Just like children, businesses grow through predictable phases. We start life as baby startups, then progress to raging growth companies, before settling into a more stable “adult” phase. Here’s my version of this story focused primarily on B2B service businesses. See if you see any of your own experiences in it. Baby startup Once upon…
I want to get started making videos to help me build an audience and to improve the search optimization of some of my content. I’ve been cruising around YouTube checking out creators who have unique styles. I’m itching to figure out what gear I need and plan out some videos to create. Starting something new…
In the U.S.A., this is Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start to summer where people go outside, barbecue, hit the beach, and take a long weekend off. I’m also taking this weekend off, to unpack all the boxes that we packed and moved earlier this week. So no business wisdom today — go outside and…
There are as many different “types” of entrepreneurs as there are businesses, but there are some common traits I see that many of us share. We don’t mind hard work, we like to start things more than we want to finish things, and we have a nose for opportunity. These three traits are a cocktail…
In our last conversation, I talked about two ways to grow your business, a high-intensity, hard-working, risk-loving environment, and a more planned, lower-stress, environment. I pointed out that some of us are hard-wired for the former — we love “living on the edge”; but the wiring of most of our employees is different. (That’s why…
I walked into my client’s office, and you could feel the excitement and tension in the air. The business owner had been out at speaking gigs the last three days and came back with a fistful of business cards to follow up on, and she’s been tearing into those. In the meantime, her operations manager…
Let’s go back to some homework I asked you to do roughly a month ago. Do you remember? I asked you to write out the WHY you want to make more money in your business. If you weren’t with me a month ago take a minute to go back and do that homework. If you…
Following up on my post about how focusing is essential to growth I got a question from a fellow business owner, Paul asks; Hi Brad, I love this Venn Diagram; in fact, I have a copy hanging on my office wall! The dilemma occurs when the intersection of something we do well and don’t love…
Finding your core service that is valuable to your ideal client and focusing on that means that you are going to do a lot of similar assignments. For creative people, this sounds like a kind of death. “You want me to do this thing over, and over, and over, and…ARUAGHHHH!” Well, yes, and no… First,…
When you started your business, you tried a lot of things before you found what people would pay you for, that you’re good at, and that you enjoy. There aren’t many businesses I work with who still pursue the business idea and model they first started with. So you try things, and you find clients….