In a recent survey I did of over 100 business owners I asked this question: What’s your biggest business challenge? More than 50% of respondents answered, “Obtaining New Customers.” Not only was it chosen by a majority of responses, but it was also the most chosen answer by owners of every sized business, big,…
What are you dreading about your day or week in the office? These things are like little rocks in your shoe. They aren’t crises, just annoyances, right? You tolerate them for a while — some you become callused to and stop noticing them — others build up until you can’t stand it anymore. But if…
I’ll never forget looking at her Visa bill. I was sitting in a business owner’s office. She knew that her business wasn’t right, and hadn’t been for a long time, but how bad was it? They were barely making money in the good months, and bleeding in the slow months, and this had been going…
We were just talking about the only way to have clear priorities, to know how best to use your time is to commit yourself to fewer things and learn to say NO more. That makes sense, but what do I say no to? You are a talented person; you are good at a lot of…
There’s one data point from my recent survey of business owners that’s still haunting me. When asked, “What would you consider your biggest personal challenge?” Almost half of all respondents said, “Setting my own priorities.” This was the top response for owners of all sizes of businesses, for new business owners, and people who had…
Running a business is so rewarding, but it can also be tremendously stressful and lonely. Business owners get so caught up in the day-to-day of the business that we struggle to see the big picture. We’re not sure why sales have stagnated, why we can’t seem to take a vacation, why we’re still second-guessing every…
I recently surveyed over 100 business owners about how their business and job changes as they gain experience and their business grows. The full report is going to take me a while to collate and write, but the answers to one question stuck out at me. When asked, “What would you consider to be your…
A few weeks ago, I had a day packed with good things! That afternoon I was meeting with a new coach, I had a client meeting, and I knew she had experienced some breakthroughs in her business, I couldn’t wait to hear. But my morning meetings had run over, and I just had a few…
There’s been insane growth in the use of Slack as an internal messaging platform to reduce the volume of internal emails and from what I’ve seen from companies who adopt it, it has passionate fans! Those fans have driven incredible growth in their user base. What’s interesting to me is how much Slack has grown…
In our last conversation, we talked about choosing an industry, or vertical specialization, as a way to find your “people like us,” but what if there’s not one industry that fits your business? One of my clients, Diane Yetter of Yetter Tax, helps people with their most difficult sales tax problems. Though we think of sales…