When you think about your business and life as a business owner, do you know why you do what you do? Does leading your business provide the life you imagined it would when you started it, or is it running you ragged with little payoff?
When Michael E. Gerber released his best-selling book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It in 1995, he described, in a deeply-relatable way, what makes it so difficult for business owners everywhere to build a business that really works. Through the story of Sarah, a ...
When there’s a management gap to fill, you might look to your top performers first. And it makes sense—”super technicians” work hard and know how to do their job well. They deserve to be recognized for that, and you know they have the technical knowledge needed to lead other technicians. But knowing how to do a jo...
If your business is big enough to have managers and possibly even “departments” then you are probably familiar with the phenomenon of a silo structure. When you have reached the point in your business growth that you have hired managers and the reporting structure has become identifiably vertical in each area, or ...
Your business is a reflection of you. In every way, shape and form—from top to bottom—your business reflects your courage and fears. It reflects what you care about: your ideals, values, beliefs, experiences, knowledge and decision-making. This powerful EMyth Principle appears in the beginning pages of The EMyth R...
When you want to develop the systems in your business, one part of the journey is persuading your team to come along. Every business that works needs a balance of structure (your systems) and substance (your people). Without the commitment from your employees that they’re going to work the systems as you’ve design...
If you’re a business owner trying to develop the foundation of your business, you have to balance two perspectives: the reality, challenges and concerns of what exists today, and goals for the year(s) to come. Reality dictates that you’ll be building systems while still working in your existing business. If you’ve...
In your business, system errors can show up in the form of work stoppages, poor customer service, excessive product returns, late deliveries, high levels of frustration among employees, poor financial results and any other number of unwanted outcomes. Depending on the size and health of your business, any one of t...
Some days, you may feel completely consumed by your business, like the only thing you can count on is a frustrating lack of control as you race around putting out fires. This experience is so common to business owners, it’s almost generally accepted as “just what it’s like to own a business.”
One of the most common frustrations we hear from business owners is: “I just need systems.” We also hear: “I need more cash,” and, “I need more sales.”
Most small business owners come to us because they believe they want systems, but they don’t yet realize something important: Their business is already built around systems. It’s just that some of those systems aren’t producing the results they want.
Between your end-of-year business obligations and your holiday family schedules, you’ve got a lot on your plate. The last thing you want to think about during the merriment and bustle of the season is the tax man. Alas, as December 31 approaches, so too does your window for last minute tax breaks.
As a business owner, you’re the person primarily responsible for your company’s finances. Not your bookkeeper. Not your accountant. You.
Not knowing how to scale is one of the most common frustrations we hear from our business owner clients. It makes sense. If your business has grown to a point where you’re producing reasonably consistent results in terms of revenue and lead generation, the next natural question is: Now, how do I increase revenues ...
If there’s one thing all business owners can agree on, it’s how precious time is as a commodity— there’s never enough of it, for one. The average work day is unstructured, full of distractions and fires, and it often ends with “one more thing” that keeps you in the office long after you planned to leave. And in th...
Without documentation, “great systems” are only rough ideas about the way you do things in your business. And all your tasks, functions, processes and procedures—the way that you and your staff habitually do everything—are nothing more than good intentions.
When you have a small business, it’s easy to get stuck in the chronic issues you face, to feel alone in your frustration and unable to see the problems in a different way—and often for what they really are. The truth is, finding solutions and innovating often takes escaping your own limited point of view. You need...