Your Growth Strategy is Nothing if it Doesn’t Include This

The legendary Vince Lombardi once said, “Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their players and motivate.” This nugget of locker-room leadership applies to the boardroom too. As a business owner, you can have a compelling vision and solid strategy for growth, but unless […]

Your Growth Strategy is Nothing if it Doesn’t Include This

The legendary Vince Lombardi once said, “Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their players and motivate.” This nugget of locker-room leadership applies to the boardroom too. As a business owner, you can have a compelling vision and solid strategy for growth, but […]

3 Big Reasons to Stop Micromanaging Your Employees

Previously, we discussed what happens when business owners get stuck in the Founder’s Cap, and believe that they alone must make all the decisions that propel the company forward. Owners often get tripped up by thinking that they have to manage every detail of the operation – after all, no one understands it as well […]

Not Sure How to Motivate Your Team? Why Not Ask Them?

When it comes to incentives, what managers believe their employees want and what employees actually want are often different. Ask managers to name the best reward they can offer their people and most will likely say that it’s money. Yet research shows that in reality, employees rank pay far lower than managers expect. While money […]

3 Characteristics of High-Performing People

As a small business owner, you are likely attracted to working with high-performing employees. Not only are they consistent, highly capable multi-taskers and confident team players, most of them possess the same entrepreneurial drive that prompted you to start your own venture. These top employees are good for the bottom line. A growing company needs […]

The Dos and Don’ts of Hiring

In 2003, sisters Jenny and Jane DeLaney launched a business that created customized meal plans and shopping lists for subscribers. The concept caught on, and the company grew quickly. When they’d accrued 100,000+ customers, the DeLaneys faced competition and a looming plateau. Jane said, “I was at a point where I needed to bring in […]

How to Make Your Employees Into Brand Ambassadors – and Why This Matters

Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, shares a compelling TEDTalk about Martin Luther King Jr. He explains that instead of going around telling people what needed to change in America, Dr. King told them simply what he believed. “He gave the ‘I have a dream’ speech, […]

How to Retrain Your Jack-of-all-Trades into a New Role

I often talk about the importance of hiring experts but I’m not suggesting you should fire all your loyal staff and start fresh. Sometimes you’ve got terrific employees already working for you. The challenge is to retrain someone who has been a Jack (or Jill)-of-all-trades to prepare him or her for a particular role that […]