Do you ever ask an employee for something you requested several days earlier and get a puzzled look? Or get the response: “I didn’t know you wanted it today.” Or even more baffling, the employee tells you: “I don’t know how to do that.” These are the kinds of answers that cause many owners to hesitate when delegat...
Interviewing can be fun and exciting—the thrill of adding new capabilities to your team, thoughts of growth and expansion. Yet, we seldom recognize the cost of moving too quickly. Hiring for the wrong reasons. Rushing the process.
This is the fifth installment in helping you fully develop and implement Org Charts and Position Agreements, which support a culture of ownership within your business. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. “My employees know what to do, but if one thing goes wrong, they just stand around.” “They can ge...
This is the third installment in helping you fully develop and implement Org Charts and Position Agreements, which support a culture of ownership within your business. Click here for Part 1 and Part 2. If you followed my previous blogs—and you kept it simple—you should have a Position Agreement for each role in yo...
This is the second installment in helping you fully develop and implement Org Charts and Position Agreements, which support a culture of ownership within your business. Click here for Part 1. The three things people crave in a business are: Certainty, Unity and Stability. Certainty enters when people know what you...
This is the first installment in helping you fully develop and implement Org Charts and Position Agreements, which support a culture of ownership within your business. There is a certain point in every business when you realize you need to organize your people more effectively. And it can happen with as few as fiv...
This is the season for planning for the new year and we’ve been talking a lot about it. If you haven’t started yet, it’s not too late to create your Annual Plan. We have a six step process to get you there. If you really want your business to look, act, feel and perform differently a year from now (Is there anyone...
Have you ever stepped back from your business for a few hours to think about what you want this company to give you? Maybe it's the dream you started with, the one that gave you the momentum and courage to quit a job and venture out on your own. Maybe it's the time and support you want to dedicate to your family a...
This is Part Four on how to build a sales system that works. Read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three here. When you really break it down, a salesperson who has the highest lead to sales conversions is doing one thing better than everyone else: leading the sales conversation. If you, in your sales role, or your sal...
As an owner of EMyth and its Board Chair, this is a meaningful time for me. October is National Women’s Small Business Month. My 35th anniversary at EMyth is a few months away, having spent the first 17 years building the company into a global brand with my former husband, Michael Gerber, EMyth’s founder and best ...
This is Part Three on how to build a sales system that works. Read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Four here. How well do you know what’s really going on in your sales department? Whether you’re a solopreneur or you’ve got a team of salespeople responsible for bringing in new business, how much do you reall...
This is Part Two on how to build a sales system that works. Read Part One, Part Three, and Part Four here. Isn’t it curious that sales, the lifeblood of every small business, is so damn hard to get right? You started your business because you believed you could make or do something that other people wanted, but th...
This is Part One on how to build a sales system that works. Read Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four here. It’s not hard to agree with the idea that your business needs systems. But, when it comes to sales, small business owners often have a lot of difficulty really getting behind creating a comprehensive sales sy...
The day you decided to stop working for anyone but yourself was probably glorious. No one to tell you what to do and how to do it. Life suddenly had promise, imagining yourself spending every day doing the work you’re passionate about. Until… until the day you realized that instead of your boss dictating how you d...
John Lennon gave us, “Yes is the answer,” and I get what he means. He was talking about saying yes to love, embracing life, and seeing opportunities instead of limits—all important and valuable in building the kind of world we want to live in. But what about saying “No?” Is there a place for that, especially in yo...
Imagine what kind of workplace your business would be if your employees thought to themselves: "I’m excited about my work.” “This is a place where I can achieve my goals.” “I feel safe. It’s okay to make a mistake, and I will learn from it.” “I have some great ideas on how to improve things. I can’t wait to share ...
This is the sixth and final installment in helping you develop and design clear systems. Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Before I dive into this final article on systems development, I want to thank those of you who have written to me during the course of this series. Your participation ...
