Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a 300 square foot house with his wife and 3 kids. Because he did not have a college degree, one of the few jobs he could get was a sales associate position at a local electronics store. While he felt lucky to have a job in a poor economy, the pay was not that great and the cost of living was so high where he lived that he had to work long hours and even on nights and weekends to make ends meet and provide for his family.

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Because he was a hard worker and extremely focused, his discipline and dedication to his day job at the electronics store eventually paid off and he was promoted to manager of the car stereo installation department. While this promotion carried with it a decent raise, he still …

After starting several businesses on the side, helping others with their own online stores and running this blog for a couple of years now, I’ve come to recognize certain patterns and character traits that define success and failure. Running a successful business isn’t just about luck. It’s not just about taking the leap of faith. It’s not about having the perfect plan or finding the perfect niche. It’s about how you deal with problems as they arise. It’s about how you adapt to certain situations when things don’t go your way.

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The problem most new entrepreneurs face is that it’s hard to distinguish between good and bad investments of your time. It’s difficult to know when to go cheap and when to splurge. And for control freaks like myself, it’s overwhelming when you first realize that there are a bunch of …

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve posted my last customer story, but to tell the truth, things on the customer support front for our online store have been very smooth as of late. There have been no crazy brides, no irate customers, no unreasonable demands. Everything has been just peachy for the last several months which is why we were due for a ridiculous customer sooner or later.

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What struck me as odd about this particular customer was that she had such a messed up ideal about business and economics. In fact, all of her assumptions about how to obtain discounts and how pricing works were completely skewed. Here’s a transcript of the conversation. Thank goodness, my wife took this call and not me.

Wife: Hi miss, what can do for you this morning?

Customer: Yes, I would like to purchase some handkerchiefs and …

Over this past weekend, I was chatting with a friend of mine about the many benefits of using Skype for video conferencing. And after talking with her at length, she seemed genuinely excited so I recommended a webcam for her to buy so she could chat online with her parents in India.

Now this friend of mine is not exactly the most tech savvy person in the world. In fact, she barely knows how to use a computer let alone shop online. So, I did most of the research for her, found a great deal on the Logitech Webcam Pro and forwarded the information to her on where to buy it. I even emailed her a direct link to the product page thinking that was good enough.

However, the next day I got another call from her because she couldn’t figure out how to make the purchase online. …

This morning my wife laid a huge bombshell on me while I was resting in bed.
Honey? I want to go back to work. Honestly, I’m tired of taking care of the kids all day and I really want to go back to the corporate world.
All I could do was sit there in shock. After all, we spent the last 4 years creating our business together. We spent the last 4 years setting up the infrastructure for our online store so she could stay at home with the kids. Now, we would need to find someone to manage the store full time. Now, we would need to hire a complete stranger to take care of the kids during the day. Wonderful…Oh, and the kicker is that I just renewed the MyWifeQuitHerJob.com domain for another 5 years. Great…just great.

Wife: Did I mention …