I spent time Friday and Saturday talking with my sister about her daycare business. On March 1st, she was taking care of kids for 121 families; she’s got 5 families dropping kids off as of April 1st. We worked through the process of laying off all of her staff. “I feel like I’m starting over…
In our last email, I discussed some actions you need to take as a leader to be available for your team, your customers, and your community while we’re all “social distancing.” But you can’t give from what you don’t have, so today, let’s talk about keeping your bucket full so that you can continue to…
On October 17, 1989, my parents went to see the World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s. Just as the festivities were beginning, a giant earthquake hit the bay area, destroying freeways, toppling buildings, and throwing the region into chaos. When my parents got home to their brick apartment building in…
When you’re deep in the day-to-day of your own business, you might be surprised to find that most B2B service businesses follow the same “lifecycle.” Including yours! Recognizing this is the first step toward reaching your next level of success. Because it means you can follow a blueprint of what other business owners before you…
I was working with a client going over his sales pipeline (which was not as firm as we both had hoped) when he let out a big sigh. “I’m just not comfortable with this! Shouldn’t I be feeling more comfortable by now?” My client’s question brings up two issues. First, should he be feeling more…
If you are the only one who can close deals in your company, your growth is capped by your desire to spend all day selling. Even if you are a non-stop selling machine, there’s a limit to how much you can sell! So if you want to grow your business beyond that point, it can’t…
Do you ever feel lonely leading your own business? When I first started my business, I joined a group of new business owners, like me, in different geographies. We met up in an online forum where we could ask and answer questions, exchange advice, and learn what was working and what wasn’t. This group…
I’m excited to see some new faces in our Business Owner’s Slack Group. It’s amazing to have a place to go where folks are generous about helping one another. For example, I was researching the Jobs to Be Done framework for helping to identify the attributes of your service that clients are excited about and there…
I’m starting an occasional series where I talk about some of the lies I hear from the business owners that I speak to. They don’t always know that they are lying to me, but over time, I’ve come to hear these phrases as lies. Today we start with this one, “Sure, I’m a workaholic. I…
I could tell he didn’t want to sell his company. My client had supposedly called me to talk about selling. But right away, it was clear that something else was going on. You see, his business was doing great—it had grown bigger than he’d ever dreamed. The real problem was he was exhausted. I glanced…