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In an episode of Little House on the Prairie there was a particularly cold winter. The snow piled so high and visibility was so poor that Pa had to tether a rope between the house and the barn to make sure he didn’t get lost. This is what is it … Read More

When planning for the future of your business it is very easy to think through extremely abstract long-term goals. This type of strategic planning falls short because there is no way for you to predict the future. A good small business strategy must be very action-oriented and it must be … Read More

A couple of years ago, my wife and I started training for a marathon. We came across an old book from Jeff Gallaway that we used for our training program. Jeff says that the major reason people don’t finish a marathon isn’t because of lack of motivation, but because of … Read More

An intention plan is a specific strategy of what you will do, where you will do it, and when you will do it. There is research that shows that an intention plan like this can increase the likelihood of achieving a result by 2x. In a study on weight loss, … Read More

Think for a minute about the biggest issues you face in your business. Many of you would think about lack of sales, or a key hire that you need to make or maybe you are in a cash crunch. Each of these problems are real and pressing, but I would … Read More

ful·crum (noun) – The point on which a lever rests or is supported and on which it pivots. Oxford Dictionary For thousands of years, humans have learned to use simple machines to help them do more work. One of these types of machines is a lever. The key component that … Read More

As business owners seeking growth, we will hit points where progress slows down. It is easy to resort to working harder or to throw more capital at a problem to solve it. These are forms of leverage, but they are to be used only to scale what is already working, … Read More

A fulcrum is the point on which a lever rests or is supported and on which it pivots. As small business owners, we wear all sorts of different hats — technician, salesperson, operations manager, and accountant. The daily grind of all these roles is exhausting and leads most entrepreneurs to … Read More

It would be amazing if customers just called you and immediately wanted to buy your product or service. Unfortunately, that isn’t how things work. Before someone is willing to buy, they go through a customer journey. As the customer progresses through this journey, they have different needs and are asking … Read More

It would be amazing if customers just called you and immediately wanted to buy your product or service. Unfortunately, that isn’t how things work. Before someone is willing to buy, they go through a customer journey. As the customer progresses through this journey, they have different needs and are asking … Read More

It would be amazing if customers just called you and immediately wanted to buy your product or service. Unfortunately, that isn’t how things work. Before someone is willing to buy, they go through a customer journey. As the customer progresses through this journey, they have different needs and are asking … Read More

The goal any marketing is to increase revenue. Digital marketing simply uses online tools to better engage with your customers as the mechanism for more sales. For any of us, when we are making a purchase, we go through a process. For simple products that cost less, this process can … Read More

Steve Jobs spoke at the WWDC in 1997 about the process of marketing Apple’s laser printer. In this speech Jobs said, “I remember seeing the first printout come out of it and just picking it up … you don’t have to know anything about what’s in that box all we … Read More

As we are looking at growing our business, we inevitably come up against competition from others. The key to winning new business is showing how your service is different from someone else’s. So, if differentiation is the differentiator, how do we create it? To start, it is important to understand … Read More

This is the last post in our Stories of Transformation series. This whole series is written as a guide to help you create foundational copy to describe the process you bring a client through. At this step, you are wrapping the project and you are documenting what you learned. Taking … Read More

We are nearing the end of our Stories of Transformation series. The goal of this series is to help you create results-based content on your website, in case studies, and in your sales process that shows potential customers how you can help them get to their destination. We are now … Read More

This post is part of a series to help you uncover customer Stories of Transformation. We have covered gaining a deep understanding of your customer, and knowing the transformation the customer wants. Now we are jumping into documenting the results of your customer’s experience. It doesn’t matter if you are … Read More

People don’t buy things for features, they buy things to get an outcome. A feature is a theoretical attribute that may or may not create change. An outcome is a destination. Focusing on features can distract us from what customers are really needing as it puts the focus on us. … Read More

To begin the process of documenting your company’s Stories of Transformation, you need to start with a deep understanding of the customer. Please do not run through this exercise on a hypothetical customer. Follow this process with a new client engagement or with a new customer that has just purchased … Read More

We work with a lot of companies … over 100 each year. As I help them with their website and marketing process, one of the major limiting factors is being able to show what they have actually done for customers. When prompted they can usually talk about some customers that … Read More

My family loves to hike. When my kids were younger, my wife wanted to climb a 15 mile round trip hike up near the peak of Mount Rainier (the tallest peak in the continental United States). Looking up at the top, and thinking about the long trail, our kids naturally … Read More

I don’t know anyone that loves being inefficient. Personally I hate it. I hate being slow to get something done and I really don’t like it in teams that I lead. As business owners we probably hate inefficiency more than most because time is money. If you or an employee … Read More

As a small business owner, you are primarily a knowledge worker. Doing knowledge work well requires you to transition from working in the business to working on the business. It requires you to spend time thinking about how to scale what you are doing. At each step of scaling you … Read More

As of 2019, it is estimated that there are over 1 billion people in the world primarily involved in knowledge work. If you have one or more employees or if you spend the majority of your time at a desk, you are in knowledge work. This type of work requires … Read More

We support multiple best selling author’s websites. One commonality I find among best selling authors is that they know exactly what they need to do in order to generate revenue. They need to write. All other services needed to run their company are either outsourced or delegated. They have the … Read More

Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you’ve got. There’s no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative. Rework by Jason Fried Let’s be honest, limits are frustrating. No one likes to come to the realization they have limits. However, … Read More

A limiting factor is anything that constrains a population’s size and slows or stops it from growing.  National Geographic In biology a limiting factor is something that constrains growth. For example, if your favorite plant’s leaves start to wither you might look at the root system. If the plant is rootbound there … Read More

Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount. Lady Jessica from Dune by Frank Herbert In Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel, the protagonist Paul and his mother Lady Jessica along with their House Atreides move to the desert planet Arrakis (Dune) from the water plentiful planet … Read More

One day in 1982, my dad and I used our Apple IIe login to a bulletin board. It was just text and there were only discussions going on around various topics. He said, someday people are going to buy products this way. I was amazed. 12 years later in my … Read More

We’ve been in the process of buying a new car.  In our desire to keep our costs down in throwing dollars at a depreciating asset, I’ve been tempted to increase our limit of how many miles the car has.  It seems like a good short term decision to buy a … Read More