The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path After a Monster Q1... Before we get too deep in the 'Thread', I want to pause to celebrate (something I'm learning to do...). I'd like to share some news about a few people I'm extremely proud of. Q1 was a landmark quarter for each of my advisory clients. I shared Daniel Wakefield's breakthrough last week. (2nd best rev month, completely different business and leader.) Joe Drake and David Crump had Axiom's best quarter ever while...
8 days ago • 4 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path tBOJ Season 3 New episode TODAY with Jay McCauley! 👇🏻 When the Producer Finally Steps Out Daniel Wakefield is arguably the best in the world at what he does. He started his photography business, Top-Tier Headshots, five years ago. And for years, he was the guy handling every shoot and every client. In an expertise-led business, that isn't uncommon. For those founders, it can be exactly where the trouble starts. When your personal...
15 days ago • 4 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path When the Producer Won't Let the Leader In He had the candidate. He had the budget. He had a phased plan with three tiers depending on how the first 90 days went. And then he asked the room for permission to do it. His business partner listened to the whole pitch, nodded, and said: "If you'd walked in and said 'here's phase one, here's the number, I'm calling him tomorrow'... I would've said yes. Immediately." The room went quiet....
22 days ago • 4 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path tBOJ Season 3 New episode TODAY with Jordan DiPietro! 👇🏻 How to Run Business Growth and Leadership Growth on the Same Track A buddy of mine scaled a company past $10M. Over 1,000 members. Respected in every room he walked into. And he walked away from it. I asked him why. "I tracked five areas of my life for three years straight. Financial and professional? Nailed it. Every single year. Family?" He paused. "Missed it. Every single...
29 days ago • 4 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path Busy Isn't the Same as Moving Forward You can have a productive week and still feel like you got nothing done. I was talking with a founder recently who's building a membership business. He’s a smart guy, and he’s clear on the model and the market. He’d shifted marketing focus to networking and making connections in his community. It’s work that had proven it could fill his pipeline. He told me that by Friday, he'd look at his...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path tBOJ Season 3 New episode TODAY with Debbie Oster! 👇🏻 Running on Gut Feel Is a Stage. The Best Leaders Grow Out of It. A business owner I work with has been paying an outside vendor several thousand dollars a month to handle a key marketing channel. Every month, reports come in with activity metrics and engagement numbers. But it doesn’t tell him if it's actually producing revenue. He suspects the messaging is off. He thinks the...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path When Avoiding Burnout Becomes Avoiding Growth I don’t believe having your back against the wall is a good long-term motivator. It’s a common script when you're starting out. Pressure creates urgency. Stress forces momentum. But as a way to actually run a business? It's a trap. I was talking with a founder recently who said he’d stopped pushing for growth. He was no longer grinding for clients. He had built his entire business on...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path tBOJ Season 3 New episode TODAY with Josh Fertel! 👇🏻 Authority Is What Moves a Business Beyond Its Founder You can delegate every task on your list and still be the only person actually moving things forward. A business begins to scale when someone else can make decisions and own the outcome without checking back with you every time something carries weight. I was talking with a founder recently who described himself as the life...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
The Golden Thread Clear Vision → Clear Priorities → Clear Path tBOJ Season 3 New episode TODAY with Paul Austin-Menear! 👇🏻 “Companies Are Getting Worse at Listening”. That Makes It Your Advantage You remember the BlackBerry phone? I hadn't thought about them in years until I was planning this newsletter. And there's a reason for that. They stopped being relevant the moment the market shifted and they didn't hear it. BlackBerry had market dominance. Then the iPhone showed up and redefined what...
2 months ago • 4 min read