Purpose is a deliberate choice. The method of achieving the purpose is emergent. Once discovered, the method ought to become deliberate, too. At Little Engine Ventures, our guiding purpose is to help others climb. How we go about accomplishing our purpose has been evolving. Our basic principles remain in place. But, we have refined our Read more about Purpose is a Deliberate Choice[…]
Does everything in business come down to units per hour? Time is our most precious resource and therefore, productivity can be boiled down to the value-added per unit of time, right? We have been tracking our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each company weekly for over a year now. We recently stepped up to a Read more about Units per Hour[…]
We have a saying within Little Engine Ventures: “You cannot delegate until you document.” It’s a simple rule but profound. If you want to delegate a recurring task to someone else you must train them on how to do it well. In order to train well you need to show them and the provide them Read more about Capacity is Gained by Delegation[…]
For years I have said, “Strategy is systematically saying no.” But, while saying no is a discipline that establishes a habit of operational excellence, there is more that must be proactively pursued. You must say yes to something of greater value than your competitors. So, what is that strategy which is worthy of your focus? Read more about Strategy is Saying Yes to Lasting Margin Increases[…]
Pressure can result in higher or lower output. A healthy dose of pressure can result in flow state, increased focused, and clarity of decision making and action. Too much pressure and you are crushed by the weight and stress of the situation. What’s the difference? The output is determined by how the pressure is transformed Read more about Coping Mechanisms for High Pressure Management[…]
We scan and assume. It’s in our nature as humans. Little influences pile up. We see red and think bad. We see down and think the worst will continue. As a value investor and armchair philosopher, I pre-empt this natural tendency by making “down” green in our internal dashboards. Huh? What? Our business partnership is Read more about Self Correcting Dashboards[…]
There is a debate among small business owners regarding building your own custom software to run sales or operations versus buying or subscribing to existing tools. Well respected friends of mine argue that it’s wiser to simply buy the SaaS tool that is built for your industry or problem. They’re successful and the proof is Read more about Succumbing to Customized Software in a SMB[…]
Do you set annual goals for your business? Update them quarterly? What about seizing opportunity in the moment? Most owner-operators develop a cadence for goal setting. As an entrepreneur turned investor I operated under a continuous flow approach. If they goals needed to change, they changed. Unfortunately, this approach only works in very small teams Read more about When Revenue Outpaces Talent[…]
The professional service firm is the classic engineer-to-order service business. Consultants, legal, accounting and technical consultants are people-heavy. Mikel calls these companies, “smart people who can type.” Selling these companies is often quite difficult and rarely produces a large, single payday. The reason? Lack of repeatable processes. However, rather than belabor the problems with the Read more about How to Sell Your Engineer-to-Order Service Business to an Employee[…]
Service businesses often begin by displacing the internal development or employment of a skill. For example, “I’ll hire you to shovel while I move on to this other thing.” As the sophistication of the skils move up the intellectual stack the singular skill is often replaced with judgement balancing across multiple skills. For example, “I’ll Read more about Distinguishing Make-to-Order versus Engineer-to-Order Service Businesses[…]