Business 300

Entrepreneurs trying to get a business off the ground have a lot going for them. But the one thing they need most, is mostly what they don’t have. Money. So, what do you do if you need money and don’t have it? The entrepreneur who doesn’t have any money must rely on something more important: […] The post Ep. 127 – Leading People (Even If You Can’t Pay Them) – Part 1 first a...

A business’s brand is not what the owner says it is, nor is it what the social media image portrays. A business’s brand is what the outside world says it is. Good or bad, a reputation is unavoidable. There are times when you must protect your brand from your customer. The post Ep. 125 – Protect Your Brand From Your Customers first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

A business exists to deliver value to a customer. Anything else is a distraction from that goal, and will lead to your business’ demise. If something else takes the place of the customer, the customer eventually leaves. And without a customer, you don’t have a business. That’s because the business is not the goal of […] The post Ep. 123 – Value Is The Goal first appeared on...

Profitable businesses have no place in our modern worldview. Our culture resides within a fruitless worldview. And a fruitless worldview has no place for fruit. But a business is supposed to be fruitful. The post Ep. 121 – A Fruitful Worldview first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Most business owners want their business to grow. However, much of the time those who pursue getting bigger do it at the expense of getting better. But your business ought to not just grow bigger. It must also get better. But how do you get better? How do you know what area to improve? The post Ep. 119 – Get Better As You Get Bigger first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Idealists justify their position by reproaching the Pragmatists action as compromise. And Pragmatists sneer at the Idealists, dismissing their aspirations as idle chatter. Which group is the Business Owner a part of, and how should he navigate between the two? The post Ep. 117 – Aspirations & Actions first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

In the last episode, I introduced “nerve” as a necessary virtue to possess in order for a leader to make decisions and act upon them – which is what makes a business owner successful. But why is nerve THE critical component? And what if I lack the nerve? If nerve is not a competency, is […] The post Ep. 116 – An Owner’s Lack of Nerve first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

There are character traits that all successful business owners share; character traits without which a business owner would have a difficult time thriving, if not even just surviving. Without being this sort of a person, they wouldn’t be able to succeed. The post Ep. 115 – The Character Trait of Success first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Everything within the domain of business – its end and its means – is subjected under the Lordship of Christ. There are plenty of Christian business owners who confess Christ as Lord over their business. But their approach is to determine their own end and means, as opposed to submitting those points under Christ. Let […] The post Ep. 114 – The Objective of Christian Enterprise f...

Without sales there are no customers. Sales is supposed to sell. But because there’s much to the administrative side of sales, many business owners end up loading up the Sales Function with administrative burdens. Instead of selling, sales ends up “managing the sale.” What should a business owner do? The post Ep. 113 – Let Sales Sell first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

The game of inventory is a balancing act, if there ever was one. If your business revolves around products anywhere on the supply chain – from production, through wholesaling, to retail – inventory management is a part of your business plan. What parameters should you have for inventory management? The post Ep. 112 – Playing The Inventory Game first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Nobody cares about the business like the owner does. The owner see and knows that. And usually it frustrates him. He cares about it, so he wants others to care about it too. He wants his employees to care about the well-being of the business. But is that a reasonable outlook? Is it good? The post Ep. 111 – Your Business Is Not Your Employee’s Baby first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

The size of your business affects how it should be run. You can have a relatively small business, or a relatively larger one. And if you attempt to manage either one as if you were managing the other one, it wouldn’t work. When it comes to structure and systems, size matters. The post Ep. 110 – Size Matters first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Your goal is not to make our customers’ experience with you exciting and unpredictable. You want your customer’s experience to be boring. And even though doing the work might be exciting, that’s also not your goal. Even inside your business, your goal is to make things boring. You want a boring business. The post Ep. 109 – You Want A Boring Business first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Your organization needs a lot of things to get done simultaneously. So, each functional department has its own work to do, and is focused on its local efficiencies. But what’s missed in this approach – and most often is in competition with it – is the Global Objective. How can you optimize to meet our […] The post Ep. 108 – The Global Objective first appeared on Philip Kuli...

The need to balance autonomy and control is prevalent in nearly every area of our life and business. We want and need the freedom to explore and play and hunt. And, we want and need the security that comes with predictable stability. Our customer and employees value the same sort of things when interacting with […] The post Ep. 107 – Balancing Autonomy & Control first appeared on Philip Kuli...

How the people in a business are organized and how they interact with one another affects how that business serves it’s customers. That’s another way of saying: structure enables strategy, and your purpose directs them both. The post Ep. 106 – Structure Enables Strategy first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

The more people are involved in your business, the more disorder will manifest. It’s better to maintain order as you move along, than have to fix it all later. But, what does that mean? How do you do that? The post Ep. 105 – More People, More Disorder first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

There are times when our business falls into a sort of disorder, and we need to perform a turnaround, or overhaul, if you may. But nothing is ever so bad that you can’t make it worse. What kind of approach ought one take when working through a business turnaround? The post Ep. 104 – Business Turnarounds first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Even though I don’t like the term “Fake it, ’til you make it,” I do understand some of the intent behind it. But I don’t think the best name for that sort of entrepreneurial mindset is “Faking it.” Entrepreneurs aren’t faking it. But they are failing. What’s that about? The post Ep. 103 – Fail ‘Til You Succeed first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

There’s that popular poser-friendly phrase: fake it ’til you make it. It’s the motto of most imposters struggling with fear, trying to justify their usurped position. I’m here to argue against doing any and all of that. I have a different way to go about it. The post Ep. 102 – The Imposter Syndrome first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Most people and businesses grow stagnant. But there are those who don’t. There are the sort of people and businesses who get after it and conquer, realizing their aims. Why is that? Why do some people run and get somewhere, while others are constantly spinning their wheels, toiling away in yesterday’s problems? If we keep […] The post Ep. 101 – The Missing Ingredient first appear...

Some failures are scratches and wounds. But there is a sort of failure that is analogous to death. There is no getting through it. You can’t spin it into success, or turn it into an opportunity. There’s nothing else to do. The race is done. The results are in. You lost. Death and burial is […] The post Ep. 100 – Death, Burial, & Resurrection first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

How can you know if your business idea is a good one or not? This is where we build a Business Case. It’s a good and necessary place to start and end, in order to know which business idea to pursue. The post Ep. 99 – How To Make a Business Case first appeared on Philip Kulishov .

Transportation is one of the Seven Wastes in your business that your customers aren’t willing to pay for. “But,” you say, “there are entire businesses built on transportation, which people do pay for.” Yes, there are delivery services that people have been and continue to pay for. So, what am I talking about? The post Ep. 98 – Cruise On Your Own Time first appeared on...