Creating Accountability is Critical to Business Growth I talk with small business owners struggling with employee issues all the time. . I often hear “Oh, that stuff is just for big companies. We only have 10 employees.” Their mistake is that if business growth is really the goal, then they need to start thinking more ... Read More
I saw this article and infographic in Entrepreneur on how to develop a successful business plan and said “they nailed it!” You’ve heard me talk about successful business plans from time to time. It’s not the plan that is important to you as a business owner. It’s what you learn by going through the process that ... Read More
For years I have tried to spread the word that business growth is a standardized process as I documented in my post The Search for Business Growth Continues. The main premise is that a business matures through stages. There are a specific set of objectives to achieve in order to mature through each stage of development. Complete ... Read More
What would it be worth to know exactly what every person in your business needs to do to achieve your revenue goal for next year? Imagine if every person’s objectives were set specifically to support the revenue goal! It’s actually simpler than you might think. It’s all about tuning your revenue engine! Our business management ... Read More
As I presented in my previous post Succession Planning vs. Exit Planning Which Do You Use?, the primary goal of any succession plan is leadership transfer. So, you can imagine that things can get a little tricky. One of the biggest reasons is that most succession plan checklists out there seem to focus on the ... Read More
Often the terms succession planning and exit planning get used interchangeably. However, there is a definitive difference between the two. It’s important as a business owner that you understand the difference. Succession planning is really identifying, training, and transferring the leadership/management of a company to another person or team of people. Exit planning, on the ... Read More
Succession planning is something too many small business owners think about too late! Many don’t even think about succession planning because they believe that they will just sell their and that’s the end of it. However, even with the sale of a business succession planning is critical. The buyer will be your successor instead of ... Read More
While cash flow is a regular topic here, it’s been a while since we hit the topic from a finance and accounting perspective. While many small business owners find accounting to be tedious it is extremely important if you ever want to have success with your business. The reason cash flow is so important for ... Read More
I see small business owners get distracted from their main vision all the time. It’s amazing how many owners have attention deficit disorder (ADD). ADD can be a strength in business. But, it also presents its challenges by creating what I call – shiny object syndrome! Shiny object syndrome stems from a person’s ability to ... Read More
Is Your Business Ready for You to Leave? Last week I post a question, “What’s Your Greatest Challenge in Exiting Your Business?”, on LinkedIn. My intent was to get some feedback before writing the next few weeks’ posts on “exit/succession planning.” While I got a few interesting comments, which I plan to write on later. ... Read More
The number of people using their personal credit cards for business purpose is growing and that might just prove to be a disastrous financial decision given the risk of mixing pleasure with business. The National Federation of Independent Businesses has found that the percentage of small business entrepreneurs using their personal credit cards to incur ... Read More
Ok, so it’s the week 3 of the New Year. Did you make a New Year’s resolution for business growth? If so, where are you tracking so far, and will you make it? Most will tell me, “it’s too early to tell?” But, is it?!!! There are things that will tell you if you are ... Read More
Last week’s post was directed at those who set business growth as a goal for New Year. While the 7 questions addressed in the post are critical, they are not all the pieces to the growth puzzle. The 7 questions only address the business aspects of strategic planning and without a complete strategic plan business growth ... Read More
To build a business it takes a team. In fact, it’s more important than most small business owners think! Ask any investor or lender and 9 times out of 10 they’ll tell you the most important factor that they evaluate is the TEAM. Why? Because if they’re giving you money they want to know that ... Read More
Over the past month I’ve posted on several important topics including delegation and outsourcing. If you’ve read these posts you may have seen some mutual skills/actions needed. They are not specific to these topics. I began searching for the common theme in all these areas and it hit me that high performance organizations have many ... Read More
If you’ve accumulated a huge amount of unsecured debts, you need not worry as you can opt for business debt consolidation through which you can finesse your business finances. If you’re a business owner, keeping careful track of your business finances is one of the most important tasks that you should do in order to ... Read More
Last week I posted on the 5 things you can do to test if an affiliate partnership will work before you invest a lot of time and energy into a the relationship. Another critical tool for a business owner is the ability to outsourcing work from time to time as a strategy for adding capacity. ... Read More
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 spoke about how they are trying to decide whether to move forward or not on my proposal. It seems they ... Read More
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 that can help you fund your business growth. However, all of these sources will require you meet certain criteria before ... Read More
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 you asked the questions yet? And is your Q4 plan ready to get you there? Looking at this year is ... Read More
