How do you respond when you have a win? A success? A breakthrough?

Here are some tips to respond well to successes in business:

• Celebrate in the appropriate way – gathering, party, announcements, and
  public “pat on the back” to the right people – sure!
• Give credit to your team – take none yourself.
• Go an extra mile and tell the families of your team that their family member
  did a great thing.
• Write a personal note (handwritten), not an email.
• Recall the accomplishment later on in performance reviews or during some
  public moment to help the achievement linger and get publicized.

Our great team assists clients daily with this and other leadership challenges. We help principled leaders excel!

What do we do at the parish and community level to build a Catholic economy?

5 different areas to accomplish this:

1. How we should buy from Catholics and Catholic-owned businesses
2. How we should sell to Catholics and Catholic-owned businesses.
3. How we should employ Catholics- as employees, contractors, and suppliers
4. How we should invest in Catholic businesses
5. Providing business advice so more people can build businesses

1. Buy from Catholics

• We can create Catholic networks.
• Create buying groups, such as painting, landscaping, HVAC, etc. among parishioners.
• Set up specific industry groups within the parish or wider Catholic community.
  • ex: all the Catholic plumbers in an area would need to buy all their supplies.
  • they would work together to get a better deal on supplies
• Buying from Catholics doesn’t require extra money because these are products or services you would use anyway.
• It would be a resource for parishioners to buy from other parishioners, or...

More Road Trip Musings

In today’s work session I saw that the client has used his road trips (due to the resignation of a route driver and the corresponding challenge in finding new employees in a timely fashion) to think back about his dual strategy of investing in “in-house manufacturing” vs. investing in “service expansion through a second location”. He is putting his business model into practice.

Here are some of his thoughts:

• It was the right thing to do—to invest in both. 
• But one additional location is enough for the moment.
• It doesn’t mean he won’t buy additional locations but they will have to be either out of state or a long distance from each other.
• This means that the possible third location may not happen at least now – in a scenario that resembles that of another recent location acquisition declined but in which the equipment was purchased and reallocated. 
• The long and short of this is that the...

Principles of a Catholic Economy:

1. Catholics can freely evangelize the world without repercussions from woke culture in an ideal state of affairs of a Catholic Economy. The ability to freely evangelize would be a hallmark of a Catholic economy.
2. The Catholic economy is where the family is supported. This means that the father and mother can fulfill their roles in the procreative and unitive aspects of their marriage, and educate their children, to get everyone to heaven. The Catholic economy would especially help those families that are not intact because they will need more help from the outside.
3. Jobs and training are available to fellow Catholics. If you want to work for an overtly Catholic-run business, you could find such a company and they would exist. There would be a job board for such businesses. You can find fulfilling work in a business run in a Catholic manner.
4. Business start-up advice and mentoring would be available. There would be a network of advisors. The...

Firefighting and the boss goes on the road!

All entrepreneurs would be familiar with this scenario. A route driver quits and there is no replacement available on short notice. “Tomorrow” you have to deliver and pick up on a route that will cover 800 miles over 48 hours. Who can do it?

Answer: Guess who? The boss can do it. At least he is the only one who can be spared and he “must” do it. It’s a command performance. It’s not optional. It happens more frequently than we think.

So, he grabs the keys to the truck, throws his overnight bag into the truck, loads up the deliveries, gets his route chart out and hits the road.

This is exactly what happened. My client lost a route driver and now is taking this one route every week until he can hire a replacement. With the shortage of workers out there, this may take longer than he wants.

Other Observations from the Road Trip:

• The client is talking directly to customers himself. This is the...

The Catholic CEO recently held a workshop for people who have lost their jobs, or may soon lose their jobs, for conscience reasons.

The workshop had 3 tracks.

1. Stay and Fight -The speaker was John Carpay, president and founder of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

• John gave practical steps people can take to fight for your conscience rights in the workplace.
• He also gave some hope to the participants through his wisdom and experience in these matters.
• Visit the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms website.

2. Find a New Job

• Speakers were Donna Crombie, coach, mentor, and career counsellor; and Michelle Dunne, Catholic strengths coach.
• Donna gave insight into how to tap into the hidden job market, where most of the jobs are available. She also gave tips on interviewing and resume building. -
• Get help from Donna
• Michelle helped people to transition into a new job by offering a way to help people know their...

At this meeting, which took place just before Christmas I asked the client two questions:

1. What were the main 2021 highlights in your business?
2. What will be your main goals and priorities in 2022?

Question #1: MAIN HIGHLIGHTS OF 2021

• The purchase of the shop and its integration into the core business (and the decision to forego a second purchase but obtain its equipment).
• An investment into the refurbishment and upgrading of the main pieces of equipment.
• A significant move into in-house manufacturing. 

My summary is that he has continued to invest in cash flow from the core service business by adding a new location and upgrading/refurbishing of the main equipment pool, while at the same time making a calculated move into manufacturing his own line of tooling.

Question #2: MAIN PRIORITIES FOR 2022

• The final decision on construction of a new main shop building vs purchase and upgrade of an existing facility.
• Continue to expand the in-house...

Here are a few principles to inform your business decisions and some typical tests that businesses use, with a Catholic focus. Listen to more on the podcast or on the YouTube video.

Catholic Business Principle 1: Truth vs. Profit

Catholic business owners need to think about the truth of every word and action of the business. This is not relativism, or "my truth," but it is THE truth. Your words and actions in business must be true. A Catholic business owner, or employee, can not sacrifice truth for profit. By profit, we mean wealth, competitive advantage, pricing, profit, etc.

Catholic Business Principle 2: Integrity vs. Profit

Integrity is related to truth, but slightly different. It is that every word and action of the business are consistent with each other. How you make, design, market, guarantee your product or service must be reliable, honest, and stable. People, customers, and employees alike, must be able to count on you doing what you say you will do. It is...

This week the client has developed the real estate bug!

Is this good?

Normally I’d say not because it introduces a new specialty knowledge requirement and can take an entrepreneur off focus. But in this case it’s good. Here’s why:

• In his area there is something going on with property values such that the monthly P + I payment is still comparable to (and possibly lower than) the monthly rent.
• The client has been looking at one building as a substitute (back-up) for the new construction idea.
• This week he also decided to see yet another building, where, of course, the same odd factor is at work – monthly rental is actually more than the monthly mortgage payment (P + I).
• This is not merely a legacy of the low interest pattern of the past 20+ years. It’s something going on in his region – and he was smart to sniff out this opportunity.
• The exciting news from the perspective of a real estate investor is that he could therefore actually buy BOTH...

Here are a few ideas on how we can treat people, rooted in the Catholic faith, inside and outside of our business. These points are about pricing regarding our competitors and the benefits of working for a Catholic business.

How to price your products as a Catholic business:

• There has been some predatory pricing recently with inflation and hoarding of certain products. Predatory pricing is setting prices so low that you drive your competition out of business. Do I price my products or services to attract customers and improve my business by offering a better value, or am I trying to drive my competitors out of business? We must avoid practices designed to eliminate our competitors- it’s aggressive and unjust.
• There are many just strategies that we can adopt to improve our business while avoiding predatory pricing. The Catholic business owner needs to properly price his products in a way that is fair and demonstrates, to his advantage, the goodness of his...