Do you wish there was a way to supercharge your staff and help them achieve their full potential? Do you wonder if you are doing your best to support their efforts and put their best foot forward? Over the last 25 years, I have helped thousands of business owners just like you become great leaders. […]
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Business coaching is forever. Once you find the right partner in growth, you are unstoppable. Unfortunately for many business owners, you might have to work your way through a few business coaches until you find the right fit for your business and personality style. Over the last 25 years, I have coached thousands of business […]
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As a business coach of over 25 years, I have helped thousands of company owners guide their key employees to greatness. We coach them on good hiring practices, how to overcome worry and procrastination, and the best way to get feedback from their team. But one of the most important skills we teach our clients […]
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I was recently listening to a podcast that discussed the concept of designing your week around special events to give you something to look forward to in your day-to-day life. They suggested implementing a “Taco Tuesday” or a “Spa Saturday” to break up the monotony. The idea is a good one that I want to […]
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Over the past decade of business coaching, I have helped thousands of business owners grow and develop their key employees. A task, which isn’t always an easy feat. Most managers and business owners tend to point out flaws and places for improvement when coaching their direct hires. They feel that such an approach will help […]
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Hiring remote workers has a lot of advantages: increased productivity, decreased staffing costs and better communication. But there are some pitfalls to having a scattered workforce. If you are struggling with your remote staff try these 3 remote workforce tips to make your team even more productive. Tip #1: Make Sure Your Expectations Are Clear, […]
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Being a great boss is one of the most difficult parts of being a business owner. You have a brilliant idea, the vision to scale and the know-how to make it all happen. You put together a rock star team, and you are working towards building a solid foundation for your business. And then the […]
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Here at Maui Mastermind, we have coached thousands of business owners over the past decade. We have seen small businesses blossom and grow into owner-independent companies, we have seen business owners scale their businesses and sell them for more money than they ever thought possible, and we have watched executives climb the ladder faster than […]
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When it comes to marketing, having a solid emotional appeal to your brand is critical to your success. But what exactly is an “emotional appeal”, David? Your brand is simply the emotional associations and gut level “sense” of how your company, product, or service is intuitively perceived by your market. The easiest way to make […]
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BADD (Business Attention Deficit Disorder) affects millions of business owners each and every year. Symptoms include: excitability, difficulty focusing, lack of systems and controls, inability to delegate tasks, lack of restraint, or persistent repetition of actions with no progress. This common ailment has been known to affect profits and has a direct impact on a […]
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Employers have had it good for way too long. Back in the old days, you would put together a written outline of the ideal candidate, compose the perfect job post and then wait for the resumes to roll in. You would then schedule interviews and make your selection based on your selected criteria. Then you […]
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Deciding to sell your business is a big decision and one that you don’t make very often. You weigh the pros and cons of your exit strategy, read all the articles and books on the secrets to selling your business and you begin to take a good hard look at your own business processes and […]
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Think that you have what it takes to be a good leader? Try teaching a 10 year old how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. This one activity will give you insight into your own leadership skills (and weaknesses) and help you build a stronger, more profitable business. No One Is Born A Chef […]
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You will never forget your first love, i.e., the startup phase. Everything was new and exciting, and you swore you’d passionately give your best to your business. But as time went by, you likely found yourself feeling burned out by the long hours and recurring staff or customer fires you dealt with on a daily basis. […]
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There are three levels of building a company. Level One: A “Start Up” Business. You’ve got no real control yet, nor freedom. Level Two: An “Owner Reliant” Business. You’re a full-time business owner whose business is working-as long as you do. Now you have control, but with that control comes long hours and […]
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If you know your way around a negotiation table, there is no stopping you. You can negotiate for better prices with your vendors, new hire and existing salaries, contracts with sales prospects and long-term clients and lower overhead costs in general, leading to higher profit margins and more capital to scale your business. Natural Born […]
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Women make up approximately 20% of the executive workforce pool. They make less than their male counterparts and are far less likely to receive funding for their business or startup. So, how in the world could you think that women have it easier in business, David? Over the years, I have had the privilege of […]
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There is nothing in the world that compares to a great mastermind session. You walk in the door tired and weary from the day to day toll of running your business. You have more problems than solutions and you feel like you are the only one in the world struggling to make it all work. […]
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In my business coaching company Maui Mastermind, we send out millions of emails each year to our current and prospective clients. Understandably, there is always a certain percentage of bounce-back, unsubs, and undeliverable emails, which we work to minimize. There is one undeliverable statistic however, that I love to see increase over time: auto-replies. I […]
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I recently wrote about a simple strategy that Amazon.com used to generate over $1 billion of extra revenue without increasing its costs. But what about your business? Do you find yourself working harder and harder, but not making more money? Here are five time tested tactics to boost your bottom line and generate more profit. […]
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Top sales people know that you greatly improve your odds of closing the sale by what you do in the first few minutes of your sales conversation. Here is an insider technique to use up front that will help you close more business in the end. Every sales person thinks the sale is made in […]
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Tired of turnover and bad hires? Here’s a simple 4-step system to know in advance if you’re about to make a terrible mistake (and how to make a much better hiring selection).
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You already spend thousands with suppliers and vendors every month. Why not learn how to get the best pricing with these negotiation secrets?These three ridiculously easy questions will save you 5 to 15 percent or more on every purchase or contract.
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Over the last twenty-five years, I’ve known and coached thousands of business owners. And if I were to make one categorical observation about us as a group – about the way that we behave instinctually, before we learn to redesign the way we think – it would be this: We stink at celebrating victories – […]
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Wouldn’t it be nice if your staff could handle things by themselves without asking you to be the final arbiter on every decision? Wouldn’t it be nice if your team could solve problems as they arise, taking more ownership and freeing you up to focus on growing the business? Imagine if they found ways to […]
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Are you hiring personal assistants who save you time or who cost you time? Recently, I invited thirty-five of my top business coaching clients to a private retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where I live. We were discussing the various aspects of leadership – the ways that business owners can create strategic advantages and breakthrough […]
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Over the past twenty-five years, my company, Maui Mastermind, has been coaching business owners on how they can build businesses instead of jobs. At the core of that work is the process of systematizing your business – creating a coordinated series of processes, procedures, best practices, tools, and internal controls that empower your team to […]
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Here is that tool – I call it the Sweet Spot Analysis™ Tool. We developed this tool to help our business coaching clients have a simple way to determine the very best ideas that they could implement each quarter to grow their businesses in the face of too much to do and not enough time in which to get it all done.
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The whole point of hiring staff is that they’re supposed to be free up your time. But what happens when you end up spending the same amount of time or more managing the staff you’ve hired? Last week, one of my business coaching clients came into town for a multi-hour in-person meeting. As we talked, […]
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Think of all the times in your business week you negotiate: with new hires and existing employees; with sales prospects and long-term clients; with vendors and suppliers. If you’re a business owner or leader, you need to know how to negotiate. This is non-negotiable. Here are the five most important negotiation skills you should focus […]
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In this article, I’m going to share one of the most effective tactics for coaching your key team members. I call it “deliberate practice.” It’s one of the most powerful strategies that you can use to help your employees become owner-independent. Deliberate practice refers to the intensely focused practice of a skill, habit, or ability. […]
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Part of being a successful business leader is to make sure you extract maximum learning out of your week, month, and quarter. In this article, I’d like to share with you the easiest, most effective way to generate the powerful insights and instant feedback you’ll need to grow and scale your business. I picked this […]
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How do you best develop the talent of your current team? How do you groom a direct report to take on new responsibilities? How do you grow your employees so that they can start scaling your business with you? The secret ingredient is for you to coach and grow your team, and here are five […]
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As important as it is to have a big picture vision for how you plan to grow and scale your business, it’s equally important to bring that broader vision back to the level practical execution. And that’s where the one-page quarterly plan of action is so effective. These rolling 90-day action plans are powerful tools […]
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My business coaching firm launched a comprehensive study on time management. We interviewed and surveyed small business owners and their key executives in order to learn how they spend their time and, particularly, where their time gets wasted. We began this investigation because we kept hearing the same concern over and over again. My business […]
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As a business coach, I’m always looking for new strategies to help people and businesses become more effective and more efficient. Usually, I focus on things like leadership and marketing tactics. But, in this article, I want to tell you about a productivity app called Evernote that’s helped me radically reinvent the way I work. […]
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I’ve been coaching business owners for more than twenty years, helping business owners grow their companies and at the same time, reducing their companies’ reliance on them. When it comes to scaling their businesses, one of the biggest challenges that I see business leaders struggle with is the mechanics of delegating effectively. When you’re delegating, it’s […]
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Mastermind groups can help you grow both your business and yourself. But when a group settles into a routine, it can sometimes lose its effectiveness. That’s why I want to share five ways that you can breathe new life into your mastermind group. Napoleon Hill introduced the idea of the mastermind group back in 1937 […]
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Think about how much money you spend on marketing. Then think about your current conversion rate. Maybe you’re converting 3 percent of leads? Or 12 percent? Now imagine that you could use a simple technique increase your conversion rate by 10 to 25 percent. Wouldn’t you want to do that? Of course you would. The […]
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Leadership grows businesses. It empowers teams to take on more responsibilities and deliver results. In fact, the best leaders are those that train their teams to function without them. Having worked with thousands of business coaching clients, I can say with certainty that the mark of great leadership is the ability to delegate. Nearly all […]
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Do you find yourself wishing you had more time to focus on building your business? If so, you’re not alone. One of the most common concerns among business owners is that there just aren’t enough hours in the week. But, I promise you: There really are. Here are five concrete ways that you can use […]
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As a business coach, I find that while a few challenges are particular to individual coaching clients, many are universal. In part one of this article, we talked about the pandemic “Always On” corporate culture to which all businesses are susceptible, no matter their size and no matter their industry. We saw how noxious this […]
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Chances are you’ll receive a new email, text, or instant message before you’ve finished reading this article. Your phone will buzz or your computer will ding or your watch will vibrate. Probably all three. Will you check your email or stick with this article? In our work coaching thousands of business owners, we’ve found that […]
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What would it look like if you followed a customer through their purchase and use of your product or service? What would you learn? Where would you have made their life harder, more complicated, less efficient? How about your internal processes? What would you see if you followed a team member around as she completed […]
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Have you ever wondered how the world’s top entrepreneurs get so much done in their days? After all, they have the same 24 hour days and 7 day weeks, yet they consistently get so much more done in that time. I was recently talking with a friend who owns and still runs a $155 million medical […]
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As we enter into the final half of the fourth quarter, headlines shout how online giants like Amazon.com and others expect to increase online sales by billions of dollars. Here are five powerful tips to increase your website conversion that they consistently use that allow them to maximize their sales conversion rates. Follow these best practices and see your sales quickly increase. 1. Put your […]
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Most professional service firms have operating profit margins from 25-40 percent. This means that out of every dollar of revenue, 25-40 cents drops to their bottom line as pre-tax profits. I want to share with you a simple strategy that one law firm I work with used to increase its operating profit margin by 29.5 […]
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With Uber and Google’s workplace diversity issues sparking headlines across the country this year, I wanted to share three things that will make a difference. To be clear, none of these things are quick fixes. All three of these ideas are designed to help create a company culture that is diverse and empowered. This can sometimes take […]
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The response was so strong from the article I posted last week of 15 email marketing insider tips that I wanted to share nine more with you in this article. Considering that my company Maui Mastermind sends out millions of targeted emails every month to our subscriber elist for our business coaching company, we’ve learned […]
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It’s an exciting time, as start-up culture has taken the business world by storm over the last ten years. People are eager to bring their visions to life and dream that “their” idea is the “next big thing”, and that it’s the “new and improved” Facebook or Airbnb. Because there are so many new start-ups […]
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I’m gearing up for a conference I’m keynoting in two weeks and one of the sessions I’m leading is an expert panel on email marketing. I wanted to share with you 15 of tips to improve your email marketing so that you can increase your sales. 1. Value your list. Protect it; connect with it; […]
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Morgan was a young man in his late 20s when he started his mortgage brokerage company, Morgan Financial. He built a successful owner-reliant company for himself with one office in Portland, Oregon. After a few years, Morgan took the scary step of opening a second office. It turned out to be profitable, and for a […]
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One advantage of working with hundreds of business coaching clients is that we get to see which “levers” in a business are the easiest to quickly impact profitability. Here are my three favorite “profit levers” for you to adjust to increase your company’s operating profit margin. One: Raise Your Prices I know you may be […]
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Earlier today I was leading a web cam round table with a dozen of our top business coaching clients. The subject was leadership. During a portion of this round table the participants were sharing how they were personally using a simple delegation technique we had taught them called the “Capability Spectrum”. Imagine a scale from […]
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If there were any one sales generating activity that applies to a large cross section of businesses, yet is commonly overlooked, cold calling would be my pick. Cold calling is the outbound dialing to a person or business who isn’t expecting your call. I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t glamorous or sexy, […]
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Earlier this week I was talking with a business coaching client who runs a $10 million a year professional service firm. He shared with me that it had taken him several monthly to build out his core marketing funnel for a new service he started less than 12 months prior. He was excited that it […]
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Here’s a clear list of 10 proven time-tactics guaranteed to double your productivity… Do you find yourself complaining about your consistent lack of time? Here are 10 proven time-tactics guaranteed to double your productivity. In fact, you put even five of these time tactics to work and you’ll find yourself breaking through to a new […]
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It’s a common pattern I see catch even the smartest entrepreneurs off guard. After a long period of successful growth they notice that their lead flow and prospect pipeline has dried up. In a panic they rush in to figure out what to do. Having worked with so many business coaching clients has taught me […]
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Then here are the five in-your-face questions you must ask yourself. Be ruthlessly honest in your answers. Your insights will help you accelerate your growth as a business leader and the success you enjoy. 1. Are you doing less things, but the less that you do matters a whole lot more? A clear sign of […]
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Recently I was invited to give a keynote address at a large industry conference on the east coast. The organizer wanted me to share what I thought were the most essential principles that would make any entrepreneurial venture successful. Reflecting back on the thousands of business owners I’ve coached, and the companies they owned, I […]
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