What’s one of the biggest challenges in small business today? Keeping employees motivated and productive, says Marty Grunder, President and CEO of Grunder Landscaping Co., in Dayton, Ohio. Knowing how difficult this can be, Marty shared a few lessons on how to create a high-energy, productive atmosphere at work. Lesson #1: Make Time For Individuals to Express How They [ Read More ]
When hiring, LaRosa’s, Inc.’s philosophy is, “Good people know good people.” That’s why they make sure to tap their current employee base to help find additional great talent, says Steve Browne, Executive Director of HR at LaRosa’s. (LaRosa’s is a chain of pizza restaurants located in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee.) “When we have openings, we go to our team [ Read More ]
How do you let go of doing it yourself? In this video, Lavender Home Care Solutions’ President, Bernard Dalichau, shares how he’s learned to let go. Many can relate to the feeling of having to "do it all"—whether they are a business owner or not.. Being able to effectively delegate is a critical capacity to both scale your business [ Read More ]
Is your profit margin average for your industry? Is your revenue per customer in the middle of the pack for companies like yours? How about your growth rate as compared to the industry? Statisticians like to point to averages as a way to explain trends and define an industry. And we oftentimes think that we are lucky if we [ Read More ]
Not all company growth comes from selling more. Wes Gipe, Founder of Agil IT, agrees, saying he experienced this within his own company: “I had been so externally focused. I was focused on growing the business," he says in this video. "I really didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the success of the people within the organization.” [ Read More ]
It was the first time in 13 years as a business owner that Barry Chandler had faced this kind of emotional challenge. For the first time ever, Barry was feeling a sense of loss. It had been two years since Barry sold his subscription services and marketing agency. He had built the organization from the ground up. As part [ Read More ]
In 2008, Nick Sarillo’s team at Nick’s Pizza & Pub made the decision to abandon its expansion plans for a third restaurant, and refocus on its existing two. (Based in Illinois, Nick’s Pizza & Pub is one of the top ten busiest independent pizza companies in per-store sales in the nation. Today, it has margins nearly twice that of [ Read More ]
When she first launched Student Maid, Kristen Hadeed would create long, comprehensive to-do lists for all her employees. Student Maid is a cleaning and concierge company, but not your typical cleaning company: they only employ students, helping team members grow into self-managing professionals who value flexibility, accountability, and autonomy. With the best of intentions, Kristen says she was doing all the discretionary [ Read More ]
We sat down with Ed Baker, author of The Symphony of Profound Knowledge, to talk about the motivation behind writing his latest book, including what he says was the most challenging and rewarding part of the process. “This book provides a framework to think differently about organizations, in contrast to what business schools teach,” Ed tells us. “Living is [ Read More ]
How do you know when it’s time to add new members to your board? Tony Schroeder, CEO of Choice One Engineering, says it really comes down to how much value a board member is providing you, the business owner. (Tony is also a Business Coach at Aileron.) “When I can predict what the board member is going to say, [ Read More ]
Every business owner has something that’s kept them up at night. For Bernard Dalichau, President of Lavender Home Care Solutions, it was the thought of losing his employees. “I put so much effort into hiring them, and I put so much effort into developing them, the fear of losing people was a huge anxiety point I had,” he says [ Read More ]
“A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow.” – General George Patton Many entrepreneurs start their company wanting to build the perfect product or service for their customer. This is a big mistake and here's why. Perfect can take too long to develop. Most entrepreneurs have a limited amount of development funds before they need to [ Read More ]
