Problem: You lock yourself and your company up and try to hide every flaw / problem you might have. Your clients notice that and aren’t happy about it. You’re not happy because your clients aren’t happy and your business has to suffer.

Solution: Be transparent and honest. Tell them your problems, shortcomings and frustrations (regarding the client’s project… of course, not your family problems ).

Why would you do this? Well … there are tons of reasons, but here’s a few:

1. It makes them trust you
By telling them that you’re not gonna meet the deadline, that you don’t have enough resources, bla bla yada yada you’re gonna make them trust you.

Now, how does that help? Simple: they’ll rely on you in the future because of your honesty. In 90% of the cases they’ll understand (after all, we’re all people…) your problems / shortcomings (but… make sure the reason why you didn’t meet the deadline isn’t ’cause you really had to take that trip to Hawaii)

2. You’ll become friends
All great relationships are based on trust. Really. Take our word for it.

And why do you want them to trust and be friends to you? Because you never have enough friends. Because friends always help you when you’re in trouble. Because humans need to communicate, relate and network. Yup, dude! You’ll become friends with your clients. How cool is that, ha?

3. Last but not least, because business is all about networking, dude!
When you do business, you don’t do it with other businesses. You do it with other people that have businesses. And the more people you know, the more business you’ll make. Really!

So, be transparent! Be honest! Be proactive and try to help your clients as much as you can. They’ll do the same for you!

Problem: You’re in a market where the big guys make the rules. In order to survive, you think that the best thing you could do is stay in your row and do your thing. Well, to make a long story short: it’s not going to work.

So, what can you do? Simple: start picking on the big guys. Here’s why:

1. If you don’t, they will
Yup, sooner or later you’ll find yourself kicked out by a product / feature / service improvement they offer. Or, they’ll spend their millions with a marketing strategy that will leave you in the dark. Or, or, or…

So the best thing you could do: Pick on them. Build a better product. You’re in with McDonald’s? Make a better hamburger. Or give two for the price of one. And so on.

2. ‘Cause you’re agile, they’re not
Big companies suck because in order to get things done, they spend half a year on meetings, memos, meetings about memos and so on. You’re small. You can adapt better to the market. And you have one thing that they (really) don’t (although they try to act like they do). For you, it’s easy to have a close relationship with your clients.

3. If you don’t, you’ll feel intimidated by them
Yup, if you don’t start picking on them today, you’re always gonna be intimidated. You’re always gonna be afraid that they’ll come up with a better product / service than you (eg. make better hamburgers, etc).

Why won’t you be intimidated if you pick on them? Simple. It’ll become a game. You do something better, they do something better. You make better hamburgers, they try to do the same. So pick on them! It’s a game!

4. It helps you grow
By picking on them, you constantly need to improve your kick-ass business, to grow / strengthen your product line, or… well, sell more hambugers.

5. It’s fun
Yup, believe it or not, it’s gonna be fun. It’ll help you stress out, relax, drink a lot of caffeine, eat junk food (or hamburgers ), and well… have a really active kick-ass business!

Problem: It’s Saturday evening and you’re in the freaking office, working on the super-freaking-important project that needs to be done by Monday.

Why is this a problem? Well, nothing big, it’s just that you’re gonna die young, dude! And if you ain’t gonna die, well… you’re gonna get crazy anyway.

Solution: Take your intelligent butt off that chair and go have some fun. See a movie. Have a walk in the park. Play some soccer (or whatever it is you’re good at). Relax, it’s not gonna be the end of the world.

Questions you might have:

1. Everybody’s depending on me!
Really? Then… where is everybody? How come only you are working this weekend? Have a break, dude. Unless you have a brain surgery to operate (or some other critical mambo-jumbo), just take a break…

2. I’ve worked all week. Why should I stop?
Well, you just said the answer. Because you worked all week. Hey, God created the world in 6 days and rested in the 7th, did you know that? Are you God? No? Thought so. Go have some fun.

3. What if I love working this weekend?
Well, if you love it dude, by all means, work this weekend! Just make sure you don’t make this a routine. Once you get on the wrong path, well, you’re gonna die. Or at least get crazy .

Conclusion: Life should be fun, so make it that way.