How To FOCUS and Create High Quality Work Even If You’re Easily Distracted
Even in normal times, it can be challenging to strap yourself down to your desk and bang out mission-critical projects: the demanding and creatively challenging work that will move your professional ball forward. And at the time of this writing, we’re deep in the...
What’s Working NOW In Marketing
If you’re looking to build a thriving business, the marketing piece is actually pretty simple. First, there need to be some systems that alert people to your existence. Then there needs to be some systems that help your prospects come to like and trust you over time....
240 Words on Building a Business
Building a business is not for everyone. It takes guts, vision, and persistence. If you want to build a business... You’ve got to have a vision for the value you can bring to the world and be willing to fight like hell to make it happen. You...
4 Ways to Upgrade Your Team’s Customer Service
No matter what business you’re in, great customer service will always be an asset. But if you’re in any service-related industry, it’s a non-negotiable foundation. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs focus most of their attention on the service itself, without thinking...
The Perfect Done-For-You One-on-One Meeting Agenda for Managers
What do you think is the most important skill for a manager to have? When I ask people this, they often say it's hiring the right people, being a good problem solver, or building systems that scale. I agree that they are all super important skills, but I think...
40 Years, 40 Lessons (Maxims Only)
NOTE: This particular post is the MAXIMS ONLY version. It offers my thoughts in rapid fire style, but admittedly, without much (potentially helpful) context. The FULL TEXT (~8000 words) version is for those who want to understand my perspective more completely via...
40 Years, 40 Lessons (Full Text)
NOTE: This particular post is the FULL TEXT (~8000 words) for those who want to understand my perspective completely. It provides more context on the rapid fire thoughts from the original post. For the MAXIMS ONLY post, go HERE. *********** Hi there true believers!...
What Can You Learn From 2019?
We’d all like to believe that we’re the kind of person who learns from our past to improve our future. That is exactly what my article will help you do today. As 2019 comes to a close, give yourself the gift of self-reflection to consider all the highs and lows...
Avoid Burnout: How to Take Care of Others While Caring for Yourself
The fastest way to burnout as a helping professional is to take on the thoughts and feelings of your clients as your own. It doesn’t have to be that way. It is truly possible to be available to help others while still leaving some gas in the tank for ourselves at the end of each day.
Inside Mark’s Head: Musings on Time Management, Critical Thinking, Effective Learning, and More
Behold! More musings on topics like time management, critical thinking, effective learning and more. And as always, you’ll find actionable takeaways to get better results in your life and business. Enjoy. ********Learning: 5 Tips To Improve Your Skill and Wisdom...
The New Must-Have Skillset for Business Leaders
(Disclaimer: Hey Fitness People! To avoid any confusion, when I use the word coach in this context I’m talking about the umbrella term for any professional who guides and instructs and not specifically a personal trainer or fitness coach. Cool? Disclaimer over.)...
5 Random Musings On Self-Discipline, Leadership, Burning Man, and More
Behold! In today's post I bring some quick thoughts on topics ranging from self-discipline to leadership to Burning Man and more. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy...Self-Discipline: Use A Habit-Tracking System To Help You Adopt Good Habits The past few years,...
The Big Three Questions of Marketing
In this video, I break down the three questions you MUST answer to effectively market your business. Give it a watch and let me know what you think in the comments below. (And for those that prefer to read or simply want to get the gist without watching the full...
3 Tips for Taking Feedback Like a Pro
We often focus on improving our ability as managers and leaders to give feedback, but we should also spend time becoming better at receiving feedback. Receiving feedback can be difficult for two main reasons: it is unexpected or it is emotionally triggering. In this...
6 Reasons Your Marketing Isn’t Working (And How To Fix It)
If there’s one goal all businesses have in common, it’s to get more clients and customers. And yet many business owners are reluctant to get serious about marketing. After all, most people don’t open up a business because they want to become marketers. For obvious...
![Why Should People Listen to You? [5 Strategies for Establishing Your Credibility and Authority]](https://www.businessforunicorns.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Credibility-Graphic-400x250.jpeg)
Why Should People Listen to You? [5 Strategies for Establishing Your Credibility and Authority]
In nearly every type of business, it is essential to position yourself as an authority. You are an expert on solving a specific problem for your customers and you are asking them to trust you with their time, attention and money. The first question any responsible...
5 Quick(ish) Thoughts On Luck, Survival, and Success
Behold! Some useful and provocative business musings to make your life and business better. ************************ Beware Of Advice From Successful, Lucky Idiots A strong operator can handle a crappy market. An amazing market can prop up a sloppy operator. The right...
Getting More Leads By Multiplying Your Clients: 4 Questions For Effective Referral Programs
We all know word of mouth from satisfied customers is the cheapest, easiest, and best way to grow your business. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a relatively new business owner to brag about “not doing any marketing.” And to be sure, organic growth from word of mouth...
That Moment When You Question Everything: Is This My Midlife Crisis?
[Disclaimer: This is not a typical post for a business blog (maybe it should be?). So if you’re not ready for some raw, unfiltered emotion, this may not be the post for you.] Right now, as I’m typing this, I am having a moment when I am questioning everything....
Consistently Excellent: 5 Keys to Train Your Team on Systems Mastery
Any leader knows the only way to succeed in business is through creating systems. Good systems provide clearly documented procedures for how business is conducted. This leads to consistency for the experience of clients and customers, and a team of people who have a...
What’s Cash Flow And Why Should You Give A Sh*t?
You have heard the expression cash is king, right? Well, in business that couldn't be more true. Let's start with the basics. What is cash flow? Cash flow is the total amount of money being transferred into and out of your business on a regular basis....
The Ultimate Booklist for Entrepreneurs: 48 Books to Supercharge Your Business
For anyone who knows me in real life or follows me on the interwebz, it’s no secret I have a problem. You see… I’m a junkie. Every day I wake up and live a life of servitude to my addiction. It’s all consuming. It’s obsessive. And at times, it’s truly a burden for...
A Brief (Motivating?) Rant About Why You Should Do Less, But Better
Allow me a brief moment to rant. I’m not promising that it will be productive, but it will be passionate. There is a subset of business coaches and thought leaders peddling dangerous ideas like you can have it all if you’re willing to hustle, and if you’re not...
How To Use Public Speaking to Establish Authority and Grow Your Business (Even If You Hate Speaking In Public): Part 2
In the first part of our deep dive into public speaking, we covered how to create a structure that sets you up for success. By crafting a strong opening and ending, logically ordering your content, and designing a strong slide deck, you’re...
How To Use Public Speaking to Establish Authority and Grow Your Business (Even If You Hate Speaking In Public): Part 1
According to conventional wisdom, most people fear public speaking more than death. While this sounds extreme at first, upon reflection, it does follow a certain logic. After all, we’ve been designed by natural selection to feel a healthy...
MFF’s Best Blog Post of 2018 (And What You Can Learn From It)
One of the most common issues I heard from business leaders in 2018 was how difficult it can be to create online content that gets traction. With so much noise on our social platforms these days and the rising cost of online advertising, it can harder than ever for...
Know Your Numbers: A Non-Intimidating Overview of Key Performance Indicators
There comes a point in every business’s life where it’s time to grow up. In the beginning, many businesses are run with a heavy focus on getting leads and customers. The bank account is closely watched, but only so we can be certain to not run out of cash. Over...
10 Quick Tips for Building Community
In the past year, I’ve worked with over one hundred business leaders. And in all of those interactions, there was one topic that arose the most frequently. Every business owner wants to know how to build community. It’s not enough these days to just have a solid...
How to Create a Daily Gratitude Practice and 5 Reasons You Should Have One as a Leader
First things, first. What the heck is a daily gratitude practice? There are many definitions of gratitude depending on the research you look at, but I like to think of gratitude as the acknowledgment of positive outcomes in your life and the reasons for those positive...
16 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service, Part 2: Grow Your Revenue and Increase Retention By “Giving A Sh*t”
And without further ado, let’s take a deep dive into the second half of our two part series and learn more ways to up-level your customer service. In part two, we’ll cover: The perils of standardizing “wow” moments How to stand out by actually being a real live...
16 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service, Part 1: Grow Your Revenue and Increase Retention By “Giving A Sh*t”
Call me old-fashioned, but I find great customer service inspiring. Based on your industry, customer service can take many forms. It can be an expertly prepared and served meal. It can be a thoughtfully curated travel experience. It can simply be a warm and personal...
The Missing Link for Leaders: 3 Ways to Improve Your Business by Improving Yourself
Most leaders think of their work in two categories, working in your business and working on your business. When you are working in your business you are engrossed in the day-to-day operations and are often focused on being a manager. Managers create structure and...
Want to Manage Your Time Better? Start Here.
You know what’s crazy? Time. It’s your only completely non-renewable resource. You can get more energy by resting. And you can always earn more money. But once time is gone… that’s it. If you’re serious about using your time well, it’s important to start by...
Done-For-You Presentation: 10 Tips to Improve Your Team’s Email Etiquette
No one ever teaches us how to use email. One day we're handed an email address and it's assumed we'll just figure it out. [Spoiler alert: We're not very good at just figuring it out.] So, it makes perfect sense that for many of us emails are a source of...
Become a Learning Machine: How to Leverage Books to Supercharge Personal and Professional Development
Estimated Reading Time: 10 Minutes I’ve been reading (or listening to) an average of two to three books a week since August of 2010. At the time of this writing, I can safely estimate I’ve read more than a thousand books over the last eight years. I...
5 Phrases That Will Make You A Better Leader
As a leader, you have an outsized impact on those around you. That impact can be a positive one in which you help others be more productive, empowered and inspired. Or your impact can be a negative one leaving those you lead feeling confused, frustrated or...
Don’t Go It Alone: How to Fight Entrepreneurial Loneliness and Find Community
When I was in middle school, I started obsessively studying musical theater. I would go to the library and check out various cast albums, then make cassette tape recordings. Since I planned to go into the field, I was determined to study the genre and...
Our Free System for Managing Customer Experience
At Mark Fisher Fitness (MFF) feedback is our greatest currency. When we foster an open dialogue between our team and our Ninjas (aka clients) our culture and community thrive as a result. With the currency of feedback, you can buy what we all seek in our...
From New Hire To Superstar: The Principles of Effective Onboarding
Teamwork! Makes the dream work! Unless you screw up onboarding. In which case… Teamwork! Makes your business unravel, enrages your clients, and sends you to bankruptcy court! Ok, that may be a bit extreme. But it’s fair to say that if you don’t have a...
The Power of Emotion on Purchasing Behavior
Guest Post by Chris Burgess, Business for Unicorns Adjunct Faculty and Founder of Lift the Bar “People buy using emotion” is one the of the most common phrases in marketing and sales across the three different industries I have been lucky to have been a part...
All Models Are Wrong, Some Are Useful
All models are wrong but some are useful. I’ve used this phrase a million times when talking about business models because it sounds super smart. But I wasn’t sure where it came from. So so I did a little digging. Turns out, this axiom was made popular by...
51/49 or 49/51?: A Provocative Question Regarding Business Growth, Self-Knowledge, and Making Good Art
Dearest reader, today I take a brief pause from tactical musings to offer you a thought experiment that may make you uncomfortable. If there’s one thing that consistently destroys beautiful businesses, it’s looking to scale at all costs. Growing a business can be a...
How to Completely Change Your Relationship to Feedback
I am an education junkie. Show me a workshop, book or conference that could help me expand my thinking or help me make a better impact on the world and I am all in. Recently I went to the best conference I’ve attended to date -- the 2018 WorkHuman Conference, created...
Creating Effective In-Services: A Done-For-You System To Train Your Team
As covered previously on this blog, meetings are often a boring waste of time that take us away from our actual job.But it doesn’t have to be that way. Meetings can be a place for brainstorming to find solutions. They can be a place for vigorous debate to...
Stop Doubting Yourself: 10 Ways to Overcome Analysis Paralysis
We all do it. Faced with a tough decision, we pause to think about it. Then we keep thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it. We analyze to the point where we’re incapable of making a decision and taking action. Some of us rarely find ourselves...
How to Onboard New Clients for Long Term Relationships
The beginning of any relationship is always a delicate thing. You’re setting the tone for how things are going to go. Your actions and behaviors are telling the story of how you’ll be showing up for the other party. And understandably, the other party makes a lot of...
How to Build Instant Rapport and Trust by Being a Better Listener
Most of us are crappy listeners. We think we’re paying attention, but we’re not. All too often we’re just waiting for our chance to talk. Or we’re judging what the other person is saying so that we can quickly agree or disagree. Or we are lost in our own mental...
Why Motivating Your Team Isn’t Working: 3 Ways to Use Incentives and Accountability without Crushing Souls
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery Incentives are a tricky thing. To some extent, all...
3 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your First Team Member
One of the most important decisions you will make when you are starting or growing your business is who to hire as your first team member. While hiring the right people for your team is always important, making your first hire as a new business is uniquely critical....
A Quick and Dirty System for Goal Setting: A Done-For-You 60 Minute Workshop To Live An Intentional Life
Periodic goal-setting is one of the most important things you can do if you want to be sure you’re on the right path with your professional (and personal!) goals. A good goal-setting process provides clarity on: Where you're at now Where you want to go What needs to...