a banner year for Americans.

The Venetian Arsenal, a complex of former shipyards and armories clustered together in the city of Venice, dating back to circa 1104, operated similar to a production line. Ships moved down a canal and were fitted by the various shops they passed. At the peak of its efficiency in the early 16th century, the Arsenal employed some 16,000 people producing one ship each day, and could fit out, arm, and provision a newly built galley with standardized parts on an assembly-line basis. Although the Arsenal lasted until the early Industrial Revo...

Spanish Proverb

People have a huge impact on your life. “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” says American entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn.

You should think about the people you are associating with the same way you think about what you eat and how you’re exercising. Here are a few examples on just how poignant this one reality can be.

The “PayPal Mafia” is a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and developed additional successful technology companies such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer. Most of these so-called members attended Stanford University or University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at some point in their studies.

Why do we denigrate a smoothly run southern Mediterranean conglomerate with tight hierarchical structures by associating it with some slick tech startups? The PayPal Mafia is sometimes credited with inspiring t...

Sunk Cost Fallacy Theory and Knowing When to Leave the Casino.

Anyone miss the blackened fingers from reading your daily newspaper to get your news in the morning?

Any urbanites out there reminiscing about folding the paper into columns so you could read the newspaper while strap hanging on a roller-coaster-like subway ride?

When did we stop getting our daily dose of news from tree pulp?

Excite was launched in 1995, think of it as another Yahoo. A person could get news, weather, a search engine, email address, instant messaging, stock quotes and a customizable user homepage. Excite was the 4th most visited website in the world. Excite even negotiated a deal with AOL, where AOL agreed to make Excite its exclusive search and directory service. DOJ Antitrust Unit is still preparing the briefs on that one. If you remember AOL and how big it was at the time, this deal was a massive win for Excite. In ’99 Excite was acquired by @Home network. This merger of two internet tech companies wa...