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Eric Reamer & Angel Tuccy
560AM The Source
Business Radio just got a whole lot more interesting!
The Experience Pros Radio Show!
Weekdays 10-Noon on AM560 KLZ
“Navigating the Growth Curve” with Author, James Fischer
10:20AM every Monday!
June 13
How the Business Paradigm Has Changed Right Under Your Nose
Could it be that the paradigm we hold in our heads about how we describe our business is outdated? Modern times call for agility and adaptability to deal with constant change while building successful growing companies. How well a company navigates the Growth Curve determines whether a company succeeds or fails. There is a delicate balance between the chaos and stabilization associated with the 7 Stages of Growth. Experienced entrepreneurial leaders shift and adjust to the rules and changes in focus that are associated with the growth stages.
June 20
How to Use Nature’s “Stir It Up” Process to Generate Sustainable Growth
We typically look at revenue as an indicator of growth. But if you are in the trenches- growing and building a company- you need a deeper understanding of how your company operates and behaves to grow successfully. It’s a lot more than just looking at revenue. Like Nature, your company is a living, organic entity that has cycles and stages of growth. As a company grows and changes, it goes through chaotic points, or transition zones. These transitions are fundamental for your company to prepare for its next Stage of Growth so it can alter and transform itself. Learn how to gracefully navigate the delicate balance between chaos and stabilization.
June 27
Change is Coming: How You Can Diagnose, Predict and Adjust Proactively to Make Peace with your Chaos
Business owners are so caught up in “the doing” that they rarely take the opportunity to reflect on what’s really happening in their business. There needs to be more thinking at a deeper level in order to diagnose and predict your company’s real challenges. The more you train yourself to see patterns, the more you will be able to see what’s coming down the road and start thinking proactively. Find out the top five challenges in your Stage of Growth and how they help to diagnose and predict where to put your attention first.
July 5
The Non-Negotiable Rules of Growth That Must Be Accomplished for Your Company to Succeed
People who run businesses typically have an instinctual response to what they think their company needs. Maybe they were taught this somewhere or maybe they’re just going off the seat of their pants. Actually, they really need to know about the specific rules that create order in any Stage of Growth. Why rules? Do you have kids? If you didn’t have rules you’d have total chaos. That seems like common sense and even if you know the rules, putting them in place is no small endeavor. Most of us don’t have that natural sense about rules in business; that’s why business report cards are not all that good. The rules change by Stage of Growth, because of the complexity of people/employees.
July 11
Leadership Profile and a 4 Step Stage of Growth Diagnostic Tool
Our work with small businesses deals with the complexity that comes with growth. As you add people, the behavior and the rules of navigating the Growth Curve actually change. In this segment, James Fischer gives a quick review of the Builder Protector Ratio, 5 Rules, Three Gates of Growth and Complexity as it is measured by the number of employees in a company. You’ll be introduced to the 6 styles of leadership profiles as the final step of our 4 Step Stage of Growth Diagnostic Tool.
This is Eric’s quote re: James’ book:
Regarding James’ book Navigating the Growth Curve: “I learned more reading your book than I have in so many years…There is a message that business really needs to absorb.” Eric Reamer, Experience Pros Radio Show
Navigating the Growth Curve
Navigating the Growth Curve by James Fischer
Listen to the Experience Pros Radio show segment with James Fischer!
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July 18
Taking the Journey to Greatness
Small and mid size business owners carry an enormous amount of responsibility. Business owners are called upon to change on an ongoing basis. Being confident with change is not natural for most of us. But nothing changes until something changes.
Greatness doesn’t happen to us, we create it intentionally by having the tools and information at our fingertips to make informed decisions. To create a business that’s great, you may need to change the way you THINK about your business to get the results you want. When we’re able to look at our business and read the signs accurately, we are then able to make informed, sound decisions that take us on our journey to greatness.
July 25
Taking the Journey to Greatness
In this show, we introduce the Three Main Categories of a Sustainable Growth Business: Profit Driven, People Centric and Growth Smart. This creates a larger context in which we will organize the content of the show over the next 12 months. Today’s show is focused on building Sustainable Revenue and Profit through Business Modeling.
A well thought out business model accounts for 50% of a company’s success. Learn the core components of your company’s business model that must be in place and aligned in order for your business to thrive.
August 1
5 Critical Recession-Busting Components
In a recessionary environment, we have to stay positive about our business, but even more important as owners, we need our business model to be intentional. Your business model is the collection of fundamental assumptions you make to inform your business plan. It’s the DNA of your business. Most owners and CEOs think they have this figured out, but in reality, it’s not thought out consciously or deeply enough before expending resources. We propose a well structured, intentional business model that takes into account the 5 Critical Recession-Busting Components.
August 22
Chaos Is Only Chaos When You Can’t See the Patterns
Three modalities, survival, growth and optimization, are conditions or patterned ways of functioning in small and mid- sized businesses. In all the Stages of Growth, it’s easy to slip between any of these modalities. How we adjust and adapt to the influences of these modalities impact our decisions and either increase or reduce the vulnerability of our business in changing environments. Today’s show is focused on how to recognize these patterns and their effect on our business as a whole system.
August 29
How to Fix the Problems in Your Business By Not Fixing Them
Most biz owners come to work with a fire hose in their hand—putting out fires. They’re good at solving problems. They get immersed in “the doing”, just looking at the surface of what’s going on with the most pressing problem in front of them. It’s a pattern. What business owners have to do is discipline themselves to make the time to reflect and think about the business as a whole, intelligent system. When they do this, they start seeing options and strengths, and get creative with solutions. They solve the problems of their business by not fixing them. And, with vigor!
August 15
The Shift to Customer Centric Thinking
We’re in an economic cycle that is buyer centric. If you think you are serving your customer well, now is the time to test that assumption. Business owners have to stop thinking about what they have to sell and shift to thinking what the customer needs and then getting it to them. In today’s show you will learn the five key questions to get into customer centric thinking so you can organize your efforts and resources to be as effective as possible, particularly during these challenging times.
September 12
How to Read the Messages Your Business is Sending
As leaders it is important to read the signs beneath the surface level of our business to give it our true service. If for example we narrow our analysis to only financial revenues, we are limiting our view to surface data. We must look at the deeper levels of our business to better diagnose, predict, and prepare for what’s coming. It takes a clear set of pragmatic beliefs and filters through which the owner/operator sees how the business needs to operate, as well as an eye to the future. Successful owners/operators calibrate and read the messages so they appropriately balance the 3 Gates of Growth: People, Systems/Processes, and Revenue/Profit.
September 19
Listen to Your Business Every Single Day
Every business owner needs help organizing their resources on a daily basis. This can be accomplished with daily Flash Sheets that put your finger on the pulse of the activity and people responsible for it. Flash Sheets, sometimes called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), dashboards, or daily reports, help you understand the many common denominators in your business beneath the surface. A single number doesn’t tell the story, but a combination of numbers gives us a pattern that does. Find out the two fundamental categories to address in your Flash Sheet to make better decisions, manage your resources to the highest advantage, and to raise the energy and enthusiasm of your employees.
September 26
Key Markers for Stage 2 Companies
In a Stage Two company of 11-19 people, Revenue/Profit still the top priority of the Three Gates, but now the Process Gate becomes second in priority. These processes need to be put in place for a company to manage complexity. As we look at Stage Two level of growth, we need to be fully aware that the leader finds his or her range of capability and influence being pushed to the edge. It is necessary to motivate a small staff to move mountains in this Stage. The job of a leader is to provide structure, clarity and focus. In Stage Two, growth is paramount to survival as the company needs to support a higher sales level and generate positive cash flow.
October 3
Inquiry vs. Interrogation
A most important word in a business owner’s vocabulary is the word WHY. Asking WHY stimulates genuine curiosity and a search for the truth that we do not yet know. Small business needs to seek clarity by breaking down assumptions with an inquiry of WHY those assumptions exit. Once a small business finds the certainty in an assumption and can understand the WHY of its existence, a solid decision can be made. Good solid assumptions = good decisions.
October 10
The Short Distance to Something Far Away
Planning in most small business typically doesn’t work because the everyday reality changes rapidly. This is the main reason why small business owners often don’t plan. Creating structural tension between the current reality and the long term view is what’s needed for small businesses to manifest their goals. Learn a simple, pragmatic, three step approach to flush out the most powerful objectives that ensure you’ll get to your long term goals and vision.
October 17
The Four Basics of Small Business Leadership
Abraham Lincoln was a great organizational and group discussion leader, but not good at leading individuals or action teams. In fact, he had more turnover in his cabinet than any other President in US history. What does this mean to small business leaders? We need to lead four very distinct human scenarios: individuals, action teams, discussion groups and the entire organization. Each scenario requires different conditions and modalities to communicate effectively for appropriate outcomes. Leaders have to step up their instinct and executive ability to take charge under variable conditions.
October 24
Case Study: A Five Step Plan to Strengthen ABC High Country Gear Before the Owner Expands in the Next 3 Months
In this show, you are taken through a case study of a retail manufacturing company in a mountain resort town. On the surface it looks like the company is doing well. Upon diagnosing the company’s current situation of five primary influencers of leadership effectiveness and enterprise performance, we find that this company is not ready to grow into the next stage until those 5 influencers are appropriately balanced for its current Stage of Growth. They are 1) complexity based on the number of employees 2) the ratio of confidence to caution in the company 3) the owner’s leadership style 4)the three gates of focus and 5) the percentage of rules completed for that stage of Growth. This information illuminates where the owner needs to adapt to meet the needs and challenges of his current Stage of Growth before he can move into the next.