Are You a Business Owner? Or Are You Self-Employed? There’s a lot of pride that rings through any business owner’s voice.  After all, calling one’s own shots gives you some swagger. I can verify this personally as a long-time business owner myself. And why not have a little extra hop…

Define Your Mision, Values, Vision, and Purpose for Your Business Running a business can cause owners to get lost in the nuts, bolts, and moving parts. It’s something we completely empathize with at OwnersUp because service-based ownership is a serious undertaking. Every day as an owner is a learning experience….

Before digging into The E-Myth - a go-to playbook for almost all entrepreneurs - I want to explain why reading this type of literature is crucial. As a professional coach who facilitates entrepreneurial advisory groups, one of my core focuses is course-correcting, a notion that gets overlooked. In place of…

Section 1: Goal Prioritization and its Obstacles **Why is Goal Prioritization So Difficult for Entrepreneurs? ** Goal prioritization sounds self-explanatory—initially. On the surface, it seems all you need to do is line all your tasks up in a row, and voila! It’s all done. Well, if you run…

Rebecca Smith is both a mom and owner of Complete Performance Coaching. Already with two very demanding jobs of being both a mother and a business owner, she always makes time for her newborn and toddler.  Rebecca continues to balance her work life with the rewarding challenges of raising children…

There’s a misguided idea that entrepreneurial coaching or peer support only applies to beginners trying to dip their toes into the water. That notion gets thrown out the window when you consider that pro athletes  pinnacle performers making tens of millions of dollars - have coaches. The same can be…

Is your business facing stiff competition? Are you struggling to find your market space? Do you think your business model could use work? Have you managed your money poorly? The above struggles indeed cause businesses to flame out fast. Yet, they’re often a result of more profound issues. For instance,…

Your battle for more time runs alongside your struggle to let go and have someone else do the work. It’s a confusing challenge, no doubt.  Since you’re a self-starter, it’s 2nd nature to put in the hard yards yourself. And it’s your business that you’ve built from the ground up….

Every day we wake up, we’re bombarded by a litany of tasks we have to complete throughout the day. Between the personal obligations and work-related goals that fill our schedules, it’s all too easy to become overwhelmed. In fact, it’s this very sense of having too…

Contrary to popular belief, peer pressure is a highly effective means to help push someone (or yourself) to accomplish new goals or acquire fresh skill sets. Positive peer pressure, too, is also a key to developing habits, partially keystone habits. And like we’ve waxed poetic about before: Accountability…

Michael helps businesses grow through search engine optimization, and he’s mastered a system that enables him to help himself and his clients get high-quality backlinks that boost both reach and SEO. The Fundamentals One of the primary things that Michael teaches is…

How to Create Testimonials Effortlessly in Less Than 15 Minutes Testimonials are defacto extension of your sales team. Nobody disputes the value of testimonials, but until recently creating them was an expensive and time-consuming task. But it now takes less than 15 minutes to record a…

For small business owners, “No!” is a powerful word, sometimes even more powerful than a Yes. The effect of this scary N word compounds like 50% more when it comes from a would-be-could-be customer. Having your proposal declined, your offer rejected, your product ignored can make…

Most people in the world of business openly admit that marketing is no easy feat. So why are you trying to juggle it yourself?   Entrepreneurs always come to me saying they are managing their own Adwords or Facebook campaigns. They are usually in two camps. People in the first…

Building an annual action plan will help you strategize for the year, set yourself up to achieve company and personal goals, make sure you’re financially on track, and consolidate all your marketing goals and tactics into one easy-to-read-and-access document. This plan will act as a touchpoint that…

                                             Photo by: Austin Neill on Unsplash Imagine this: You’re building a business. Your schedule? JAM packed….

As the founder of your own business, you wear many hats. You juggle different tasks that the adage “time flies” resonates loudly with you. Because of this, your work-life balance might suffer. So aside from having an accountability group for entrepreneurs to help you keep tabs on your progress, tracking…

When you go into business for yourself, the first thing you need is a trusted advisory board. The problem that many entrepreneurs face, however, is that they accidentally create an echo-chamber instead. For those who don’t know, the echo-chamber effect is what happens when you, the…

Let me start with a story about an old friend of mine. For now, let’s call him Jason, so I don’t embarrass him…. Jason is a talented guy but terrible at time management. Maybe you know someone like him — you know the type; only jumps…

It’s common to feel that 24 hours aren’t enough to juggle work, leisure, and me-time in one day. If you are a busy entrepreneur, you’re probably tired of getting bombarded with tasks. No matter how much work you finish, it feels like it doesn’t end. Most…

Note: If you haven’t seen Avengers: The Infinity War yet, don’t worry. This post does not contain any spoilers. ;) Superheroes are strong. No–they’re super-strong. Individually, they can knock out a few bad guys, but they still need to band together as a team in order to save the world….

I must admit, I’m just not a fast writer. I really wish I was one of those people who could thrash out a great article in an hour or less, but it feels like it takes me days. Days. I tend to sit in front of…

Entrepreneurs and business owners are notoriously busy. But just because they’re always on-the-go doesn’t mean they’re being productive with their time. In fact, it’s estimated that the average American loses roughly five hours a week of work productivity; lost to things like mindless…

Everything happens so fast when you’re busy working that brilliant ideas could slip your mind. One day, you’re toying with a new business strategy. The next day, you can’t remember every detail of it. What if that simple idea could propel your business to success? Imagine the gains you have…

This is me demonstrating how to get over perfectionism -> see I didn’t even fix my hair or edit the video! Most Solopreneurs suffer from perfectionism How do you know you suffer from it? You agonize over details that…

I want you to meet someone. Meet Juliana: What happens when it rains in the jungle? You still get out of your comfort zone and face your fears and goals. Juliana’s a solo entrepreneur who runs a business called ScaleTime, helping entrepreneurs create systems so…

You’re an entrepreneur. Flying solo. Trying to build a real business. I see it all the time. What happens when you’re stuck? You start listening to podcasts. You start wondering about the direction you’re heading. You start bouncing ideas off of your dog… You do all these…

Photo by Alexandre Croussette on Unsplash Let me guess. You started a business because you want freedom. You have all these ideas in your head, but everybody has ideas… What you lack is execution. Why? Because most of your day is spent in reaction mode. You’re…

Paul’s (Owners^UP member) office setup Sitting at a desk all day might seem like the safest job in the world, but it may not be. Repetitive tasks day after day, or putting your body in a cramped position day after day, can have a very negative…

Stop going in circles with your schedule, end the madness! Who has time for planning? I planned meetings and vacations but every minute of your day I thought was overkill and felt restraining. Why the heck would anyone do that? What about emergencies…

Instant happiness: star jumps in scenic places There are natural flows in business, but as a business owner, it can get hard to deal with those peaks and valleys that come along. Knowing they will is not much help. At times you even get into a…

You may not even realize that you are a perfectionist. You simply like things a certain way. The fewer flaws, the fewer weaknesses your business has. You tell yourself that you only have one shot at this, so make it perfect. But there comes a point when…

So I am letting you in on my secret weapon, Streak!! Literally, game changer and makes me look like I am so on top of my game. I recorded a 9-min video setting up Streak Streak-CRM in your Inbox: The main reason I love…

Often we think they must work harder, or longer, to do a job better. It is better to work smarter, getting more quality work done in a less amount of time, to get the most out of your work. Work does expand to fill the time. Parkinson’s…

Small businesses should not target Fortune 500 companies and Startups in the early stages of their company. See the infographic to find out why. Do you agree?

Most StartUps Should be Deer Hunters

First, you have to get over “I don’t want to bother people in my network issue” or the “feeling weird.” Once you are over those feelings and remember why you started your company then we are ready to roll. Most people in your network have no…

In my first post, I laid out my vision for work/life equilibrium. The basic premise is that you achieve balance by intentionally pushing back against the forces in life that tend to take over. At the end of the post I asked you to consider the…

Looking to our life’s rhythms and routines to bring things into balance There has been an increasing amount of conversation around work/life balance, and this is fantastic. It’s a conversation we need to continue to have because, if you’ve tried to follow along, there are a…