If you’re a dedicated business owner, you’re working tirelessly, day in and day out, to make your business run and produce consistent, predictable results. You might often say to yourself, “Why can’t I rely on my people to make sure everything works? Why am I the one constantly holding everything together?” The an...
A strong Leadership System is foundational to any business, but understanding leadership as a system (rather than merely certain competencies) is foreign to many entrepreneurs. Instead, business owners tend to focus on developing leadership skills—communication, team development, strategic thinking—which are unden...
Seth Godin once said, “Everyone is not your customer.” And he’s not wrong. While your potential market may consist of everyone in theory, not everyone is your ideal customer. For small business owners, the idea of turning away customers can feel foolish. Why would you narrow down the pool of people who may want to...
As a business owner, sometimes the hardest part of the job is knowing what decisions to make. Maybe you look to other businesses you admire and wonder: How do they do it? How are they finding the right customers, or building such a recognizable brand—and doing it with the same unwavering efficiency every single ti...
When small business owners find a moment to catch their breath and take a look at where everything stands, they'll sometimes find that there’s a gap between what's happened in their business and what they hope's to come. As a business coach, I often help my clients build the bridge between those two points, helpin...
One of the most transformative ideas I help business owners understand is the distinction between working on your business and working in it. But what does that really mean? Put simply, it’s the difference between strategic and tactical work.
As a business coach, I have a unique view into the daily frustrations that occupy most business owners. More often than not, when I ask a new client what’s overwhelming them most in their business, they narrow in immediately on their employees. I hear things like:
If you run your own business, you know your role is just as personal as it is professional. You care deeply about the outcomes of your business—the impact it has and the results it creates—so the natural impulse is to put yourself at the center of the action. You work around the clock to ensure that your team is w...
To build a business that functions well, you need intentionally designed systems. It’s as simple as that, but can feel like the most complex work you’ll ever have to do as a business owner. The truth is that it’s not as hard as you may think. The first step to building a system with intention is to start documenti...
Your Customer Fulfillment system—the way you deliver your product or service to your customers—is an essential part of every business. But at EMyth, we talk often with our clients about how your fulfillment system is more than your product or service: It’s the promise you make to your customers, the experience the...
The world is experiencing a seismic shift, and it’s affecting businesses of all sizes—including ours. An email from a business I follow, sent on March 17, offered a poignant example: Inside the CEO publicly shared a letter to her employees, announcing a minimum 8-week closure of all their stores and a full company...
As a small business ourselves, we know that the national crisis of the coronavirus is likely creating unexpected financial challenges for many of you. We feel it, too. But the good news is that support for small business is coming, either through state or federal government assistance or through organizations offe...
Every business owner takes on three distinct personalities in how they think about—and work within—their business. The Technician lives in the present and is focused on doing the work of making it, selling it, and delivering it. The Manager focuses on achieving results through people and systems, focusing on the p...
As the owner and leader of your business, you may find yourself facing the year-end with a mixture of thoughts and feelings: excitement, hope, joy—and maybe some disappointment.
Business owners often face a frustrating dilemma: They’re so busy with the tactical work of their business, they can’t find time to create the structure needed to escape that tactical work. It’s an overwhelming cycle that—for many—feels inescapable. But I promise it’s not. It’s not easy to escape it, but it’s not ...
Take a moment to think about your business. Go ahead—picture your typical work day. What does that picture look like? Does it look like you clocking into a job, immersed in the technical work of your business? Does it look like you putting out constant fires, struggling to check a single task off your to-do list w...
Our natural world is a great example of systems at work—solar systems, ecosystems, weather systems, bodily systems, and so forth. As humans, we naturally look for patterns to solve problems and make extraordinary advancements. We search for ways to turn chaos into order and to discover efficient and repeatable way...