Why Your Employees Don’t Get It

Do you ever find yourself so frustrated with your employees it causes you to step in and do their jobs?
You realize that it will take much longer to train them to do something than it would for you to do it yourself, so you ask them to step aside and take over.

Why Service Businesses Are Less Valuable (And What To Do About It)

Why are service businesses often less valuable than companies that sell products? The answer comes down to how well your company can run without you (SOPs can help, grab your copy of The Definitive Guide to Standard Operating Procedures). You may be decades away from wanting to sell, but understanding an acquirer’s point of view […]

3 Weeks or 3 Years in Prison? You Decide.

Most founders will tell you that a three-year earn-out feels like a prison sentence. They toil in the bowels of a giant organization where every purchase they make, and every decision they take, is scrutinized by multiple layers of management. The alternative is to take your medicine up front. Spend three weeks documenting your processes […]

The Conversation Behind Closed Doors

There’s a meeting that happens when an acquirer is looking to buy your company. You will not be invited to attend. The meeting involves the senior executives from the acquiring company. The subject is whether or not to buy your business. The principal question at hand is whether they should buy your business or compete with you. […]

The Definitive Guide to Standard Operating Procedures

Section 1: Why Create Standard Operating Procedures What Is a Standard Operating Procedure? A Standard Operating Procedure is a set of instructions used to train and onboard your employees to complete a task. Standard Operating Procedures are the foundation of building a business that can thrive without you which gives you the freedom to work […]

How a Messy Divorce Drives up the Value of Your Business

When couples divorce, it’s messy and expensive. The financial costs and emotional heartache associated with breaking up are massive, and the avoidance of these act as an incentive for many couples to work through their differences.

Stop Selling Your Time

If your goal is to build a more valuable company, stop selling your time. 

Billing by the hour or day means customers are renting your time rather than buying a result, which means that your business model lacks leverage. To grow, you need to either work harder or hire more people. Since it can take months to ramp up new employees, fast growth is just about impossible.

How You Treat New Customers Impacts Your Company’s Value

Think back to the first time you met your spouse. 

No, I’m not talking about when you decided to move in together.  

Go back way further. 

I want you to remember what it was like the first time you met. 

Remember those feelings?  

That’s when the wiring in your brain changed and you created an emotional attachment. Since then, I’m sure you’ve had ups and downs, but your relationship has stuck because of the attachment you created in the first few weeks. 

The same attachment can happen with your customers

How Your Greatest Strength Becomes Your Weakness

What’s your greatest strength as a CEO?

Sales?

Marketing?

Operations?

Whatever you do well, know that it might become your Achilles’ heel.

Your Finish Line Is Their Starting Line

What sporting event offers the best analogy for building a business? Some might say the closest game to building a company is football because of the strategy involved in drawing up plays. Others may say a team sport like cricket offers the best parallel because of the importance of individual performances rolling up to a team result.

In my mind, it’s the marathon.

A supplier could be a vendor who sells you raw materials, but it can also be a sales channel used to advertise and promote your wares. For example, if you get many of your sales from Google organic search, you likely live in fear that Google will change its search algorithm.