Month: June 2016

It’s no secret that most people cringe when they hear the words, “let’s have a meeting.” Most meetings are awful.

When I first took the helm of our third-generation family business, I ran some pretty awful meetings. I knew I had to get the team on the same page with everything that was happening on a day-to-day basis, so I scheduled the leadership team to meet for 2-3 hours every other week.

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Entrepreneurs tend to be extroverts. It’s easy for them to talk out issues and make decisions quickly. Introverts, on the other hand, process information internally, by sitting with it for a while. They can be excellent listeners and deep thinkers with keen insight that provides creative solutions. But it’s often not easy for introverts to discuss issues thoughtfully until they’ve been able to process their thoughts on their own first.

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People ask me all the time, “Ken, what’s the number one thing I can do to make my business better?” My answer is always the same: there is no silver bullet. There is no single trick that will produce a magical transformation; rather, it’s a series of tweaks – some major, some minor – that will lead to dramatic results.

After 30 years of studying and coaching successful entrepreneurs, I’ve noticed that the most successful tend to have four habits in common, and these are things you can and should put into practice yourself. The first three are succinctly outlined in Optimize for Growth: How to Scale Up Your Business, Your Network, and You, written by my friend Jonathan B. Smith. You really should get this book; it’s a quick read, and it will explain how these practices work in concert with one another, and inspire you to make them part of your standard M.O.

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