Business owners, will you be keeping one eye on your e-mails on Christmas Day? According to recent research 1 in 5 of us will be. I can picture it now, a sneaky look at your phone secreted under your Christmas napkin and then all hell breaking loose when you’re spotted! These stats make for interesting […]
Do you feel like you’re drowning? Drowning in paperwork, in problems, in people stuff? And all because of your success! When you were starting out you had a handle on everything. Now that you’ve grown you’ve had to take on more people and it’s just not the same. You feel like you’ve lost control. And […]
I want to share an interesting conversation I had recently with a control freak. Business Owners come to us for help to escape the day-to-day operation of their business, but the truth is that so many find it hard to let go of their role, even the small tasks. Some believe that they are the […]
One of the questions I always ask my clients is ‘How many of your current team would you re-hire tomorrow if you were given the chance?’ So…how many would you re-hire? If you say all of them, congratulations! I’m delighted for you, because I know from experience how rare that is. In fact it’s only […]
When I was starting out on my own I had a dream of what I wanted to achieve, but like many dreams, it was hazy and unfocused, and I could never tell anyone what it was all about with any clarity. It was like seeing a shape at the end of a foggy road but […]
Life is awash with rhythms. The sun rises and sets, the tides ebb and flow, the seasons come and go, even if not as consistently of late! My business now enjoys a lovely rhythm too and the beat is set by 90 day cycles. I read a great blog the other day on a site […]
I’m a big film fan and one of my favourite clips from ‘The Untouchables’ is Sean Connery chasing a baddie, then gasping ‘Enough of this running sh*t!’ And I’ve read a few articles recently denigrating business plans which put me in mind of that line. So I was intrigued to know why people held this […]
A skunk as you know is something that stinks, and nearly all businesses have them. No, I’m not talking about issues with personal hygiene – your skunks are in your operation, your customer journey, your hiring. So what does a skunk look like? It looks like something that isn’t adding value to your business and […]
I’ve always loved team sports, whether I’m playing them or watching them. Watching them always incurs listening to the pundits and of course with the football season underway we’re awash with analysis. I have to admit that I do enjoy it; I love the insight and the banter. Sometimes, worryingly, I find myself joining in, […]
You must have seen the arcade game Whack A Mole* which is all about smacking cute little moles on the head as they peep out of their holes. Fun game! Just as you knock one back another appears and another, and another… until your time, or your money, runs out. Fun, but infuriating! Do you ever feel like […]
I’ve seen a number of posts recently about parents proudly and perhaps anxiously getting their kids to school for their first day. It’s that time again; new beginnings. For some their first day at a new school or college. For others their first day in a new role or a new job; maybe their first ever […]
‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.’ -Yogi Berra My parents as they got older, often got into their car without knowing where they were going exactly. Okay, they knew roughly they were heading for – the Lakes or North Yorkshire or Northumberland but their precise destination or their route? […]
I know it’s the onset of Autumn and downtime for nature but for me September is my business springboard. It’s a great month for planning. It always just feels so right, and just this morning I was reminding myself why. For some, January may seem like the obvious choice, the beginning of a new calendar […]
It’s that time of year again, my car is due its MOT. I sit there waiting for the phone to ring. All those moving parts, they can’t all be in perfect working order, can they? So it’s always great when I get the ‘all clear’. Not that it’s always that straightforward, because you’re then faced […]
In my business I often come across managers with one thing in common; they are flying by the seat of their pants! People who are ‘accidental managers’. You know, the great team member who is plucked from their team and given a management role or the talented business owner who finds themselves managing people as […]
I saw a tweet the other day by a business owner saying that we should all be teachers – his mate was off for his third trip to the Northern hemisphere this year! Just imagine those six weeks+, how switched off, how re-energised you could be…? I’m not saying that teachers don’t have a shed-load […]
‘If your business depends on you, then you don’t own a business, you have a job, and it’s the worst job in the world, because you’re working for a lunatic.’ So says Michael Gerber in the ‘E-Myth’, the bible for so many entrepreneurs, and rightly so, in my opinion. In the E-Myth, Michael Gerber talks […]
How to Foster a Culture of Improvement ‘Do this and your business will fly!’ Feedback! The key to improving performance. And yet so many people feel awkward about giving it or shy away from it altogether. So why do people find it so difficult? Perhaps you’re one of them. You may be the person who […]
‘Systems are not chains to tie you down, they are wings to help you fly.’ This week I delivered a keynote presentation at the prestigious north west business club the ‘K-Club’, posing the question, ‘What if business was easy?’ It challenged the thinking of the 80-strong audience of business owners, and led to an interesting […]
Britain is 3rd in the world for start-ups but only 13th for scale-ups! It’s hard to escape the news at the moment about the lack of productivity in Britain and what that means for the economy going forward. I don’t know about you but when I start thinking on that sort of scale I get […]
Have you ever had someone leave your business after ten minutes? Let’s take a look a few of the perils and pitfalls of people selection, and how to prevent them. In the last few weeks, three new clients have had issues while recruiting that might have put other business owners off recruiting for life! A […]
September is a great month for planning. It always just feels so right, and just this morning I was reminding myself why. For some, January may seem like the obvious choice, the beginning of a new calendar year with new year’s resolutions, and a full 12 months stretching out ahead of you. The downside is […]
Many people I speak to can see the benefits of a systemised business. ‘Look at McDonald’s; look at Amazon,’ they say, ‘every really successful business is systemised…absolutely…there’s no getting away from it.’ But when it comes down to their own business you can see them beginning to come out in a rash. The thought of […]
How do you split your time between your superstars, your under-performers and your steady, reliable team members? I’ve spent some time this week working with a couple of my private clients, talking to their teams, individually, one-to-one to discover: What they love about their work What they find frustrating What aspirations they have What blocks them […]
Hiring the right person for you, first time, every time! Wouldn’t that be great? By the time you’ve read this blog, I want to have convinced you that it’s possible. Not only possible but pleasurable; that it’s an exciting opportunity to build your high-performing team and grow your business. I’ll go through the three steps […]
You’ve probably noticed I’ve been talking quite a lot about McFreedom and having a McFreedom mindset recently. And you’ve possibly been thinking ‘ What on Earth is this McFreedom thing all about?’ Well McFreedom is a word I use to describe ‘The freedom to scale, grow, sell or franchise your business or run it from a […]
Over the past few years I’ve talked to a lot of business owners who are struggling with how much they have to get done, and let’s face it, us business owners have a lot of ‘stuff’ to do. So much stuff and all of it urgent. A bulging inbox controlling our day, forcing us to […]
In the last few weeks we’ve created your inspiring business vision and we’ve begun work on your business planning, but even the most inspiring vision, and the smartest of SMART plans will be wasted, if you don’t have an effective personal management system. Your daily routine is the cornerstone of your personal management system, and should be crammed full of […]
‘I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose..’ George Carlin It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut. Sometimes we don’t even recognise that we’re in one. A rut’s boring, same old same old, dull…right?! And that’s not […]
‘Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four-hour days.’ Zig Ziglar In a recent blog we asked you to get really clear about your vision. Now the question is how to achieve it. Focus is the key! Even with a clear vision, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mountain […]
