Over the last 16+ years of my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve actually experienced a couple mental and emotional breakdowns from stress and anxiety that have led to extended bouts of depression. My 2 favorites from the highlight reel: 2007: right at the front edge of the Great Recession, about midway through what ended up being a 21 bank odyssey to get financing for what would eventually become our office, I was sitting at my computer …
Thinking about business as a giant puzzle, I’ve noticed there are 4 distinct roles to bring a business to fruition, the people who: Choose/create the picture (vision – purpose/problem/people) Construct the edge pieces (rules of engagement – values, strategy) Place the middle pieces (execution – 4 business functions) Break up middle pieces making them ever smaller, more intricately integrated (optimization – continual improvement as well as reducing the seams between/among business functions) All four of …
What Piece of the Business Puzzle Do You Bring? Keep Reading »
Recently I was listening to a speaker who challenged the room with a simple, but powerful question: “Would you enthusiastically rehire every person on your team?” Growing and developing your team is a lot like maintaining a garden full of orchids or azaleas (two of the most notoriously difficult plants to grow). It requires constant attention—not only to the plants themselves, but to the environment. Without knowledge and the right tools, it’s a hopeless …
Would You Enthusiastically Rehire Every Person on Your Team? Keep Reading »
At goBRANDgo! we work with mid-market companies in the manufacturing supply chain. One of the things we see is that, to invoke Michael Gerber’s E-Myth, their leaders are great at working in their business but, well, not quite as great at working on their business. Make their product better, make their machines run faster? Absolutely amazing. Make the machine of the business run more effectively and efficiently? Not as much. This is actually …
Growing up on a dairy farm surrounded by cows and cousins, I didn’t have the typical young entrepreneur backstory of the lawn cutting business, newspaper route, etc. But what I did have were opportunities to serve in leadership positions at every level from my 4th grade class all the way through middle/high school, college and beyond. In fact, my mom often proudly tells a story of one of my teachers in elementary school saying that …
