Business Goals: Why Start with Why? Yesterday I met with someone who was interested in business coaching. When I started to talk to her about her business and to ask her what she wanted to achieve it was clear that although she had set some business growth targets there was no real clarity behind …
I’m often asked about the keys to successful marketing, and people are almost always surprised by my answer. What they expect to hear is that the key is “branding” or having a “witty catch phrase”. In reality, the answer is much simpler than all that. It’s called testing and measurin…
Useful Tips: Learn to Plan and Plan to Learn We’ve all heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you fail to plan.” But how many of us really take it seriously? Do we even understand what planning is, why we should do it and what the value would be? In my experience, until we […]
Costly Mistakes that a New Franchisee Makes Wise people learn from their mistakes. Exceptionally wise people learn from other people’s mistakes. And these mistakes can appear on paper in the form of dollars. Your franchise will definitely come with manuals and training programs. However, as a newb…
SWOT: Identify Opportunities and Defend Against Threats A couple of clients this month have been talking to me about how to complete a SWOT analysis (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat). On both occasions I had to tell them that, in my view the biggest problem with this analysis was the acrony…
Stop Competing on Price The most common complaint I hear when talking to owners of small to medium sized businesses is that, “we can’t compete with the big guys on price.” The perception in the market place is that people are shopping on price alone. The only reason your customer asks the pric…
Let’s just assume, for the sake of making a point; that you have opened up a Dunkin Donut drive-thru on the side of a busy road. The outlet looks great. It is bright and visible with a signboard pointing towards it and the location is strategic. The road has a lot of traffic influx and […]
Simple Staff Systems to Save You Time The simple truth is that most entrepreneurs are not that interested in managing people. They started businesses because they had a good business idea, and that’s where they want to spend their time. Of course, another truth is that no business will be sustaina…
So you have decided to go into a franchise business but you don’t know where to start? It is natural to feel overwhelmed when you are at crossroads with a lot of options on the plate. This guide has been compiled to help you make decisions along the way to choosing the perfect fit for […]
Beating the odds and achieving success is something that only the most hard working and determined individuals end up doing. There are examples of numerous entrepreneurs who faced tons of adversity and came out even stronger, with their stories later being taught in schools and colleges. They defied…