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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Recently I was working on a tool to help our coaching team internalize the best practices we’ve developed to handle the most common business challenges. While the document I eventually created dealt with 12 key challenges, here is a summary of four that I’ve observed are most common to small businesses we coach ($1-25 million…