About Mark

Most people start businesses because they want more freedom.

Business owners usually say freedom means more money, more free time, and more flexibility in their schedule.

Despite that, most small businesses owners find themselves working more time than they did at their last job.

Eventually, their small business becomes “just another job” – the job of feeding the monster that is their small business. It has the ability to consume every minute of their day. Burnout is just a matter of time.

I help business owners reclaim their freedom by teaching them how to transform their business so that it is more predictable, more automated and more capable of generating income without the owner being at their desk or in the shop every minute of the day.

Together, we’ll strategically fine tune your marketing, operations and use of technology, all with the goal of regaining your freedom by increasing the bottom line and growing strategically.

Business owners that work with me learn ….

• Seven strategies to improve their bottom line
• How to predictably obtain and keep more customers
• How to find sources of revenue “hidden” inside their business
• How to transform advertising expenses into an accountable investment
• What to automate and outsource so that you can focus on the work only you should be doing
• How to determine and focus on the one thing that determines the success of your business

How I got here

After 17 years in the software business as both a corporate developer and product developer at several independent software vendors, I acquired a failing software company with about 200 angry customers.

During the next 7 years, I expanded the company to over 1000 clients, established markets in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, created development and co-marketing relationships with two Fortune 500 firms (Kodak and Fuji), acquired two failing competitors and grew annual revenue 1200%.

When I sold the business in 2005, it served 90% of our market and was recognized both by the market and industry publications as the premier solution for their needs.

Since that time, I’ve focused on helping business owners do what I did – turn around failing businesses and strategically grow already-successful ones.

My blog, “Business is Personal“, is read by the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fast Company and MarketingProfs.com, as well as by thousands of business people every week. “Business is Personal” has also been published as a weekly newspaper column since 2006.

Despite all the talk about helping small businesses, I’m still very active in the software world.