Category Archives: Big Mac Thinking

Why ‘Common Sense’ Is a Terrible Business System

“But surely that’s just common sense?” I’ve heard that so many times from frustrated business owners. Someone hasn’t done something the way they expected, a customer hasn’t been dealt with properly, or something obvious has been missed, and the reaction is usually some version of, “I shouldn’t have to tell them that!” Maybe you shouldn’t, […]

Your Best People Might Be Hiding Your Biggest Problems

We all love having those people in the team: the ones who just know what to do. They’ve been around for a while, they understand how everything works, they know the customers, they know the quirks of the business and they can usually sort out a problem without making a song and dance about it. […]

Did Your Team Miss You While You Were on Holiday?

There’s something lovely about coming back from holiday and being told, “Thank goodness you’re back, we’ve missed you.” It makes you feel valued and important. Before you enjoy that warm glow for too long though, it’s worth asking exactly why they missed you. Did they really miss you, or did they miss the person who […]

The Complexity in Your Business Isn’t Inevitable

Most of the chaos in a small business has been quietly built by the owner. I meet a lot of business owners who are drowning in complexity. Too many moving parts, too many things that only they can handle, too many days that end with a list longer than the one they started with. They […]

Your Business Is Only as Good as Your Worst Day

Customers judge you on what they can rely on every day. Cast your mind back to a business you’ve stopped using. The chances are it was the inconsistency. The times it was great followed by the times it really wasn’t, until eventually you thought ‘I’ll try someone else.’ That’s exactly what your customers are thinking […]

What’s It Like to Be Your Customer?

Every touchpoint a customer has with your business tells them something about you. The question is what it says, and how deliberately you’ve shaped it. Think about the last time you had a really poor experience with a business. My guess is it was a series of small things – a call that took too […]

Stop Solving the Same Problems Twice

If the same things keep going wrong in your business, you’re missing a How To. Every business has its recurring problems: the ones that get fixed on a Tuesday and are back by Friday; the ones that different members of the team handle in completely different ways, so the outcome depends entirely on who picked […]

Great Players Don’t Always Make Great Managers

Football has been proving this for decades. It’s a lesson a lot of small businesses learn the hard way too. Alan Shearer. One of the greatest strikers the Premier League has ever seen. Natural leader on the pitch, wore the armband with pride, scored goals that people still talk about. Newcastle gave him the manager’s […]

Are You in Love with the Struggle?

Most business owners say they want freedom – more time – less stress – a business that runs independently of them at every turn. And then they take their laptop on holiday…just in case. The truth is, a lot of them are holding on to the very chaos they say they want to escape, and […]

Stop Fighting the Same Fires – How to close the frustration gap

If it feels like you’re dealing with the same problems again and again, it’s probably because you are. They show up in slightly different ways, on different days, with different people involved, but underneath it all, it’s the same issue repeating itself, and over time, that becomes exhausting, not just for you, but for your […]