Axiom Podcast - Axiom Strategic Consulting

Growth requires owners to become (or hire) managers. But without "A Players" owners are stuck putting out fires and working around the inabilities of employees who need too much hand holding. If there is a common complaint among small business owners, it is the trouble they have finding and retaining top talent. In this episode, we tackle the greatest constraint to sustained business growth. Without the right people, you will not have a prayer of reaching the next level, whether that is $2 million, $5 million, $10 million or $20 million. You need "A Players" to grow year over year and you must have them in order to accomplish extraordinary things.

Top-performing companies are often described as candid places to work. Team members share open and honest discussion with little posturing or hidden agendas. Building candid conversations into the culture of your organization is necessary if your team is to accomplish anything larger than the individual efforts of one superstar. In this podcast, we talk about what this conversations look like, the situations where you can expect them to show up spontaneously, and how to leverage those situations into a long standing culture shift.

Some business owners smile and nod their heads when I tell them their receptionist is the most important employee in the company, but they don't get it. In this episode, I talk about building internal and external culture around the customer experience.

Do you know what to do to grow your business? Most business owners do. But they haven't done it. They can't do it. They don't know why they can't. They just haven't. In this episode, Joey tackles the problem of getting out of the rut and starting to grow again. He tells you how to do it and gives you three things you can do to get your mojo back. Eminently practical this is the secret sauce for getting back on the growth train.

Creativity is often perceived to be the domain of those who accept no limits, who attack the canvas unfettered, who pound out page after page in an unbridled response to the inner muse. But perception is not reality. Creative solutions are most often found within the boundaries of very real constraints. In the real world, these constraints are the fuel that drives our creative engine. Without them, we wander aimlessly. With them, we focus on energy and come up with astounding solutions, designs and insights.

It took me five years longer than it should have to create the business I wanted to run. In this episode, I talk about the tool I could have used to shorten the journey. The idea of a one page plan sounds catchy. But in practice, it is much more than a nifty slogan. One page plans done right have the potential to change your business in powerful ways.

Strategic planning is fun. Implementation, not so much. When it comes to getting the plan underway, most companies fail to face down the 800 pound gorilla in the room. You know the moment if you have witnessed it. Leaders suddenly become very interested in their shoes and find it hard to speak. What is the gorilla? What do you do to face it down? This episode is all about making progress, good or bad, with your strategic plan.

Teams should not have a centralized task management system. Why not? In this episode, Joey talks about the pros and cons of centralized systems and what you will be trading if you opt for a system designed around the company's needs.

To grow, you must develop a company of leaders. But leadership is an extraordinarily complex topic. Who has the time or resources to fully understand it? Luckily, you don't have to. There are just a few key ingredients that will start to make a difference as soon as you add them to your team.

The last thing you need is more opportunity. Everyone thinks that to be successful as a small business, you must be nimble, capable of taking advantage of fleeting opportunities. But that isn't true. What you need is the discipline to discover opportunity and the focus to exploit it.

Customer service isn't a strategy. It's a table stake. Few things will undermine a strategic plan faster or more completely than failing customer service. In this episode, Joey talks about the fundamentals of customer service and why you have to get it right before you start planning.

Teams that can't manage their calendars or their responsibilities have no chance of pulling off a winning strategy. In this episode, Joey covers the basics of time and task management. These essential skills must be part of every team member's toolbox.

This podcast was recorded a couple of years ago. Joey talks about dealing with adversity and resistance, both where these things originate, and how to overcome them. The kids are older and some of the examples a little dated, but the meat of the content is as relevant as ever.

Pace is part of everything we do in business. When we get intentional about pace and how we use it for different activities, effectiveness improves. This was the first podcast, recorded a couple of years before the platform was part of the consulting business. But it was first because this topic finds its way into everything we do with clients and into everything successful clients do with their teams.