what is an entrepreneurial operating system

What is an Entrepreneurial Operating System?

Diane MouraBlog

Have you heard of a business running on an Entrepreneurial Operating System, or “EOS”? Discovering the right framework to drive business growth is a journey every entrepreneur embarks on. There are many operating systems used by successful businesses, but the one I use for my companies and for my clients is : the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, or EOS. This comprehensive …

what is a fractional cmo

What is a Fractional CMO?

Diane MouraBlog

In today’s fast-paced business world, companies face numerous challenges when it comes to marketing their products or services effectively. The need for expert guidance and strategic direction is crucial to achieve growth and success. However, not every company has the resources or the requirement to hire a full-time chief marketing officer (CMO). That’s where the concept of a fractional CMO …

open for business after covid

Life After COVID For Small Business?

dianeliseBlog

Florida is slowly starting to re-open and we’re hearing that some non-essential businesses will be allowed to open as early as next week, but life as we know it will be far from normal.  Reopening is somewhat disturbing since our infection curve is only starting to trend down slightly and according to the Yale School of Medicine, we are likely …

Leading through a crisis woman with like a boss mug

Leading Through A Crisis

dianeliseBlog

Our country hasn’t seen a crisis that has generated this much fear and uncertainty since World War II.  People are concerned about having adequate supplies, they’re concerned about their jobs, and they’re worried about healthcare. As a business leader, you’re probably at least a little worried about your company.  You may have a team who can easily transition to working …

2020 Vision and Your Strategy

dianeliseBlog

Happy New Year everyone!  I couldn’t possibly start off our educational moments this year without using what is probably the most overused phrase this month and that is, “2020 Vision”, or in everyone’s favorite words of Barbara Walters, “this, is 2020”.   But what does entering a new century mean for your business? To put things into perspective, let’s take a …

making it right man with gourmet plate

Making It Right

dianeliseBlog

I started my first business when I was 13. I sold personalized stationery and wrapping paper from a catalog door-to-door.  Yes kids, that’s what we did before the internet.  I still remember my first customer.  She was a really nice lady who bought a pack of pencils from me with her name stamped on them.  Honestly I have no idea …

Over the weekend I attended a funeral for a friend’s mom. I had never met the woman who died, and honestly my friend and I aren’t super close, but I lost my own mom when I was around her age and I still remember who attended her funeral and how much it meant to me, so I just wanted to show my support. I knew it would be important to her. The service was in Spanish and the Priest was an older gentleman who mumbled, so to be honest I didn’t understand much of it, but it was a Catholic Mass, and they have a certain flow to them so even though I didn’t understand the Priest, I could follow along and recite the responses in English. He totally lost me during the sermon though, and so as I looked around at the grieving family members and friends, I reflected on the comfort of ritual in our lives. Not only the ritual of a predictable religious service, but how rituals provide us with a sense of belonging and comfort. While each religion treats death differently, they all embrace a ritual to send their loved ones off into the afterlife, whatever they believe that to be. While you may argue whether or not the ritual does anything for the deceased, it does provide a sense of predictability and closure to those left behind. Looking down the aisle at a casket that held the body of a woman not much older than I, it was tough not to contemplate my own mortality. Once we approach, or pass, the halfway point in our lives, some of us may decide to buy a red convertible and have an affair, but I prefer to use this time to reflect on whether I have done enough. Now for the record, I am totally freaked out by graveyards so truly hope that when my time comes you’ll take out a kickass yacht, throw my ashes over Biscayne Bay and toast me with the best damn Margaritas pesos can buy. But I do hope that when that day comes, I will feel like I have left my mark on the world, and that I have done enough. For me, doing enough is a combination of what I have done for my family and friends, but also the company I’m building. No pressure, but I have several families whose livelihood depends on the decisions I make and I’d like to think that can continue after I’m gone. The most successful companies embrace a combination of purpose and ritual. They set a compelling vision but use ritual, or process, to make it easier for people to get there. In one of my favorite books, “Built To Last”, Jim Collins studied companies like Disney and other corporations close to or beyond their centennial, to see what factors contributed to their longevity. He discovered three things; They have a clear vision and sense of where they need to go, even though they know that individual products and services will all become obsolete at some point, and They use profit like oxygen to fuel their purpose, but not as their purpose, and They are obsessed with succession planning and the processes that will allow the company to carry forward after they’re gone. Those processes are the rituals that reassure our teams and give them the foundation to make their own decisions and take risks. I spent 26 years buried in the processes of Corporate America, and while I hated how rigid they were, I recognize now that being too far in the other direction and lacking process makes people uncomfortable. We humans are creatures of habit and we love ritual. So that’s basically it. Know where you want to go. Make sure you have enough fuel to get there, and hire a backup driver. As I reflected on my business this week, I realized that as obsessed as I am with documenting what we do, it’s not nearly enough. The more we can build that solid foundation, the more we can focus on growth, because delivery can take care of itself. I watched a Masterclass this week with Bob Iger, Disney CEO, one of the Good To Great companies. His typical day begins at 4:15 at the gym, and then he’s at the office by 6, so he can focus and get work done before everyone arrives. He’s in meetings or travelling each day, then leaves for home at 4, spends time with his family, spends a couple of more hours working in the evening, then goes to bed. He’s running a company that makes close to $70 billion in annual revenue. I wonder what a little more ritual could do for the longevity of all of our companies?

Will Your Business Outlive You?

dianeliseBlog

Over the weekend I attended a funeral for a friend’s mom.  I had never met the woman who died, and honestly my friend and I aren’t super close, but I lost my own mom when I was around her age and I still remember who attended her funeral and how much it meant to me, so I just wanted to …

“Pulling The Trigger”. It’s an expression we use to describe taking an action. But what if we pull the trigger too early? Recently I watched a non-profit pull the trigger on assembling a group of volunteers prior to establishing a clear direction and mandate. As their leader struggled with the direction, the once eager volunteers fell away. I witnessed a tech startup pull the trigger on investing in a rollout team before it had a viable product. They burned away their cash as they struggled to make the technology work. I recently interviewed someone on my podcast who referred to entrepreneurial decision making as being “ready - fire - aim” rather than “ready - aim - fire” and I think that’s true. Entrepreneurs by nature are creative problem solvers who like to move quickly. They see a market opportunity and they know how to mobilize people to get there. Something opens up and they dive right in. And yet, statistics tell us that 50% of the time, that new business will fail. I wonder what the entrepreneurial success rate would be if we all took time to plan? People ask me when is a good time to leave their day job for their side hustle. My answer is simple. 1. When you have a solid plan and projection on how your side hustle will make enough money to support you. 2. When your side hustle is keeping you so busy that it’s making it tough to sustain your day job AND (and this is the important part), if you calculate your hourly rate it’s a number you’d be proud to tell your mom. 3. When you have enough cash to sustain you for 2 years in the event your side hustle isn’t profitable for that long. Now assuming you’ve made it that far and you’re sitting in this room because you understand the value of people-to-people connections to grow your business, how can you improve your chances of being on the good side of that 50% statistic? Plan. Whether you’ve been in business for a month, a year or a decade, taking the time to plan or re-plan your business, rather than managing on guesswork and hope, can make a significant difference as to whether you’ll still be sitting here a year from now. Whether or not you create a formal business plan, research published in the International Small Business Journal showed that just going through the planning process, made a business more likely to succeed. The study showed that having a planning mentality also helped with their success mindset, which made them better leaders. Better leadership, as you might expect, breeds success. They found the same positive impact on serial entrepreneurs as on first time entrepreneurs. Now I see a lot of you are nodding your heads wisely and agreeing that this planning thing makes logical sense. But guess how many of you are actually going to leave this room and do it? Probably zero. So what’s the problem? The problem is that we’re entrepreneurs. We’re the ready - fire - aim people. Planning isn’t fun. It’s much more fun to leave here and go fix something or build something. But what if planning your business could be fun? Here are some ideas: Don’t think of it as planning, think of it as mind mapping. In fact for our clients we have started using visual, interconnected bubbles of ideas to describe their brand and their marketing priorities. We have been using a tool called Mindmeister. It’s helping us to better connect with their strategy because rather than simple writing a bunch of boring notes, we’re visually laying out ideas. And as a side benefit, I have noticed that the visual learners on my creative team are internalizing key brand concepts that we always had written down, but now we’re presenting it in a more interesting way. Even if you’re just doing it on a whiteboard, mind mapping is a great way to get everyone engaged in brainstorming. Start your planning session with physical exercise. Whether this includes going for a walk with your team, playing a game of dodgeball in the parking lot or getting your favorite personal trainer to come and get everyone to plank in the conference room, when you get your blood moving, you’ll think more clearly and your planning session will be more enjoyable. Use pictures. Even if you’re not into doing a full vision board, and I realize that a lot of people feel that’s a bit over the top, have your team find pictures online that describe various aspects of your business, including pictures that describe their ideal culture, customers and your services. This can sometimes be an amusing exercise depending upon what they come up with, so it’s a great brainstorming opener. Plan with Post-its. For some reason, writing ideas on post it notes and sticking them on the wall in phases of your plan is much more fun than writing them on a whiteboard or typing them into a document. Perhaps we love the arts & crafts feel to all of the multi-colored pieces of paper. So grab a big roll of brown paper and stick a piece on the wall, and mark down the quarters of the next year. Brainstorm the different changes and projects you’d like to work on and write them down on post it notes, then stick them on the wall in the quarter you’d like them to happen. Take a picture and boom - instant plan! And for the more social media inclined, try picturing your plan as a series of posts, for example: What we sell and what makes us different How do we solve the needs of our target clients Categories of competitors and how we’re better Where we sell and what marketing activities we do Who are our key team members and what roles do they play Who are our key partners and what roles do they play What is our growth goal What steps are we going to take over the next 12 months to meet our growth goal If it’s more fun, do those on post it notes too. So yes, we may be entrepreneurs and are the masters of firefighting, but while we’re still at the beginning of the year, take an afternoon with your team to plan. It will help keep you on the positive side of that 50% business success rate statistic.

Pulling The Trigger

dianeliseBlog

“Pulling The Trigger”.  It’s an expression we use to describe taking an action.  But what if we pull the trigger too early?   Recently I watched a non-profit pull the trigger on assembling a group of volunteers prior to establishing a clear direction and mandate.  As their leader struggled with the direction, the once eager volunteers fell away. I witnessed a …

entrepreneurs have no off button finger turning computer off

Entrepreneurs Have No “Off Button”

Diane MouraBlog

I was interviewing a founder for my podcast last week and we were talking about how difficult it is for entrepreneurs to stop thinking about their business.  An entrepreneur simply doesn’t have an off button.  It took a long time for my family to give up being frustrated with me for being glued to my computer most of the time, …