Working hard is great, but don’t forget to rest and rejuvenate too! Maintaining a good work/life balance can be a key to success.
Taking regular breaks to relax and unwind can help you mentally, physically and you’re your creativity – all of which are essential for growing your business.
So take some time off, let your mind and body recover – you’ll be glad you did.
People do business with those whom they like and trust. Do the following to help people feel comfortable trusting you and doing business with you.
When they trust you and you exceed their expectations, you gain repeat customers. The ones who will keep buying from you, referring you, and funding you to help your business grow.
The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most famous and influential speeches in history. And if you look at it from a “business perspective”, it’s a masterpiece in showing the power of communicating benefit and transformation. In short, how to stand out from your competition and communicate it effectively.
Every try to assemble something when the instructions are pure ****. Best is EU purchases where the only instructions are in 15 different languages and they are warranty cards.
If instructions are included, often it’s written by engineers for other engineers and as useful as just telling us to ask the Cat how to put it together.
But here’s the thing.. purchases that do not get consumed get returned. So why deal with refunds because instructions are not clear. Start there and see what happens…
Knowing your audience can be a force for good or evil.
For good so you can provide the solution that can change people’s lives into their hands.
For evil, like poor Mr Ed….
Regardless, knowing your audience makes it possible to scale your business because they are more likely to listen and buy from you.. that is if you know how and when to speak to them…
Five principles of direct marketing can help lift your business out of a rut by helping stand out and stand up and scale to the next level.
Sometimes Schools can give us the best lessons on how to grow a business outside their classroom. Just look at how they are run…
Being successful in business is about understanding the core desires that drive your customers and providing solutions to fulfill them. We can learn a lot from two very different restaurants – one aimed at impressing clients for business deals, and another for throwing a 3 year old’s birthday – on how to create the right atmosphere, understand customer desires and price accordingly.
By doing this, you can outsmart your competitors and attract the customers you want and charge the prices you want. At the end of the day, it’s not about prices – it’s also about understanding and fulfilling customer desires.
This headline is ridiculous because pairing blue fin tuna sushi with sliders doesn’t have anything wrong with it logically, but rather awkward from an emotional aesthetic point of view.
it’s about atmosphere and how it reflects some of our deepest core desires.
Ever wonder why you go to the restaurants you do?
Do you only go because you are hungry?
If that’s the case why go out and not just deliver?
What restaurant would you take a client to win a critical project?
How about 20 3-year-old children to a birthday party?
Pick the same place? If not.. why?
Ever get a call from a company that only cares about price? it’s like a robber calling you to offer a discount on buying back what he just stole from your house.
“A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man”
– Vito Corleone
Tips to be a real man or woman and build a business by freeing your time.
As a busiess owner what does it mean to “maximise” your time? There is lots of hype and cliches around.. but here are some practical steps the hero in our story took to maximise his time.
Four quick strategies for business owners to grow and build the value of their business and set it up to sell one day on their price and terms.
Budgets are necessary to control spending, but mindlessly following them is insane when it comes to scaling and growing your business beyond what the budget “allows”. You can be flexible and still grow smart as long as you look at key metrics for growth and allow them to supersede what some arbitratry budget measure says.
When and how do you balance growth while making sure you don’t go nuts on spend?
Your Business can be like a winning horse if you train it well and feed it with steady and growing profits.
On the big race day (the day you exit) it can give you a huge payout.
Have you ever felt really intimidated by an upcoming challenge? Like time I stepped onto a wrestling mat to face “Mr T.”* in the 1980s.
But then something amazing happened: when we got into the middle of the match, I realized he wasn’t so scary after all! In fact, if it hadn’t been for me being pysched out in the beginning and gave up points for nothing, I would have won.
This experience taught me an important lesson: don’t judge a situation by its cover. You never know what lies underneath. So be confident in yourself and take that leap of faith—you may surprise yourself!
*(P.S. It wasn’t the real Mr. T just in case you were wondering…)
As I posted this article on my Linkedin profile, I saw the date 26 January. It’s a coincidence, but it’s extremely relevant (and I’ll explain shortly).
Growing up in Chicago in the 1980s we witnessed one of the best NFL defenses to ever be on a field. It caputed a whole city and people went crazy.. even waiting in hundreds of thousands in 20 below zero to welcome them back after a championships.
Why do I bring them up? Because it’s a cautionary tale. How a system that brings you to the heights can also fail you when it outlives its time.
Like in business, and the system you used to launch can now destroy the value you built ..
As for the date? 26 January 1986 was the date they won the Super Bowl..
As a founder, especially if you were a solopreoneur, you had to do a bunch of things at once.
You had to hustle and find your customers, you had to onboard them, you had to service them, you had to bill them, and you had to collect from them all the while still trying to find new customers and working on the quality of your products and services.
And pay the bills, and deal with the government agencies, etc etc.
But when you are ready to scale and grow your business it’s best to keep in mind the Triangle of Success and the importance of being able to execute all areas simultaneously.
Do you make a sale to acquire a customer or acquire a customer to make a sale?
Why does this matter especially for scaling up your business?
Investing in your customer relationships pays off!
Don’t get so wrapped up in making a sale that you miss the long-term benefits of providing great service and using that sale to build a relationship with the customer.
And whatever you do, don’t ‘rip them off’ or you’ll find yourself out of business before too long.
Are you in business to trade your product or service or invest in your customer base – as an asset to your business?
It’s investment versus transaction and sometimes, as the example from my FX days shows, it’s not so clear cut.
Save money by doing it yourself right?
Wrong
it can cost you your business….
A business parable of how an owner transformed a horrible culture to one that allowed him to grow the business and become free.
Have you ever seen someone making a purchase and then changing their mind last second and leaving?
What can be more frustrating when someone is about to purchase from you, wants to purchase from you, but something is holding them back.
And what is holding them back might surprise you. But if you can figure it out, you can get the window shoppers to come in and the clients who would walk away.. take that deep breath and open your door.
With the New Year, many predictions come in, but they are mostly useless. You can see how useless it is by looking at the 2022 predictions and seeing what came true and what was not only wrong, but woefully so.
Even worse is the hero celebrity worship and blindly following even how they chew gum and walk at the same time.
Of course, thinking of the new year wouldn’t be complete without thinking of the two most annoying sales pitches we’ll have to hear repeatedly in the next 12 months…
Story of how my client had to deal with a most insidious “bunny boiler” before he could finally grow and scale his business.
Part 2 of dumb dog smart dog and how it applies to scaling your business
Ever consider dogs and what they can teach us about growing a business? And no, I’m not talking about going on the rug… or being so excited to see you as you walk in the office that they want to jump on your leg.
It’s about team.. it’s about fit..
and it’s about your freedom to grow your business without being stuck inside.
It is easy to convince business owners about the value of delegation and mentoring. Showing them and training them how to do it is the challenge.
We do it by setting the correct example, imparting the beliefs, and passing the knowledge on to others patiently.
Set high expectations and be clear about what needs to be done and provide adequate support.
Do these and you gain a freedom and a business that is much more valuable than you can possibly imagine.
What do you get when John Carlton, Brian Kurtz, and Bond Halbert drop into a casual book club?
Not a pitch.
Not a product launch.
Just a room built right—by people who lead with value and play the long game.
This wasn’t a flex.
It was a masterclass in how real relationships attract the right people.
And why the best opportunities come when you stop selling… and start serving.
Here’s what happened
When you bring the right people into the right room, something changes.
It’s not about small talk.
It’s not about swapping business cards.
It’s about real conversations that open doors—and the opportunities that follow when hands are grasped with real intent.
Here’s a glimpse inside a gathering where growth wasn’t just talked about. It started.
One leak.
Two missed calls.
Three years of customer loyalty—gone.
That’s all it took.
-Not because of pricing.
-Not because of competition.
But because of a simple failure to show up, follow through, and solve the actual problem.
Bad customer experience isn’t just annoying.
It’s what turns profitable businesses into unsellable liabilities.
Here’s what happened—and why you need to look at your own business through the same lens.
They said a wave of business exits was coming.
Retiring baby boomers. Millions of dollars changing hands.
The so-called “Silver Tsunami.”
But… where is it?
Most owners didn’t sell.
Many didn’t retire.
And a frightening number are still grinding—burnt out, stuck, and quietly hoping for a buyer that never comes.
This post breaks down what’s really happening…
And what it means for every founder still waiting for the perfect time.
Today’s not just another Tuesday.
It’s St. George’s Day—the story of a man who stood his ground, defied the empire, and became a legend.
Most people remember the dragon.
They forget the courage.
And that’s exactly what most founders forget too.
The businesses that lead? They stand for something.
The ones that fold? They tried to please everyone.
Here’s why standing your ground might be the most valuable move you make.
You didn’t miss the exit.
You just kept telling yourself it wasn’t time yet.
Until suddenly… it was too late.
Most business owners don’t crash and burn.
They slowly wear down—working harder, earning less, and watching the business slip away while they keep saying:
“Just a bit longer.”
This post isn’t about planning.
It’s about what happens when you don’t..
You’ve sacrificed.
Pushed through setbacks.
Bled for the business.
But when it’s time to walk away—will it live on without you?
Or will it die the second you step back?
Most business owners don’t have an exit.
They have a slow death.
This week brought a powerful reminder of what real triumph looks like—
And what happens when you don’t build for it.
When I was 12, I snuck a pocket radio into church so I could listen to the Cubs game during Holy Thursday service.
My mom busted me.
I sat through the whole thing—and didn’t understand a word of it.
Now? I don’t miss a second.
And somewhere in that shift…
There’s a powerful lesson most business owners are still missing.
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