Take Flight – Business Growth Strategies with Business Coach Dan Holstein

Today's video in our series on improving your sales is about the customer buying cycle. Essentially, this is the customer decision making process that leads to someone making a purchase, and it includes several criteria that are important to understand so you can improve on your sales process. First of all, there’s the time frame that respective customers have. Whereas a larger company might...

Sales Series Part 1: Recently, I’ve been asked by many people how to get improved sales figures. The key thing is to prioritize customer goals and solve customer problems. In this video, I discuss the importance of having the RIGHT and EFFECTIVE MINDSET when it comes to approaching customers for sales. This 5-part video series will help you attain the sales improvement you want for your business....

As a business owner, your business valuation is something you take seriously. After all, you’ve poured years of continued effort, time, passion, and resources into building your business to what it is today. You’re proud of it. You have a deeper understanding of the journey since its inception, the challenges you’ve met along the way, and how you’ve conquered them. If I were to ask you what you th...

As a business owner, you have a list of tasks and goals that you've set and that you wish to accomplish. You're efficient, so you face the goals head-on, intending to get them done as soon as possible. But here's the million dollar question. How realistic are your timelines for achieving all of your business tasks? When it comes to time allocation, do you find that you overestimate...

Are you experiencing low profit in your business, but aren’t sure what to do about it? Well, there are a few things you can do to increase profit. It's not uncommon for me to come across a business where there's a lack of profitability, and when we dig in, we often find that these businesses are over-servicing their clients, or they're just not charging enough for the great value th...

Stress is an energy state. While stress can be a positive motivator, negative stress can be very harmful to your psyche. It's necessary to take stress reduction measures to promote a better quality of your life. We get ourselves into a state of stress, mainly through our thought processes. Our thoughts directly affect our feelings, so if our thoughts are negative, we are likely to cause feeli...

Adapting to changes in your business is a bit like flying a plane at night. While you're still fundamentally doing the same thing as you would when flying during daylight, the fact that the indicators in the environment and the variables have changed means you need to adapt or risk crashing! It's the same in a business context too. For example, selling to a large company isn't the s...

Many entrepreneurs stumble when customers challenge their price because they don’t have the tools for overcoming objections. In this video, recorded on the shores of Lake Ontario, I share five secrets of closing the sale that will help you handle any resistance to your price. The first secret is to stop discounting. This is a common sales mistake, and it makes sense. If a customer thinks your pric...

Do you have a high-performance team? As your business grows, not everyone is going to be able to keep up with the demands of that growth. Unfortunately, this inevitably has an effect on the entire team’s performance, and ultimately business results as well. In this week’s video , I’ll be sharing some hallmarks and examples of strong team members. At the end, I’ve got a tough question for you that...

As a business owner, do you ever feel like it's lonely at the top? Many business owners do, but don't always know how to handle the stress that comes with business ownership. Especially these days. That's why I reached out to interview my colleague and Registered Psychotherapist Brian Janes about mental health for business owners. In our interview, Brian shares several practical str...

Karen Van Luven is an HR Consultant I’ve known for a long time, who helps owners of small businesses with their employee challenges.   The pandemic brings unique situations with their staff that many business owners haven’t encountered before - mental health, restructuring, working from home, to name a few.   One of my biggest take-aways from my conversation with Karen is, “You can’t do anything a...

Are you a Saver, Spender, Avoider, or a Money Monk?   In my interview with Sarah Milton, a financial educator, she shares her insightful perspective on our “Money Personality” and how our relationship with money affects how we manage and grow it.   Some of the areas we cover: -       Why people think managing money is difficult -       How people come to believe they are 'bad at money' a...

Have you ever put so much time and effort into an endeavour, but despite your best efforts, it’s just not working the way you’d hoped and you're afraid to change direction for fear of losing all the investment you've made? If so, you may be experiencing something called Sunk Cost Bias. In this week's episode , find out what Sunk Cost Bias is, how it might be impacting your business...

I recently re-read the book American Icon . It's the story of how Alan Mulally, the former Boeing executive, was brought into Ford Motor Company back in the mid 2000s as CEO, to help turn around the ailing automaker. Alan did many things incredibly well during the turnaround, and there is one leadership strategy he implemented that really stands out for its simplicity, effectiveness and abili...

The key to proactive leadership is learning how to problem solve effectively. Think of all of those problems that arise in your business as bugs. What happens with many business owners is that they spend so much of their time swatting and scratching that they don’t take the time to apply “bug spray.” That is, most people don’t take the time to solve the underlying issues that cause most of their p...

If you’re thinking about starting a business, or even how to expand your market, check out my interview with the co-founders of Lost Aviator Coffee Co. Adam Wright and Steve Zago had their jobs as commercial airline pilots end when the pandemic decimated the airline industry. In this interview, they share their story of shifting their identity from career commercial airline pilots, to start up ent...

Do you get interrupted more than you would like? Is it impacting your ability to get your most important objectives completed? If you answered yes, you are definitely not alone. So, why do business owners get interrupted and distracted so often? Well, the bad news is that we co-create the interruptions. But that's also the good news! Remember - your business is a reflection of your priorities...

If you feel like you’re working too hard in your business, try looking for leverage points. The concept of leverage in business is crucial because it allows you to do more with less effort. I was reminded of this when I went on a walk recently and saw turkey vultures circling overhead. With every circle, these birds would fly higher and higher, and eventually they'd go off in whatever directi...

Have you ever noticed that your best ideas and solutions to problems come to you when you mind is free to wander – usually during some unstructured time or activity that doesn’t require a lot of mental focus? As a business leader, part of your role is to solve problems – and lead others to solve problems too. And this requires think time. But with the pace of business – how much time during the da...

👉 There shouldn’t ever be a need to use pushy sales tactics.  Rather, it is important to be persistent when it comes to selling. A lot of business owners are happy to take a call and help someone; but they often don't want to do an outbound call, go to a networking event, or otherwise follow up when someone doesn't get back to them. Often, the reason is that they don't want to get...

Like most business owners, you probably conduct regular performance reviews with your staff, but how about process reviews? Are you regularly reviewing and taking steps to improve business processes? Or, do potential issues only come to light when something goes wrong? -- 👉 If you enjoy this podcast, please consider giving us a 5 Star Review, leave a comment - let us know what you think!  And SUB...

Do you know who the most dangerous employee is? It's the person with great skills, and a bad attitude. Why are they dangerous? Because while they may do good work, they can rub other staff and clients the wrong way, aren't a good team player and generally require more care and feeding than anyone else on the team - which takes up your valuable time. But the worst thing is that over time...

Have you ever had a toxic employee that made you feel like they were holding you hostage? Did their behaviour make team management more difficult? In this video, I share some strategies that you can use to deal with these kinds of employees and ultimately maintain cohesion within your organization. What I mean by toxic is someone who may not be a bad person, but for whatever reason just doesn’t fi...