Simply put, Horizontal Integration is growth by acquiring competitors. It can be more nuanced than that, but in most cases it would mean simply buying a competitor and merging the businesses together. Horizontal Integration is a long game with a long-range return on investment, but it can be a fantastic way to grow your business…
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New is exciting. There is an exhilaration that comes with building a new thing, embarking on a new journey, lacing up and hiking that new trail. While you’re building something new, you may be able to fund it with your current revenue. This is called “bootstrapping”. As in, “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps”.…
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You are creative. If you are not familiar with how to tap into that force of your nature, then try what I call “Active Creative Meditation”. What I have learned is that if you establish a playground for your creativity, then your brain is free to connect dots that you may not have even known…
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You can offer more to your customers. No matter what line of business you are in, you have a brief relationship with your customers in the grand scheme of things. You interact, transact, and they go back to the flow of their life. That can change. It all starts with clearly defining your current audience.…
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There are many ways to pivot your business. Whether you feel like you have hit a ceiling, or you’re just looking for a new frontier – here are 2 questions I like to ask business owners to expand their reach, without even changing their offering: 1. Who would love your product that doesn’t know you exist? Could…
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If you don’t have measurable goals, you are doomed to overspend. In marketing speak they’re often referred to as “Key Performance Indicators” (KPI). What is the one metric that is most important to your marketing campaign, the primary yard stick to measure success by? Is it traffic to your website? Inbound phone calls? New sales…
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One my businesses sells chicken coops. You can design and order a walk-in chicken coop from four to sixty feet long, and it gets delivered directly to you. Yep, they’re pretty awesome #humblebrag Due to the built-to-order nature of the product, my processes used to be extremely manual, very clunky, and had lots of opportunities…
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Change is hard. It’s easy to stay on the same track. That’s why race horses wear blinders – so they don’t get distracted by competition, but focus on the race that’s right in front of them. That’s really helpful when the path to victory and accomplishment is clear… but that’s almost never the case in business…
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A system for everything, and everything in its system. A system is anything that creates repeatable improvement. Goal Guru Jon Acuff calls a system a “win repeater”. I like the term “win machine”. Systems don’t have to be complicated. Packing your lunch so you don’t eat junk food is a system. Setting your clothes out the night…
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It’s easy to fall into a routine. Over time, what you do can become who you think you are. Being stuck in a rut isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact it often means that you’re on a well-worn path and you’re heading places. But it just might be the same path that everyone else is taking as…
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