How to get better answers About two years ago, a contact introduced me to Rico Swan over a coffee. He’d actually come to talk about something completely different. But as the conversation developed, I started asking him questions about the business. Not complicated questions. Fairly simple ones really. What do Read more
Why good businesses balance belief with managed risk Most business owners are naturally optimistic. They have to be. Very few people would start a business if they looked at the statistics objectively and relied purely on logic. Optimism is often what gives people the courage to begin in the first Read more
Why most people quietly avoid the truth about where they are — and what it would take to improve it One of the most interesting things about human beings is how good we are at protecting ourselves from uncomfortable truths. Not consciously. Most people aren’t deliberately lying to themselves. In Read more
Why so many business owners underperform — not through lack of ability, but through lack of clarity and discipline One of the most common things I see in business owners is not a lack of capability. It’s a gap. A gap between what they could be doing and what they Read more
You can’t change what you won’t acknowledge One of my guiding principles is something I’ve taken from Ray Dalio’s book “Principles” and its really very simple, but not at all easy: Accept reality and deal with it. It sounds obvious. It isn’t. Most people spend a surprising amount of time Read more
And What You Achieve Most business owners spend a large proportion of their time surrounded by people they lead. Employees. Customers. Suppliers. All important, but all looking to the owner for direction. Which means something is often missing. Challenge. Not criticism. Not negativity. But genuine, constructive challenge from people who Read more
But Your Business Doesn’t Need to Be The human mind has a built-in bias towards negativity. From an evolutionary perspective, that made perfect sense. For most of human history, survival depended on spotting threats quickly. The person who noticed what might go wrong — the rustle in the bushes, the Read more
It Will Eventually Run Your Life Most people start a business for a good reason and it’s never to work harder or longer than they ever did before. Often, it’s some form of freedom. Freedom to make their own decisions.Freedom to build something of value.Freedom to earn well and live Read more
Most business owners want their business to improve. They want better margins.Better customers.Stronger teams.Less pressure. But there is a point most people try very hard to avoid. Acceptance. Not acceptance in the sense of giving up.Acceptance in the sense of recognising something uncomfortable: Your business runs the way it runs Read more
Below £5m? The Constraint Isn’t Your Market. I work with scientific manufacturing, general manufacturing, joinery and cabinetmaking, property development, hot tub retail, HVAC engineers, classic car restoration, aerospace, training organisations and engineering firms. Different sectors. Different products. Different technical challenges. Same problems. Lack of clarity.Wrong customers.Margin pressure.Operational inefficiency.Owner dependency.Inconsistent leadership. Read more