Do the best you can to come up with excellent outputs on time and within the budget allotted for you. Illustrate your rapport with your team and make an effort to bring the best in them. Through this, you are not just building a good reputation for yourself but also for those of your teammates.

You are looking for a specific item. You go to the store. The overzealous salesperson approaches you and asks if they can help you. You respond with "No thanks, just looking." But why do you do that? Each salesperson has an approach that is either the Good, the Bad, or the Ugly.

Like most in that field, I started as a busboy -- clearing tables and refilling beverages. I think that everyone in business should spend at least some time in the role of a waiter or waitress. Why?

Do you enjoy the people you work with? If you don't, start focusing on their best aspects or start focusing on all the other aspects about your work that you love. What you'll find is that they'll start to shift.

It really comes down to the classic 80/20 rule: 20 percent of your clients will cause you 80 percent of the grief in your business. Smart small business owners know how to identify trouble clients right away, head off problems early on and, when necessary, cut their losses.

Making deals, retaining clients and getting referrals is the life blood of any business, big or small. But I must warn you that handling clients will be much harder than your actual work.

Many professionals fail to build thriving businesses because they struggle to articulate exactly what they can offer. You know, that 30-second commercial that's supposed to wow.

WASHINGTON -- In December 2006, Goldman Sachs embarked on a frantic effort to shed billions of dollars in risky mortgage securities and purchase exoti...

Good salespeople don't assume that there's anything wonderful about their offerings at all, until they know what makes the buyer's heart beat faster (and what keeps the buyer up at night).