Most entrepreneurs start businesses because they love something. Maybe they love to make things, or love being the boss, or just love the idea of making money. Whatever the reason for starting a business, we can usually find love at the root.

There is a critical difference between growing your business and maintaining a stable business. Both are challenging and require work, but there are significant differences in how you approach marketing for each.

Check in with your business and establish whether it is at a critical growth transition point. What we know is that all entrepreneurial companies signal the need for transition with common symptoms. When we see them, we know it’s time to either change and grow or stay the same and flounder.

What are your business priorities? Many entrepreneurs say their priority is to grow, but when we look at their financial statements we see that most of the money and energy is actually going into just keeping the business afloat – paying for existing products and business overhead such as rent, salaries, etc. If you want to actually grow your business, then you need to put your money where your mouth is and invest in growth strategies.

As individuals, most of us spend 80% of our time working on our weaknesses. Most business owners do the exact same thing: they spend 80% of their time focusing on the weakest elements of their businesses.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how we can work smarter, not harder in business. If you want to do this successfully, then the first thing you need to do is take a long, hard look at three critical components of your business.

The national paradigm of how to succeed as an entrepreneur has turned on its head and is in the process of disappearing completely. It used to be that if you had a good idea and worked really, really hard, you could succeed in business. Not anymore.

PR offers some excellent opportunities for small businesses, but before you hire a PR firm you should consider these five things a small business owner should know about PR.

After the past two years, you have probably cut your expenses down to the bone, so I’m guessing that now you’re a lean, mean business machine. But now it’s time to pull your head up out of the bottom line and focus on top-line growth, which is the only way that you can truly grow your business. In my experience, most companies can easily increase their profitability by 50%-100% in as little as 6-12 months. That’s an amazing opportunity, but most companies squander it by failing to apply the following basic rules to driving top-line growth.

To grow your business, you must look in the mirror to determine how you are holding it back from success. Every single one of us can achieve greater business success if we can only learn to push beyond our personal limits and exceed our own expectations.