Almost every small business owner and freelancer I talk to wants to grow their business. Growth doesn’t always mean more money. Growth could mean more profits. Growth could mean less work while keeping your revenues stable. Growth could mean more ideal customers and less non-ideal customers. That’s why I sometimes describe what we do at Coracle Marketing as helping small business owners “grow the way they want.” Every person has a different vision of how they want to grow their business. But whatever your definition of growth is, there are three main ways to achieve this.

I’ve been reading Scaling Up by Verne Harnish about how to grow a business. One of his suggestions was to ask your customers 3 simple questions:

Today is my wife’s birthday and I wanted to write a blog post to celebrate her. 3 years ago I wanted to start a marketing business. I talked with my wife about the idea, but she was hesitant at first. But she could see that it was something I really wanted to do, so after reflection and prayer, she started Coracle Marketing with me. This business would never have succeeded without her support. I’m so grateful for her.

Last week I attended the Canadian Internet Marketing Conference in Squamish. Among the speakers was Kristin Auger from Salesforce, who presented the results of a recent survey her company did with 4,000 marketers around the world. What they were looking for were the characteristics of high performing marketing teams (18% of the survey population). High performing teams identified themselves as “extremely satisfied with the current outcomes realized as a direct result of their company’s marketing investment.”

Every spring there is a pop-up carnival that occupies the south side of Coquitlam Center’s parking lot (the mall that is 5 minutes from our house). I took my daughter there over the weekend to go on some rides, play a few games, and buy mini-donuts. When we got there we saw that the mini-donut line was very, very long.

Years ago my wife and I decided to take a day to rest every week. Usually it is a Sunday. Both of us come from a Christian background where the idea of “Sabbath” is encouraged. Sabbath means “to cease” – to cease from work. Taking a day to rest wasn’t something I used to do. When I was in school I would go to classes during the weekdays and study on the weekends. Early in my career I would work during the weekdays and volunteer on the weekends. Now that I’m older, I realize the importance of taking one day every week to rest.

It’s starting to become popular for businesses to play April Fool’s Day pranks and stunts, which someone dubbed as “Prankvertising”. A few years ago it was novel and fun, but is this a trend that is getting old? What’s the point? Sure, you can get some laughs and show that your business has a fun side to it. But you can also risk pushing your customers away by seemingly wasting thousands of dollars on fun and games, instead of putting that money into improving your business.

Last week I completed the SLAP Boot Camp (valued at $200), a course put on by Silver Lining to help small business owners grow. My friend Carissa Reinger is the CEO of Silver Lining and developed the SLAP Methodology which has been used by over 10,000 small businesses to grow. When she first started the company 9 years ago, she interviewed 400 small business owners to find out their biggest challenge. Through the interviews she found a common theme which she calls “The Cashflow/Capacity Catch-22″.

Last week I met with an entrepreneur, a bright young woman who was well connected, well educated, and had lots of potential in front of her. The problem was, she wasn’t making much money. The reason wasn’t because of a lack of opportunity. She had a lineup of people meeting with her to pitch her ideas and work with her. The reason was a lack of focus. Wanting to help, I gave her this advice: Clarify your calling and then figure out how you can live that out through your business.

Anyone that writes blog posts hopes that their writing will be read and appreciated. Every time I publish and share a blog post I’ve written, I secretly wonder if this is the one that will go viral. From over 10 years of blogging (both personally and for business) and over 200 blog posts published, I’ve had a few that have gone viral. Now when I say “viral”, I don’t mean a million people read the post – I mean 5,000 or 10,000 people (which is a lot for me and for the average blogger and small business owner). Maybe “semi-viral” is a more accurate term.