I first discovered this little phenomenon in myself about 6 years ago when I realized that I never panicked in traffic as long as the traffic was moving. If we were bumper to bumper but we were in motion, I was fine. It was only if every lane was completely stopped and we could not move that I would start to become anxious.

There are many examples in my life where this is true. Why? I need to be in motion. I need progress. I need action.

As a society we love action. A lot of people choose football, hockey or basketball over watching golf simply because they say golf’s “too slow” and thus boring. We dig car chases on television and we flock to theaters to see a movie genre known as, well, “action.”

The irony is that for a people group so interested in action we rarely value it in ourselves. We procrastinate, deflect and often times choose dream over “do.” Why is that? Is it laziness?

I think, for a lot of people, it is fear – fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of being wrong. For me personally there have been times where I have dragged my feet because I was afraid of wasting my time. I didn’t want to devote a year to working hard on something only to find out that it was not right. Nobody wants to run in the wrong direction and that’s what I was afraid of.

I think, whatever our reason is, we need to get over it. We need to do whatever we can to bury that tendency deep. The fear of in-action should be what scares us most.

I recently attended a leadership conference where, for two days, I was given the opportunity to sit and absorb the words of some of the most amazing leaders on the planet. I witnessed some incredible things and am still digesting it all.

One thing that stuck with me was the phrase, “The difference between visionaries and daydreamers is that visionaries do something.”

Your dreams are just dreams unless you get off your butt and start working on them. Your bucket list is just a list unless you start checking things off. That idea for a business, a charity an invention has no value unless you make it happen.

At the same conference I had the pleasure of hearing from Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Waiting for Superman,” you are quite familiar with her work. She’s a very polarizing person. The corrupt teachers unions swear that she is the Devil while Education Reformists feel that she’s in line for sainthood.

Michelle is one of my heroes. I believe that we desperately need education reform in this country but that’s not why I love her so much. Michelle Rhee is my hero because she did what every politician has failed to do. She went to work. She didn’t stand on a platform and proclaim that we needed a change, no, she made the change happen.

I value anybody who is willing to get to work; anybody who acknowledges their dreams but then focuses on the steps to achieve them.

I remember this story about a dad. His son came up to him and said that he wanted to be a professional basketball player like Michael Jordan when he grew up. The dad looked back and said, “Son, I really believe that you can play in the NBA one day. But you should know that Michael Jordan spent every waking hour practicing and training long before he became a pro. Son, you spend all your free time playing video games.”

I’m very tired of this “you can be anything you want” attitude we have. “Just dream it and be it, Timmy.” We’re literally dreaming ourselves out of success. Our country wasn’t built by dreamers. It was built by visionaries. Even Martin Luther King Jr., who famously said “I have a dream,” wasn’t a dreamer because he took action.

You see, we didn’t dream our way West. We didn’t dream our way to the moon. Sure, some of these goals seemed far off at the time but somebody quit dreaming, turned on the lights and got to work. That’s the difference. Mountains are too big to climb and planes are too scary to jump out of yet both can be done time and time again. But you have to take a step, you have to take action in order to do it.

I don’t know what my legacy as a man will be but I hope it’s said that I was a man of action; that I had big dreams but I knew when it was time to get to work.

What are you not doing? Let’s start taking action. We may not achieve our dreams today but let’s get to work. I promise that you’ll be amazed by what you accomplish.

Photo by DVIDSHUB (Flikr Creative Commons)

I haven`t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.

I think this is very true and it is a positive way to look at the ups and downs of our businesses.

I try to take this a bit further and apply it to my ‘internal self.’ By that I mean what about ME doesn’t work and what is needed to make ME work better? As the leader in your organization your internal health, feelings, intelligence (pretty much everything) effects the growth and culture of the entire place. Having a well-trained sense of self-awareness can go a long way toward making your organization run the way you want it to.

I’m constantly monitoring what makes me happy and productive. What kind of environment do I thrive in? Over the course of my professional career both as an entrepreneur and as a manager I have found those 10,000 things that don’t work for my ‘internal self’ and I am still finding new things to add to the list. I’ve thought hard about the times when I felt the most inspired and I’ve made note of them. In the same way I’ve made note of the times that I felt horrible and was unable to grow my business. What factors effected me, not the business, but me in that moment and how did that contribute to the overall outcome?

Kobe Bryant did an interview in GQ magazine awhile back where he mentioned that he always takes a helicopter from his home in Newport Beach to the Staples Center in LA on game days. Those of us who live in Southern California have most likely made that drive and will say “oh heck yeah, I wish I could do that!”

To the casual outsider his helicopter budget may seem like an extravagance but he looks at it as a tool of his trade. You see hours in traffic, even if driven by someone else, can effect you mentally as well as physically. He needs to be strong in both areas in order to lead his team and compete. Additionally, he knows that time saved on his commute results in more time in the training room preparing for game time. He is self-aware enough to know exactly what he needs in order to perform at the level he desires.

This isn’t unique to Kobe. Athletes all over, from amateurs to pros, know exactly what they need to do their best. Train yourself to be self-aware. What conditions do you need in order to be your very best? What are the 10,000 things that didn’t work before? It could be as simple as a certain type of music or the addition of a certain type of employee who can challenge you and collaborate with you.

No matter what it is, your organization needs you to be self-aware.

I think businesses focus too much on their competition. Sure, a little competitive keyword research never harmed anyone – not too much anyway. But where do we draw the line between learning from our competition in order to benefit our business  and distracting ourselves from what is most important? When does it go from self-help to self-destruction?

The 5th grade field day

I’ll never forget the lesson I learned way back in the 5th grade. Our school participated in a “field day” with a few other schools. (For those of you who are unaware, “Field Day” was basically an annual track and field event.) Among my events was the 100 yard dash. I lined up with everyone else and we waited for the start of the race. The gun shot and we were off. I ran as fast as I could and held my hands in that straight up Olympic sprinter pose (as if that would make me faster). With every step I would look over at the other runners to see how well I was doing.

After losing the race, like I had a chance, a friend of mine came up to me and said, “You know, you probably would have gone much faster if you stopped looking at all the other runners.” Get the point? We’ll come back to that in a minute.

Does it make you any better?

I worked for a company who spent the entire day staring at its competition. At the very minimum we’d gossip heavily, dig up dirt – try to crush them. Sure it was entertaining from time to time. Some days it was downright enjoyable. But, and you should never forget this, it never made our products better. It never changed how we marketed our business. It never made us more money. Now, maybe we just sucked at it. I’m sure there are people who can capitalize beautifully but we never did. In fact, I think that negativity made us worse. Plus, our competitors were doing the exact same thing so how could we differentiate ourselves if were acting the same way? It was exhausting playing down in the mud with them. In fact, my old co-workers still do it. That’s one of the reasons I don’t have lunch with them anymore. Two seconds into the conversation and they’re gossiping and going negative just like old times. I can’t take it anymore.

Friends are more fun than enemies

In the middle of my “career” at the old company I went up North to visit my father-in-law. He has run his own, very successful, business for years. He’s a great man and I look up to him in countless ways. One night we were having one of our talks where I try to absorb everything he says and somehow apply it to my life. He mentioned an industry trip he recently went on. He spoke highly of these people he drank and danced with. My wife spoke up from time to time asking about “so and so” and how they were doing. She grew up in his business and went on these annual trips regularly.

About twenty minutes went buy and I began to realize that these “people” they kept referring to were not co-workers or vendors. They were my father-in-law’s competitors! He would call them friends. That was so weird to me. He’s in a very congested industry in the middle of the type of economy that turns us all on each other and he’s having dinner…no drinks…no, he’s dancing with them?!?

At the time, the only dinner I would consider having with my competitors would have resembled the restaurant scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone takes a hidden revolver from the bathroom and starts a war. That’s how much we hated everyone.

It was so foreign to me to befriend my competitors and here was a man I looked up to who has made more money than any of my employers and business partners and speaking highly about his “friends.” I thought about that for days, months – I haven’t stopped. I remembered my 5th grade field day and I realized that there is something to that. We stalked our competitors and we weren’t doing much better than before. We were beating our competitors but we were all unhappy with ourselves. We weren’t getting any better. My father-in-law was running a wonderful business and was successful but he was having fun doing it!

When we launched New Harbor Design I decided that I would not ever give a crap about my competition. The fact is that we are a marketing company. I can throw a stone and hit any one of my so-called competitors. And that’s just the local ones. Who cares. I’m not out to crush anybody. There’s enough business for everyone. There are people who do things better than us and there are companies we blow away. Who cares.

Why it really doesn’t matter

First, you’re not that good. If I had been a world class sprinter it wouldn’t have mattered who I was running against; I would have won. In the same sense, watching them didn’t make me any faster. Instead, I should have practiced and worked harder on “me.” Time spent worrying about the other guy is time wasted on making your business better.

Second, there is a lot of business out there. If you’re big enough to worry about market share then we can talk but if you’re a small business you’re not going to have to worry about that right now. Besides, in this global economy, my biggest competitor is not the business down the street and yours probably isn’t either. There are too many competitors to watch.

Third, competition doesn’t matter. Innovation does. Do it better and it doesn’t matter what your competitors do. I aspire to be companies like FourSquare, Google, Mailchimp and Virgin. Those are the guys I look up to and admire. Sure, they all have competitors – they have BIG ones. Google has Bing, FourSquare has Gowalla, Mailchimp has too many to count and Virgin was in a fight against British Airways that nearly sank the company. I think their competitors are scarier than yours. I’m sure they pay attention to the competition but they don’t let it dominate their thinking. These guys are innovators. The handle their own business and, as a result, we all watch them.

If you want to be like these companies start focusing on refining your business. Make your service better, make your product better, market better. When you’re as good as you can be then look over at the other guys. At that point, I doubt you’ll care.

I always say that “we’re not in the marketing business, we’re in the customer service business.” That’s why I focus on providing the very best service to clients and prospects regardless of my competition. One of the things we’ve decided to do is launch an informational blog to try and help small businesses market better. In my eyes, education is a part of service.

So what did I do when we came up with the idea to launch this blog? I contacted some of my competitors who have become friends of mine on Twitter and asked them if they wanted to contribute and blog with us. Sure, someone will click a link and go to my competitor’s site. Who cares. I want the very best information for my clients and prospects. I’m devoted to service, not sales. If my friends can help me achieve that then it doesn’t matter if they are competitors.

Good companies make money regardless of the competition. We’ll make money. I don’t need to fight people all day to pay my bills. I’d rather drink and dine with new friends.

Make your service better, make your product better, market better, be better. Forget about everyone else.

So I didn’t set out to run 26.2 miles. I set out to run five minutes a day. For the first week or so that was tough enough and some days I couldn’t do much more than tow minutes. However, I achieved that sooner than expected and moved on to round two: 2-5 minute runs a day (appox 10 minutes apart but that’s not the point here). After that I moved on to 3-5 minute runs a day. About three months ahead of schedule I hit my first mile run. The next day I ran two miles and the other day, on Super Bowl Sunday, I completed my first 5K about a year ahead of schedule.

So what does this have to do with making $1 Million? Keep reading, it’s coming Kitten…

Running a marathon seemed too tough, even more, it seemed too far away. My goal, no matter how bad I wanted it, was not enough for me to get out of bed in the morning. With that in mind I made it so I didn’t have to achieve my goal when I woke up. I just had to get my non-marathoner ass to the gym and run a lousy five minutes.

If you would have told me on day one that I would be ready to run a 5k in 2 months I would have just laughed but I took it a day at a time and was not only ready in two months I was already breaking that distance for the entire month prior to race day!

We all have our marathon; our 26.2 miles that we are not yet equipped to chase down. For most of us, myself very much included, just getting our business to bring in some cash is a big enough challenge and we aren’t even thinking about $1 Million. We may just be thinking about making payroll.

The point here is that we just need to stop chasing the big dream and start finding our “5 Minute Task” that can steadily chip away at the big overarching goal . Here are some rules to follow when deciding on how to choose your 5 Minute Task.

Rule One: It must drive you to your final destination

Don’t decide that responding to more emails every day is the task you’re going to tackle. If anything, this task should bump email off of your list. This task should have a direct result on your final goal. In most business applications this task will be directly related to increased revenue. Sales calls, SEO Activities like link building, writing blog posts, distributing promotional materials, meeting new prospects  – all good ideas.

I cannot emphasize the “direct result” part enough. If you cannot reasonably draw a line from your task to your goal then please re-think it. Activities like blogging and engaging on sites like Twitter are amazing activities that can build your business but sometimes you just need to get a sale right away and other activities may be better for this exercise. If you’re trying to make a name for yourself, get a book deal or build a brand then blogging could be the main task. It all comes down to the goal you want to achieve.

Rule Two: It must be the only step

People make tasks to0 complicated. They say the next task is to finish a website when the actual next task is to just write the content for the site. Simplify everything. My task was not “run 6-8 miles every week” though I do that now. I needed to simplify it more. I could only do five minutes so that’s where I started. There should not be fifteen steps in your task.

Rule Three: It must be specific

Don’t just say, “I’m going to do this activity every day.” Be specific! How long are you going to do it for? How many are you going to do?

Sales calls? How many are you going to make every day? (If you want to be even more specific in this case, how many conversations do you want to have not just numbers dialed.)

You’re never going to be successful if you can’t first make yourself accountable. The key to being accountable is to be specific.

Rule Four: It must be short

Now that I’m running close to an hour at a time it is much more difficult to find time to run. Back when I started, five minutes was easy to find in my day. Keep your task short so that you can easily find time to complete it. I would say keep it to under an hour to start. You can always increase as you get better or more confident in what you are trying to accomplish.

As business owners our tasks are spit into two categories: things that grow the company and things that maintain the company. In most cases, the tasks that maintain the company fill your day but the ones that grow it are the most important. I’m not saying you shouldn’t fill out those purchase orders or respond to that client’s email. You have to do that. So if you keep the task that grows your company to under an hour at first it will be easier to fit it in throughout your hectic day of pleasing your customers.

Rule Five: It must be measurable

You aren’t going to stick with anything if you don’t see progress. Though I followed each of the above four rules, I would have quit if I didn’t see progress. My five minute runs got easier, then faster, then longer. You have to be able to measure progress.

This may be the hardest part. Things like page rank take awhile to flush out and it can get frustrating. If you sell high-ticket items or products with long sales cycles like real estate then “units sold” should not be your metric. Just like you dialed in your task to make sure it was simple you need to dial in your unit of measure.

If you’re wanting more people to see your site maybe don’t just focus on page rank but on actual traffic. I do a lot of SEO activities but page rank takes time so I also measure my progress simply based on traffic that resulted from a task. For example, I published a document to a website for no other reason than to improve my rank. It still hasn’t improved it but I watched as people clicked through to my site from that very document. To put it simply, I was gunning for rank and I got visitors instead which is the whole point of getting a better rank anyway. Your task must be measurable and it be measured the right way.

Cold calling sucks for many reasons but if you have to do it find a way to measure the amount of calls, not the amount of sales at first. You may find that it takes a hundred calls to get one sale. That’s fine, just get excited that you made twenty calls today and at that rate you’re just four more days away from getting the sale. That way of looking at things is far more positive than hating yourself for not making a sale for five days. I use this methodology when it comes to online advertising campaigns. Each new customer is worth a certain amount of clicks. The sooner I get to that number of clicks the sooner I get the new customer.

I was once told, and I’m completely ruining this, that the way to eat an entire elephant is by doing it one bite at a time. That is all this is. Let’s face it, no matter what your goal is, you’re going to be here for awhile so get productive and chip away at the big picture one piece at a time.

If you have some great ideas of “5 Minute Tasks” that can help you grow your business, I’d love to hear about them. Please feel free to fill out the comment form below to share.

The article I referenced also mentioned a second goal he had for his epic “publicity stunts.”

“Our staff also liked the humor, and the sense of fun. They felt proud to be associated with a company that made people smile and that was seen as a good place to work. We made sure the same spirit ran through everything we did; it was not confined to the cute advertisements. It was crucial that we created an enjoyable atmosphere for crew and passengers alike, at 30,000 feet.”

Virgin has many aspirations but no matter what venture they pursue they want to have fun doing it. Even more they want you, their customer, to have fun too.

I am absolutely obsessed with fun companies. I love companies who have fun, make customer experience fun and exude so much sincere enjoyment that you can’t help but jump on board.

My absolute favorite is MailChimp based in Atlanta, Georgia. These guys have so much fun and create so much enjoyment for their customers that not only do you want to sign up but also find yourself rooting for them.

Every time they announce that they keep getting bigger and bigger (it happens regularly) or that they have a new addition to their already excellent service offerings (that happens a lot too – these guys just develop and develop), I am sincerely happy for them because I feel so invested in their success. So much so that when I go to Atlanta next time I will probably be using my in-laws as an excuse because I really just want to go hang out at the Mailchimp office.

One of the funny automated and personalized quotes from the MailChimp UI

I could go into so much detail about why these guys are so much fun but that’s not the point of this post. If you really want to see the fun check out their Flikr or their annual “Ugly Sweater Holiday Portraits” and that will just get you started.

My point in writing this already long post is that fun companies are quite simply the best companies. Brand loyalty is no longer earned with price or quality. It’s earned through the buying experience and there is no greater buying experience than a fun one.

It’s hard to be fun when stock prices are down, sales are sluggish and your employees are just a big pain in your butt. I understand. I want desperately to have a fun company but it’s hard when I’m not achieving the high goals I set for myself.

Regardless of economic circumstances, fun needs to be an asset to your company just like accounting, marketing and PR. But do not think you can get away with fake fun. It’s not Hawaiian Shirt day, trust falls, or corporate retreats. Those all suck, just watch The Office or the movie Office Space if you don’t believe me. I’m talking pure “we don’t take ourselves seriously and we sincerely enjoy what we do” fun.

People, you have to believe me when I say that “fun” sells.

MailChimp is knocking other companies around left and right. And though companies like iContact and Constant Contact have bigger ad budgets and radio spots, I’d much rather give my money to the fun company. Compare price, compare quality but also compare experience.

One of MailChimp's fun, seasonal login screens

Why do we buy Apple products? It isn’t because of the price; that’s for sure. No, we buy Apple products because the quality is awesome and the user experience is even better.  Using a Mac is just plain fun. Using an iPhone is fun. Even buying them is an experience.

I hate shopping malls. I usually only buy online. However, I don’t buy the majority of my Apple products online; I actually go to an Apple retail store just for the experience. I was bummed when I had to by my iPhone at an AT&T store. Why? Because AT&T sucks and I didn’t want to buy my awesome new phone from a dingy store in some strip mall! I wanted to buy my phone from the magical Oz-like land known as the Apple Retail Store! Interpret this as “please retail store, can I give YOU my money and not someone else?” Why? Because they have fun, their user experience is fun and so, by proxy, spending money there is fun.

I am telling you, fun sells. It’s that simple.

Find ways to have fun again and the sales will follow. Exude fun and the money will come.

Fun sells. Fun sells. Fun sells.

In his article Sir Branson details the outlandish or, as he calls them, “cheeky” advertisements and promotional stunts that he used to propel Virgin Atlantic to the top. I’ve followed Virgin’s brand for many years and always admired his stunts as he has spent many days in the press without paying a newspaper or magazine to run an ad.

“You couldn’t buy a quarter-page ad on the front of The New York Times, but when my sinking boat or crashing balloon just happened to feature the distinctive Virgin logo, there we were!”

You see he needed to get the attention of the world but he didn’t have the budget he needed. I’m sure he had more to spend than you do for your marketing but he was in a game with the big boys and couldn’t afford to play for very long. But Virgin didn’t have to be big in order to be huge. They just needed to think big and think creatively.

In business you either have money or you have creativity. As a small business, you may not have much money but do not ever forget that money may make you big but creativity can make you huge.

Small Businesses don’t have to be small-minded. Before the internet it was: get your business license, have a grand opening, join the chamber of commerce, buy your yellow pages ad and then maybe an ad in the Sunday paper. Now you can inexpensively be fun and exciting and get people to fall in love with your company. Quit selling yourselves short.

I prefer to be that kid on the field who’s short and weak but runs and fights as if he never looked in a mirror or was told he was short and weak. If you’re small that’s fine. If you act small then that’s a problem.

You don’t have to be big to be HUGE!

This week Adam discusses the importance of taking time to focus on the end user of your product or services. In a B2B environment, we often forget that our clients my not be the only people effected by what we provide. It’s important to start thinking straight because it’s all about your client’s clients.

Okay, maybe this isn’t the best but it is very informative and, to me, that’s pretty cool. I’m a big fan of anything 37 Signals does. They have great customer service, even better products, they know the right way to grow a business and they are from Chicago (which really isn’t a deal maker when it comes to liking someone but it really should be).

They recently posted a listing for a new position on their blog that is very informative and leaves very little questions for the applicant. Even better, the company knows exactly what they want the new hire to do.

A lot of companies hire first and put together the task list and job description later. I’ve done it before and I’m sure you may have too.

It is important, before you hire, to know exactly what you need done. I have been hired by employers in the past who didn’t know what they needed done they just knew they didn’t want to do it anymore. That mentality pretty much sets your new hire up to fail from day one. It also doesn’t solve your problem which is “we have a lot of stuff going on and we need someone to do it.” If you don’t really have a grasp on the “stuff” then you will either hire when you really just need to get better organized or you will hire someone who really doesn’t know that they aren’t good for the job.

I’ve hired with that mentality and ended up with employees who were either unqualified to do the job or had a lot of down time while waiting for me to provide them with work. Both have ended up causing me more stress and frustration than had I just gotten organized, streamlined the process and worked on my own.

It is very simple: Hire last – not first.

Every day I hear about social networking, SEO and Web Design when the idea of marketing success is brought up. Of course, these are all vital when it comes to the growth of your business. At our company, these strategies are not only a big part of our business growth but, as a marketing company, they are the bread and butter of the very services we provide.

However, all of these effo

rts are a waste of time, energy and resources if your customer service is lacking. Okay, “lacking” is too nice..let’s try this again. All of the marketing efforts in the world are a waste of time and money if your customer service is complete crap.

Think about it it. We rarely talk about the companies who made us happy when we called to complain but everyone on our contact list (or within eyeshot of our Facebook profile) hears about the company that left us furious and unsatisfied.

Last week I came across, and tweeted, about a recent experience with Jet Blue and an unsatisfied customer. The customer was not satisfied with the fact that they change a flight that he used often and so he decided to write a note to Jet Blue about it. The man had a great sense of humor and was not angry but found a creative way to share his dilemma with Jet Blue. The customer service person obviously had an equally good sense of humor and responded in kind. I suggest you read it here.

Now this is was a funny example of unorthodox customer service but I think the point is clear. Instead of going on the defensive, Jet Blue acknowledged the issue and addressed it. Anyone can see here that Jet Blue can’t change a flight pattern around for one guy who wants to fly a red eye and they know that but this is something that he cared enough about to contact them and they acknowledged that.

I recently had a great customer service experience at 1-800 Flowers which now, as a result, I will forever be their customer. There was a mix up with a delivery for my wife’s birthday and it wasn’t their fault. It was the local, third party, florist that messed it all up. I got the flowers but it was too late and I was not satisfied. I called customer service (didn’t wait very long) and they apologized extensively and gave me the order for free as well as a $20 gift card all while I was looking at the very nice flowers they provided. They even sent me an apology! At the end I felt really bad for them. But, tweeted and told everyone how great they are and will now be using them forever.

In the end it doesn’t matter if you’re a billion dollar company with a large call center or a home based business answering calls on your cell phone. If someone is calling for support, you have somehow underwhelmed them and now you have a shot at redeeming yourself. Quit being selfish with your time and the refund and focus on the experience for that person.

You are not in the business of providing whatever widget your company sells. You are in the business of satisfying the customers who buy that widget. My job is not to sell my clients web design, email marketing and everything else we offer. My job is to make sure that the clients who purchase those services are satisfied and very happy. When you make that your ultimate goal then all the product recalls and server crashes in the world won’t hurt your reputation.

My fellow business owners here in California and I have a saying,”if you can run your business in California, you can run it anywhere.” That’s a sad but very true statement. California is one of the worst states to start a business in. There is so much opportunity but the cost sometimes outweighs the potential. Throughout this recession I’ve added to the slogan saying, “if you can grow a business in this recession, you can grow it any time.”

Our flagship company, New Harbor Design is growing daily and we are even strategizing and planning for rapid expansion in the very near future. I’m always reluctant to tell people this as I don’t want to “jinx” the company or get our hopes up. Even more I don’t want to come off as arrogant or, worse, stupid if we don’t expand. I’ve second guessed spending the energy on growth questioning whether we should keep going and then just cross that bridge when we get to it. Regardless, we’re still planning for growth.

Today I got an e-mail from my favorite business magazine, Entrepreneur. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed a new article “9 Ways to Prepare for Growth and Success.” This piece was very encouraging as I’m not alone in planning for growth. Even better, a lot of the tips they give are already on our list which makes me feel that we’re on the right track.

Take a moment and look over their tips. Are these suggestions on your list for growth? I looked down the list and created a mental report card both for my company and for the companies I’ve worked for in the past who have not faired so well during their growth. It is astounding how much these mere suggestions play a huge role in success and failure so much so that I would not refer to them as “tips” but rather “laws” for proper growth.

Check it out. It’s important.