The Power of Passion in Business Goals
Most businesses I've come across write goals that are devoid of any passion.
Typical Goal Setting
A typical vision or long-term business goal.
- 5000 customers
- 20 million in revenue
- Sell tools, coaching and training
- Happy customers
- by 2016
This is pretty clear so most businesses stop there.
A Better Version
By
2016, we are going to help 5000 business owners and their teams create dream
businesses that enrich the lives of everyone they touch. We will deliver so
much value through […]
Caution: Business Owner Acting As Stairs
Are you trying to remove all risk from your business?
I saw this sign by some escalators that were out of order the other day.
It got me to thinking:
- Are stairs really more dangerous than escalators?
- Is the warning about the fact you will have to exert yourself; exercise is dangerous?
- If you can read the sign, don't you think you would notice that the escalator was not moving?
- What would happen if the sign was not there? Would people just stand on the first stair for hours without […]
10 Steps to Your Most Important Work
Every minute you are not working on “Your Most Important
Work” means you are not working at your full potential!
For most entrepreneurs and business owners, the day is
filled with things that need to get done.
The busy work.
If you are using lists to track your pending work it may
actually look something like this.
Lists are a great first step for getting things done and not
forgetting things.
But they are overwhelming.
They are also potentially […]
The Science of Business Intuition: 4 Steps
Business leaders must often go with their gut in making timely decisions.
But that begs the questions:
- Why does trusting your gut work?
- When does it not work?
Many small business owners lack the required knowledge, experience or information to trust their intuition effectively. At the same time they often "believe" their intuition is serving them well.
Intuition is largely driven by the intersection of your subconscious brain and your conscious thoughts.
Your brain stores vast amounts of information and experiences as well as the corresponding emotions, etc. that go with them.
When you need to make a decision quickly without enough conclusive information, your brain […]
Essential: Ensure Your Business is Prepared
The impact of not being prepared for unusual situations can cripple or destroy your business.
What Can Happen
I went out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve. We made reservation and were seated at 5pm.
After taking our order the waitress informed us that things were really busy and it would take an hour for the food to come out of the kitchen. Looking around things didn't seem to be any busier than normal.
We happened to be close enough […]
Look Back at 2012: Celebrate Your Business Wins
Reflecting on 2012 I realized we tend to look back at the challenges and problems we faced and focus our forward momentum on "improving" things for the future.
It is easy to lose sight of the good parts.
As we are climbing the mountains of our business (or personal) goals it is important to stop often and look back.
Not just for the flaws, but what we did well or right. Life is bumpy […]
Serendipity and Defining the Ideal Customer
Having the discipline to define and focus on your ideal
customer at the exclusion of all distractions is a skill that eludes many
business owners.
We naturally want to say “everyone” can use our product or
service. After all, what if we exclude someone and they want what we have?
Marketing to “everyone” is very expensive and the message usually
becomes so vague it doesn’t really catch anyone’s attention.
You need a story that resonates to a group of people, your
ideal customer. So you need to be clear who that is.
Defining Our Ideal Customer
You Get What You Measure: Choose Wisely
I am sure you’ve heard the expressions:
- "That which gets measured tends to improve."
- "If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it."
- "You get what you pay attention to."
In many ways in business you get what you measure.
What if you are measuring and focussing on the wrong thing?
Unfortunately, you will get that too.
How Most Do It
Say you are running a customer support or call center.
People call in or complete a support request online and the job
at hand is to resolve customer problems.
Since call centers are expensive and generally are […]
“Learning” the Fiddle (How Hard Can It Be?)
What are you doing to learn something new?
Your future success and even mental health likely depends on it. (I'll come back to this.)
Bob Burg asked me to share about my background as a musician and so I wrapped it up in a blog post with some other things.
Fiddling Around
A little more than 8 years ago I took up playing the fiddle. I was just shy of 40 when I did it and had been running our business for about 4 years at the time (and apparently didn't have enough to do).
I had been enjoying some Maritime music groups and they […]
Secret: Employees Don’t Need To Know That (or Do They?)
There seems to be a fair number of businesses that believe the key to their success is knowledge… tightly held knowledge.
Secrets.
Such important secrets that not even employees need to know.
They want to hire great employees and grow their businesses. They want their business to run without them so they can:
- Focus on the bigger picture,
- Take longer vacations without having to stay connected,
- Work less hours,
- Grow the business,
- Etc.
The key to this is delegation.
So they delegate pieces to a few key managers. Not too much.
Just enough so they can […]