Twenty-five percent of all new managers today admit they are not ready to manage what they are responsible for. As a result, they struggle to gain respect, authority and demonstrate the ability to be effective in their role.
In business today, effective managers must understand the importance of ‘what to do’ as much as ‘how to do’ it. Understanding how to be resourceful, knowing where to go for solutions, being able to make good decisions and be comfortable having tough conversations are all areas where new managers can greatly increase their effectiveness.

If you do too many tasks and work at the grass roots level, you are working in your business. Successful owners learn to work on their business by incorporating specific leadership and management techniques to optimize their own resources and free themselves up to be more strategic.

Financial management is an important part of every business operation. Understanding your own financial management needs and who best can handle them for your business is an equally important decision. In this episode, your Business Wingmen Steve Smith and Will Robertson interview the CEO of Ingenio Solutions, Jean Latu. Jean is an experienced accountant and CFO and explains the different roles and when you would need one vs the other.

With unemployment at an all-time low and outside hires generally costing more, business owners should begin developing their key employees to take on greater roles. When you promote from within, you are walking your talk about employees working hard and getting opportunities to advance. Few things will motivate the entire workforce more than seeing the best amoung them get promoted.

Today, we dive into the universal problem of focus and concentration as it relates to running and building your business. This is a worldwide epidemic and it's largely self induced! Businesses lose billions of dollars each year from lack of productivity, low energy, poor decision making and short attention spans all do to lack of focus. Listen in as Steve Smith and Will Robertson discuss ways to improve focus.

In this episode, your business wingmen interview Bill Black, the first certified exit planner in the US and the host of the Exit Coach Radio Show. Bill explains why exit planning is so critical for business owners planning to leave their business' at some point. Many do not consider the need for advance planning and suffer the consequences of selling or transferring their business to people who will continue on. This is a show that any business owner within 5 years of getting out needs to listen to.

In today's episode, we take on the best ways to solve problems. Being a great problem solver is at the heart of being a successful entrepreneur. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson all consider themselves to be great problem solvers. Business owners, entrepreneurs, managers and executives face and deal with problems daily. Eliminating problems from occurring is not possible but solving them should be the goal. Steve Smith and Will Robertson tackle thi sone aggressively and insightfully.

In this episode, we interview executive coach, Lisa Walker to find out some of the things that make her clients successful. Lisa gives us a new perspective on the power of taking full responsibility. She walks us through how to improve results & success, become more open to ideas, and improve quality of life.

Lisa Walker is not only an experienced coach but a seven-time world record holder and National Champion in Formation Skydiving; an instrument-rated private pilot; a marathon runner and an advanced PADI-rated scuba diver.

In this episode we interview our guest, Richard Franzi, of Critical Mass for Business. Richard is a 3 time author and CEO peer group leader. His newest book, 'Killing Cats Leads to Rats' is a facinating look at the unintended consequences of business decisions. Richard takes us through is SECURE Methodology, which helps business owners avoid, reduce or mitigate the potential negative impact of unintended consequences.

Too many business owners and operators focus on managing for normal everyday occurances without considering events that could cause real harm or alter the course of the business. The goal of management is to insure that resources are coordinated so that the flow and efficiency of the business will be consistent and profitable. Unfortuneately, many inexperiened or ineffective managers don't prepare for situations that could take the business way off course or damage the company financially.