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Top 4 Books to Level Up Your Business in 2021

Top 4 Books to Level Up Your Business in 2021

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Whether when mentoring, speaking about executive business coaching, or describing my personal philosophy behind Leader’s Cut, the question often arises, “what books do you recommend.” And while I always have a current favorite, there are four timeless classics that I tout as foundational for business success.

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Why Attitude is Everything – A Successful Business Start to the New Year

Why Attitude is Everything – A Successful Business Start to the New Year

As a business coach, I have seen first hand the difference between positive and negative business owners. I have seen how their attitude towards the current economic climate impacts the performance of their business. If you are feeling negative, don’t worry as that attitude can be changed. It takes work, you can absolutely turn things around, but you must start immediately. Here is why attitude is everything – a successful business start to 2021 begins today!

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Ken’s 3 Quick Tips On Effective Time Management

Ken’s 3 Quick Tips On Effective Time Management

We have 24 hours each day (168 hours per week), with an ideal work day of 8 hours per day for five days. How often do you wish you had more hours in a day?! Do you know how to get the most out of every minute of your work day? Effective planning and time management is the backbone of productivity for you and your business. Have you investigated where you are losing time? Do a time audit by tracking time to identify time thieves.

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4 Effective Ways to Stay Motivated & Achieve Business Goals

4 Effective Ways to Stay Motivated & Achieve Business Goals

Every business owner and business leader hits a ceiling from time-to-time; in fact it often occurs and recurs over time, wondering how to get motivated. In pre-pandemic times we would normally be focused on finishing the year as we were reaching goals. That may or may not be true in 2020 as so many were forced to pause, change, or completely evolve from what it was in January. The great news is that the same techniques we use to get motivated to work in our current climate will also work in “normal” times when your effort doesn’t yield the results it used to, when you love your work and still seem frustrated, or when you feel like you need a vacation – sometimes on the day after returning home from a vacation.

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8 Eye-Opening Reasons to Hire a Small Business Coach for the New Year

8 Eye-Opening Reasons to Hire a Small Business Coach for the New Year

As 2020 comes to a close and the uncertainty of this year spills over into 2021, it’s no wonder why businesses around the world are working with business coaches to prepare for whatever might happen next. Before you close your books for 2020, take a hard look at your business – where it is, where you want to go, and whether you have a clearly defined roadmap of how to achieve your goals. Working with a small business coach will help you create a plan for 2021 and help you adapt as things come up. With a year of uncertainty behind us and another ahead, having that support will be crucial for the short and long term future of your business. Here are the top 8 reasons to hire a small business coach for 2021.
Many companies are getting their team together and want to make sure that they are united in the effort to move forward in the next month, quarter, and year. Even a global pandemic does not change the forward-looking nature of setting an agenda,  inspiring a team, and demonstrating appreciation for both past and future efforts. In fact, many are realizing that unifying in an effort by all rowing in the same direction, could mean the difference between success and failure.

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What is a Keynote Speaker?

What is a Keynote Speaker?

Even in the era of a global pandemic, the motivational speaker’s business is seeing interest in their services – whether via video presentation or in a modified space. 

Many companies are getting their team together and want to make sure that they are united in the effort to move forward in the next month, quarter, and year. Even a global pandemic does not change the forward-looking nature of setting an agenda,  inspiring a team, and demonstrating appreciation for both past and future efforts. In fact, many are realizing that unifying in an effort by all rowing in the same direction, could mean the difference between success and failure.

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How EOS & Executive Business Coaching Go Hand-in-Hand

How EOS & Executive Business Coaching Go Hand-in-Hand

Do you have a grip on your business or does it feel like it is barely scraping by, sometimes spiraling out of your control? You had a vision for the future of your business when you first started it and perhaps for a while things went smoothly. Then with growth came problems as you added employees and your business expanded. Growth is a good thing, and it can also be challenging if your business lacks organization, accountability, good communication, and structure. If you and your employees cannot handle the growth as it happens, that is a recipe for disaster. You are the business owner. You should feel in control of your business, not that your business controls your entire life. If you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, lacking control and confidence in your employees, falling short of your revenue goals, feeling like you have hit your business’s ceiling, spending every waking moment either working in your business or worrying about it when you are not there, then you need to GET A GRIP on your business. Have you heard of The Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®)? Have you considered hiring an executive business coach? Here I will explain to you how EOS ® and executive business coaching go hand in hand and how as a business owner implementing EOS® with a business coach can help you get a grip on your business.

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Coaching vs. Mastermind: 3 Ways to Determine What Your Business Needs

Coaching vs. Mastermind: 3 Ways to Determine What Your Business Needs

Every month I attend a Mastermind with other entrepreneurs in varying stages of business from what I affectionately call “single-shingles” to those with many employees. As we were going around introducing ourselves and our businesses for the new members, my fellow business owner next to me asked, “how is what you do differently from what we do here together?” That seemed like a great blog post given that when one business leader asks, many others are likely wondering the same thing.

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100 Hours

100 Hours

One of the most frequent questions I field is a variation on one of the following themes: why did you get into executive coaching? When did you know it was time to leave corporate America? What is it about business coaching that draws you? How did you make the leap into entrepreneurship? 

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Why is Change so Challenging?

Why is Change so Challenging?

The key reason CEOs, Business Owners, and Executive Leaders hire me, whether as their Executive Business Coach or as their EOS Implementer® is because they seek to change. They understand that what got them this far can only get them THIS FAR. A new outcome will require a new way. Yet, we all know how difficult change is: over 80% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned within a week. As the saying goes, if change were easy, we’d all be wealthy, fit, and happy. Why is it that we may know exactly what we want from ourselves or our business, but we cannot seem to get our new habits to take root and remain consistent? Even when we know this new behavior would benefit us greatly, why isn’t the change easy in that circumstance?

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5 Ways Business Coaching Programs Enhance Productivity

5 Ways Business Coaching Programs Enhance Productivity

Business coaching appeals to the highly motivated. Just like high level athletes (and those aspiring to be high level athletes) hire accomplished coaches in their athletic disciplines, so do business owners who want their businesses to succeed and to get an edge over their competition. So what is business coaching? Business coaching offers personalized support, guidance, and mentorship for leaders in small business. Improving leadership skills and productivity of the entire leadership team creates benefits throughout the organization as those skills permeate throughout. Investing in your team members, and thus your business, through a business coaching program tailored to your needs yields tremendous return. Here are the 5 ways business coaching programs enhance productivity.

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Mission Over Method, How to Prevail in Uncertain Times

Mission Over Method, How to Prevail in Uncertain Times

The global pandemic of SARS-CoV2, a novel Coronavirus causing the CoViD-19 disease, continues to storm the United States as various companies respond with innovation as well as rigid denial. Some CEOs like Waye Peacock at USAA, plan with the same philosophy of the United States Military: there are no Black Swans, only effective planning, enabling them to move 34,000 to a work-at-home status in 9 days. Others were forced to do the right thing after initially balking over their own failure to plan, being called out in the media, and then having to course correct. The difference? Wayne, and leaders like him, focus on mission as opposed to method.

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5 Benefits of Executive Coaching

5 Benefits of Executive Coaching

::Executive business coaching has become highly popular for one reason – it works. CEOs, small business owners, managers, and other executive leaders within companies have seen the benefits of working with an executive business coach. Improved efficiency, effective communication, increased self-awareness, better leadership, and a significant return on investment is why the business coaching industry has skyrocketed over the past few years.

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What’s the Difference Between an Executive Business Coach & Leadership Coach?

What’s the Difference Between an Executive Business Coach & Leadership Coach?

Coaches – we all need them in our lives. Small business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs, managers, and other high-ranking individuals in leadership positions within a business are no exception. You might be thinking, why do I need a coach? Look how far I have made it on my own! To be a business owner or high level executive you have to be a driven and self motivated person to begin with. You have had success in your career without a coach thus far and you might be thinking coaches are only for people with “problems” in their leadership or interpersonal skills. Maybe you think an executive business coach is expensive and worry about whether it is a worthwhile investment of your time and money.

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Ken’s Leadership Story – Why I focus on people.

Ken’s Leadership Story – Why I focus on people.

The first time I shared the following, in its entirety, was from a stage at a leadership conference during my time as a corporate executive. Attendees included various levels of leadership: peers, two reporting-levels higher, and two reporting-levels below. Some close friends knew bits and pieces of this story, but not the details, context, and outcome. Here was how I told the most formative experience of my life.

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The Zombie Leader: Three Ways Leadership is in Crisis

The Zombie Leader: Three Ways Leadership is in Crisis

In an ever increasing tight labor market resulting in a continual fight for talent, the cost of this “zombie” mentality could be significant if leaders are unwilling to end the dissemination of others thoughts and instead chew on solving three specific barriers to leadership success.

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