Although my blogging style is frequently conceptual and (hopefully) practical, from time to time I like to report on business success stories from which business owners an draw out lessons to incorporate into their businesses. So when I read about Digg as a success story, I was eager to post it here.

During the big, bold, golden years of the internet – when the economy was in full bloom – tech start-ups adopted the "get big fast" model in which they'd ramp up production and audience share as quickly as possible (without regard to cash flow or profitability) with the hopes of being bought out by a larger player. It's not a bad model… if you get bought out, of course. But in 2009, the recession gave a shake to lots of businesses that were hoping for this to happen.

Digg was one of them. Digg is the hot social bookmarking site that allows users to find, promote, vote, and comment on news and links. Digg CEO Jay Adelson had about 70 employees and was looking to "get big fast" and reach 150 employees… until the recession hit. That's when he needed to revise his ideas of success.

You can read the full article at Money.CNN.com but here's the short story: Adelson realized that he can still do great things with fewer than 100 employees. In other words, "get big fast" is no longer in his business plan. Instead, Digg is focusing on sustainable success for the long haul.

That's smart for your business, too.

It can be tempting for entrepreneurs to see dollar signs from the promise of massive success and they may make unwise sacrifices to get big fast in the hopes of achieving that success. (How many among us haven't heard a colleague talk about their hopes of slapping an ebook online and retiring in 3 months?)

Good business growth over the long term requires wise, sustainable decisions now. But it doesn't always happen. That's because sustainable business growth can be hard work with entrepreneurs forced to learn about metrics and financial statements and bookkeeping – none of which seem very exciting when you have dreams of retiring on a Caribbean beach. We see this kind of unsustainable short-term thinking when business owners look for the cheapest option to build websites, marketing their company, and add content.

A view of sustainable, long-term profitability accepts that businesses are stronger when the owner takes small steps forward instead of trying to jump the line. It really is the difference between a spark that flashes for a moment and dies versus a long fuse that burns.

How does this change your day to day activity?

* Start by thinking about your marketing. Are you engaging your customers and building long term relationships or are you focused on an immediate sale?

* Consider your marketing. Does it add value to your business or is it a short-term-view keyword friendly (but reader unfriendly) article?

* Think about your follow-up. Are you thinking about the first sale to a customer or are you making the first sale and thinking about the tenth sale you could get from them down the road?

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All businesses rely on sales to generate revenue and profit. That's what makes it a business, right? But many new entrepreneurs starting a business for the very first time are surprised by – and even turned off by – the amount of selling required to be successful.

I can think of a friend of mine who is a freelancer. After enjoying some success in his own business, he says he is approached frequently by people who see his lifestyle and assume they can do it, too. Sure they have the talent required to create deliverables but when it comes to selling, they're turned off and go back to their day-jobs.

No matter what the business is, selling is what makes or breaks a business. And if you're a small business owner and don't yet have a staff of sales people, you're the one who needs to sell.

As you get into the selling part of your business, you may find that you encounter a common challenge that many sales people – in ever industry – encounter. It's called "call reluctance". Simply put, it's doing whatever you can to avoid making the sales call! You're certainly not along: Call reluctance plagues small business owners and even professional sales people.

It stems from negative talk that can occur prior to the call in which you talk yourself out of initiating a sales call. You might think to yourself "they're not going to want to buy from me" or "this economy is too rough for this person to make a purchase right now". Whether or not your thinking is based in fact, it's a persistent, negative thought that can keep you from doing the work you need to do to ensure long-term business survival.

Call reluctance is simply a form of procrastination. If you've ever struggled with other types of procrastination, you'll know how easy it is for call reluctance to rear its ugly head.

So, how do you push through so that you pick up the phone or walk through the door or write that email (or whatever it is that you need to do to present your offer?)

In Jim Blasingame's article, "Somebody's Buying; Is It From You?" he addresses exactly this situation. You can read the article at Small Business Advocate. Blasingame does a good job of addressing the negative "self-talk" that sellers like you can talk yourself into. And I love what he says at the end: Remember, somebody is buying something from someone somewhere — right now! It might as well be you.

Read the article to help you overcome your call reluctance and then make 3 sales calls! Get the momentum you need and you'll look back at the end of the day with great satisfaction knowing that you not only overcame reluctance but you made some sales, too!

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 I just read an article recently that made some compelling points about small businesses that sell products online. The information is true for Ebay sellers, Amazon sellers, and for manufacturers or distributors who put something into a box and put that box into the mail.

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As a small business owner, an important to-do that needs to be done nearly every day is the acquisition of customers. For B2B businesses, serving small and medium-sized businesses as customers is often the entry point when you’re starting out. Eventually, though, you may face the temptation to serve large businesses… but is it worth it?

When you’re starting out, the small and medium sized business ("SMB") is usually the right business to serve. Your products are the right size for them and they are the right price. (These SMBs may not be able to afford the large-scale, high priced solutions that your larger competitors are offering).

But this size of customer can be fraught with challenge: They’re fickle and price sensitive and, depending on what you sell, you might serve their needs and then they won’t need you again once you’ve solved their problem! The per-customer rate you make from each customer can be lower. By comparison, a large business is less fickle, is willing to pay substantially more, and will often have many departments, divisions, or new acquisitions who will also need your ongoing services. This seems like a more profitable scenario because there is a higher per-customer rate and less time needs to be spent looking to add new customers. But are big businesses really better customers for small vendors?

One entrepreneur tells us his experience: "I served SMBs for years then was hired by a huge multinational corporation. The money was good. But there were other challenges: I couldn’t solve their needs effectively because they were mired in tradition and habit and weren’t willing to break through the status quo… so my offerings were used but not to the point of transformational change that I had offered to my SMB clients. And worse yet, the multinational become my biggest customer, demanding 90% of my time (and paying for it, of course), but when the recession hit, their stockholders demanded cost cuts and I was on the chopping block along with hundreds of their other vendors. Suddenly, I had to scramble to build up my customer base again! I enjoyed working for a big company but I won’t ever do it again: My work is appreciated far more by SMBs who actually experience a solution to their problems, and no customer will ever become such a big part of my revenue that they would nearly destroy my business if they left."

That’s one entrepreneur’s experience and it may not be your experience. You might have the right solutions for a big business and you might find that you can serve them without endangering your business or succumbing to the whims of their stockholders.

If you do want to pursue a big business as a client, I’ve found some good tips to remember. This article, entitled "Chasing Down Large Accounts", appears in Entrepreneur.com and was written by author and speaker Barry Farber. Farber gives six tips for entrepreneurs who want to sell to big business. It’s a must-read while you decide if this is right for your business.

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I don’t know a single business that doesn’t want more customers. Sure, there might be brief seasons in your business when you think "I just can’t handle any more customers right now" but those seasons pass and, overall, the need for customers continues.

This need for customers can come from the same set of customers (in other words, get your current customers to buy more from you) or from new customers. Earlier this week, we talked about Ram Charan’s book "Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business: 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning" and I summarized four ways to innovate to find new customers.

In this article, I’d like to continue the theme of getting new customers by referencing an excellent article I read recently. The article is in SmallBiz and is called "Diversify or Die". That’s a little alarming but it could happen: Your business could fade if you’re not actively pursuing new opportunities.

The article outlines a small handful of companies and what they are doing to generate more business. A tool company is looking into advanced energy and medical technology, an antiques gallery has opened a neighboring jewelry store.

Diversification of products or services sounds like a great idea and you can read the brief article here. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as simply deciding "I’m going to diversify my offering today." Diversification of products and services needs to take a few things into consideration:

•    Take a small step and try to offer your current products to a new customer base. That way, you don’t have to invest in a lot of new merchandise or systems to begin with. Instead, you just need to find new ways to market your existing inventory.

•    Consider redefining what your product or service does. If you can retool your product for another market, you can open up vast diversification without a lot of effort.

•    If you’re going to offer something entirely new, look very carefully to ensure that you are familiar with it in some way. You don’t have to offer products that are exactly the same. In fact, you can offer products that are substantially different, as long as you’re good and branding and you’re familiar with the distribution system. The example mentioned above of the gallery opening a neighboring store under a different name to sell jewelry is a good example: A new brand and a new product but a similar distribution.

•    Seek the advice and feedback of your customers before making too many changes. Your current customer base might have some good ideas of products or services they wish you offered and they might also provide value feedback about what they don’t want you to do.

Diversify or die? Sounds harsh but it could happen. Instead, create new opportunities from new products or markets.

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With Halloween nearly here, there are ghosts and jack-o-lanterns on our minds. (And probably some candy on our minds, too). So, in celebration of this scary day, I’ve listed 10 scary things that entrepreneurs do that could destroy their businesses:

1. Some scary entrepreneurs ignore cash flow. Cash flow keeps the business running. It pays the bills and keeps the lights on. By being too generous with credit terms, businesses lose out on cash flow and lose out on opportunities AND operational excellence.

2. Some scary entrepreneurs ignore investing in their own business. In an effort to be profitable, some business owners work hard at earning an income but try to cut corners in their own business. They might buy the cheapest web solution they can find, even though it isn’t what they need. They might buy the cheapest copywriting they can find, even though it doesn’t sell effectively. They might buy in bulk to get a great deal on their products, even though it drives up inventory costs and leads to waste.

3. Some scary entrepreneurs forget the value of their own time. They feel "swamped" with the work of marketing their business or doing the administrative work or following up with customers or finding prospects or closing sales. But they could make so much more money by delegating a number of those responsibilities and focusing in on just a few things they do really well.

4. Some scary entrepreneurs aren’t in social media at all. They wonder who would care that they are eating a ham sandwich for lunch or that they just beat someone else in a game of Bejeweled… and they forget that social media is so much more than announcements and procrastination.

5. Some scary entrepreneurs invest a lot of effort into popular social media platforms without a plan. Sure, they collect Twitter followers or Facebook friends like a kid collects candy on Halloween, but they don’t do anything with them. There’s no engagement. They offer no value. They lose money and time with the mistaken idea that something will happen on its own.

6. Some scary entrepreneurs focus on growth for today and forget about building for tomorrow. They work tirelessly to serve today’s customers but don’t harness their growth to manage it effectively. (Tomorrow they’ll wake up with twice as many orders and no idea how to fill them).

7. Some scary entrepreneurs focus on growth for today and forget about taxes. (Tomorrow, they’ll wake up with a massive tax bill and the tax man or woman knocking on their door).

8. Some scary entrepreneurs lock in to their current business and plow ahead with blinders. They ignore industry trends, social and demographic patterns, or evolving technology. They will realize, far too late, that their customers are buying something else somewhere else.

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