Lean Six Sigma vs EOS vs OKR’s: What tool is right for my business?

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Congratulations!  You started a business, it’s growing and you’re busy.  Now what?  Do you still own a business or do you own a job?  Most owners in the skilled trade industry start out as technicians but quickly have to learn how to run and manage a business.  There are a lot of different skills used to run a business like ...

Hiring Process

Chris Smith smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Who is your best hire? Have you ever made a bad hire? Have you repeated that mistake? More than once? Making hiring mistakes are costly to both your business and employees. It’s a time suck, money suck, the onboarding is painful, unemployment payout, the morale of your team, shaken confidence in leadership, retention of your existing staff, and all of ...

Why Process Creation & Documentation Is Vital For Your Business

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Does your business have written documentation of its processes or are they all stuck in someones head?  Processes are critical in order for a business to function on a daily basis.  When most businesses are started, the processes are built organically by what the owner wants instead of what the business needs. What is a business process? “A business process ...

Crucial KPI’s

Chris Smith smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Wishful Thinking In my previous role as the CEO of an integration firm I tried my best to keep an eye on the fundamentals of the business. I tried to use “the numbers” to paint a picture and help guide decision making. I took to sharing our results with fellow integrators as a way of understanding our business within the ...
Mature Industry Graph

Why you need to start working “ON” your business now

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

The CEDIA Channel has been going through a lot of changes over the last decade.  In 2008-2009, we saw the Great Recession impact many custom integrators.  Housing starts slowed substantially and projects were cancelled.  Many custom integrators had to scale back their operations, close down showrooms and lay off staff due to shrinking pipelines.  It forced many of them to ...

From Chaos to Process in 7 critical steps

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Most small businesses operate in chaos each day! Why? They lack a way of consistently operating their business in a repeatable way.    They typically lack Process SO, how does one change their fortunes? Turn the ship, Invoke manifest destiny?Preparation and research will assist you greatly in Creating Process in your Company. Step 1 View your business as "The Product." ...

The Process of Business

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Develop Your Team’s Path To Success. Why are some companies wildly successful when others flail and can never seem to move ahead and grow?    Process Yes, it really is that simple. A series of steps designed to bring an action to a successful conclusion. Do you have processes in your business? In fact you do. Have you thought about …

Control Your Destiny

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Control Your Destiny How did you get here? Did you plan to be a custom AV integrator? When the other kids in school were talking about sports, music, girls, etc. were secretly wishing you could be in an attic pulling wires in Florida in August? Probably not! Of course for most of us in the industry that answer is  a …

Growth

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

GROWTH What one word will define your 2019? As I was listening to my flash briefing this morning, delivered via Alexa, and provided by LinkedIN. An interesting idea was mentioned in one of the stories, at least interesting to me. The article posed the idea that rather than writing out your list of activities and things you are going to …