Ep. 149 – New Year’s Resolutions for Your Business: Part 2

SIBP-Blog-NEW-2In the last episode of the Success In Business Podcast, host Tom Ryan and co-host Jason Pyles discussed their 2016 business resolutions. In part two, they talk about two more resolutions for the New Year, one to start doing and one to stop. Learn why a profit-focused mindset matters for every entrepreneur, and why being unbalanced can result in needless stress as you build your business.

In addition to his work as a podcaster, Tom Ryan is a business coach and Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneur In Residence based in Asheville, NC. Co-host Jason Pyles is a producer for several successful podcasts, including Movie Podcast Weekly. Continue reading

The Profitable Mindset, Part 4: Don’t Bet Your Business On Home Runs

Source image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/roncantrell/

Source image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/roncantrell/

In the world of baseball, power hitters are usually the most exciting players to watch. These are the guys that can knock the ball out of the park, creating those iconic, inspirational and game-changing moments. The power hitters are usually remembered as heroes, wowing the stadium crowds and living on for decades in the highlight reels.

But here’s the thing about those big home run hitters: They usually have a high strikeout percentage, too. In fact, those epic homers rarely decide a game. It’s the less-than-thrilling base hits that put runs on the scoreboard. Continue reading

The Profitable Mindset, Part 3: Forecast and Verify Performance

SIBP-Blog-NEW-B-5During my time as a business coach, I’ve made it a point to talk about the importance of sales. Not just the act of meeting with a prospect and finding ways to align their interest with your products or services — although that is a huge part of the job — but also developing the processes that make up the business sides of sales. Without these core competencies, you can’t create those measurable and predictable results that are so key to consistently generating profits.

The more accurately you can measure your sales performance, the easier it becomes to both forecast future results and verify your current trajectory. To do this, you not only need a method for reliably generating that data, you also need a dashboard of some kind to help you make sense of it. Continue reading

The Profitable Mindset, Part 2: Bootstrap For As Long As Possible

SIBP-Blog-NEW-B-3“Bootstrapping” is a term that gets tossed around a lot in startup and investment circles. The idea of “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” is familiar to most people as a metaphor for creating your own success, but what does it actually mean in a business context? Exactly what you would expect, actually.

When a company starts out with very little financial capital or other resources, it has to get creative to stay in the game. That means pinching pennies, taking a conservative attitude towards any additional expense, finding other kinds of resources to use without spending a bunch of money. That’s the bootstrap mindset. Continue reading

The Profitable Mindset, Part 1: Creating A Clear Path To Profitability

SIBP-Blog-NEW-B-5Profits are pretty simple to understand. It’s just revenue minus expenses. If you make a lot of sales and manage your expenses well, your business will be profitable. So why do so many entrepreneurs struggle when it comes to creating profitable businesses?

To start a successful business, you need to have a really solid understanding of how your business is going to make money. This means constructing and stress-testing your business model from a profit-focused perspective. Here’s something you might not realize: Most entrepreneurs never bother to do this. Continue reading

Ep. 058 – Elementary Startup Planning For New Entrepreneurs

SIB-Blog-3What are the fundamental steps for creating a viable business? What groundwork needs to be laid before any entrepreneur can take their business plan to investors? In this episode, host Tom Ryan strips the business-creation process down to the most basic levels to reveal the core elements of a viable startup.

Tom is on the road this week, requiring a slight change of format from two-person discussion to solo show format. As a result, he’ll be taking on a variety of listener questions. Continue reading