If you ever want to sell your business, you need a plan. Depending on the size of your business, proper strategic exit planning can take anywhere from 1 to 7 years to do right.
The first step in any successful endeavor is defining what a win will look like once the project is complete. When an artist begins a painting, he typically has a vision in his mind of what the painting will look like when it is finished. When a football team takes the field, they know the definition of success—a ...
In our article Revisiting the EMyth we debunked a couple misconceptions about the EMyth Point of View; namely that: 1) the business owner should never do the technical work of the business and 2) every business should be franchised. But the point was that you needn’t abandon the technical work you love nor do you ...
Hiring new employees is always challenging; but recruiting and hiring salespeople is even more challenging. The process is rife with great rewards along with potential pitfalls. What follows is both an introduction to the process involved in hiring high performing sales staff, but also a leaping off point for you ...
We continue our podcast series with exit planning expert and author, John Warrillow whose book Built to Sell, outlines the eight steps he says are critical to creating a sellable business.
Setting up your corporation the wrong way The goal for many small business owners is to eventually be liberated from their business. By properly creating a systems-dependent business that doesn’t rely on specific people to run it, including the owner, you’ve created the ultimate reward: freedom from your business ...
Lewis and Clark, Sears and Roebuck, Hewlett-Packard, the Wright Brothers. What do these names all have in common? Aside from being almost universally recognized, they were also incredibly successful partners. Despite the seeming preponderance of advice on the challenges and pitfalls of having a business partner, t...
P&L, COGS, EBITDA, BEP, CR & QR—If you look at these five abbreviations and have no idea what they are, or don’t understand the role they play in your business’ finances: read on.
If you want something done correctly, you’ve got to do it yourself, right? That’s a wonderful philosophy if you want to create a lot of work for yourself. But if you want to create a business that works for you, you can’t do it alone. You’ve got to enable other people to do at least some of that work—and you’ve go...
Owning and operating a business isn’t something you take lightly. It requires a huge leap of faith. It’s exciting to live your entrepreneurial dream but it's also innately scary because there's no guarantee you'll succeed.
I am a family physician in Old Saybrook, CT. After being in a group of four doctors for twenty-five years who had no desire or ability to deal with the business side of the practice, the practice dissolved. This required that we had to capitalize the dissolution with our families money. After 25 years of hard work...
In 1995, I was 24 years old and I had the opportunity to buy a martial arts school from the Master I was originally training with. The school was a year old when I took it over, and at the time the monthly revenue was about the same as the rent so I quickly realized that I needed to institute some things that woul...
I've been working with a client who was struggling with self-organization and time-management. After our last meeting, he took it upon himself to create a weekly list and make note of all of the different projects, initiatives, conversations, and people that he was avoiding in his business that built up during the...
There are a lot of things marketing automation software can do for you. It can help you increase traffic, educate and inspire potential customers, and give you a microscopic view of what happens at every step of your buyer’s journey. But like all good things, it’s not quite that simple. It takes a real investment ...
It’s never been easier to chase after the wrong customers. With the explosion of online marketing tools, you and your team can spend all day (and all night) doing it. Which is why it’s never been more important that you have something—or more specifically, someone—to guide you. The challenge for today’s business o...
There’s no substitute for being in the same place as your employees. And that’s a good thing. Part of the joy of going to work is that you get to spend your day with people you respect, and we hope, enjoy being around. And while there are some good reasons to have people on your team who work remotely, you have to...
Is your blog getting you down? Do you wonder whether it’s worth all the effort, whether people are really getting something from it, whether you’re “doing it right”? Maybe you think you’re not a writer, or you simply feel like you don’t have the time to write with all the other demands of your small business.