What to Look for in a Business Mentor and the Mentoring Relationship

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What to Look for in a Business Mentor and the Mentoring Relationship

Mentorship is a deeper, long-term relationship between two people. Even if it doesn’t start out that way, it becomes so from time spent together and mutual care for each other.

The relationship with a mentor is a meaningful one. We reached out to our clients to get deeper insight into how having a mentor can impact people’s lives. A couple of stories stuck with us and showed the power of effective mentoring relationships.

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Your Growth Strategy Stopped Working. Now What?

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Your Growth Strategy Stopped Working. Now What?

Any successful business that’s been around for more than a few years has found themselves on that plateau, trying to figure out why their growth stalled or why they feel stuck. The plateau itself isn’t a problem. In fact, it may create an opportunity to look at your business, your product, or your market through new eyes.

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Two Wrong Leaders Don’t Make a Right One (Lesson #5 of 8 Lessons Growing 8 Companies)

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Two Wrong Leaders Don’t Make a Right One (Lesson #5 of 8 Lessons Growing 8 Companies)

The experience left a big impression on me. Leadership isn’t theoretical. There are real, perhaps even dire, consequences to poor leadership. Fudging it doesn’t work, and pretending that two wrongs add up to a right could end with you thanking your lucky stars that you don’t have to explain to your board how you blew up a BMW test engine.

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Is It Time to Hire a Leadership Coach?

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Is It Time to Hire a Leadership Coach?

If it were up to me, everyone in a leadership position, or starting or building a business, would have a coach — not because I want to (or could) coach them all, but because leaders who have coaches are better leaders. At the same time, I recognize that every business leader is balancing dozens of competing priorities, now more than ever. Is it time for you to hire a leadership coach? A better question might be Are you fine staying right where you are?

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How to Build an Effective Leadership Team

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How to Build an Effective Leadership Team

Poor leadership costs companies revenue, time, staff, and customers. And the leaders at the very top aren’t the only ones that have an impact. Every supervisory role has the capacity to exceed goals and inspire stellar performances or to miss the mark and impede productivity. Building a leadership team that can help you achieve your goals requires careful and purposeful planning. I’ve had the opportunity to learn from my own successes and failures as a CEO as well as from my clients’ experiences.

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Identify Your Leadership Style and Maximize Effectiveness

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Identify Your Leadership Style and Maximize Effectiveness

Becoming a better leader isn’t something that happens in a day, or even in a week. Building that set of skills requires intentional thought and effort. Understanding your innate leadership style can help you determine where to start. Once you’ve made an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, you can begin to make change by playing to your strengths and minimizing or mitigating your weaknesses.

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7 Characteristics of Effective Leaders

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7 Characteristics of Effective Leaders

Having a great business idea or getting promoted to a leadership role doesn’t automatically make you a good leader. In fact, there are lots of mediocre (or downright bad) leaders out there. I learned a lot about leadership throughout my own journey to CEO. I’ve learned even more over the last ten years as I’ve coached, mentored, and advised hundreds of growth-stage leaders. The most effective leaders are intentional about their leadership, working to develop the skills and characteristics that will make them better able to reach their own goals and to help their teams identify and reach theirs.

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Leading a Remote Company

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Leading a Remote Company

How have the companies that have always operated completely remote done it? If they can do it every day, why can’t the rest of us? What kind of lessons could they teach us? I reached out to the leaders of two Trajectify clients who founded and run completely remote companies: Max Rice - CEO and Founder of Skyverge & Caleb Frankel - CEO and Founder of Instinct Science

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How to Lead During Times of Uncertainty—Business Responses to COVID-19

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How to Lead During Times of Uncertainty—Business Responses to COVID-19

If you’re still reeling from the news of the last few weeks—or days—you’re not alone. Businesses all over the world are scrambling to protect employees, figure out remote work schedules, reforecast revenues, or simply keep the doors open. No organization will manage all of this perfectly, but some will find ways to strengthen the relationships with their customers and their employees, to expand their understanding of their business, and solidify their own commitment to their values.

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6 Questions to Ask Before You Choose a Business Coach

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6 Questions to Ask Before You Choose a Business Coach

If you run a business, lead a team, or head up an organization, there’s a good chance you’ve considered hiring a coach—or at least looking to someone else for guidance. A coach is focused on unlocking your potential. They work with you to improve your performance. As with anyone that you bring into your confidence and your business, you want to make the right choice. We’ve been on both sides of the equation—as coaches and as clients.

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Four Top Challenges of Leadership and Business Growth

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Four Top Challenges of Leadership and Business Growth

As a business grows, its leaders face new challenges, often in strategy, organizational development, and values and culture. They may be faced with complicated decisions regarding capital, partnerships or corporate structure. In November, we hosted our Fall Leadership Retreat where Trajectify coaches were joined by CEOs and business owners from a variety of industries. In focused, mastermind-style discussions, each leader took turns sharing business challenges they are facing. The group got a chance to provide feedback and offer outside-in perspectives to their peers.

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Leadership Lessons from My Mother's Death

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Leadership Lessons from My Mother's Death

My mother died earlier this month. It wasn't something we were expecting. She had been successfully fighting breast cancer. Complications from treatment led to a series of cascading medical issues over several weeks until her heart was no longer able to take it.  I woke up early the day after her death and my mind was racing, so I grabbed a pen and paper to slow down my thoughts. Some of what I wrote ended up being about observations and feelings that I could connect to leadership.

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Three Pillars of Effective Leadership: Insights From Experienced CEOs

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Three Pillars of Effective Leadership: Insights From Experienced CEOs

Being a leader means always having your fingers on the pulse of your business. It means juggling responsibilities, putting out fires, and claiming responsibility. You are responsible for the vision, agenda, and strategy of your entire team. While sitting in the driver's seat can be exhilarating, it can also be exhausting and lonely. But what if it doesn’t have to be? Learn some of the basic pillars of leadership: strategic planning, building a healthy you and a healthy team, and getting outside-in perspectives.

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What If You’re the Problem with Your Team?

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What If You’re the Problem with Your Team?

“Sometimes I’m trying to finish the project you gave me earlier in the week, and I’m nearly done. But you tell me to drop it, that it’s not as important as some new thing you want the team to start on. I like your ideas – and you have a lot of them – but I wish you would let us finish what we start before you tell us to do the new thing. It gets kind of frustrating because I feel like you don’t appreciate that we’re trying to do the things you want, but it’s always changing.” Have you been there before with a team like this? No matter what you might put in your strategic business plan, you will not succeed unless people can learn to work together effectively.

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All the Videos from Trajectify’s Business Growth Conference

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All the Videos from Trajectify’s Business Growth Conference

2018 brought Trajectify’s inaugural live business growth conference which brought together dozens of leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals. We held Trajectify Live on September 13, 2018 at the Science History Institute in Old City, Philadelphia, featuring four Trajectify coaches plus a line-up of guest speakers and presenters while filled the day with insights, lessons and experiences

If you missed the opportunity to join us in September, we’ve got you covered. Here are videos we took of ten presentations from the conference. If you’re interested to attend the next Trajectify Live, please sign up here to be notified about the next Trajectify Live.

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Leadership and Lure of Email

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Leadership and Lure of Email

How often do you spend in your email each day, sifting through your inbox, reading, reviewing and responding, attempting to reach that glorified empty inbox by the end of the day?

The fact is - the majority of CEO and leadership work does not happen on email - it happens face-to-face. According to a Harvard Business Review study, only about 15% of a CEO’s time is spent on email. How do you compare?

At the 2018 Trajectify Leadership Retreat, we heard that dealing with the time-consuming and dreaded sea of emails was a common complaint regarding the stresses of a leader.

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10 Tips from Leaders to Increase Effectiveness

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10 Tips from Leaders to Increase Effectiveness

Owning or leading a business comes with a lot of responsibilities and stress that even the most prepared can struggle to handle. Leaders set the vision, agenda and strategy, often while juggling accountabilities for major initiatives and decisions that affect performance for both finances and people. They have to serve many constituencies. No one takes on the role of CEO with the idea of it being low-stress. Learning to maintain structure and balance could help alleviate pressure and lead to great effectiveness.

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Six Practices of Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs

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Six Practices of Bootstrapping Entrepreneurs

Starting or building a business is exciting, though comes with challenges and roadblocks that can even scare veteran entrepreneurs. You're not alone. It is rare that the difficult challenges that an entrepreneur may face have not been previously encountered by others. That’s where the Bootstrappers Breakfasts step in - to facilitate entrepreneurs working together to exchange learning and information that grow the skills and confidence it takes to build a successful business.

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