So 2016 has been a pretty solid year for Chicago economically. A lot of new jobs are being created, and interest rates remain low. If you’ve tried to hire this year, you likely had a hard time finding the right candidates. But what do we see coming in 2017? How will the change in administrations,…
As a business owner, we all have more than one job (many of us carry 4 or 5); but two of those jobs are the same for every business owner. The first is being a great leader in your business. Whether you are the CEO/President, or a partner who shares the leadership, one of your…
“A ‘not for profit business’ is a tax designation, not a business strategy.” Not everything that we try to do is going to make money for us right away. Most of the time, when we start something new, we have to make an “investment” (in working capital, in equipment, in training, etc.) before that effort…
It was April 2001. I was 35 years old, and I was done with corporate life. I had spent over a decade living in airports, sleeping in rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott™, and meeting in conference rooms that were out of state. I was tired of it. I made the choice to step out…
It’s taken weeks, lots of calls, meetings, and late night reworking of the numbers, but it looks like it’s really going to happen. The biggest deal you’ve ever pitched is closing. They’re going to say yes! It’s thrilling, scary, and the rush you feel takes you headlong into the challenge! So you go to tell…
Stop for a minute and think about how you’re feeling right now. Are you feeling tired? Overwhelmed? Do you feel like you have more to do than you can accomplish? Are you asking yourself to do more—to be more—than you’re comfortable doing and being? Now think back to the end of your last vacation; you…
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. At the time he made that commitment, no American had even orbited the earth. We had no idea of what it would take to make good on…
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ~Jim Rohn Over and over again, business owners come to me with the same problem (though they may describe it differently). Some say, “I don’t have the right people,” or “I can’t hire good people”. Others tell me, “These people just…
It’s that time of year; when business owners take stock of the year gone by, and start to make plans for the year to come. What went well this year? What do we want to do more of? What do we want to do to make 2016 better than 2015? When I’m reviewing plans and…
I have two daughters in college. For each of them, their first choice college was different from the school I thought would be best for them. They were both able to articulate to me why they were in favor of their first choice, but I still disagreed. This is a big decision; there’s a lot…