When working with clients, one of the most important roles I play is holding them accountable to do what they know they must do to keep their businesses thriving. When you own the business, it can be easy to allow the urgent to overwhelm the important. Before you know it, the important has slid for months and the business…
There are 5.5 million family businesses in the United States employing 98 million people. This is a significant part of our nation’s economy, with a distinct issue, especially for small businesses that are family-owned: the family dynamic. For those tight-knit, small family-owned businesses, I have 5 fundamentals to ensure you have a solid foundation for your business to create consistent…
Meetings happen daily in the workplace. They can be productive, agonizing, creative, annoying, enlightening, dull, and never as efficient as they should be. As many different types of business meetings occur in the work week, there are that many number of different responses attendees have to those meetings. If employees aren’t engaged, as a leader you are wasting your time; in…
Perception and Preparation Create Performance Whether you are in sales, guiding employees or dealing with upset customers, perception and preparation will determine the outcome of the situation you are facing. Perception No matter how we try to deliver information, how it is received and perceived can have all the impact in the world. Recently, I watched an overwhelmed waitress take a series…
The process of creating success in your life is truly not that difficult to understand. It’s in the execution where most people get tripped up, because it requires a change of attitude and a change of heart. When I have shared this with audiences, I hear many comments, or as I see them, excuses, for why they are unable to…
Small business owners usually focus on one of three areas of the business: addressing employee issues that can create problems and reduce service effectiveness, enjoying the passion for the task of creating their products, and making sure cash flow is in good shape. Marketing for the small business owner is frequently tossed together with what monies they have left over…
Making a pile of money and keeping a pile of money are two very different things. I’m frequently puzzled by professional athletes and executives who make very good wages yet still struggle with money troubles. There are no secrets, just solid habits for building personal wealth. Live within your means. My advice to my clients for this is don’t buy goods…
Which approach best fits your style of running your small business? Are you more part of the (wolf) pack or do you align with being part of the (sheep) herd? Other than the obvious, what really is the difference? From a business standpoint, plenty. And your business results are predicated on your choice. A pack mentality has a distinct hierarchy…
Employees are moving on from companies because the employer’s work culture no longer fits their needs. I’m surprised when I ask small business owners about their work culture by how different their perspective is from that of their employees. As we see daily in the news, the evolution of culture of a workplace is changing rapidly with executives being called to…
For most managers, this is proving to be a complicated generation of workers to understand and retain in the workplace. In fact, 68% of Millennials surveyed say the longest they will stay at the same employer is 3 years. Surprisingly, today the average U.S. worker spends just 15 months in one role in today’s working environment. Retaining millennials is a…