Steve and I have always prided ourselves on trusting our gut instinct when it comes to people. This approach may not be scientific, but our gut instinct served us well in our military careers. It also served us in our roles as police officers. And it’s helped us onboard high-quality team members to grow a […]
Category: Entrepreneurship
New Job, New Life: The Transformative Power of Becoming a Franchisee
If you are reading this, chances are that you stand at a crossroads in your life. You might be searching for something. You might be that person who sits up at night, dreaming of doing more…of being more. That was my business partner, Paul, and I. We’d sit around the barbecue with a beer in […]
“Enabling Them to Become”: Help Your Employees Become Their Best Selves
For our first ten years in business together, my business partner, Steve, played the primary role in interviewing talent. But when it came to retaining talent, and especially with the launch of our EventPrep franchises, my background in recruiting and sales really came into play. Going back to my days working as a recruiter for […]
Why Putting Your Employees First is Good for Business
As Steve and I often say, there are two facts about a business’s culture: 1) It will define itself either by default or by design, and 2) it is created at the top and cascades downward. And the key to designing a business culture that results in the most productivity, the best service for your […]
Building a Better Compensation Model: Throwing Out The 50/50 Split
Paul and I knew that all our event planning competitors would claim they cared the most about their people. So we had to ask ourselves: Is it possible to actually care more than the others? Can we put our money where our mouth is? The reality is that businesses exist to make money. So it’s […]
Creating Perceived Value: How Tiffany’s, Starbucks, and Harley-Davidson Thrive
Picture how many jewelry stores are in a five mile radius of wherever you are at this very moment. There’s at least a handful in every mall. There are a couple in the strip plazas along the way to the mall. Dozens and dozens of jewelry stores, both boutique and chain stores, as far as […]
The Key to Solopreneurship: Operating as a Company of One (or Two)
Steve and I know a thing or two about Solopreneurship. We know the stress and struggles, the ups and downs, the long days…and even longer nights. In the early days, we set up many different kinds of businesses, including a not-for-profit that helped kids with after school programs. For us, those were practice runs, the […]