You can’t be brave. Well, more specifically: you can’t be brave unless you’re scared first. Synonyms of Bravery include valor, courage, and heroism. This word might spark images of soldiers charging the hill or first responders running straight into a tragedy, but you and I have opportunities to be brave every day. My favorite quote…
It was all going to waste… Ford Motor Company has a reputation for disruptive innovation unlike any other company in modern American history. A lesser-known tangent of Henry Ford’s legacy is another brand you’ll find in American homes from coast to coast: Kingsford Charcoal. Early “motor coaches” were primarily made of wood, and as part of…
Bad news, good news. Gig work, The Great Resignation, and “Quiet Quitting” become news bites that spread negativity when it comes to employment. Hating your job is a punchline in our culture – comic strips, sitcoms, and cinema all portray the same trope about a hollow soul having to drag themselves to work, dreaming about…
Negotiate everything. Most people hate conflict, and a few people enjoy it. Rarely are people “fair to middling’” on confrontation. But dealing with conflict is a secret skill that can be a superpower as a business owner. If you haven’t shopped around pricing from your supply chain in a while, it’s time. In fact, it’s…
There are two types of people in this world. Those that would rather ask permission, and those that would rather ask forgiveness. If you’re the asking permission type, you’ll need to get outside your comfort zone as a business owner. Sometimes you just have to make decisions and ask forgiveness later. Or there might be…
In the advertising agency business, I used to tell my team that, deep down, every single client who walks through our door wants more. They want to grow by getting more of something – usually it was pretty evident, like leads or sales or customers. But sometimes it was more subtle than that: they want to be…
Even if… Even if you find a business that’s ready to sell and you close the deal, you need to tread lightly and be very smart about how you merge them together. It’s often the case that you will have to let some employees go from either side, and you want to be careful about…
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…
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”.…
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…