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...
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 ...
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 ...
The start of the calendar year is a time of reckoning and decision-making for many business owners. Metaphorically (and sometimes literally) there’s a boundary between what was happening in your business last year and what’s to come. And as a business coach, I often help my clients build the bridge between those t...
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 ...
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,...
Last April, like many of you, I applied for the first round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds. My company had taken an immediate hit in revenue from the shock of the pandemic, and there was no certainty that it would rebound anytime soon. The only point of comparison I had was the 2009 financial crisis, a...
When I read The E-Myth Revisited for the first time in 1996, one of the quotes that stuck with me most was this one: “How you think about business is how you end up doing business.”
For most of us, the start of a new year stirs up a sense of momentum. In life and in work, we find ourselves imagining everything we’d like to do differently in the many months ahead, and setting a plan in motion. This year’s no different. Though, with all the disruption of 2020, the need to reset and move forward...
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...
In my last five years as a business coach, only two of my clients have had an operational budget in place when I started working with them. Let that sit for a moment. Of my dozens of clients, most of whom run successful businesses that are turning profits, only a fraction of them had any idea how that profit was h...
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.