small.advice Practical and actionable videos and articles based in the Silver Lining silv=r™ methodology that help small business owners set and hit their growth goals. small.advice also brings in advice from leaders from across the globe that will help small businesses grow. How to Build a Business That Reflects Who You Are For years, I fantasized about becoming a small business owner. Yet I held on to an idea of success centered around a corporate career, an impressive title, and a good salary.Read More → The Emergency Kit Every Business Owner Needs Somewhere between the business name registration and the first logo draft, somebody told you to write a business plan. And they were right. A business plan matters. It gives your idea structure, your goals a timeline, your vision something to stand on. No argument there.Read More → Build Your Network Like an Ecosystem, Not a Contact List For most of my career, I worked in partnerships. Long before I became a solopreneur, I spent nearly two decades helping businesses grow through relationships. Whether I was supporting local retailers, working at DISH, or later helping small businesses through Gusto, the work was always the same at its core: connecting the right people to…Read More → Stop Doing All the Marketing: How to Focus on the 20% That Actually Works Marketing consultant Hope has spent more than 15 years helping small business owners build marketing systems that work — though she didn’t start in marketing. Her background is in architecture, and when she pivoted, she brought a designer’s instinct for systems with her.Read More → How to Know Whether Your Business Story Is Helping or Hurting Sales Your business has a story whether you have written it down or not. It shows up when someone visits your website, reads your social media profile, opens your proposal, hears your introduction, or talks to you on a sales call.Read More → Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Have a Sales Problem, They Have a Cash Flow Problem Picture a business having its best year yet. Revenue up by a third. New contracts signed. The kind of growth most owners would trade a great deal for.Read More → 3 Hard Lessons I Learned Helping Ugandan Farmers Access Markets In 2018, I drove through Northern Uganda — Oyam, Dokolo, Gulu, Omoro — expecting celebration. We’d trained farmers in improved maize practices: applying fertilizer on time, maintaining proper spacing, and controlling pests. When harvest came, they succeeded. More bags than ever before.Read More → How Visibility Builds Trust Before the Discovery Call Even Happens Imagine this: You receive a message from someone you’ve never met. They introduce themselves, tell you they’ve been following your work for months, and close with, “I already know I want to work with you. I just want to learn more about how we can get started.”Read More → What Happens When a Small Business Owner Stops Winging It There’s a version of entrepreneurship that looks polished on the outside, the product photos, the launch announcements, the sold-out collections.Read More → 8 Ways to Hire Better Without Becoming Overly Corporate Hiring in a small business may feel risky, but you don’t need to become a corporate HR department to get it right.Read More → The Biggest Bottleneck in Your Business Might Be You One of the hardest truths I learned as an entrepreneur is that sometimes you hold your business back. I know it’s uncomfortable.Read More → The Silent Signals CEOs Miss Before Execution Breaks High-pressure economies, shifting markets, and a new economic reality are exposing a pattern that CEOs, small business owners, and entrepreneurs are encountering: clarity is becoming harder to hold onto in real time.Read More → Partnerships Can Accelerate Your Business Partnerships are one of the most powerful growth tools available to a small organization.Read More → Your Brand is Not Your Logo: It’s a Feeling In a saturated market, winners aren’t always the best at what they do.Read More → Permission Granted: Self-Trust Is the Foundation of Confidence Five years ago, I began the journey of giving myself permission to “be”. For many years, I had been living a life around what others needed. From fixing problems, to being there for loved ones, to putting myself to the “later” pile. Read More → 1 2 3 4 Next Page