Do you know how much cash you have? Do you know how that cash flows through your business? The amount of cash you have on hand is one of the most important metrics for the growth and survival of your company. As a business owner three of your primary financial responsibilities are:
The essential foundation for getting your employees to take ownership of their roles is to give them a game worth playing. Though your business isn’t a game, you must create an environment where people want to give their personal best to support the team effort. This is not simply a matter of motivating and inspir...
Imagine for a moment a completely debt-free business. No loans to payback. No investors to answer to. Imagine a completely self-sustaining business. A business funded purely by the cash flow your business produces.
Your hiring process, like other systems in your business, is about creating consistent, predictable results. Whether you're a two-person business, or a company with 300 employees, a hiring process will take the guesswork out of finding the right person for the job.
Deciding how to compensate your employees and, if you have partners, how to structure pay between them equitably is a topic of interest for our business owner clients. In this article I’ll touch on some of the important criteria from the EMyth perspective, helping you understand this critical component of your com...
When navigating through dangerous waters a wise captain keeps an eye on certain signs. The shape and size of certain waves, the color of the water at critical points, the presence of rocks or sandbars, things that can be difficult to spot for the untrained eye. The truly wise captain knows these signs because he o...
Venture capital, business loans, and lines of credit: all this and more exists for businesses that need to grow, to purchase equipment and inventory, or expand their facilities. Much of the initial growth for small businesses is funded on borrowed money. It’s the way things are done. But it comes at a cost.
This week we're dipping into the Ask EMyth mailbag to have an EMyth Business Coach answer a few of your questions. Thanks to everybody who submitted questions, and keep them coming. We love to hear from you.
After the decision to start a business of your own, perhaps the most challenging decision you can make is whether to sell that business. You conceived it, built it, poured your lifeblood into it, and now find yourself with a viable, profitable enterprise you can call your own. You have built an asset! Now… what to...
We get quite a few questions from our community about how to apply EMyth principles to a one-person business.
Most business owners would agree that maintaining or increasing sales is a vital need for their business. It's a common misconception, but many businesses tend to think of increasing sales only when things get slow. There are, however, many other reasons to increase revenue aside from simply compensating for a slu...
Several times a year, we offer public seminars for small business owners ready and willing to work strategically on their business in a supportive environment here in the Sonoma wine country. I have been involved with these events the last few years and am consistently inspired by the entrepreneurs I meet. Their d...
More than a slogan The ubiquitous business slogan, or tagline, is familiar to everyone. From Nike’s “Just Do It.” to the classic “got milk?” of the California Milk Processor Board, we all carry these phrases around in our heads along with commercial jingles and corporate logos. But the USP (Unique Selling Proposit...
Time is just another word for life. —Michael Gerber As an entrepreneur, your time is your most valuable resource. But even with your best intentions and the latest productivity tools, it’s easy to end the day feeling like you didn’t get to what really matters. You’re not alone.
Fred Wittenburg spent over three decades running a successful—yet disorganized—business. When he had the opportunity to pass that business down to his daughter, Fred knew he couldn’t do it without first creating a structure to ensure the business lasted as he envisioned it would. Working with their EMyth Coach, fa...
My father was a diplomat and as a young boy I always thought I wanted to be a diplomat like him. But my mom, who had a clothing and textile business (which she started in 1971) always pushed me to work with her. In 1985 she finally won out and during my last year in university I decided to join her in her business...
I had been in the copy business for 18 years. My husband was in sales in the same industry for 10. I was looking for a new challenge, and we decided it was the right time to do this for ourselves. We named it after the place we enjoyed our honeymoon, and it has become much more than a name. Every year we take a fe...