I am sure you have heard it said before that you must have all Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) clearly laid out before you hire your first team member (contractor or employee). This is of course the most ideal situation, but we all know that entrepreneurship is not always a “perfect, ideal situation.”

Sometimes you may be in a position where you do not have the SOPs in place, and spending the time to create them could be detrimental to your business growth. I believe that in many situations, you can and possibly SHOULD hire without SOPs.

I know that many of you, as business leaders, are overflowing with creative ideas for new offers. However, all these offers can prove difficult to manage without a clear and concise business strategy. Think about it: do you, the business leader, know how profitable each of your offers even are?

If you’ve spent any time on social media and blogs, I’m sure you’ve noticed the “hustle culture” among entrepreneurs. Essentially, the attitude these posts are spreading is that if you’re not working 12 or rather 17-hour days, then you’re not working. 

To be honest, I totally disagree with this. Yes, working hard is important, but continuously stretching yourself thinner and thinner to make ends meet is going to lead to burnout - NOT success.

The thing that’s stopping you from growing is that you’re working WAY too much.

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.

Running a business can often feel like running on a hamster wheel if you’re not paying close attention to your productivity. I can imagine that when you started your business, one of the things you were looking forward to was freedom — time freedom, financial freedom, and opportunities to find your own fulfillment. However, many business owners feel that their lives became more overwhelming, unsustainable, and unfulfilling after they started their businesses.

If you’re not getting to enjoy the life circumstances that you hoped for when you started your business, I want you to know that it doesn’t have to be this way. The road to transformation starts with your productivity.

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.

Did you know that building a growing business with scaling profit margins is like following a recipe? There are clear steps to follow to get a positive outcome, and with some adjusting and tweaking along the way, you can make it even better as you go.

If you are someone who just does not like cooking and manages to mess up even when following the recipe, the recipe for increasing business profit is one that anyone can follow — no prior experience needed.

Measuring profit is one of the most important deliverables I have when working as a strategic partner with business owners. Of course, profit is tied to revenue, but don’t blindly assume that more revenue means more profit; it goes much deeper than that.

I like to approach this from a strategic level. Before I even think about building a dashboard for a client, I want to be able to nail down what they want and need to see based on their business goals for the next 6 to 12 months.

Today, I'm going to tell you all about my 4-step framework for helping my clients track their profit.

I know in the online business world, we often hear the focus being on an arbitrary magic revenue number. However, the truth is that revenue alone is not telling the whole story. Remember, revenue is simply the income, the money coming into the business. What about the cost it takes to deliver the product/service you provide?

I have been in the backend of many businesses, and sure, their revenue number alone looks great, but once you add up the expenses (the cost of doing business), what is left over (the profit) can be a very small portion of the total revenue. This is why you must dive deeper into what your actual profits are for a given period, rather than just the income you made.

There is a lot of noise in the online space these days about whether social media advertising is an effective way to grow and scale a business. On one side of the fence are those who believe that organic growth is the way to go, while others believe that using ads is the easiest method.

Whether you are for or against using a paid ads strategy in your business, measuring advertising effectiveness is absolutely critical in finding success. When you measure and analyze your advertising effectiveness, you’re able to strategically create effective ad campaigns which save you time, money and energy!  

If we believed all the marketing we hear these days, we would think automating everything is the secret to success. “All you need to do is automate it, and magically, all your problems will be solved!”

I would have to respectfully disagree. I do believe there is a time and place when automations are helpful and useful, however, when implemented at the wrong level, they can actually harm your business. Today, I want to explore with you 5 cases when you should not automate a process in your business.

Many online entrepreneurs I meet are confident they have Google Analytics hooked up, but they don’t dive in any further beyond that. I want you to know that regardless of your business goals, Google Analytics has the power to track the data you need to be successful.

Knowing this data and looking at the patterns and trends is where the magic begins. When you as the business leader start to understand the story the data is telling you, you can make smart, effective decisions going forward to optimize and capitalize, making your business more successful.

Today, we're talking about 4 reasons why Google Analytics can accelerate your business growth and 3 places where you should start using it.

It has happened to all of us at some point. You’re running to the bathroom in the middle of the night, outside walking your dog, or in the middle of a discussion with a business bestie. Suddenly, you get a GREAT idea and try your best to remember it until you can write it somewhere… but where? Most of the time the idea gets lost before we get to document it, and we’re on to something else on our long to-do list.

Do you find that you have great ideas but can’t seem to document them and then fit them into your daily to-do list? Or perhaps you are like some of the wonderful entrepreneurs I work with who come up with many new ideas and then want to implement them all. Today, I have a simple process for how you can start to capture your ideas in one area and keep them away from your daily to-dos without losing them forever.

A lot of online business owners like to spend some time at the end of each quarter looking back and reflecting as well as making plans and setting goals for the next 90 days. It is a good time to pause and check-in and evaluate how you are meeting your goals.

When you start to analyze the previous quarter and decide on goals for the upcoming quarter, it is vital that you review your KPIs and metrics. Remember, friends, that data does not lie. You no longer have to guess or use your subjective feelings to know where you are at meeting your targets; simply analyze the data and the answer will be right in front of you.

According to Michael E. Gerber, author of “The E-Myth”, the core components of business systems are key to business growth. “The system isn’t something you bring to the business. It’s something you derive from the process of building the business.”

The truth is that if your current situation involves you managing every aspect of your business, you will spread yourself too thin in no time. You want to spend your valuable time attracting more clients, boosting profit, or scaling your company, not being in the weeds of every single task that needs to be done. A business built on systems is one that doesn’t depend on you to be there to succeed.

“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.

Did you know that that there are so many other metrics in a growing business that have little to do with revenue, but have everything to do with success? These are called your key performance indicators (KPIs). A KPI measures how effective your business is and allows you to evaluate how close you are to achieving your goals. Think of it as a feedback loop, if you will, on exactly how you are doing now and what it could be like in the future.

Of course, before you can go and stamp out your KPIs, you need to be crystal clear on what your business goals are and ensure that they are measurable goals.

A good hiring process will help you attract and retain high-quality team members who match your brand. With the right hiring and onboarding process in place, you will soon be able to recruit and hire the best candidates. Today, we are going to go over 5 ways you can prepare for your next hire much more easily and effectively.