It can be difficult to draw boundaries between your personal life and your work life—especially if you own a small business. Despite your best intentions, it may feel as though you’re never giving enough effort to one or the other. The elusive work-life balance can feel impossible to attain.

While we don’t have a magic wand that can stretch time (still working on that!), we do have some advice for managing work-life balance based on the experiences of small business owners.

Your cell phone is ringing. It’s also beeping, letting you know that a text message has come through. The afternoon is full of back-to-back meetings. You’re sitting at your desk, wondering how the day could already be half over when it feels like you just got started. Looks like it will be another late night …

Sound familiar? If you’re a small business owner, we’re writing with you in mind. We understand all too well the way a person can get swept up in the day-to-day details of running a business, making it difficult to keep your head above water. We also recognize that burnout is a very real issue for small business owners. Whether it’s after one year or ten, everyone finds their breaking point if they are constantly under the gun.

Business consultants and advisers want to have an impact on their clients. The whole reason most of them get into consulting is to make a difference—to use their knowledge and experience to help business owners thrive. A common frustration we hear from consultants, though, is that they aren’t able to make the significant progress they’d like to. They don’t get the opportunity to go deeply enough with a client to make a significant, long-term impact.

One of the most frequent challenges we hear from small business owners and leaders relates to time management. Many tell us that that part of the reason they wanted to own their business was to have more control over their schedules, but in reality, the opposite is true. They feel like their business owns them, not the other way around. Despite working long hours and most weekends, they can’t get ahead.

Following are the three most common barriers we see keeping business leaders from effectively managing their time.

For most CEOs, their jobs have been evolving since they first started the company. Many were experts in a trade or a skill and were able to build a successful business on that expertise. As their business grew, however, they found themselves faced with new types of challenges, such as learning how to manage managers, how to delegate effectively, and how to communicate the vision and mission of the organization.

CEO peer groups provide a way for leaders to get outside perspective on their businesses. While they carry certain advantages, there are also some disadvantages. In this article, we consider both the advantages and disadvantages of CEO peer groups, closing with an alternative.

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.

Many small business owners are caught in a trap of reaction: they spend nearly all their energy reacting to requests and urgent demands. No one sets out to start a business with the goal of it consuming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On the contrary, most small business owners are looking for independence. Unfortunately, the demands of a business are often urgent and can easily become overwhelming.

The Thinking-Doing Sequence is a structure that helps shine light on what it is that business owners are doing with their time and why adjustments may be necessary.

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.

There’s no getting around it. It’s awkward. You’re face-to-face with a business owner who has poured time, energy, and effort into running a business. Things aren’t going well, which is why you were hired in the first place. And yet, even though your advice was solicited, you hesitate to share your findings with the business owner.

While we can’t get rid of all the unpleasant confrontations that may arrive throughout the course of work for business advisers, we do have some advice for anyone looking for a better way to deliver tough news.

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.

In our previous post, we focused on ways to successfully market yourself as an adviser to small business owners. In this article, we’re going to talk about how to sell to small business owners.

To clarify, and make sure we’re all on the same page, marketing and sales are two distinct functions of a business. The purpose of marketing is to generate leads, while the purpose of sales is to convert those leads into revenue.

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.

As a small business consultant, you have a wealth of information and years of experience. You’re also keenly aware that there are many businesses in need of help. The question is … how do you reach them? How do you hold their attention long enough to explain what you do? To help you make the most of your time and effectively raise awareness of your services, we’ve put together three tips on how to market to small business owners.

When you bring on a new employee to your team, the first few weeks are extremely important. Those initial impressions and moments can shape the entire trajectory of that person’s tenure with the company—whether it’s brief or lengthy, good or bad, mutually beneficial or filled with conflict.

Employers aren’t likely to skip foundational things with a new employee, like setting up their computer or giving them a copy of the employee handbook. There are other steps, though—steps often overlooked—that are just as critical to setting the stage for an employee’s success.

Do you feel frustrated because your employees aren’t taking ownership of their work? Does it seem like you have to constantly send reminders and follow-up with your employees before a task is completed?

If so, you’re not alone. Employee accountability is a big issue for business owners. Ideally, every person who is hired to join a company will take full responsibility for his or her work and even go above and beyond when the occasion requires. The reality, though, is often different. It’s not uncommon for business owners to struggle with getting employees to fulfill their responsibilities.

Finding and hiring good employees has always been a challenge for business owners, but it’s especially true today. The labor market is tight, leading to higher expectations from employees for special perks or accommodations, and less incentive to stay. Even a successful company that is well-run and has a healthy workplace environment can find it difficult to retain employees.

Needless to say, a great deal of time and effort go into hiring a new employee, which makes the question of how to find good people—people who are the right fit for a company—more pressing than ever. In this article, we’ll share three hiring tips that can be used to help ensure that each new employee is a good fit for the team.

Gallup recently reported that the percentage of engaged workers in the U.S. in 2021 was just over one-third (34%), and that a full 16% of employees were actively disengaged in their work and workplace. This marks a decline from 2020, and the first decline in more than a decade.

Given these troubling numbers, there’s a good chance you are facing that same challenge in your workplace. While there is plenty of speculation about what might be the reasons for the disengagement, the questions that we’re going to address in this article are 1) How can you tell if your employees are disengaged? and 2) What can you do about it?

We’re excited to announce that the Stages of Growth Online Series is now available! This video series breaks down the concepts that inform Organizational ReWilding in an easy-to-understand format. It is recommended to any business owners or leaders who are looking for research-driven strategies to help grow their businesses.

Matthew Pohl, founder and Principal of The ReWild Group, was recently featured in a podcast episode. Host Marcus Cauchi interviewed Matthew, asking questions about Organizational ReWilding and how Matthew came to be involved with the methodology.

Widely used within The Alternative Board (TAB) network, StratPro has similarities and differences to Organizational ReWilding. The purpose of this blog is to outline both methodologies and show how they can work together in a business.