What’s your 2022 business resolution?
This can be your breakthrough year to finally resolve your biggest frustration with your business—and here are some free tools you can use to fix those issues
Leadership
The 6 do’s and don’ts of hiring
Have you ever brought on a new employee only to later find they’re a bad fit? They didn’t match the company culture, or they dragged down the productivity of everyone around them. When this happens, it’s usually a result of moving too quickly or hiring for the wrong reasons—and whatever time and resources you migh...
To manage your business, manage yourself first
Finish this sentence: “I don’t have time to…” What comes to mind for you? We hear this phrase every day from our clients—things like: I don’t have time to work on my business, focus on leading my team, see my kids, take a vacation. Every business owner struggles with time management. It’s hard not to when you’ve i...
The five core leadership skills
Starting a business doesn’t naturally transform you into a leader. In fact, many business owners we work with didn’t get into business to be leaders. They simply wanted to follow their dream, to use their natural interest or talents to create their own path in life. For these folks, the idea of leading can be anyt...
Develop an informed product strategy for your small business
Any entrepreneur who’s had to pivot their business during the pandemic can attest: Hardship breeds innovation. We’ve seen many EMyth Clients make critical creative shifts in their business or delivery model in order to meet their customers where they were—and to keep their company alive. But now that life is slowl...
How to develop managers within your business
Perhaps you know the famous proverb, “Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.” It may seem like an obvious concept, but it’s surprisingly hard for business owners to embrace. The essence of this idea speaks perfectly to why you owe it to both yoursel...
5 concepts to know about business systematization
When small business owners come to us for help, one of their most common questions is, “How do I create the systems my business needs?” And you know what? We love to hear that question. It means that those leaders are ready to take the right steps to work on their businesses, not in them.
Our five most-read leadership blogs of the past year
As a small business owner, you’ve worked hard to make your company what it is today. And if you’re like so many of our clients, you didn’t think about how to get started—you just took the leap. You created something out of your own ideas, skills and passion, and soon became the leader everyone looks to for directi...
Create a strong Leadership System for your small business
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...
Build a self-sustaining business
If you’re fortunate enough to have taken your company on a journey through all of its highs and lows for 5, 10, even 20 years or more, chances are you’ve had those moments when you wished your business weren’t so damn dependent on you. No matter what you’ve achieved, most business owners know in their heart that i...
Learn to be a great manager
If there’s one thing most business owners struggle with (okay, aside from creating a budget), it’s the transition from managing no one to managing everyone. Most clients who come to us simply don’t want to deal with management responsibilities—period. They hope (and act on the belief) that if they hire good people...
The only business coaching model that works
If you’re reading this, chances are you already know a bit about business coaching. You may even recognize that you need something like coaching. At the very least, you know that some change or transformation has to happen in your business, because it’s just not performing how you want it to or giving you the free...
Work ON it: Develop your vision
If you’re familiar with the “E” in EMyth, you know that most businesses aren’t started by Entrepreneurs at all. Entrepreneurs are people who go into business with a vision of a company that doesn’t rely on their own ability to make, sell and deliver it. Most businesses are instead started by Technicians. Technicia...
The unhealthy financial behaviors that damage your business
Business owners aren’t finance experts. It’s a sweeping statement, but as a business coach and business owner myself, I know the truth of it. One of the beautiful things about owning a business is that you don’t have to be an expert in everything—you just need to have the right experts at your fingertips. This is ...
How to get off the gerbil wheel: The Otterbox story
If you own a business, you’re probably familiar with the feeling of being stuck on a gerbil wheel. It’s that perpetual state of expending all your energy just to keep your business running without ever making forward progress. It’s a feeling all business owners face at some point, and unfortunately most get stuck ...
You have an annual plan. Now what?
The first month of 2021 is behind us, and I’ve spent a good deal of it meeting with clients to revisit the annual plan they created late last year. If you haven’t sat down to review your own goals for the new year, now’s a great time to pause and check in. And it’s not necessarily to check progress on those goals,...
5 things business owners learned about leadership in 2020
For better or worse (or both), 2020 has been an eye-opening time for business owners. As we close out a year that’s disrupted our lives and livelihoods in so many unexpected ways, we’d like to share some light. With all the challenges business owners have faced, there have been some equally remarkable lessons. Our...