One of the reasons I’m so fired up working with business owners and founders is because I want each and every owner to experience the growth and expansion running a business offers - if you want to grow as a person, your business is a great teacher - am I right?

When I was in university my degree was a Co-Op program - which meant that I had several work-terms through my degree that allowed me to experience different businesses and industries. It was fantastic. I loved my degree and experiences at that time.

In one particular experience, I had the privilege of working in two businesses that shared admin resources (me) which was a partnership between two individuals - one an interior designer and the other a marketing consultant. It was a fascinating look inside these two diverse industries.

At the time, I noticed two hard-working Business Owners with a passion for their work. It was only years after that experience that I really understood the significance of how they ran their business. 

What I learned:

Does your life ever feel like a whirlwind and it’s passing you by?

It can be challenging to move forward on your life’s goals and dreams if you don’t make space for them.

Creating the conditions to live your life by design and build a business intentionally is not impossible amongst your other responsibilities.

But building a sustainable business takes time.

And it’s easy to become impatient.

But if you take the steps and put the structure in place, the rewards will start to show up - even before you‘re finished.

Do you enjoy reading?

I love to read. I’m slowly making my way through stacks of books that I have around the house.

An ideal vacation for me would be to sit somewhere peaceful and read. (Preferably somewhere in or near nature.)

But reading for me is a way to learn, escape, grow, expand, or deepen my understanding of the world around me and of myself.

While I love a great fiction novel I do read many non-fiction and professional development books. Some have really made an impact on my own growth and the growth of my career and business.

I’d love to share some with you today…

Is your business satisfying your ‘WHY’?

In order to fulfill your WHY for being in business, the company you created has to be able to make the impact you had intended it to make.

Whether that’s impacting families through therapeutic approaches, providing housing for seniors, providing financial security for families, or helping others build healthy businesses, without your own healthy business, it becomes harder to fulfill that mission.

That’s why I love these markers of business value. It’s not only your own business you’re building, but having a healthy business means that you can change the lives of your clients and customers.

That’s the real and compelling legacy here and a huge reason why I do what I do. One of my big WHYs is to help you to be successful in growing a strong, healthy, and sustainable business that impacts others.

I’m deeply motivated to improve the lives of others through economic growth and supporting businesses that make a difference in our communities so we all thrive.

One of the markers of a healthy business is how cash flows through it. (This is the fifth driver of business value.)

One of the most common pains I hear from business owners is that there’s not enough cash. Or it shows up as their desire to ‘do more marketing’ or '‘increase sales’.

Is your business a cash suck?

Or does it generate cash quite handily?

If cash is rarely on hand in your business when you need it, you may want to consider exploring these areas:

Having systems in your business is like having healthy eating habits...once they're established they contribute to longevity, vitality and create a solid foundation for great things to happen - such as growth in your business.

If you were to take a survey of Business Owners and ask them why they went into business, many would say one of their top reasons was for flexibility and freedom.

However, when the business gets going and you are juggling all the different roles, it feels like you have everything BUT flexibility and freedom.