Company of One

I spent much of last week at The Launch Conference in Orlando. The conference was mentally challenging, and Disney with the family was physically challenging. It was worth it. John C. Morgan working as George Bush at Launch [/featured-image]For those not familiar with Launch, it is a conference put on by Michael Hyatt and Ken Davis to help speakers maximize their business. But, the principles that...

There are two times you find yourself getting started in business and struggling: 1) When you are struggling with what to do because you have too many ideas or, 2) you have started a business and have income, but feel like you cannot grow. There is a lot of advice on what to do in both of these situations. But, I have found that often the advice is overwhelming. So instead, I like to focus on the...

I have learned to talk less and instead ask powerful questions. When I was in the corporate world, I realized quickly that I could not compete with those who spoke in corporate lingo. You know, those who say a whole bunch and sound smart but really they are saying nothing. It always seemed to me that people listened to them. It totally frustrated me, because many times I knew they were full of hot...

Finding your why? We might also say finding our mission or finding our purpose. But I like “finding your why.” The WHY gets to the core of things. Why do you do what you do? What would you do if you were really driven by your why? Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons/Colin_K [/featured-image]Two of the most commons statements I hear from those I have coached are:I do not have any special skil...

I bet dealing with ineffective team members is something you struggle with constantly. Whether you are on a team, leading a team, or leading a group of teams, one of your greatest challenges is not getting the work done, but instead dealing with those team members who will not measure up. It may be teams at work or through some volunteer effort, but the results are the same. And sometimes, you and...

Mastermind groups are the magic bullet for success. I have found the only people who do mastermind groups, and continue to do them over time, succeed. But, over the years I have struggled to find good groups. Most people do not want to commit or will bail out soon after we start. But, I have now found the secret - or at last the person who has the secret formula. In this interview with Jonathan Mi...

The other day I was in a coffee shop and ran into Kendall Davis. Kendall had attended a Career Focus class I help teach at my church. At the time of the class, Kendall was between jobs and trying to determine what to do next. So, naturally I asked him if he found a job. The answer was no. Do you know the feeling you get when you think you have failed to help someone? That is how I felt. But the re...

This is part 4 of the series called How to Create Your First Information Product in 30 Days where I promised to let you look over my shoulder as I create a product. Here is the final part, releasing and marketing the product. This is where the money starts to flow. Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons/Patrick Hoesly [/featured-image]I will do this post in two parts. First is the transaction a...

This is part 3 of the series called How to Create Your First Information Product in 30 Days where I promised to let you look over my shoulder as I create a product. Today I will actually go over the product creation process and offer you a simple guide to creating products fast. Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons/The U.S. Army [/featured-image]In case you are just joining in, I hope you too...

This is part 2 of the series called How to Create Your First Information Product in 30 Days where I promised to let you look over my shoulder as I create my own information product. At this point I have decided on the product I will create. Today I will write the sales copy, or at least most of it. And, in case you are just joining in, I hope you too will take the challenge and create a product wi...

Last week I started a series called How to Create Your First Information Product in 30 Days where I promised to let you look over my shoulder as I create an information product of my own. And, in case you are just joining in, I hope you, too, will take the challenge and create a product with me. I will walk you through it. Today we start by creating a list of information product ideas. First, I wi...

Want to know how to create your first information product in 30 Days? I am going to show you how. Today I will give you the steps, and over the next few episodes I will let you behind the scenes as I create a product. I invite you to join me and create a product of your own. Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons/Serge Saint [/featured-image] Click to Listen*NOTE: If you are reading this in ema...

Passive income from information products is history. Or, as Jerry (a devoted listener) put it "In a world where the value of information appears to be in rapid decline due [to] the sheer volume of web-based information and the extent to which such information is free on the internet, what is the present viability of sharing information via the internet to make money as a business start-up?&qu...

How can you make your goals actually happen? Setting goals is the easy part. You experience fun and excitement as you envision the things you will do and become. Yet, keeping your goals on track for the next year is the hard part. Between now and the arching of the goal is frustration, fatigue, and thoughts of putting it off till tomorrow - which never comes. Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Comm...

Merry Christmas! Years ago, someone asked me a question which I struggled with for some time, which I will now ask you:"Can you see light?"She wanted to know if we saw things with our eyes by using light, could we actually see light. What do you think? (I will answer this later.) Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons/d arthur [/featured-image]Personally, I struggled with this questio...

When I was a teenager, my father decided we would build a A-Frame cabin on the lake. Over the next few years, I spent some mostly wonderful times heading up to a lake house every weekend morning. When we were not building, we were planning and preparing to build. One thing I learned as we went along, you cannot create something big without a plan. The better we planned, the easier the job was once...

Don't live last year over again! Last year may have been wonderful, a dismal failure, or just a minor disappointment. Either way, you do not want to experience the same thing again. You want to grow. You want new challenges and new successes. So, before you jump into planning for next year, a good process is to look back to last year and ask yourself some key questions. Photo courtesy of Flic...

Wonder what it looks like when a business fails? After all, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, the failure rate of small businesses is well over 50% within the first five years. I personally disagree with that failure rate, but that is a blog post for another day. Today, I want to help you take a look at one of those failures that I personally can take credit for helping push ove...

Are you planning for next year? Usually at the start of a new year, I get overwhelmed. It is then when I start to do planning and think about the year ahead. Would it not have been better to start early? So this year I am doing my annual planning in December - and I invite you to join me. But before we start planning, we need to take five steps to prepare to plan. In this podcast I cover five basi...

While I was at Platform in Dallas, I got a chance to sit down and talk with Cliff Ravenscraft who is otherwise known as "The Podcast Answer Man." If you are familiar with Cliff and have heard his story, you will get to hear more in depth his path to finding his passion and some of those challenges he faced. If you do not know Cliff, you really need to listen. His message is loaded with p...

Today I bring you an interview with someone who has experience breaking out of corporate life and starting his own business. I have been absent a few weeks. I took a blogging sabbatical. Have you ever tried that - a sabbatical from the normal? I suspect some of my reasons are like the reasons many of us take a break: to get clarity. My search for clarity led me to a very valuable conversation with...

I have recently been convicted that small business ownership is not for just a few; it is for all. In this podcast, I want to share with you some of the reasons why you need to start your own business now. I am consistently meeting people who struggle with finding employment. They are smart and energetic, but for some reason, they cannot seem to find a job. Some have legitimate reasons such as dis...

What will you be doing in five years? Ten years? What will you have achieved? It is up to you to create a vision for your future. Unfortunately, most people have no vision for their future. So, here I will show you how to write one. Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons/C.P.Storm [/featured-image]Click to Listen*NOTE: If you are reading this in email, you will need to go to Itunes or my blog t...

Networking within your company may sound like a job for boring suck-ups. And, if you do it wrong, it is boring and makes you appear slimy. But if done right, you get significant benefits and rewards. This is Company of One. Helping professionals stop drifting and take ownership of their work, income, and future. If something in this episode connected with you, send me a message on LinkedIn and tel...

What if your value at work was measured in dollars? What if someone took how much value you added to the company and subtracted it from how much you cost in salary and benefits? Someone is. But, do you know what the numbers are? Do you know your value? In this podcast I will show you how to find a real number so you can actually calculate your value. Just think how powerful it would be to show som...