Have you ever felt like you do all the work in your business? Do you feel like you have no choice? So, did Fred. Listen to Fred's story of how he FLIPPED the direction of responsibility and expertise from himself to his staff. Fred was a structural engineer. He started out working for a general contractor in the construction of small bridges at first; and then gradually worked his way up to some large projects. While he loved what he did, it was difficult to predict how much

Our character in today’s story is Brooke. Brooke has hit a ceiling of growth in her designer practice. She struggles to understand how she can get her million-dollar business to the next level. Brooke felt like she had done well to grow her interior design business, Brooke's Designs, to over $1,000,000 in annual revenue with only twelve employees. It had been two years and she was continually fearful that she would lose the ground she had gained over the past decade. She reme

The alarm clock hadn't gone off; the sun was 3-hours from brightening the day; and Stanley couldn't sleep. It was 3:00 am and Stanley knew he wouldn't get back to sleep. Why not just start his day early like he had so many times before? His head was filled with thoughts of what he could do to get his business back on track. He might as well do some work since he couldn't sleep. Stanley owned an engineering consulting firm. His firm worked with municipalities on improving thei

Today’s story is about Emily, a flower shop owner, who thinks she’s done all she can with her business as she finally gets out of debt. Emily plans to coast and is challenged by a new stranger in her life who convinces her that growth is a better option. Emily entered the bank for what she was sure would be the last time ever. She rarely went to the bank unless she had problems with her account. This time was different. This time, Emily was making the final payment on a loan

When I first started out on my own, I was an independent business consultant for energy service companies. After leaving my corporate sales management position in Honeywell, I swore I’d never hire employees. Fast-forward 4-years, I hired my first employee… then my second and quickly grew to an office of five employees. It was about then, that a business consultant came knocking on my door. I’ll never forget his words. He said, “Jeff, you’ve got a business, that you’re treatin

Today, I want to cover a topic that is so common to small business owners, it comes up as a coaching topic with over 90% of my small business owner clients. The topic is “stop working “in” your business and start working “on” your business. I graduated in 1987 from Colorado State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I worked as a field engineer for four years until I got hired as a sales engineer with Honeywell in 1991. I had worked in dual capacities selling a