How to prepare for business growth

Growing a business.

This is what almost everyone in business wants.

You want more customers, more revenue, more freedom.

And for most people, when they are getting started, it’s just all about getting by.

Getting the first customers in the door.
Getting stable.
Getting marketing and lead generation working.

Yet once you finally figure out marketing… and you have a product that people want….

Then the game changes.

This post is NOT about how to generate new customers so your business can grow.

This post is about the challenges that come when your business starts to hit rapid growth… and what you can do to prepare for it.

Jake JorgovanDecember 28, 2023Favorite

What Journaling Does for Me

Jake JorgovanNovember 21, 2023Favorite

Someday's you slide...

Someday’s you slide…

This past week, I slid on my eating behavior.
Back to unhealthy habits.
I was triggered by back pain.
And I coped with food.

Jake JorgovanNovember 17, 2023Favorite

How I take new businesses to market

You know my favorite part of business...

It’s the thrill of selling a new offer.

Coming up with an idea out of thin air, or dialing in on exactly what the market wants to buy right now.

It’s that moment where you say, “Yes… we can offer this." You whip something together really fast... and then you sell it.

Gosh, it’s thrilling!

Dopamine hits to the brain to the max!

In this article, I’m going to walk through how I like to take new ideas to market.

Jake JorgovanNovember 16, 2023Favorite

A Mental Model for Big Decisions

“If you made this decision 10 years ago, would you be happy with that decision today?
If you make this decision today, do you think you will be happy 10 years from now?”

Jake JorgovanNovember 14, 2023Favorite

Power, Wealth, & Integrity - Entrepreneurial Lessons from ‘The FountainHead’

Give the market what it wants - Power & Wealth
Do work that gives me meaning - Integrity

The Fountainhead is my favorite book of all time.

Ayn Rand describes her objective with the book as portraying “The Ideal Man”.

There is no other book I have found which so encapsulates the raging battle that goes on inside an entrepreneur.

The rage between the creative part of the entrepreneur, and the part that must give the market what it wants.

In this article, I want to share what The Fountainhead means to me, and how it taught me deep lessons about Power, Wealth, and Integrity.

Jake JorgovanNovember 14, 2023Favorite

My framework for starting a new business

After building up Lead Cookie & Content Allies to a decent state, I am beginning to look at building up a third company with a business partner this time.

As I am doing this, I realized I needed to look back on what worked with my two successful companies, and what failed in the many attempts I made on other ventures.

I’ve tried a lot of things before Lead Cookie, while running these companies, and I even made a lot of mistakes in the first couple of years of Content Allies.

So this post… well it’s kind of for myself. To document what I have learned so I don’t repeat these same mistakes on my third company.

But hopefully you find some value in it as well.

BlogJake JorgovanJune 8, 2021Favorite

How to build a process driven business

Processes… we all know it’s part of what we need to scale our businesses.

You hear people talk about Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) all the time.

I’m a huge believer in SOP’s and have been using them for a while… yet recently I’ve had some mindset shifts in how I think about processes.

In this article, I am going to share the mindset shifts and how I now think about building a process driven business.

BlogJake JorgovanApril 7, 2021process street, podcast management process, Favorite

The hard emotional side of entrepreneurship

When I started down the journey of entrepreneurship, no one told me that my own emotions would become one of the most difficult aspects to manage.

Yet, over the years, I've learned to see how my emotions can be detrimental to business and lead to very poor decision-making.

In this article, I'm going to talk through some of the emotional challenges that you may wrestle with as an entrepreneur, some of the pitfalls they got me in, and how I have done my best to overcome them.

Jake JorgovanApril 7, 2020Favorite

How understanding my Unique Ability changed my life

Unique Ability. It's pretty wild but this simple concept (and those two words) have had a profound impact on my life, work, and happiness.

In the early days of Lead Cookie, I started studying the work of Dan Sullivan, of Strategic Coach, which has been around coaching entrepreneurs since the 1980s. One of the concepts that stuck out to me from Dan's work is the idea of Unique Ability.

Jake JorgovanFebruary 11, 2020Favorite

Why entrepreneurs need a hobby

"If you don't find some other outlet for your creative energy, you will just keep tinkering with your business." - Alex McClafferty

It's amazing how one simple statement can create a ripple effect that can change the course of your life. This quote above is one that my business advisor shared with me about a year ago. And the impacts of that statement has led to massive changes and an increased fulfillment in my life.

Jake JorgovanJanuary 8, 2020Favorite

The importance of a strong company culture

Culture.

In the entrepreneurial sense, it is an ambiguous thing about "how it feels to work at your company" that is rather hard to quantify.

Yet you hear entrepreneurs talk about it all the time.

While I don't believe there is any specific "how to" on building a great culture, I do think there are many things you can pick up, learn, and apply to your own company.

In this article, I am going to dive into how we have built a culture at Lead Cookie and how we are currently building one at Content Allies.

Jake JorgovanSeptember 4, 2019Favorite

You choose what business you build

"I feel like I am on a roller coaster ride" - This was a consistent quote from me in the early days of building Lead Cookie as I had calls with my adviser, Alex McClafferty.

Each day I woke up early and worked insanely long days, in what felt like an endless cycle of just trying to keep my head above water.

And each week, during our advising calls, Alex would have to remind me of this simple lesson:

"You are not on a roller coaster. You are in the driver's seat. You choose what business you build."

Jake JorgovanMay 14, 2019Favorite

What is the "Queen Bee Role" and why does it matter?

There is a business concept that I learned recently which was a huge revelation for me.

It helped me optimize Lead Cookie, increase our profitability, and streamline our operations.

The concept is "The Queen Bee Role" and it actually comes from Mike Michalowicz's most recent book called Clockwork.

Jake JorgovanApril 23, 2019Favorite

Why taking a vacation is the ultimate productivity hack

It may seem counterintuitive, but taking a vacation is one of the most productive things you can do as an entrepreneur.

As I write this, I just returned from a 1.5-week vacation where I did hardly any work. I will be honest, I checked in a couple of times, but for the most part, I was totally disconnected from my team.

On the surface, you would think that a vacation means you are not getting anything done.

Jake JorgovanApril 16, 2019Favorite

Your business is a reflection of you

"Your business is a reflection of you."

This simple lesson that I first learned from my adviser, Alex McClafferty, keeps proving to be true time and time again.

Over the past few months, I found myself rather stressed and ridden by anxiety.
And as a result, that flows onto my team, and eventually onto our customers.

Jake JorgovanApril 9, 2019Favorite

Why you should invest in yourself

About two years ago, I found myself frustrated.

I had been at the entrepreneurial game for 8 years at that point, and I still just didn't feel like I was "making it".

I was working countless hours.
I was making OK money, but not nearly what I had hoped for.
And I ultimately just felt like I should be doing better than I was.

Jake JorgovanMarch 19, 2019Favorite

Lessons Learned from 6 Months of Advising with Co-Founder of WP Curve, Alex McClafferty

Over the past 20 months, I went from being a consultant to running a productized service, generating over $50k MRR. During the first 6 months of that time, I worked with my advisor, Co-Founder of WP Curve Alex McClafferty, and I am currently working with him again.

During those 6 months, I took a total of 120 pages of notes from our calls. After each call, I would go back and highlight my key learnings and insights.

Recently, I decided to read through all 120 pages of notes and pull out the key insights.

Jake JorgovanFebruary 19, 2019Favorite

Why you should steal your business ideas from others

Since starting up Lead Cookie I have had multiple people tell me “This is such a brilliant idea for a business.”

I always laugh because I have to tell them, “I didn’t think up any of this. I literally stole the concepts from others.”

No joke, almost everything about Lead Cookie is stolen.

But the truth is, that is why this business has succeeded while almost every business I have had before has failed.

In this article, I am going to share what I mean by the “stolen ideas” and give you a framework on how you can steal effectively and ethically.

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Thoughts on B2B, Entrepreneurship, & Thinking Different…