As a business owner, you want to be able to focus your efforts on the projects that will make the biggest impact, but it can be difficult to know where to start. That's where strategic objectives come in.

By setting clear and specific goals for your business, you can create a sense of direction and purpose that will guide your decision-making and help you stay on track. Here are 7 examples of common challenges business owners face and how strategic objectives can help.

Many of you are waiting till the time when you hit $1,000,000 in revenue to start enjoying your life. You're sure that once you have enough revenue, that will buy you time to spend on your own interests. Until then, you have to work constantly. What if I told you that there was an alternative? It starts with leveraging your time, team, and tactics.

Are you at a point in your business where you are ready to grow and are looking to expand your team? Growing a team can be a challenge for even the most savvy business owner. Not only do you need to be ready to delegate, you need to know when the right time to hire is. Sometimes, hiring is a better option than trying to push through a task that is out of your wheelhouse. But you’ve got to find the right people, and you’ll save yourself time if you set them up properly. Here are 5 tips to grow your team the right way.

I know that a lot of business leaders love to dream about new ideas. However, dealing with the tiny details behind these big ideas (think numbers, systems, processes, deadlines, measurements, indicators, spreadsheets…) doesn’t feel as exciting.

Here’s the truth, though: what got you to the level of business growth you are at now will not get you where you want to go. Whether your goal is more freedom and vacation time, increased monthly revenue, or a business that runs without you being present, a shift is needed and it requires you to be accountable.

So many business owners feel that they cannot grow their business because they have become the bottleneck. They are in a state where everything in their business has to be approved by them. Take a moment and ask yourself: What would happen to your business if you were able to delegate more and much better?

Perhaps you have tried delegating in the past, and it hasn’t worked so well. You end up deciding, “I might as well do it myself,” or “I guess I’m not a good manager.”

Truth bomb: The problem isn’t that you are a bad manager. It is that you are “drive-thru delegating.”

In the online business world, launches are all the rage. Some love them, and some hate them. Regardless of the type of launch you choose, or whether they are your favorite thing to do or not, using data to design a powerful launch plan will maximize your results. If measuring metrics and crunching numbers aren’t among your many talents, don’t worry! This post has got lots of great ideas to consider designing your next launch plan.

Building a business from the ground up requires you to juggle a million different things. However, there comes a point in your business when you need to shift from being a full-time doer into a leadership role, focusing on vision and strategy. Management and implementation are not your responsibilities as the leader of the business. 

Sometimes we feel the need to micromanage every part of our business rather than focusing on leading our team. In order to see the long-term success you are looking for, you need to own the vision and leadership role and allow others on your team to own the other levels. Today, I am going to share 4 reasons why this is imperative to the growth and success of your operation.

As founders of small businesses, we hear the word delegation all the time, and we know it’s important. But do we do this effectively in our own business? Possibly you have tried delegating things in the past and you did not have the positive outcome you were looking for. Perhaps you feel you can do the task “better and faster” on your own than by trying to explain it to someone else and then managing them to ensure they actually complete it.

However, delegating tasks to team members who are able and ready to help you has a lot of advantages to you as the CEO. Let's talk about 3 of those advantages first and then I will give you some tips on how to delegate effectively.

As we are in quarter 4 of 2022, I have been doing some reflecting on my own business as well as my clients’. One thing that keeps coming to mind is what our most valuable asset is as a business owner: time. We all get the same 24 hours in a day, and we need to be as efficient and productive as possible while still having that elusive work-life balance.

Regardless of business niche, all business owners face the challenge of time management at some point or another. There can sometimes be a never-ending list of to-dos, and the thought of gaining control of your schedule can seem impossible.

“But I’m doing just fine without a dashboard,” you might think. “Why is it better than my current system?” Using a dashboard helps you see and understand your business metrics in a whole new way. Being able to visualize your progress (or lack thereof) towards a goal with a dashboard will take your business to new heights. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an easy-to-read graph available to you at your next strategic team meeting when you are making decisions about the direction of your business in the next 6 months?

Here are 6 ways that a dashboard can transform your business.

Always keep your eyes and your mind open to the possibility of “bad” data. New research from Experian Data Quality shows that inaccurate data has a direct impact on the bottom line of 88% of companies, with the average company losing 12% of its revenue.

Misleading data has become commonplace for entrepreneurs as data becomes easier to collect and more necessary to utilize. Our online business world relies heavily on analytics, but like any other area of life, errors can happen. It’s important to be aware of this fact and to keep our eyes open for misleading data, even when you think your data collection methods are foolproof.

Being a small business owner with a small or lean team is no walk in the park. You are likely juggling multiple projects with different deliverables, timelines, and budgets at a time, all while dealing with multiple team members, clients, and stakeholders. Is your brain spinning yet? You are probably saying to yourself, “This could easily be done if I had a supercomputer for a brain.”

Listen, I get it. Managing multiple projects can feel super exhausting and make you feel like you are living in utter chaos. Here are 6 tips for how to manage multiple projects at once and see them through to completion. (Hint: it all starts with a strong foundation.)

When you use data to make decisions, they are based on facts rather than biases. Data is objective and therefore remains fair and balanced, as opposed to your gut feelings which are subjective and biased. Data-driven decision making should be a vital part of your business strategy. Remember, the data alone is not transforming your business or propelling you forward. It is the actions you take based on the insights gathered from the data that make the difference.

Are you interested in being 19 times more profitable or being 23 times more likely to acquire customers? Who doesn’t want these kind of growth opportunities for their business? Experience and instincts are valuable, of course, but research confirms that businesses that base decisions on data rather than instincts or experience are likely to be way more profitable. Data-driven businesses are those that make their decisions using data to drive outcomes their business wants (i.e. objectives and goals).

Many of the business owners I work with KNOW they should be tracking things, but are unsure where to start and are paralyzed before they even begin. (Flashback to staring at a blank white piece of paper in school, anyone?)

There are so many more indicators to the health of your business than just your revenue! In today’s blog post, we’ll go over what key performance indicators are, how to choose which KPIs to track and most importantly how to get started!

Every business should be tracking important metrics; however, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to follow. The metrics you should track depend completely on the strategic objectives for your business. I suggest mapping out the customer journey or user experience to determine where to start.

IT IS IMPORTANT that you keep track of each step of the experience or action you want the customer to take. This data becomes so vital when looking for opportunities for growth and improvement in your funnel. Measure, change your actions, and measure again.

In comparison to corporations, small businesses face one major problem: they have substantially less manpower! Small teams often have more tasks to do than hours to get them done. You cannot add more hours to the day, so you have to find a way to cut down on time-consuming tasks with systems and automations! This will allow you to focus on your goals as you work to grow.

It’s the first day back in 2022! How are you feeling about the tasks you’ll have going forward? As your business grows, you may start to find yourself busier and busier doing all the things. Suppose you take the oft-quoted advice of hiring another teammate to help. Of course, it is important to delegate tasks that you do not need to be doing, and that usually involves hiring one or more people. With a team, more things are possible, and the potential is there to grow your business faster. However, there is something many business owners are not prepared for when they start hiring. It’s what I call the “management trap.”

Once we know what our goals are and we are working towards them with our team, the next step is to have a way of measuring if we are meeting our targets. This is where data becomes so important. No longer do you have to be making decisions based on your educated guesses and what you think might be occurring. You now have the cold, hard facts!

Sometimes, business owners are not sure exactly what to measure. Remember that while you should have a unique set of KPIs, there are some common KPIs that all successful businesses are tracking.

Have you ever sat and thought about what sets one business apart from the other? Why are some top earners and others not? One thing that sets the top earners apart is DATA. While what you measure will vary based on your goals and your business model, there are a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that all successful businesses are tracking.

Do you know the difference between KPIs and metrics? A lot of people use these two terms interchangeably, but they are not the same.