Questions and answers

One small idea a week for people who run a business with 10 people or fewer: an offer, a price move, a way to treat customers, a local play. Each one is small enough to try by Friday and cheap enough to drop the week after if it doesn't earn its place.

Owners and managers of Canadian businesses with 10 people or fewer. Most ideas need nothing but an afternoon, so you don't need a marketing budget or a tool to try one.

I do. I'm Paul Hughes, and I spent more than 40 years in IT and management consulting, in over 30 countries. In 2019 I settled in Kingsville, Ontario and started Doorways Into Your Business.

The About page has more.

Reading the site, getting the weekly email and asking me a question cost you nothing, and there is nothing on the site to buy.

Each idea names what it costs to try, and most cost nothing but an afternoon. The finder orders them from cheapest to boldest: an afternoon and $0 first, then a week or a small spend, then a month or a real change.

Drop it next week. Each idea tells you the one thing to watch, when to check it, and what to do if it didn't move. They're small on purpose, so a miss is cheap.

Most ideas don't. Where a tool would help, the idea says so and says what it costs, and I link to the matching page on Unfair Advantage, which covers the tools.

One email every Tuesday, five minutes to read: the idea, why it works, what it costs (usually nothing), how to try it by Friday, and how to tell whether it earned its place. That's the whole email.

You only get it if you tick the box when you sign up. You can leave any time: write to me through the ask page and I'll take you off the list.

You pick the situation you're in: a slow month, a new competitor, raising prices, more referrals, keeping customers or standing out. It shows the ideas published for that situation, ordered from cheapest to boldest, with the first step for each. It runs right on the finder page, and the email step at the end is optional.

If a situation has fewer than three ideas so far, it shows what exists and tells you when the next one lands.

I answer every question by email, usually within two business days. If yours would help other owners, it may become an article, with your details left out, and you get the link first.

You can ask a question whenever you like.

I don't sell it, and I don't pass it to anyone to market to you. It goes to a mailbox I read, through the few services that carry the forms and the mail, and the privacy page names them.

If you're in Kingsville, Ontario or the Windsor-Essex Region, Doorways Into Your Business does that. Elsewhere in Canada, ask me anyway.

Brilliant in the old sense: something brought into the light so you can see it clearly. The mark, a desk lamp throwing a cone of light, says the same thing. The site does the illuminating, and you do the trying.