By The Numbers.

journals Jul 30, 2020

The first half of 2020 was one for the record books. We saw an entire decade’s worth of job gains vanish in two months. Then, about a third of the 21 million lost jobs came back. 

More than 1 in 7 U.S. workers lost their jobs during the economic shutdowns. Even though we’ve added jobs at a record pace in May and June, the unemployment rate remains at its highest level since the Great Depression.

In the U.S., the hardest-hit sectors were non-hospital health-care jobs, hotels and restaurants. These types of service industry jobs account for 70% of total U.S. employment. This covers the majority of my members here, who employ audiology and medical assistants.

I've long taught that you must have your ear to the ground in your individual market. Just like I watch the tourists arriving to Southern Utah from my home and pay close attention to the local news where thousands of local workers and families in my practice work, you must do the same.

My advice to clients in Las...

Continue Reading...

The Cycle of Growth.

books Jun 30, 2020

During periods of growth, it is common to create certain complexities inside your business that, left unchecked, will stifle or even strangle growth. Consider this one of the great paradoxes of running a business. The more successful you are and the higher you reach for the stars, the more likely you are to get tripped up by the very things that brought you success.

I’ve seen this with nearly every brilliant chef, turned restaurant owner. They create something truly unique and rave-worthy. Customers start telling all their friends and family about this amazing new place they found and they encourage everyone to go try the restaurant.

Before you know it, the restaurant is over-crowded, the kitchen is bogged down with capacity constraints, long waits ensue, so corners are cut in an attempt to run on time and please the expanding customer base. The menu becomes a little less exciting and a lot less ambitious. The raving fans are no longer impressed. They stop coming, stop...

Continue Reading...

Memory and Management.

articles Jun 30, 2020

Barbara Kingsolver said, “Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin.”

In coaching clients, I often ask to see a lot of numbers. KPIs and benchmarks, historical performance and pro forma data are all important. The reason I ask for data is because our memories are not perfect.

  • We think quarter-over-quarter growth was good, but the numbers might indicate we did better or worse than we remember. Measurement helps us discover trends, opportunities or weaknesses and then connect those to future action.
  • We think our employees answer the phone a certain way, present treatment using the most efficient scripts and help patients say yes to treatment, leveraging the best financial options and systems for each family.
  • When we play prospect, secret shop, video and audio record, watching film, however, we see a different reality. One in opposition to our memory. In too many businesses, the reality on the ground simply does not...
Continue Reading...

Give Yourself Space.

journals Jun 30, 2020

Today, when someone in Beijing gets the coronavirus again, the entire world knows about it within hours. 52 years after the Hong Kong flu, we still don’t know how many people actually died from it. The WHO says between 1 and 4 million people. That’s a pretty big range.

For the dad reading this on Father’s Day, imagine if someone asked you how many kids you have and you said, “somewhere between 1 and 4.” And yet, somehow we all accepted this final death toll from the Hong Kong flu back in 1968-1969 as somewhere between 1 and 4 million.

Why?

Because we weren’t obsessed with instant, always-on communication streaming to us 24/7 through our televisions and smartphones. In the 1950s our average radio use dropped to less than two hours per day while TV viewing climbed to 1 hour and 23 minutes. Back then, we consumed a limited amount of media and shrugged our shoulders at a wildly-inaccurate range of how many people died from the Hong Kong flu and we...

Continue Reading...

You Have Everything You Need.

articles May 28, 2020

Scientific American describes the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly like this: “One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig or leaf and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis. Within its protective casing, the caterpillar radically transforms its body, eventually emerging as a butterfly or moth.”

Recently, I listened to an incredibly fascinating Radiolab segment on caterpillars. Researcher, Martha Weiss, explained how caterpillars go through a biological meltdown that reduces them to soup.

“Not only does the caterpillar turn into a soupy matrix but it also stores away helpful structures inside its body early in life. Jan Swammerdam, a Dutch microscopist from the 1600s, was the first to demonstrate that there are some of the structures of the future butterfly inside the caterpillar. The wings, antennae, and even the legs are actually already formed even before pupation takes place. Crazy,...

Continue Reading...

Uninterrupted Time.

books May 28, 2020

In a recent course on passive income streams, while teaching the concept of leveraging one’s time, I quoted the author of Rework, Jason Fried, who also happens to be the co-founder of Basecamp.

Fried said, “40-hour weeks are made of 8-hour days. And 8 hours is actually a long time. It takes about 8 hours to fly direct from Chicago to London. Ever been on a transatlantic flight like that? It’s a long flight! You think it’s almost over, but you check the time and there’s still 3 hours left. Every day your workday is like flying from Chicago to London. But why does the flight feel longer than your time in the office? It’s because the flight is uninterrupted, continuous time. It feels long because it is long!”

Let this sobering fact sink in: every work week, you take the equivalent of five eight-hour flights to London. These days don’t seem so long because your time and attention are constantly interrupted.

Members...

Continue Reading...

On Grit.

journals May 28, 2020

Angela Duckworth is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies grit and self-control. In her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Professor Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”

“In their work with The United States Military Academy at West Point, Duckworth and her team of psychologists have worked for years to understand who will make it through the rigorous training and who will drop out. For weeks on end, new recruits are asked, on an hourly basis, to do things they can’t yet do. Most cadets are tired, lonely, frustrated and ready to quit.

What’s interesting is that those who rise to the occasion and make it through the intense training are not the ones who have the most talent. Many drop out who have all the ability in the world. When presented with challenges that exceeded their current skills, what they lacked was...

Continue Reading...

Circumstance vs. Character.

journals Mar 30, 2020

In coaching, consulting and reviewing the reports from our on-site trainers, human capital challenges are at the top of the list of items we’re hired to fix. As I’ve done with most systems, challenges and opportunities in business, I help my clients and trainers develop and deploy “litmus tests,” or quick “yes/no” tools to help guide next steps.

Here’s one you might put to good use when your next employee challenge or frustration arrives. Ask if this is an issue of character or circumstance. 

Our data indicate: underperforming employees are rarely an issue of character. These situations are almost always an issue of circumstance.

For example, we failed to place the employee in the proper role. The training program was inadequate. Oversight and motivational systems were not being deployed consistently. Communication was unclear. We did not support the employee’s desire to learn new things, master his own environment and...

Continue Reading...

Go Where the Deep Water Is.

books Mar 30, 2020

As of November, Nike no longer sells directly on Amazon. Nike is not alone. Birkenstock, Louis Vuitton, North Face, Patagonia, Asics, Ralph Lauren, Rolex and Vans do not sell directly on Amazon either. Nestlé Nespresso dominates a huge direct-to-consumer channel and paid Starbucks $7 billion to take over the sale of coffee and capsules for Nespresso machines. The new Disney+ streaming service cut out the middleman and kicked Netflix in the shins on the way out the door.

These smart firms want to own the data and chart their own course into higher lifetime customer value, margin and sustainability in a world where 85-90% of retail purchases are still done in physical stores. Sure, Amazon dominates the online retail world, capturing more than 50% of all online sales, but don’t forget that 85-90% of all retail purchases are still completed in physical stores.

These firms know, in order to survive the Amazon apocalypse, they must shed inefficiencies and middlemen, deliver...

Continue Reading...

Innovation vs. Improvement.

Uncategorized Mar 30, 2020

When Brian Carroll was laid off unexpectedly from his sales position at a car dealership in Michigan, he received a call from a past customer wanting a car.

Carroll told the buyer he no longer worked at the dealership, but the customer didn’t care. “He hired me to find the exact car he wanted and to negotiate with different dealers to get the best price.” Carroll then drives the new car to wherever the customer wants it delivered.

The car concierge. Brilliant.

This is not new, even though most sales people on the showroom floor have never considered it as an option to break free from working for someone else.

I created this option for myself by working with the same salesman for many years in a large network that sells nearly every brand under the sun. I haven’t gone through the normal motions of buying a car for over a decade.

Carroll says he now sells 30-35 cars a month, doing better than he did at his old job. And, I’d wager, he has more freedom...

Continue Reading...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Close

50% Complete

Two Step

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.