“How do you know you are doing a good job?” Early in an engagement with a new client I usually go around and ask this question to each of the management employees in the company. It’s a simple question, but having employees who are clear about the answer is key to driving employee engagement and…
The stereotype of a business owner is the ever optimistic ball of energy who’s working hard, playing hard and enjoying life; and I meet a fair number of business owners who fit that stereotype. Over the last couple of years though I’ve noticed that a growing number of the folks I’m meeting fit in a…
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. ~Abraham Lincoln. It’s likely that every person reading this email has some kind of system for managing their “to-do” list. On my computer I can identify at least 4 pieces of…
When a business can successfully and reliably generate leads then it makes the whole business run better. So how do we generate leads? The conventional wisdom today is to build a “lead magnet” on your website and then do a ton of outreach, advertising, and promotion to drive traffic to that “lead magnet” to build…
When we are looking to grow our business there are a lot of avenues we can pursue; better proposals, better presentations, sharpening our pricing, networking, advertising… But there’s only one thing that’s likely to consistently grow your business, and that’s more leads. The more people you talk to who are actually interested in buying your…
Right now your business depends on you. In order for your business to remain healthy you need to be healthy. Yes, the goal is to have a day when that’s not true, when you can spend a month in the Bahamas and no one misses you, but today is not that day. You are still…
Many business owners that I know will create job descriptions for their team members, but how many of us have a job description for our own job? We create job descriptions to set expectations with our team members. We want them to know what we expect them to do. Business owners need this too! I…
“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.” ~ Samuel Smiles I was listening to Alex Blumberg interview Nina Jacobson on the podcast WithoutFail when she mentioned the…
I have more ideas than time! My team is so frustrated. We are loaded with good ideas—ideas that will make us money! But we can’t even get the work done to execute on the services we already have going! When my team sees me roll in with another “great idea” their eyes shoot daggers at…
Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. ~Eleanor Roosevelt One of the best things about being a business owner is FREEDOM. In any given moment, I’m the only one that I have to answer to. My time is my own and I use it as I like. One of…