The idea of a business plan is very comforting. It makes people feel safe and secure to know that there is a plan guiding business activities in the “right” way. But why is it that business plans almost never come to life? Why do almost ...Continue Reading »

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 unt...Continue Reading »

A few years back I watched a movie called The Stepfather. Until the final five minutes of gore, it’s a wonderfully constructed psychological thriller. The title character is a man who is forever searching to fulfill his vision of the perfect fa...Continue Reading »

The purpose of a business is to create a customer. —Peter Drucker While this statement may be quite true at the most basic level, it also serves to underscore the reality that one of the ongoing purposes of a business should be to keep a c...Continue Reading »

"I need more sales." If I had a dime for every time I heard that from a client… Well, I’d probably have $20 by now. But seriously, the issue of sales (or lack thereof) comes up all the time; most often from clients who are just beginnin...Continue Reading »

One of the critical instruments in any transaction, whether between a vendor and a customer, an employer and employee or even two private parties, is the basic contract agreement. For some business owners however, the basic contract agreement isn&rsq...Continue Reading »

A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship. John D. Rockefeller Lewis and Clark, Sears and Roebuck, Hewlett-Packard, the Wright Brothers. What do these names all have in common? Aside from being...Continue Reading »

A team is a group of people cooperating to achieve a purpose. Your entire organization makes up your team. A management team, of course, is a group of managers. And a strategic management team is a group of senior managers responsible for the strateg...Continue Reading »

Hiring new employees is always challenging; but recruiting and hiring salespeople is even more challenging. The process is rife with great rewards along with potential pitfalls. What follows is both an introduction to the process involved in hiring h...Continue Reading »

In our article Revisiting the E-Myth we debunked a couple of misconceptions about the E-Myth Point of View; namely that: 1) the business owner should never do the technical work of the business and 2) every business should be franchised. You can read...Continue Reading »

Can you be a business owner and still be an artist? There are many talented and successful artists working hard every day to do what they love. Some people are able to periodically earn money with their passion, but for many artists, that income is ...Continue Reading »

Even if you have no immediate plans to sell your business, it's never too soon to start building your company's value. Doing so will not only help you in the long term (if you're depending on the sale of your business to fund your retirement or your ...Continue Reading »

In order to create an E-Myth'd business, you must create a systematized business. It's absolutely critical to the future growth and success of your business. Why? Well, systems are essential to: Building the asset that will generate the greatest ...Continue Reading »

Continuing our discussion with author and entrepreneur John Warrillow, this week we dive into the first of the 8 steps he recommends toward creating a sellable company: creating a standard service offering. For those of you familiar with E-Myth, thi...Continue Reading »

The first step in any successful endeavor is defining what a win will look like once the project is complete. When an artist begins a painting, he typically has a vision in his mind of what the painting will look like when it is finished. Whe...Continue Reading »