The Stages of Growth clarifies the optimal number of managers and leaders for a business. This blog post shows what that ideal number looks like across the seven Stages of Growth. This framework serves as the ideal for businesses to follow, with the management and leadership teams growing in proportion to the needs of the organization. In reality, however, many leaders miss these transitions.
The Position Role Sheet is a management tool that organizes the work through Positions, Roles, and Types of Work. It is a fundamental way to accomplish the goal of first organizing the work before organizing the people doing the work. As a building block for departments of all sizes, Position Role Sheets break down the roles and responsibilities of each position within a department.
This natural tendency to focus on the immediate needs of one’s department can work against the success of the enterprise. Due to daily challenges, needs, and opportunities, departments can become self-focused and lose sight of the big picture. The outcomes of this silo mentality are a lack of cooperation and hoarding of information. What works for one department might make things difficult for another. Departments begin to compete for resources without understanding or even caring about the needs of the enterprise.
Dr. W. Edward Deming is recognized as the father of the modern Quality Movement that ignited new ideas and focused energy on process improvement. He contributed to Japan’s economic recovery after World War II, largely through his influence over manufacturing processes.
Dr. Deming was a champion of systems and processes. At one point, he made this poignant statement: “If you cannot define what you are doing as a process, you do not understand what you are doing.”
Many small business owners struggle with knowing where to allocate their time and resources. One issue we hear about a lot has to do with sales and marketing—which is more important?
The short answer is that both are important, but what we’ll look at today is the relationship between the two and how the industry your business is in has a lot to do with knowing which one deserves more of your time.
It’s likely that you have an idea in your mind of “The Salesperson.” This is the smooth talker, the rainmaker, the person who’s never at a loss for words and somehow manages to turn the most aggressively uninterested prospect into an eager buyer. While this persona exists for a reason, it’s not a good way to build a sales team. As a business owner, you can’t rely on finding that one extraordinary salesperson in order for your company to function.
Running a profitable business is a big challenge. Fifty percent of businesses started in the U.S. fail within the first 5 years. Why? Because they are unable to create a profitable business model.
While there are many different factors that play into running a profitable business, in this article, we’re going to focus on just one simple fact: the difference between revenue and profit. The distinction matters, and it helps immensely if the entire team has the same understanding of what profit is.
If you’re like most small business owners, you’re feeling the pinch of today’s economy. As you look for ways to increase revenue, it’s important not to overlook all of your options. The good news is that there are probably more ways to grow revenue than you might think.
We’ve found it’s common for businesses to focus on just one way to increase revenue, which is by getting new customers. While that’s a viable option, it also tends to be the most expensive one and can take the longest to pay a return. In fact, there are three simple ways to increase revenue that apply to almost every business. In this article, we expand on the three ways to increase revenue to give you more options for your business.
