They say that politics makes strange bedfellows, but it can also make for strained relationships with customers, vendors and others. There are hotly-contested elections underway in the U.S., Australia and elsewhere around the world, with emotions running high on all sides.

You may have strong opinions about politics and other social issues. In fact, I hope you do. However, injecting them into your business relationships will probably not win any converts to your positions and may result in harming those relationships.

I participate in several online discussion lists, including one in particular where the political talk gets intense and even downright nasty. I’ve lost respect for some people I had previously thought wise because of their insistence on aggressively promoting their positions and lack of tolerance for the ideas of others.

Get involved in the issues important to you. Make contributions, volunteer, and do what you can to make a difference. But it is usually best to avoid injecting politics into your daily business activities.

Diane Rossi was making a living cleaning up dog doo from backyards, apartment courtyards and other locations. She had managed to attract hundreds of clients, but faced the problem common to many service providers: She was limited in how much she could earn based on how many hours she could work.

Rossi expanded and hired part-time help, but had a hard time keeping reliable people (apparently the glamour wasn’t enough!) Finally, though, she hit on a solution that may take her from struggling service provider to successful entrepreneur. Rossi began selling rolls of biodegradable dog-waste bags. After selling to many of her apartment building clients, she landed a big contract with the City of Chicago. She plans to expand her sales beyond the Chicago area to increase her revenues and profits.

You can overcome the income limitations of a service business by (1) duplicating yourself by hiring others to perform the service under your direction or franchising your operations, (2) finding a way to package and sell your service to many, such as writing a book or creating audio tapes, training programs, how-to kits and other ways to market your knowledge, or (3) creating a product related to your business like Rossi did.

Diane Rossi may have come up with a winner with her new kind of doggie bags. But she’s not finished. Dog doo treated with heat and enzymes can be turned into fertilizer. Says Rossi, “For me to take the poop and sell it back, that’s the ultimate.”