Although anyone with a small amount of capital and little or no experience can start a business, this does not mean that success will follow. Globally, small businesses and SMEs fail miserably. To counteract the staggering failure rates, a small business or SME owner needs an abundance of knowledge to be successful over the long…

Is it a headache to make important decisions in your business? We know how you feel. The average business leader spends close to 40% of their time on business decisions—and most of that time is wasted.  Thankfully, we’ve got something that can flip the script for any business leader. You can stop pulling out your hair and…

Business Owner: We have a goal of 20% EBITDA. Me: How did you come up with that goal? Owner: We want to double our EBITDA in 5 years. Me: Do you realize that the best-in-class EBITDA for your industry is 14%? You’re saying you want profitability to be almost 50% better than the best performing…

Budgets…exciting? Not particularly, but extremely important for any small business. Budgets are additional tools needed for goal setting and performance analysis. Detailed objectives are necessary for any business to operate profitably and grow into a long-term successful venture. When management does not know, however, whether the business has met predetermined objectives, operations become a “hit…

Most operations strategies fail. Why is that? Is it because they aren’t correctly implemented? Or is it because they are built to fail from day one? The answer: both. Your people have their hands full. Without a clear roadmap for decision-making and competitive priorities, each team is like a ship without a rudder. People need…

If you’re going to manage, then you need to manage the right way. Certainly, managing a small business or SME is a difficult task, but that is no excuse for not being a good manager. Managing must still be done correctly in order to achieve positive results. At times, it might seem as though it…

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Have you hit a wall with strategy execution? You’re not alone. In most companies, the best-laid plans drop like lead balloons. For years, the word on the grapevine is that up to 90% of strategies crash and burn. The evolution of strategy in the last century holds promise. But, right now, effective strategic thinking remains an impossible…

No small business owner or manager thinks that occupational fraud can or will happen to them. Guess what? Business fraud happens all the time…every day in every city, small or large, and to any size and type of business. And what is occupational fraud? As defined by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, occupational fraud…

Sometimes the best business ideas are not really ideas at all. They are simply new ways of doing old things. For example, Melissa Kwan created a business to help real estate agents manage their open house contacts. As she described when I interviewed her on Built to Sell Radio, it was a “bloated” piece of software….

An overview of strategy formulation Formulating a comprehensive strategy sounds like a herculean task. But it doesn’t have to be like that. You just have to gather the right information and write a plan with a bias towards action. Let’s get into more details. What is strategy formulation? Strategy formulation is the process of developing a plan…