Your consulting business is in one of three states: drifting, developing, or thriving.

Application, repetition, and accountabilities directly lead to new habits and better results. You need to apply the strategies, using several repetitions, and have an expert at your side who helps you make the critical adjustments so that they work for you in the real world.

Accountability helps you do the right things in the right ways with the right fit until the new habits become second nature. That’s where you get results. This process gets results and is why the best performers always have terrific coaches.

Sure, bringing on the right consultant or trusted adviser can be expensive, but would you trust your future to the lowest bidder?

Ways to Invest in your Success

If I’m a good fit for you, here are some ways to work together.

The Trusted Adviser Program is my most intensive 1-on-1 program. Within 90 days, you’ll gain sustainable habits that create breakthrough success. You get personalized coaching and support, strict accountability, and commonsense action steps that get results so that you reach your goals more quickly and consistently. Soar to new heights here.

The Founders Forum is a mastermind group for consultants, solo practitioners, and owners of boutique firms who want to shorten their path to a meaningful, joyful, and profitable business. You’ll accelerate the quality and speed of your thought leadership, develop a business development process that you are proud to execute (and avoids the awkward pushiness), and brand building that you are pleased to display (and avoids the slimy feeling of self-promoting).

CEO Mastermind group is for Milwaukee-area small business leaders and consultants who want to accelerate their growth in 2022. We meet monthly for lunch, and you get unlimited access to me for coaching and advising. I’m limiting the group to 8. Four places are remaining.

The Global CEO Mastermind is for CEOs and senior leaders who want to surround themselves with people united in the common purpose of being the best they can be, learning from each other, avoiding drift and complacency, and soaring to new heights. We meet monthly via zoom, plus you get unlimited access to me.

Mastery programs include Expert Consulting Mastery, Innovative Thought Leadership, and leadership experiences at Antietam & Gettysburg, Normandy, West Point, and many others.

Books

LEADERSHIP: THE WARRIOR’S ART. Leaders anticipate and shape the future so that your team can succeed. To do so, you need imagination grounded in a practical perspective. That’s what you get with this book, which is why it’s been in print for over 20 years. This 2nd edition addresses the post 9/11, post-pandemic world.

Zero-Sum Victory: What We’re Getting Wrong About War is a finalist for the INDIES national book award. I use the disasters in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq to give you the tools and mental models to avoid the traps and own goals that have created quagmires for the United States. You’ll gain ways to improve agency, bridge silos, pivot smartly, avoid breathing your own exhaust, and many other outcomes.

The Second Secret to Owning a Successful Business:

CULTURE

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH.

As I highlighted in “The Secret to Success in Owning a Business,” the special sauce to having a successful restaurant, small business, or non-profit resides in three simple, but profound ideas: Leadership, Culture, and Strategy.

Last time we focused on leadership, the ring leader. Now, let’s focus on the elephant under the big tent.

CULTURE.

Everyone is talking about it, but few have a complete understanding. There is an expression “culture eats strategy for lunch.” Similarly, as Dr. Chris Kolenda so appropriately said in a recent post, “culture always collects.” Don’t underestimate the power culture has over your business.

CULTURE IS ALWAYS ON THE MOVE.

In a 2017 blog post entitled the 2020 Workplace: The Future Workplace Trends to Know Right Now“, Nikos Andriotis did a great job doing what we should all do if we are hoping to be proactive, instead of reactive. The business environment is constantly changing, and with it, the culture within. Niko’s blog itself is case and point, promoting “the most-affordable and user-friendly learning management system on the market.” Since when did how we learn our jobs efficiently and effectively make so much of a difference? It’s a fact. The world is rapidly getting smaller. It’s getting progressively hotter. And if you’re not ahead, you will find yourself behind faster than ever before!

And like a plant that has all the sunshine, water, and soil nutrients it needs, your business’s Sustainable Growth relies upon a healthy culture. An unhealthy culture steals away the very sunshine, water, and nutrients necessary, and adds a powerful herbicide to quickly choke out your business’s Sustainable Growth. So, what does a healthy culture look and feel like?

HEALTHY CULTURE.

If it is the restaurant culture we are thinking about, we can probably visualize a healthy culture, right? It should:

Be inviting and keep customers coming back for more
Reward values like friendliness, cleanliness, expediency, and precision.
Maintain accountability by disciplining behaviors such as dishonesty, disrespectfulness, and laziness
Retain talented and engaged employees by incentivizing and motivating programs and processes.

Sustainable Growth will never come if you are not continually striving to be better in aspects of your culture.

Quick-action Steps to Sustainable Growth.

Here are three small things that may serve you well in your endeavor to be the best in your business:

Do a quick mental assessment of your business culture: How happy and motivated are your 1) employees? 2) customers? 3) you?
Ask your team what they think about the culture (even better, have someone else ask and capture feedback). Any trends? Any negative surprises? Anything positively noteworthy?
Lastly, reflecting on what we have envisioned a healthy culture, list 3-5 tangible things that are keeping you from increasing the health of your culture.

So, how is your business’s culture?

Do the location and your people say everything you want them to say? Are they saying something you don’t want it to say? How do you know?

Are your employees well-versed in reflecting the culture you would like? If not, where you do start? We have many tools and resources that can help you get where you want to go! Check us out!

If you are unsure of the message your culture is sending, it is worth the time and effort to get help from someone outside your organization.

Tackle this critical task today before the unhealthy aspects of your culture eat the positive aspects of your strategy and leadership for lunch.

LET’S GET OUT THERE AND DO IT!

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