Owner & Manager — Service-Based Small Business
• Founded and operate a service business with hands-on responsibility for hiring, training, scheduling, pricing, and daily operations
• Lead field crews and frontline managers with a focus on standards, accountability, and practical leadership
• Set pricing and manage seasonal cash flow in a weather- and labor-dependent business
• Built simple operating systems (checklists, SOPs, routines) to reduce errors and improve consistency
• Regularly handle customer issues, employee performance challenges, and owner-level decision-making under pressure
Areas of Practical Expertise
• Hiring and retaining reliable employees
• Crew leadership and performance management
• Pricing confidence and margin protection
• Cash flow planning and seasonality
• Operations systems for small teams
• Owner decision-making and prioritization
Background
• Active owner-operator with day-to-day exposure to the realities of running a small business
• Experience advising other owners informally on operations, leadership, and business decisions
If that studio did a good job, then it would be great to give them a good review! Who knows... maybe you'll collaborate at some point. Have enough confidence in yourself to give someone else a good review.
Well, if you plan to have a scalable and manageable small business, your *business* (and its processes) needs to create trust. If you are providing a basic, repeatable product or service, you NEED your business to create the trust. Why? Because hopefully you have a team that will handle the transactions, and it won't be the owner. And your team will change. Think about Chick-fil-a or Starbucks. Do you trust their product/service (correct answer is "yes"). Do you have a personal relationship with the staff there (most likely, "no".). These businesses built systems that allow them to be consistent and reliable, over and over and over again. So, you "trust" them. Do the same with your business. Don't fall into the trap that *you* must be the person that every customer must personally know and trust.
How about this: Send a personal intro letter to each of the 100, with hand written envelope. On the back of the envelope, write something like: "I am a thought leader in this industry. Full disclosure: I am selling/pitching ____. Thanks in advance😊" Hand-written is key. Sometimes people appreciate an old-fashioned trait: honesty.
1. Look for recurring revenue streams with your current service/product offering.
2. Stop chasing the "new idea".
3. Most successful entrepreneurs are not innovators, thought leaders, or influencers. So, don't fall into that trap. It's a black hole.
4. Embrace being boring.
5. What is your company good at? Is there a recurring market for this? Can you repeat it, over and over and over and over?
Leadership Customer Retention Small Business Employee Hiring Team Management Cash Flow Management