Commitment Archives

Are you managing time or is time managing you?

Tom Coffin May 15, 2023smartPRENEUR Blog Series

“Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves” Lord Chesterfield British statesman, diplomat, a man of letters, and an acclaimed wit of his time PRODUCT The systems integration business is unique in many ways. However it has commonality with virtually every other business that sells products that need to be installed. You as the business ...

The smartPRENEUR Blog/Podcast Season 3 Preview

Tom Coffin April 3, 2023smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Welcome to Season 3 Our goal with Simply Reliable's smartPRENEUR Blog and Podcast is simple really. We want to provide actionable ideas to help you improve your business. We recognize that you have limited time. So the smartPRENEUR Blogs are designed to provide 2-3 ideas that can be read in about 3-5 minutes. Likewise The smartPRENEUR Podcast is designed to ...

Process, where to start?

Tom Coffin March 8, 2023smartPRENEUR Blog Series

It’s Monday. Did you jump out of bed ready to conquer the world? The phone starts to ring. A tech calls and is running late. You're stuck in a traffic jam. Arriving at the office you learn the products needed for today’s work have not arrived. Your team is looking to you to solve the problem. NOW WHAT? Businesses of ...

A Look Back to Move Forward

Tom Coffin January 29, 2023smartPRENEUR Blog Series

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana Deja Vu Have you ever started writing or documenting how you want something done only to later find a file that was created previously, sometimes years ago, and you realize, “I’ve already done this work.” I think this happens to all of us. The first week of January ...

What will you accomplish in 2023?

Tom Coffin January 2, 2023smartPRENEUR Blog Series

And so this is January. And what have you done? Another year over, And a new one just begun. Yes, I borrowed some of the wisdom from the great John Lennon and appropriated it for a new year in business and life. Back in October I wrote a blog suggesting it was a good time to plan for the upcoming ...

What did you learn? How did you grow?

Tom Coffin November 28, 2022smartPRENEUR Blog Series

I hope you had a great year. I did. This is not the place where I bestow the virtues of Simply Reliable’s solutions: smartOFFICE Online, smartOFFICe Mobile, and designMACHINE. Suffice it to say our subscribers seem pleased with the advances put forth in 2022. We delivered more features into the mobile app such as time tracking, work order task management, ...

It’s Good To Take A Breath and Appreciate Your World

Tom Coffin October 31, 2022smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Do you pride yourself on being a work-aholic? Your typical day starts before the sun comes up. You didn’t sleep well last night because your mind was racing with thoughts; things to accomplish, goals to smash, phone calls to be made, designs to do. Do you often say “I can't, I'm too busy?” Busy for the sake of being busy ...

What is your plan for 2023

Tom Coffin October 3, 2022smartPRENEUR Blog Series

This week starts the beginning of the fourth quarter and the end of 2022 or as I like to refer to it twenty-twenty-TOO. A lot has happened over the last couple of years that has made planning a challenge for some. Are you one that had trouble trying to figure out what results you could reasonably expect? Uncertain times they ...

What is The ROI of a Trade Show?

Tom Coffin August 29, 2022smartPRENEUR Blog Series

If You Build it Will They Come? It’s been a few soft years for trade shows. It will be very interesting to see what the turn out is like at CEDIA Expo 2022 this year. Emerald Expositions, the owner of the CEDIA Expo trade show, seems poised to be successful at bringing most manufacturers back to what used to be ...

Brand Loyalty and the Myth of Three

Tom Coffin August 1, 2022smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Freddie Mercury sang, “I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.” Shakespeare said: a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. So how do these phrases relate to your business? Do you offer everything? Do you carry virtually every control system? How many brands of ...