One of the questions I ask clients when we’re talking about making plans for important initiatives in their business is: If this initiative fails, who gets yelled at? Who loses their job if you don’t make progress on this? It might be a negative way to think about it. But I’ve found that if there…
Earlier this week, we talked about how doing the wrong work can drain the life out of you, and how even stuff we’re good at might not be the thing that gives us life. If we keep working in these tedious roles, it drains our energy, and we risk getting burnt out. But there’s a…
With Thanksgiving behind us, there’s just one long sprint to the end of the year. We’ve got 4 weeks left to accomplish our annual goals, while we do all the holiday shopping, gift-giving, party-going, and family event preparation. It’s the “happiest time of the year,” right? It’s these kind of crunch times when I find…
On Tuesday we talked about the process of picking out what’s most important for you to accomplish in a day, or a week, and blocking time on your calendar to do it. Did you know you can use a similar process to keep your whole business focused on the most critical challenges you face? When…
On Saturday, I wrote about my client who filled his calendar all day, every day with meetings. Not meetings in which he got to do the thing he loves — meetings to cover administriva, operations meetings, places where he had to make decisions about things that he wasn’t an expert in. He had resolved many…
His business had grown — it was bigger now than he ever thought it would get to be. He’s making good money, driving a nice car, has a big office, a place out by the lake…things are good. Except, he’s tired, exhausted really. He’s tried changing up his workout; he tried taking a big long…
When your business first starts to grow, hiring is a necessity. There’s work that needs to get done and you need people to do it. You want folks who will be a good fit, sure, but mostly you need work done. Once you get to 10 – 15 people you need more than help to…
I’m in the midst of building a brand new arm to my business: mastermind groups for business owners. I’m in the middle of a beta test for these groups and have spoken to colleagues, past clients, prospects, and anyone who might have an interest in hearing about it. (One of my core business growth tenets…
I clearly remember the moment I decided to hire a virtual assistant (VA). As my business started growing, I realized that more clients meant more work to get done! Pretty soon, I was so busy that I was missing emails and failing to get back to people because I just never had the time. I…
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…