Business owners often come to us for help building a business model prototype—what we call a franchise prototype. They’ve read about the concept in The E-Myth Revisited and feel that it’s the key to getting what they want: a business that gets the results they desire at the standard they expect—without relying so ...
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...
When facing the unique challenges in your business, where do you even begin? In our many years of coaching business owners, we’ve learned that whatever the challenge, one thing is always true: the solution starts with you. If your business isn’t working or serving your life the way you want it to, how can you chan...
If you’re like many other business owners, the mere thought of managing your finances makes you want to bury your head in the sand. You may find yourself asking, “How can I create a cash plan? Wait—what is a cash plan?” And that’s a great place to start: What exactly is a cash plan? Think about it like this: If yo...
If there’s one point we touch on again and again, it’s this: You can’t run and grow a successful business while doing the day-to-day work yourself. Sure, many entrepreneurs start out on their own, but you have to start delegating at some point—the only alternatives are stagnation and total burnout. You may wonder:...
When you started your business, you probably did every task needed to produce and deliver your product or service, or near to it. And as your business has grown, do you still carry much of the day to day—if not the actual execution, the oversight of the work? Do you find yourself unable to let go of work you shoul...
So, you’ve noticed a lack of clarity and consistency in how projects are managed in your business and taken the essential step of implementing a project management system. Congratulations! Project management systems—and the tools used to execute them—are crucial to ensuring every project you take on in your busine...
When my daughters were younger, they belonged to our local community Girl Scout troop, and every year they'd go about the business of knocking on various strangers' doors to sell their Girl Scout cookies.
Most people mistakenly think of marketing as an external action. Often, when I ask one of my new clients about their current marketing system, I get a response like, “Sure, I have an e-commerce website. We’re always sending out offers to our prospects,” or, “We run regular marketing campaigns all over the country....
At the best of times, business owners struggle to step away from running their company to focus on themselves, on the things that refuel them and clear their minds. But a pandemic—or any crisis, really—makes it that much harder. Right now, at the time of year when most of my clients would be taking a much needed b...
Most companies organize around personalities rather than around functions. That is, around people rather than accountabilities or responsibilities. The result is almost always chaos.
“I’m overwhelmed.” It’s a phrase we hear often and from everyone, from parents to business owners. There’s always so much to do, so many details to track and deadlines to manage. Nobody wants to feel overwhelmed—but in today's busy world, what can you do about it?
Here we are at the beginning of a new year (and a new decade!)—an incredible moment that offers the opportunity to metaphorically wipe the slate clean and start fresh. And what if you really could start fresh, start anew? What if this were the year you could achieve the dream we know so many business owners have, ...