How many times a day is your work interrupted by questions or problems brought to you by your employees or clients? Take a minute to think about it, how many people walk into your office, or call you, or send you a text, email, or Slack message that interrupts your flow, that you take time to think about, and that you have to respond to? Is it 10? 25? 50? More? Now, think carefully; how many of those interruptions needed your input?  When I say they “needed your input,” I mean that you are the only person in the company who could answer the question being asked. Was it 50% of the questions? I’m guessing it was fewer than that, maybe 20%? You are welcoming these unnecessary … [Read more...]

Leading your business is going to be hard. You spend half your vacation on the computer or phone and still return to a huge pile of work. People turn in lousy work; some even steal from you, others refuse to pay you. You earn client’s trust, and then they get disappointed by your team. You work your butt off, and over-deliver and the client fires you anyway. But despite this, you spend late nights. You work weekends. You go for years without earning the money you could have been making back at your corporate gig. Why do you keep going? Because you can see it. You know that you are doing something important, something that will make a difference, that will leave a … [Read more...]

So, we’ve been through some things the last year or so, right? I had a boss once who told us, “Never let a good crisis go to waste!” He knew that there are always opportunities in a crisis. We’ve been navigating a priceless crisis the last year or so! Do we have some room to reflect on what we’ve been through? 3 questions to get the most out of any crisis Here are three questions that might help. 1. What is there for me to learn here? Crises often bring clarity to them. Things we thought of as essential become less important, and things we took for granted (like toilet paper) come to the forefront. What do you see now that you didn’t see when things were “normal”? What needs to … [Read more...]

Here’s a list of things that I’m moving off my plate focus on making progress on my biggest goals: I’m checking the news only once a day, for 30 minutes. I’m saying no to networking requests. I love meeting people, but I need the calendar space. I’m saying no to “coffee,” even with “business friends.” I love you, but I got work to do. I’m saying no to content collaborations with peers – unless it’s meeting one of my key goals, I have to pass. I’m letting my team triage my email box, website leads, and inbound requests. I’ve found a tool that lets me send emails without opening my email client (the inbox is too distracting.) I’ve found a tool to post to my social … [Read more...]

As our economy starts to emerge from its pandemic slumber, I’ve been encouraging my clients to get more systematic and take more action to build their business development pipeline. I worked with a cohort to get started with outreach, and they saw success; that’s why I built the Online Lead Generation and Engagement course. But not everyone responds positively to the idea of outreach to fuel your business development! Here are some of the things I’ve heard! I don’t want to be “salesy.” Good. I don’t want you to be “salesy” either. No one wants that. If you are good at what you do, and your service makes a difference for the clients you work with, why wouldn’t you tell people about … [Read more...]

Now I know I’m not usually in your inbox on a Wednesday! But yesterday, I talked about the importance of daily action and I had to come back today, so you knew that I was practicing what I preach! You see, it's a huge mistake to make business development this “thing” that you do. Like it’s something extra or extraordinary – outside your regular work. When it’s done every day, when it actually becomes ordinary, it’s way more likely to succeed! You know that a binge diet isn’t going to suddenly make you healthy. We all tried cramming for the test the night before too, right? AND we know that the more sensible approach, the one that’s going to make you more likely to succeed, is one where … [Read more...]

On Saturday, I told you the story about going to 27 new business meetings in a row without closing a single client. That was a painful process, it was a lot of rejection, and the reason those appointments didn’t close was primarily that I wasn’t executing well. It sucked. But during that same time, other folks who went through the same business development training that I did, didn’t have 27 meetings. They had 3, or 5, or even 10. Some closed one or two clients – some closed none. None of them ended up having a successful business. They felt like they were committing themselves to “doing the work.” If you had asked them, they would have told you that they were doing everything … [Read more...]

“You can have anything you want if you are willing to ask 1,000 people for it.” ~ Byron Katie When I first started my business, I worked with a sales trainer. He told me, “Get 30 appointments in your first 90 days, and you’ll have a thriving consulting business.” I didn’t know any better, so I believed him. I worked my ass off to find 30 prospects who were willing to work with me, and I went out to meet with all of them. The first appointment was someone I’d been talking to for a while. My new sales training helped me to close the deal with this guy. I’m one-for-one. The second appointment was a cold call. I didn’t know her at all. I went through the sales process and got to … [Read more...]