Learn to use the tools and technologies that will grow your small business.
This post is a part of a series to help you define processes in your business Defining and documenting processes is critical to the growth of your organization. There are many different types of processes you need to be thinking about, but one of the most important is your employee
There are quite a few hurdles in getting your team to document processes. Anything you can do to remove these obstacles will help ensure that documents are created and updated regularly. At the start, just getting people to write down the details of a process is a win. At some
If you want to grow your organization, you have to set up processes and document those processes. As we engage with clients in helping them set up these documents, we always just start by focusing on one process. This first process is usually in a word doc on a local
I see myself as having a fairly high-risk tolerance. I like trying new things and trying out creative solutions within my business. What I don’t like is having a project for a client and then not being able to deliver a solution for them. I hate failure. What happens for
“Being Safe Is Risky” ~ Seth godin A few years back I was hanging out with my father-in-law and his buddies and they were all talking about their concerns over their children or grandchildren. Even though all their kids were out of the house, they still worried about them. I
If you want to make money in business, you can’t just copy what someone else is doing. You need to figure out how to create value. And creating value comes from solving problems. How do you solve a problem? You have try solving it! Analysis will only bring you so
While I love creating systems for Associations, there is a real problem with system thinking — the rut. The rut is a mindset where we start to believe that our current systems will always work and will never need to change. What is the issue with this? Your members are
My experience in manufacturing gave me such a vivid view of how to continually improve a system. When you look at a manufacturing floor, everything is just so visible. Many times within seconds you can diagnose the bottleneck that is holding the system back. When you are making something on
This post is a part of a series to help you define processes in your business In our process documentation, we have the following types of docs: Team member details. We do have an office, but half our team is remote. This directory puts a name to a face and
This post is a part of a series to help you define processes in your business Every couple of years, we have to train in a new level one support rep. When we hire people in this position, they get stressed with all the learning. And frankly, I get overwhelmed
This post is a part of a series to help you define processes in your business Most small business owners I know want to grow their business, but most don’t take the initiative to build the systems of their business. Your job is to build the system and let the
This post is a part of a series to help you define processes in your business Hopefully, at this point, you’ve started to glimpse the importance of creating systems in your business and you’ve decided to take ownership of overseeing the development of these systems. We are off to a
This post is a part of a series to help you define processes in your business In order to grow your business, you have to implement processes. These processes make sure your company can run without you. They allow you to scale. While we all want to scale our business,
I’ve written quite a bit on using leverage to grow your business. Leverage has a root word — lever. A lever is a simple machine that relies on a fulcrum to multiply input which increases output. One critical area you can use leverage in your business is in creating processes.
“Most people never pick up the phone. Most people never call and ask. And that’s what separates sometimes the people who do things from those who just dream about them. You gotta act. You gotta be willing to fail. You gotta be willing to crash and burn. With people on
As small business owners there is always going to be a percentage of tasks that we have to do that we really don’t want to do. But as I’ve aged in years, I’ve started to pay close attention to my energy levels. When I start craving substances like beer or
“Real Artists Ship”~ Steve Jobs I’ve written here and here and here about the benefits of limits. Learning to leverage limits in our business and life can lead to incredible results. We have a choice about what we believe. When we encounter limits, we can be frustrated about these constraints,
We all want more leads, and so marketing seems like where we should put our time. But marketing should be the byproduct of deep customer knowledge. I argue that this knowledge comes from having empathy for our customers. When we focus on marketing without first having a true understanding of
I’ve heard it said that entrepreneurs work 80 hours for themself so they don’t have to work 40 for someone else. Why do we subject ourselves to this type of torture? Because we want to be in charge of our own destiny, to blaze a new trail. We are always
In my previous post, I highlighted a video from John Doer about attributes he looks for in leaders. The concept of mercenary vs missionary in business has had a tremendous impact on me over years. Partly because of my personality and upbringing, I have this desire to serve and make
I believe one of the most beneficial long-term strategies to grow your business is found in trying to serve your customers better. If you continue to get better at serving your customer over time you will continue to ensure that you are learning and growing, which is the key to
It was midnight and I was ready to give up. My son Caleb was in the 4th grade and was participating in his first science fair. As a parent, I was still naive about the time it takes to make your experiment a success. I mean you don’t want to
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it” – Warren Buffet After six months of hard coding, my team and I were at the end of a large software development project. I thought things were going great, but as it turned out the customer
strat·e·gy /ˈstradəjē/nouna plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. Oxford’s English dictionary Strategy is a very important topic for small businesses. Oxford’s dictionary defines strategy as a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. There are a couple
It was 2008 and I was holding onto my business for dear life. A few years earlier I had started selling websites and programming services. We won some larger contracts so we took a risk and hired 3 employees and moved into a nice office space. Then the recession hit
So far in our small business strategy, we have covered the various forms of intention planning. You have created your missional intent and then have set up your strategic intent by creating 12-month objectives. The next step was to create your implementation intent by establishing your leading activities that are
“Never mistake activity for results” John Wooden Business strategy overall is hard to apply in the context of small business. The key to making strategy work for you is all about intention planning, which when done right increases your likelihood of achieving your goals by 100%. The first step of
Most business strategy is developed within academia targeted towards large companies. While there can be some good knowledge you can glean from these resources, small business strategy really needs its own approach. The first step for you the owner is to develop a long-term perspective in the form of your
Sales, employees, profits, procurement, delivery. We all have a long to-do list of things we need to accomplish to make sure the wheels don’t come off. It is a tornado whirling around everything we do and sucking us into its vortex. This vortex is spinning everything and constantly twirling and
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