We all manage other people in the act of piloting our business. Some of us manage dozens of employees, while others of us manage relationships with contractors, freelancers, and even family members. So what are we doing wrong and how can we improve our management skills? Face it, you can’t grow and be successful without a certain degree of human management proficiency. Do you know that two thirds of those promoted to management positions fail within 90 days? Ralph Peterson shares the five rules of effective managing and a whole lot more lessons we can all apply immediately.

You’ve heard that half of businesses fail within the first five years. Truth is, many don’t fail, the owners just give up. Piloting a business can be exhausting and stressful. But let’s say you’re past the 5 year window and operating your business like a smooth routine. Watch out! While it’s natural to get comfortable, it’s dangerous to do so. Angie Carel joins me from her new venture — The Upstairs — to explain how she keeps it fresh after fourteen years in business. She shares methods to keep employees from falling into a dull routine. Angie offers ideas on knowing how to roll out fresh offerings to your clients. If you’re in a rut, or even if you’re not, listen to this!

Kevin Smith’s first business venture was a chicken barn he bought off his parents as a teenager. He then started Builder’s Gallery — an architectural mill work company — at age 18. Last year, the 56 year old entrepreneur began his latest project: Reinventing the town of Mt. Etna, Indiana. We recorded this episode from Rustic River Outfitters — a former saw mill he retrofitted into a wine and beer tasting room, events center, and kayaking outfitter. Rustic River is just the beginning of Kevin’s vision for this little town perched on a reservoir. Give this a listen for the rest of the story…along with inspiration and entrepreneurial lessons.

New To-dos

Excuses are little fibs we tell ourselves and others. We make excuses because we don’t like to admit the truth or we fear honesty will harm our relationship with friends and clients. Fighting through the excuse option is difficult enough under normal circumstances, but now the pandemic provides endless opportunities for excuse making. Are you using Covid to dodge responsibility or underperform? Are you allowing those you do business with to use the Corona excuse? Listen to this for tips on getting past the convenient excuse of Covid.

To evolve and succeed in an ever-changing marketplace, you will need to change up your offering occasionally. But how do you know what product or service to offer? Launching something new is always a bit scary, which is why many businesses and individuals start by surveying clients. The problem with this: people say they want lots of things, but their actions don’t match their verbal intentions. I’ll tell you how to get past that.

College is a business. The tweed-jacketed faculty may not like to admit it, but it is. And it’s outdated. Bloated employee counts, endless facility expansion, and a cost structure that keeps climbing have been financed by government-backed student debt. But that’s all changing and Covid-19 hastened the pace. As higher learning moves online, the price — and prestige — of college comes down. Add in the reality of decreasing demand due to demographics and the struggle to differentiate and you have a business facing extinction. Bill Guerrero, VP for Finance and Administration at Ithaca College joins me to discuss the business of higher education. Plenty of university-level lessons for your business in this episode!

I’m a huge fan of the Indianapolis 500 but that’s not what this episode is about. It’s about communicating — even when the news is bad — with those you serve. Roger Penske, new owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, sent out a letter that is communication brilliance. It’s personal, emotionally evoking, apologetic, inclusive and hopeful. The best part: it creates a vision that makes race fans eager for the future while also nostalgic for the past. You don’t need to be an IndyCar fan to appreciate this winning lesson.

One rule of business I live by is: Don’t make it difficult for your customers to do business with you. Case in point are service providers who require you — the paying client — to go on their website, fill out forms, jump through hoops, navigate burdensome regulations and criteria, and other tedious chores in order to give you their money. In this episode, I give you examples of small practices you’ve seen from the customer’s perspective and you’re possibly doing yourself as a business owner. Stop!

We all work for other people’s money (as you’ve likely heard me say before). Sometimes the client expects you to care more about their problem than they do. Bruce Turkel, branding and business consultant, joins me to discuss the phenomenon of client-induced crisis, understanding client expectations, and getting to “success” by defining what “success” is for both client and service provider. Clients are people and people are pretty good at telling you what they really value — they do so with their words, actions, and definitely with their spending.

We all lose clients over time. Some grow out of us while we grow out of others. Some seek cheaper pricing, some seek what we simply can’t provide. And some simply die. This is why I constantly preach the value of sales effort and a reinvention mindset. But what about losing customers because we forgot why those customers came to us and we stopped providing what they sought? That’s what’s currently happening in professional sports, which in attempting to promote social awareness might very well be driving away customers who simply tune in for escape. There are lessons here for all of our businesses.