Strategic Planning Success – A Real World Example
This weekend I ran into a prospect from a technology company that I had proposed a strategic planning retreat for their senior leadership team 3 or 4 month ago. Let’s call them company 1. We [...]
Double the Business Funding Potential of Your Growing Company
Getting business funding is always difficult. But, add the banking challenges of recent years and it only makes it harder! The truth is banks are still lending. And, there are many other sources of funding [...]
The 6 Step Business Success Process Re-Visited
Last week in the post Will Your Business Grow This Year? I asked some very tough questions to get you thinking about what’s necessary to assure you’ll hit your business goals for this year. Have [...]
Leading to New Horizons of Success
Success is a destination that you define for your company. It represents the vision of a new vista; a new horizon; a new set of possibilities for your business – a change. That means you [...]
Will Your Business Grow This Year? – Why or Why Not?
Did your business grow this year? Why or why not? If growth was not a goal this year, will it be a goal next year? These are questions you should be asking yourself right now [...]
Small Business Growth FACTS
Here are some interesting facts that I have uncovered while researching my posts, e-Books, and upcoming business book that are very revealing. Put yourself in the upper end of these categories by applying our strategic planning [...]
Self Awareness – Your First Step to Breakthrough Success
In my post The Major Barrier to Executing Your Strategic Plan, I talked about self-awareness as a key to moving your business agenda forward. Mentioning the topic increased my self-awareness and I saw several posts [...]
The Major Barrier to Executing Your Strategic Plan
Last week I update the learning objectives for an end-of-year strategic planning retreat workshop I conducted several years back. Something struck me that could hold the answer to why small business owners struggle in executing [...]
The First Step in Improving Leadership for Your Small Business
Improving leadership is critical to business growth. Without good leadership small businesses stagnate and fail, so how are you improving leadership for your business?
Excuse Me, What Is It You Can’t Do?
Creating Success Means Getting Past Your Negative “Personal Speak” After last week’s leadership post titled “Do You Have the Courage to be the Leader Your Business Needs?” I’ve had a lot of conversations about the [...]
Do You Have the Courage to be the Leader Your Business Needs?
Self-improvement has on leadership and business growth, however often owners don't have the courage to look in the mirror and fix the personal fears which hold them back from making the necessary changes to take [...]
2 Skills Create Entrepreneurship on the Beach
Been at the beach for a short vacation this weekend and made a surprising observation. It doesn’t matter how big or small an establishment, if you think like an entrepreneur you can build a self-sustaining [...]
3 Reasons Growth is Hard for Small Business Owners
If you are a small business owners struggling with the growth of your business there are 3 potential strategic factors that are keeping you from small business growth. Do you fully understand your desired personal [...]
Exit Your Business by Answering 3 Important Questions
I attend a lot of meetings and seminars focused on exit planning. But, most fall short because they only focus on the transactional portion of the process instead of showing you what to do in [...]
How to Profitably Refine Your Operational Focus in the Survival Stage
Consistent profitability is the goal of the survival stage. So, your operational focus needs to be increasing efficiency and productivity. If you can do what you do faster, you can improve cash flow which in turn [...]
4 Things to Build a Great Operation in the Foundation Stage
This week let’s get back to looking at the strategic objectives within each business function as you move your business along the growth model. So, far we’ve looked at marketing and sales. Now let's see [...]
Business Growth Got You Puzzled? 3 Things Simplify It!
Small business growth is simpler than most people think. The problem is that most books, training, and so called gurus over complicate the puzzle to make themselves look smarter and charge you more. [...]
2 Marketing Objectives Speed You Thru the Self-Sustainability Stage
Before you can successfully marketing in the success growth stage, you must decide what you are trying to accomplish next with your business. Read my previous post titled Is Indecision Keeping You and Your Business [...]
Listening – The Best Marketing for Startups
Marketing for startups is often difficult because small business owners don’t understand the difference between sales and marketing. (see my previous post Sales Slump? Do You Have the Right Resource Assigned?). Marketing for startups is [...]
3 Critical Sales Dynamics of Rapid Growth
The rapid growth stage of the growth cycle is all about becoming a big business. This is not for the faint of heart. And, most assuredly not for those owners that left corporate America because [...]