“I’ve tried that, it didn’t work…” I was having a discussion with an owner of a B2B creative services firm about his business development process. He had a strong business that he’d built by leveraging his personal network, but he wanted to see more growth. This is a business owner who’s aggressive and isn’t afraid to take a risk and try something, but sales tactic or process he’s tried ever got any traction. His business sort of sputtered along from year to year — one year it’s up 15% the next year down 10%. He wanted me to give him the answer, the one method or trick that was going to create an endless stream of leads, that didn’t cost him too much money so he could sell more creative … [Read more...]
Who’s your “teacher”? Who’s your mentor?
When I was a young executive in a corporate job I met a woman named Marylin Dyer Blair. Marylin had a PhD in Industrial Psychology that she had earned in the 70’s. She was barely five-feet tall, with short gray hair—the kind of person that it’s easy to underestimate. But to do so would be a mistake! Marylin had great wisdom and insight into people, communication, and culture. She was a tremendous advisor to me in those days. At that time I had a lot of opinions about—well, everything. But the ones I had (and couldn’t help sharing) about how the business should be run were getting me into trouble. Marylin helped me to tame my mouth. She helped me to make some tough calls and face up to my … [Read more...]
Finding Where Goals and Resources Intersect | Non-Profit Case Study
“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” ~ Japanese proverb In business, as in life, resources are limited; and few organizations feel the squeeze of resources quite like non-profits and associations. Unfortunately, the vision and goals of such organizations are often developed in strategic planning processes without ever considering the biggest barrier to success: the available resources in which to achieve these goals. If you don’t heavily consider resources when making plans, you risk having your visions defeated by resource reality. It is a very common tale. 97% of companies say they are not successful at implementing and executing their … [Read more...]
Reducing Employee Turnover in a Digital Marketing (SEO) Agency
Employee retention rate is a critical measure in any business. While turnover is normal, there comes a point where losing too much of your talent to other companies should cause concern. Furthermore, even if you realize that your retention rate is far lower than it should be, how do you go about fixing it? Diagnosing what is causing your turnover is no easy feat. Challenge: George and Taylor are partners running a small digital marketing & SEO agency, Digital Third Coast. They realized that their employee turnover was too high and it was costing them. George and Taylor would attract talent and begin to build a strong team with excellent training in digital skills. But just a … [Read more...]
The power of slow
We live in a world obsessed by action and success. And in a world hooked on action, the only way to be different is to stop. ~ @thelazyguru Hi, my name’s Brad. And I’m a workaholic. For a significant portion of my career I lived my life with my foot on the gas—and the pedal pushed to the floor. I wanted to get IT ALL done. So I got up early, and stayed up late. I made the most of every minute. I was an early adopter of portable computing devices so that I could work anytime, anywhere. When I started my own business I took that work ethic up a notch and did even more. While there are definitely parts of me that drove this behavior, I also absorbed a lot of messages about how business … [Read more...]
Small Business Hiring Success: Build a house you want to live in
Nothing ruins a business owner’s day more than having one of their key employees quit. Even if they are quitting for a good reason, it feels like a failure. Putting a team together is hard work, and this is a tear in the fabric of that team. As soon as we get over the loss of that key person, the reality sets in: who is going to do their work? Most likely me. UGH. So now I have extra work to do, I have a team to knit back together, and I have to conduct a hiring process too. It’s no wonder that I see business owners try to short cut the hiring process (again, and again, and…) It’s painful. We want it to be over. Who wants to take time to think about the job and searching for the right … [Read more...]
Pushing Past Stagnation and Improving Revenue | Commercial Food Supply Case Study
“It’s been a loooong year.” As a business owner, does that sound like you? You’ve probably thought this after you realize that you’re ending the year exactly where you started. No matter what you try in order to grow your business, improve operations, or engage your team - everything goes wrong and your situation goes from bad to worse. What’s more, you don’t know why whatever you touch has the opposite effect of your goal. You focus on sales and then lose your current client roster. A new operations plan wreaks havoc on production. Nothing you think of works. What then? No matter what you try, your business operations just can’t thrive. You’re exhausted. You’re employees are … [Read more...]
Crafting a price increase notice: 6 ways to tell your clients
To start, here's a little price increase notice sample. I then follow it up with 6 ways to how to tell clients you're raising your prices below: Dear John (your client's name is John, right?); How are you doing? We used to be so close. Lately there's been some distance between us; I just want to make sure that, from your end, everything is still good. I mean, the work we've done together has been nothing short of terrific. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to work with you and your team! The challenges that your assignments provide have kept me at the top of my game; and you have always been appreciative of my team's long hours, late nights, and responsiveness to last minute … [Read more...]
My advice to this year’s graduates…
I just completed a week where I spent 8 hours sitting through commencement ceremonies. That’s not a typo. Two of my daughters graduated, and between both ceremonies I listened to a total of 4200 graduate names read. In other news, I’m sunburned. I also heard —— several times —— the clarion call to graduates, the charge to “change the world”, "make a difference”, and other such nonsense. It got me thinking. What advice would I want to give to this year’s high school and college graduates? Join me as I indulge this fantasy (and feel free to share your own thoughts for 2017 graduates!)… ‘Congratulations graduates, school’s out! You’re done! Finished! It’s over. That feels good … [Read more...]
Managing the chaos of growth | Marketing Agency Case Study
You’ve achieved almost everything you dreamed of... Things have really taken off in your business. You land new clients regularly, referrals are coming in, and your revenue is increasing. You’re able to hire and you lead a small team of talent to help manage your growing client base. Everything should be great! But reality sets in. Despite the increase in clients, your profit margins aren’t matching. You can’t afford to bring on more talent to help with the extra workload, but you can’t put it all on the team you have. So you work longer and longer days; twelve hours at the office have become your norm, six, even seven days a week. With each new client, that workload increases, and … [Read more...]
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