Blog

• Do You Plan or Do You Gamble With Your Business?

  Business planning beats gambling on hope: set measurable goals, know where you are now, plan several pathways instead of one, and track milestones as you go.

• What it Means to Build a Business as Distinct from Self-Employment

  Self-employment vs business: a business is a scalable system that meets market needs and outlives its owner. Avoid four common mistakes and lay the foundation.

• Increasing Productivity When Working from Home

  Working from home productivity starts with measurement: define the results you want, track your activity for four to six weeks, then adjust what you do.

• Top Six Business Skills Business Owners Must Have

  The business owner skills that lift every other skill: mindset, planning, listening, hiring, leading and letting go, and why letting go matters the most.

• What is a Business Coach?

  What a business coach does: works with you, not for you, as an accountability partner who helps you see clearly, grow what's working and scale on your own.

• Strategies for a Tough Economy: Find Your Niche

  A niche market strategy for a tough economy, by Brandon Ling: become the go-to business for one segment, then repeat the process there to keep growing.

• Strategies for a Tough Economy: Grab Market Share

  How to increase market share in a tough economy: keep marketing while competitors cut back, then use the extra revenue to pay down debt and build savings.

• When A Business Doesn’t Have the Right People

  Hiring the right people is rarely the problem. Training, documented procedures, supervision and working with people as they are is what gets results from them.

• Building Pathways for Consistent Business Revenue

  How to win repeat customers: Robert S. Chun's ten questions for building a pathway of products and services that brings buyers back for the next solution.

• How To Grow: Understanding Your Business Systems

  How to grow a business, by Robert S. Chun: it produces what its systems were designed to, so keep every part running on routine, then add new parts to grow.

• Habits that Cause Business Failure

  Why businesses fail, from Robert S. Chun's coaching practice: expecting results overnight, skipping steps, and saying I when a business is a team sport.

• Planning and Scheduling in Business: Exploring the Paradigm of Time

  Planning and scheduling in business, by Robert S. Chun: time is a linguistic construct, not a scarce object, and asking new questions changes how you plan.

• What it Takes to Be an Executive

  How to become an executive, by Robert S. Chun: how front-line workers, managers and executives differ, and why no one is a full-time executive without a team.

• Being well enables you to have extra-ordinary results everywhere (part 2)

  Fail faster: Robert S. Chun's five steps to design activities, routines and practices that end compartmentalising and lead you to extra-ordinary results.

• Nurture Prospects and Stop Missing Out on Most Sales Opportunities

  Lead nurturing, by Robert S. Chun: most prospects aren't ready to buy yet. Find out what they're waiting for, educate them, and keep in touch until they are.

• Being well enables you to have extra-ordinary results everywhere (Part 1)

  Robert S. Chun on work-life integration: why extra-ordinary activities, routines and practices, not separate roles, let you be well and produce results.

• Building a business, brick by brick (A story)

  Building a business takes every level: front-lines have back-aches, managers head-aches, executives heart-aches and owners soul-aches. Which do you build from?

• Choosing a coach that is right for you: The 7 Levels of Coaching

  Choosing a coach starts with knowing the 7 levels of coaching, from Clearing and Foundation to Business, Executive, Master and Source, and what each one does.

• Business is a team sport! Build your team and figure out your ideal position

  How to build a team around your strengths: Robert S. Chun's 12-step exercise to find your ideal position and then hire people who cover your weaknesses.

• The Secret of Sales: Are you making irresistible offers? (part 2 of 2)

  The irresistible offer, by Robert S. Chun: sales turns prospects into customers by qualifying them first and then making offers so good they sell themselves.

• The Secret of Marketing: How many people know that you exist? (Part 1 of 2)

  Marketing vs sales, by Robert S. Chun: marketing turns strangers into prospects who know you exist. It doesn't produce sales by itself, and that's the point.

• The power of scheduling: Conquer overwhelm and produce results with ease

  Scheduling tips for entrepreneurs from Robert S. Chun: why a to-do list isn't a schedule, and seven tools to stop things falling through the cracks for good.

• The Game of Business: Set Your Goals and Play Full Out (Part 2)

  Setting business goals takes art and science: Robert S. Chun on how executives invent bold goals and managers turn them into repeatable, measurable plans.

• The Game of Business: Set Your Goals and Play Full Out (Part 1)

  Business fundamentals from Robert S. Chun: five rules of the game of business, from building relationships and finding real needs to winning repeat clients.

• Lead with the Power of a Vision

  What is a leader? Robert S. Chun's answer: someone who follows a vision and guides followers toward it, using Tribal Leadership's five stages to grow a culture.

• Business is a team sport: Build your team and produce more with less effort

  Building a business team, by Robert S. Chun: why the 'I win, you lose' mindset keeps a business dependent on you, and why no star player wins a game alone.

• The origins and purpose of the entrepreneur

  What is an entrepreneur? Vwodek Wojczynski traces the word from entreprendre, to take between, and argues the entrepreneur's job is building the middle class.

• The Secrets to being wealthy

  How to build wealth, by Robert S. Chun: own a business that runs without you, build systems to manage abundance, and train your drivers to be better than you.

• True Business never fails

  A recession-proof business, by Robert S. Chun: true business listens to what people need and want and provides it, at the right time, location and price.

• Business and Entrepreneurship: Passion not required

  Is passion in business required? Robert S. Chun argues it is not: the word comes from suffering and pain, and business is about providing what people want.

• Entrepreneurs don’t take risks

  Entrepreneurship and risk, by Vwodek Wojczynski: why risk exists only where awareness is missing, and how the right information at the right time replaces it.

• I Wish I Knew What Business was really about in 1988…

  Business vs art, by Vwodek Wojczynski: from unsold comic books in 1988 Poland to learning, through Robert S. Chun, that business solves problems for people.

• Businesses that provide what is needed and wanted

  What customers want, and why asking beats guessing: Robert S. Chun on why businesses built on what people say they need and want succeed, and art does not.

• Money can’t buy happiness – so what can it buy?

  Money can't buy happiness, says Seth David, but knowing your finances buys peace of mind: a budget ends the worry so you can live in the moment with loved ones.

• Managing the myth of “Common Sense”

  Robert S. Chun explains why common sense at work is a myth and how effective supervision helps managers get real results from every type of employee they lead.

• Sane Marketing for Today’s Insane Businesses

  Small business marketing made sane: learn the process before the vehicle, and treat marketing as creating prospects, as a Cancun sailboat trip shows so well.

• Emptying Content – When things are clear as mud

  An active listening exercise from Robert S. Chun: how emptying content clears the mud of built-up thoughts so your team thinks, listens and works clearly.

• Is the journey worth it?

  Consistency in business, by Robert S. Chun: why results come from small daily actions that accumulate over years, and why the journey is the real reward.

• The System is the Process

  Business systems usually form by default. An RSC intern's story shows how a designed system, documented and debated by the team, turns employees into experts.

• Process Me, Process You, Process Everyone

  Process design, by Robert S. Chun: why dumping, baby-sitting or quick shows fail new hires, and how standard processes let anyone pick up where others left off.

• “Secret” of growing your business in 2008

  Grow your business globally: Robert S. Chun's January 2008 read on the mortgage crisis, and why small businesses online could now serve customers anywhere.