In the mid-2000s, car dealers often asked, “have I done everything to make this a 5-star experience?” I always felt put on the spot, and I hardly ever answered truthfully.

Look. We only have a handful of genuinely 5-star experiences in our lives, so getting my oil changed never felt like one of them.

As a small business owner, I never want to game the system and get flattering ratings without merit.

I consider it my only job to identify the messy truths and fix them.

And that’s what I’ll do on this blog.

I’ll do my best to get quite granular and not sugar-coat the truth for you, so you’ll understand why, even after almost 30 years, running a small business is still so darn hard.