Based on working with clients and learning from my own experiences, I’ve seen a few common mistakes that can completely derail us in achieving the goals we set in our business.

My hope is in highlighting these mistakes, it can help to avoid them, helping you to be more successful when aiming for great things in your business…

Why a Sales Surge? Whether you're in Financial Services, Food Services, Home Security, Real Estate, or any industry with a sales focus, this guide is designed to help you and your team collectively hit your targets. It's not just about meeting deadlines; it's about creating a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, and fun that elevates your team's performance.

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?

Do you ever want to be given a plan, a step-by step approach or a list of instructions, “Do this and your business will grow”?

Well this is pretty close…

In the ever-evolving world of business, achieving sustainable growth is a goal that's often easier said than done. It requires a well-thought-out strategy and the ability to adapt to changing market conditions.

To help you navigate this journey, I’d like to share the SVO Model of Sustainability and Growth TM – a simple yet effective framework that emphasizes simplicity, verification, and seizing opportunities. By following this model, you can create a robust foundation for your business's long-term success.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if your team had the same level of commitment as you do to your business?

While that’s not a realistic expectation, you can cultivate a more earnest sense of commitment and energy to your mission.

I recently wrote about three aspects of creating a high-performing team:

• Ownership

• Transition Time

• Reporting

Ownership is a big one.

Ownership is referring to owning a task or an outcome.

There’s a difference between the two.

One of the toughest aspects of running your business is wearing the many hats it takes to run your company.

However, to get yourself out of the spin cycle of your days, investing in building a high-performing team can elevate not only the space you can gain in your business to focus on strategy and goals, but to elevate your company’s results.

Through my work with my clients who are successful business owners and founders, we’ve been able to elevate their impact and overall company performance by embracing three core steps in building high-level support in their businesses:

I want to share a story about a business owner who was consistently feeling behind the eight ball…Always feeling 2 steps behind each week.

She was growing but everything was chaotic and she was exhausted.

She was struggling to deliver her services to her clients and grow her business - She was engaged in most of the business development, dealt with many of the clients and was the primary contact for any customer service issue.

She was onboarding a new team member yet because she was still a small business of only six, she was still wearing many hats each day.

Then, after working together, she was able to turn things around.

How?

This is a quick one today…:

I know you have big goals.

Many of you share them with me.

Consider this — WHAT gets in the way of pursuing those big goals?

Whether your goals are for exercise and better personal health, working on your business, starting a second business, spending more time in your personal life or building your team….what are YOUR goals that you would love to be spending more time on - big or small?

I have 2 questions for you to answer…

If there’s a common culprit that’s discussed amongst business owners and entrepreneurs - it’s this:

There’s never enough time to get it all done! OR I wear too many hats!

The theme here usually involves a very hard-working but overworked owner.

There’s a desire here to gain back some much-needed time and space.

Can you relate?

There are three foundational ways to free-up more of your time so you can go from feeling ‘overworked’ to having more ease and spaciousness in your business (doesn’t that sound nice?!).

How often do you celebrate your progress and accomplishments?

I know you have all of them - I see you doing all the things in your business and in leadership.

From getting that new role, hiring a new manager, adding a new admin person, capturing a process you’ve been meaning to, taking more personal time, booking that vacation…..

From small to large these are no easy feats and I invite you to celebrate them.

Thinking about the next 10 years or ‘when’ you’ll be ready to think about handing over your business to prepare for that event is like waiting until the day before you hand over your house keys to its new owner to paint the walls, fix the leaky faucet and renovate run down bathroom. It’s too much too late.

And, consider what you could be leaving on the table by doing so?

You could be passing up, with some adjustments, a beautifully run company that actually reduces your headaches.

You could be passing up additional value in the business by not having some of its functions running more smoothly with a little TLC. AKA leaving money on the table.

You could be passing over obvious headaches to the new owner but that existing employees and customers still have to deal with, jeopardizing retention.

The belief that ‘getting ready to pass’ down is reserved for the actual event is actually robbing you of more money, more joy and likely more stability now.

One of the secrets to being an attractive company to run and purchase? Read more here.

Have you ever felt the weight of running your business?

Wouldn’t it be nice not to have everything resting on your shoulders?

Wouldn’t it be nice to feel supported and know that certain things are ‘handled’, and you aren’t solely responsible to make key things happen in your business?

I’m not a car person by any means, but this analogy popped into my mind as I was thinking about how I often hear (and experience) the challenge of feeling like you’re alone in your business.

In a world consistent overworking and putting off personal plans to ‘get ahead at work’ is still a badge of honour for some (things are are changing but not fast enough in my opinion), sometimes the idea of taking vacation gets shoved aside.

But the research and benefits of taking time away are quite compelling:

If you’ve ever had the thought:

“It’s too much work to take vacation, so I’m not going to bother,” then you need to read this.

How can we prepare to be absent from work or business without it causing too much stress so it negates the positive effects that time away can bring?

It’s about planning ahead and creating processes for the things you regularly do so they are more easily teachable and repeatable by others.

The more planning you do, the less stress going away will be.

There’s a lot of advice out there on leadership and sometimes it can make one feel that we have to have things perfectly figured out to be a good leader.

So, I’m suggesting that if you feel that way too, let’s agree that we can let that idea go completely.

In fact, I believe that’s the beauty (or challenge) of leadership…much of the learning is experiential and you have to live it, learn it, and be willing to try things out. Some will work, some will not. And, some will be painful and messy.

However, I think the intention, effort, and a mindset of continuous improvement can go a long way in expanding your leadership skills and creating a high-performing team.

This is a collection of ideas to inspire you in your leadership to dig in and explore ways to take your leadership to the next level so you can heighten results from your team…

The unconventional strategy: Create space to think.

This may seem odd to highlight, but stick with me here…

Often, we go and go and go in a business we’re trying to create and build. We feel like there’s never enough time, there are more clients or customers to attract, or new products or services to release in this quest of creating, building, and growing a business. There’s a lot of doing. And a lot of striving.

And that action-taking can be worthwhile.

However, there is another side of the equation to consider….and that side is the opposite of doing.

It’s about taking frequent pauses. Creating space for something else…..

How often are you creating space for thinking, reflecting, planning, and considering?

If you’ve often wondered how you can get your team working towards goals with the same sense of urgency that you have — you are not alone.

As a leader, meeting deadlines and goals are important, and yet you can’t accomplish this unless you have the whole team on board.

So what do you do when everyone isn’t on board? Or, have the same sense of urgency that you do?

I had a conversation today where someone asked me if I provide ‘Life Coaching’.

It’s an interesting question, because in a way all coaching is life coaching because even though I work with Leaders and Business Owners, we’re not always talking about business and work.

We talk about all the things that might come up that impacts WHO we are and how we show up professionally.

“Where ever you go, there you are” — Jon Kabat-Zinn

We bring our whole selves to work. We typically aren’t one way at work and one way at home…and if we are and it’s a dramatic difference, that can cause a LOT of stress for you in the long-run. If this is you, we need to speak.

I digress.

The question I received today make me think again about how we show up and what we bring with us wherever we go.

I write this as I sit here in the sun - taking my work outside to write to you today - because…..why not?

We, in the northern part of our hemisphere, are starting to experience the lovely warmth of spring and anticipating the coming summer days.

Some of us may even be starting to experience a relaxing of some of the restrictions that we’ve been living with for the past 2 months.

As the weather warms and I think ahead to the summer months - approaching summer this year is unlike any other spring ever. Usually, I have things very planned out. I know which weeks will be vacation, I’ll have everything booked, kids’ camps/activities booked and it will usually be mostly all set by now.

This year, in a year where we’re unsure from one week to the next what will be open or what we will be able to do, the coming months may look very different AND my level of planning around it has shifted.

Connecting to your work is easy for some and can be difficult for others. There are many factors that can impact how much you connect with the work you do, such as your career stage, proper job fit, etc. etc., but regardless of where you are, there are things that you can do to enhance your enjoyment of your work.

It’s something you may…or may not have heard before.