It’s never too early to think about your business succession plan. Many entrepreneurs set out to build a business that provides financial security for their family, not only for the present members, but for future generations as well. As you scale your business and begin to develop a workforce to execute your plans, think about
Opportunity management is a system for evaluating, choosing and prioritizing various business choices that you can make to keep a business moving forward. You may be investigating a new revenue stream, choosing a better CRM platform, or joining a strategic partnership, as examples. Selecting the right opportunities can be a major struggle for entrepreneurs and
How much focus should leaders devote to crafting a business strategy? Leaders can get caught spending too much of their efforts planning business strategy. However, when reviewing how time is spent in your business, you will find that most of the time is spent in executing the strategy. Obviously, leaders need to create strategy, but
Using the After-Action Review process is a great way to make informed decisions to move your business forward. Before you decide on your overarching goal for a new quarter of your fiscal year or craft your annual goals for the start of a new fiscal year, it is well worth the time to complete an
Building and maintaining a thriving business is challenging, to say the least. With so many decisions to make, a business owner is bound to make an occasional mistake. We know that “measuring twice and cutting once” is important advice we learned from tradesmen. It means that we should think carefully before acting—yet sometimes deciding on
Can small business owners successfully compete with Amazon? Or are we destined to allow this mammoth giant to swallow our clients as it continues to gobble up market share? I know this threat is serious to many entrepreneurs and small business owners. What if you, the small business owner, could create a business that cannot
No business can survive without customers. There is always a desire to increase revenue. That includes your business. In the business world, competition can be fierce, and finding ways to stand out in a crowd can be difficult and sometimes, overwhelming. We need to remember the advice from Peter Drucker who said, “No one buys
We are often asked to review an existing company’s basic operations and services to see what improvements we might suggest to boost sales and generate higher profits. We also look at the workplace culture to suggest ways to improve the work environment. We developed this checklist that is useful in determining the level of success
For effective time management, we suggest using a tool from Stephen Covey. He was an American educator, author and business consultant, most notably known for his time management strategies. His Time Management Matrix focuses on two key dimensions: 1) urgency and (2) importance of the activities we handle. In the graph below, the more
An effective business strategy is an action plan that coordinates the efforts of your well-crafted business model. Your business model answers the question, “How does your business plan to make money?” The answer—which formulates the business model—is a combination of (1) revenue sources, (2) customer base, (3) products and services provided, (4) operations and (5)
