The importance of your organization chart

Most companies organize around personalities rather than around functions. That is, around people rather than accountabilities or responsibilities. The result is almost always chaos.

How to effectively manage your employees

The E-Myth Revisited proposes that owners of businesses that are not working should start again. This time they need to translate their vision into a management system, and to control their unpredictable employees through this system. I agree completely with this philosophy. My question is concerned with the pract...

How to build a business partnership that works

Managing a business partnership may be the only thing more difficult than managing a business. Partnerships are hard for the same reasons that any relationship is hard. It takes diligence and work to bring together personalities, communication styles, and ideals. And if you want your partnership to serve your busi...

6 factors that shape your product’s perceived value for your customer

Become the leader your business demands

If you’ve ever had the thought that you weren’t a good leader or didn’t know how to be one, you’re not alone. Business owners rarely go into business for themselves in order to become the leader of a company. In truth, most are looking to secure a “job” where they can provide their product or service free of a bos...

Develop a customer-centric culture in your business

As an entrepreneur, you’re always thinking about your customers. But how much are you considering how they feel? How your customer perceives and feels about your business at any touchpoint is the heart of customer experience. And yet, many companies still limit customer experience simply to areas like marketing an...

How to focus on the right work as an entrepreneur

As an entrepreneur, you likely start every day with an endless to-do list. So, how do you prioritize? What’s the most important thing (or things) to focus on? And how do you prevent yourself from fighting fires all day, only to feel like you didn’t really accomplish anything at the end of the day? The key to using...

Our top 5 business finance blogs of all time

When facing the challenge of understanding—and eventually mastering—your business finances, where do you even begin? That's the question we hear from business owners everywhere, and we try to help answer it with the articles we share on our blog. Our five most popular financial blogs will give you an idea of how t...

Our top four free tools to assess and build strong business systems

“How do I build a business that doesn’t depend so much on me?” That’s one of the most common questions we hear from business owners. And the simplest answer is: You need to create systems to replace you in the business. But this isn’t so simple to do. How do you assess your current business systems? Or identify wh...

The difference between systemic and systematic thinking in business

When was the last time you thought about why your business does what it does? Every business exists for a singular purpose: to produce a certain result—a service or a product. But have you ever asked yourself, "Why do we do it this way?" This question is the essence of strategic thinking. And strategic thinking is...