One of my coaching clients, Lisa Giesler, is an organizing consultant. She has a book called “My Life is a Mess.”

Over the past two months I have shared why having systems are critical to the phenomenal success of your business. In this piece I will share the five parts of a system with which I believe you can systematize just about anything.

When a company is growing, your two biggest profit killers are lack of planning and lack of infrastructure. By not having systems in place, your company loses good people, your production suffers and you must spend more money training a new employee.

Twenty-six years ago, I started cleaning carpet by working out of the trunk of my car. Over 13 long years I got the business up to about $30,000 per month. I was making good money, but everything revolved around me. 

A previous series of articles I wrote for this magazine outlined my 9-Step Marketing Plan. One of the steps is to have a schedule of activity, or a marketing “calendar” so to speak...

Since I started writing for ICS in 2007, I’ve covered a lot of ground. But I don’t like to just write the same old thing each year and, more importantly, I want to make sure that I am connecting with you.

A friend of mine is going through recovery for drug addiction. As I have walked through this with him over the past 9 months, I have learned a great deal about the process of “recovery.”

During the recent economic meltdown, many businesses that seemed to be strong faltered. As you face each day as a business owner and react to everyday demands, do you stop to think about how strong your business is?

One of the most powerful and profitable things you can do for your business is get groups of referral sources in one place at one time, with you as the center of attention.

Across America, businesses large and small struggle with the same issues: cutthroat competition that is selling “below invoice”; customers that don’t want to pay the advertised price; insolent employees and more.