It was another dark night, Larry looked at his watch; and it was midnight. 

He had his torch light on, but there was no way he would finish framing this house in time for an inspection the next day. It wouldn't matter if he worked all night. 

He decided to call it a night and send a bad news email to Jack, his general contractor. He knew that he would get chewed out the next day. It wasn't his first time; and probably wouldn't be his last.

Larry showed up to the construction site...

Patrick could feel his cell phone vibrating as he was carrying the new furnace down the stairs of his new install. 

Patrick owned an HVAC installation and service business that was doing extremely well. He felt like the phone call could wait as he couldn't afford to drop his furnace down the stairs. After he got to the bottom, he noticed the call was from his banker, Andy. He called Andy and asked what he wanted.

Andy was a little frazzled, "Patrick, this is the second check that has...

I started, grew and sold a multi-million dollar business over a 16-year period; and I constantly heard consultants tell me, "You need to work on your business, and not in your business." 

While I understood the general premise of what they were telling me, they really never told me HOW to work ON my business instead of IN my business. That's what I want to talk about in today's blog post.

As an over-achieving employee, you figure out early on how to work and earn money. You learn that...

Marla had always wanted to own a flower shop; and she felt like she was living her dream. 

She now had two green houses growing beautiful flowers year round. She had one problem... she wasn't making money. It didn't make any sense.

She only spent money on things that she needed for her business. She didn't even pay herself a salary. Yet, somehow she was adding to her credit card debt monthly because she could not make ends meet with her flower business.

Bob, Marla's husband, wanted his...

I have gone through a recent journey that I'd like to share with you all. 

As a recovering engineer, a life-coach and a practicing business coach; I have struggled getting fully organized. I have always thought there was some nirvana of organization...and when I found it, life would be EASY. With that said, I had a problem.

I would come to my office; knowing I needed to do something important; and then 2-hours later be surfing the internet; or checking my email for the 40th time to see...

Susan was furious as she hung up the phone. 

It was 3 O'Clock on Tuesday morning and was told by her distributor that another shipment would be delayed.

This late shipment meant Susan would, once again, have to pay penalties to retailers who would get their candle shipments late. She told her staff they needed to start meeting deadlines, or they would be fired. She even reminded them again in the past week that the shipment needed to leave their dock by 12 noon on Thursday, if they...

Darius started out as a short order cook, then a head cook for a restaurant chain before he decided he could start his own restaurant. 

Darius  wanted his restaurant to focus on Greek Cuisine. After saving up $100,000 of his own money and finding a few eager investors who offered an additional $200,000, Darius was in business. He leased a place that was in a busy part of his local town and opened his doors with high hopes.   

As a startup, Darius didn't feel like he could...

It was a rainy day as Caitlin drove home from her job at Detailed Designs for the last time.

It was the third time she heard that her services would no longer be needed from her most recent employer. She'd been shuffled from engineering firm to engineering firm. The story was always the same.

Her new engineering firm was always glad to hire her on as an expert in designing natatoria, commonly known as swimming pools. Then they would run out of natatoria design work for her to do and would lay...

I coach several business owners who initially come to me with personnel challenges within their company.  They claim their employees aren't loyal; they lack leadership ability or they just don't take their job seriously.  If they don't have employee problems, they often have problems making money.  They don't pay themselves and still they struggle making enough money to pay off their ever-increasing credit card balances.  In almost all cases, our conversation ends up at...

Francine woke before her alarm clock once again because her mind could not stop thinking about her business. As was her habit, she needed to journal her ideas before they escaped.  She couldn't sleep anyway, so why not?

Francine loved to write and decided she would be a content writer for small business owners who didn't like writing so much.  Her problem was that she couldn't seem to get clients.  When she would wake up early in the morning, she'd write down her ideas. For...