carmensample

#entrepreneur — You will never be “ready”.

We are in the process of buying another business and we aren’t ready. We own five businesses and are overwhelmed and overworked. Our finances aren’t perfect, ou...

Where my ladies at? 50/50 is aiming too low.

It is a simple rule that I think we should all live by in our professions: Women and men should be in top leadership positions in proportion to what is reflecti...

High-Risk Housing — When there is no good option

>We accept that the risk is better than homelessness or institutionalization…and that is all we really need to know. When people think of someone with an intell...

Fighting Lawsuits…For The Smell of It

This funny thing happened when we became a “large company” — People started suing us. Maybe we looked differently, or spoke differently, or smelled differently…...

Reconciling the End. Leaving your job gracefully

Endings are a process of emotional reconciliation. Resigning from a job is like breaking up with your partner. There are lots of spoken and unspoken feelings. I...

Why we don’t pay sick time. The Three Truths of “calling out sick”.

I know this blog post is going to get some electronic tomatoes thrown in my direction….. Meh… cue shoulder shrug. That said, here comes the first leadership tru...

The ENTOURAGE every CEO needs

> What I have learned about an effective entourage is that they are not “followers” — They are actually the leaders that manage the CEO. Entourages aren’t just ...

“Holding The Line” — The Best Teams Protect Their Leader

I hate being tackled. As the CEO, I am the default quarterback. I am scanning the field and planning my next step. I’m developing a strategy and then pivoting i...

Managing your “Management Brand”

No, I’m not talking about color schemes and font styles. I’m talking about not tolerating bullshit. A “management brand” is the way you manage performance issue...

Business Vikings. Expand and Conquer.

We don’t stop when we are tired. We stop when we are done. I recently binge-watched all four seasons of Vikings on the History channel over the course of a week...

Business Vikings. Expand and Conquer.

We don’t stop when we are tired. We stop when we are done. I recently binge-watched all four seasons of Vikings on the History channel over the course of a week...

Business Vikings. Expand and Conquer.

We don’t stop when we are tired. We stop when we are done. I recently binge-watched all four seasons of Vikings on the History channel over the course of a week...

Business Vikings. Expand and Conquer.

We don’t stop when we are tired. We stop when we are done. I recently binge-watched all four seasons of Vikings on the History channel over the course of a week...

Vacations — The 3 ways they can hold work value.

If you are an entrepreneur like me, you might struggle with vacations. I am the person that gets sad on Fridays because I won’t be able to experience maximum wo...

The War for Talent — How working in a 1.8% unemployment market improved my business

Competition raises the bar of service delivery to customers…AND services to employees. It is kind of a nice world in a job seeker’s market, eh? If you are the e...

Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE to win them so much.

When I started my first company I had no idea what unemployment insurance was. Nobody in my family had ever filed for unemployment as they had all owned their o...

Numbers don’t lie. The FIVE metrics that determine the health of your company (No, Sales isn’t one of them).

Numbers don’t lie. Stop asking your team what problems they are experiencing and start instead focusing them on analyzing the numbers to TELL them what the prob...

The customer is not always right. Don’t be afraid to remind them they are wrong.

My mother was an intense business owner — I learned from the best. I remember a rude customer that walked through her store, belittling all of her staff and fel...

5 things IT professionals should never say in a Millennial company.

![01LX9va1J110qwSt.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmarSWU27xPHbpTEhSbBjdfuEsQHC1vgUxTtEAAGYooBrf/01LX9va1J110qwSt.jpg We are restructuring the way we think of ...

Attention New Employees: You will SUCCEED if you do these 8 things.

I recently experienced the first time that an employee had been hired, worked in a position for a significant amount of time and then left the company before I ...