Xtra Mile Resources

If your next move after an underperforming employee asks to stay is hoping their behavior magically improves from one hard conversation, you are wasting your time. You need a formal Turnaround Plan. We ran this framework recently with a $100M commercial construction firm. A C-suite executive (and close friend of the owner) was destroying the culture by belittling and screaming at his team in the vein of “getting things done”. He chose to stay, but a vague promise to "be nicer

Put yourself in a hypothetical new hire’s shoes: You just accepted an offer for a new position, and their leader showed you an audacious vision that pumps you up about where the company is going. You’re laying out your outfit for the first day, excited and nervous to meet the whole team tomorrow. When you walk in, the person you spoke with is nowhere in sight. Everyone is nice, but obviously busy. It’s starting to feel like your presence is more of a mild inconvenience than a

How to narrow down candidates and protect you time in hiring

We ask this same question in our feedback forms, 1-1 conversations, and post-workshop check-ins. If you've served well and relieved the pain for your clients, then referrals have the potential to be your strongest source of new business. That's why asking for a warm introduction is a built-in part of our process – we don’t want to miss the best opportunities we just haven't met yet. XTRA MILE TRUTH: Your clients, fans, and referral partners want to see you grow, but they're

One of our major construction client deals closed in 63 days from first contact. During that time, we listened. We waited. We added value to their most aching pain first. We didn't jump to a pitch or talk about our credentials. For them, reaching out to us felt easy, non-committal, like calling a trusted friend. On our side, a strong process was already in-action. Straight from our 4-R Sales Process (full video on each sales step HERE ), we patiently engaged in the Build the

If you are a business owner, you are in SALES. Rejection is a natural part of sales. Even the best salespeople fear rejection. The difference is: top sales generators stop hiding behind excuses. They show up with confidence by Unpacking their Head Trash and Adopting an Effective Sales Process . “No one wants to be SOLD, but everyone loves to buy.” -Jeffrey Gitomer, The Little Red Book of Sales On top of rejection, sales brings additional Head Trash because of how we have bee

In the startup/foundation phase, an A+ client is anyone willing to sign a check. But if you take every dollar that walks through the door, you’ll end up with a stressed team and minimal (if any) profit. Get comfortable grading your clients to kill two birds with one stone: refine your business’s ‘ideal client’ profile and track which marketing spokes are actually worth reproducing. Client quality controls your growth. We once spent months finding an EA for a client who foug

When we started this business 20 years ago, I just wanted marketing to work like the manufacturing processes I had led for decades. Input. Action. Result. The frustration I experienced and still struggle with today is that marketing is the most non-linear process in my business. The activities that gave us fruit for two years stop working. Then a random encounter on a bike ride leads to one of our biggest contracts ever. How do we know what to work on? Here are a few things w

Hard XM Truth 💊: If you don’t want to learn Marketing and Sales, you should probably go work for someone who does. Coming fresh off strategic planning in time for the new year (if you haven't yet, check out our full Youtube series HERE ), we're focusing the next few weeks on the fundamentals of Business Development for Business Owners. The evolution from startup to foundation-building depends on revenue growth xceleration. And we can’t sustain the next level of revenue for

The fastest way to kill momentum in a growing business? Run out of people right when your revenue expansion is creating new opportunities. If you’ve done the work to build your Quarterly Plan (insights into how HERE ), you know where you're going. But if you don't have enough of the right people, with the right training, in the right positions, that plan will likely fall apart before April. Question 6: Who Does What? Now, imagine your business has doubled. Draw out the org

According to a study by the Project Management Institute: Teams focused on three or fewer critical objectives see a 23% higher success rate in project completion than teams managing six or more at once. If your team has done the SWOT work from last week’s lesson (click HERE to review), it's time to start laying out our strategic work into a plan for 2026. Your tactical/technical teammates are probably scratching their heads right now, overwhelmed while looking at this

We were preparing for a Strategic Planning Session with the high-D president of a financial advisor team. He was already laying out detailed priorities for the coming year. So I asked him, “Do you trust me? Let’s not put too many details into the plan until we go through the process.” I had been listening to his leaders in our Managers to Leaders training, and I knew he wasn’t hearing them. When we facilitate these planning sessions, we usually start with Where are we now? F

The danger of NO VISION is that your team scatters and works in silos. Without a clear, long-term destination, you're all just driving without a map. This is why low buy-in often precedes high turnover : when people can’t see the big picture and the end game, they stop showing up fully. Vision is the story of where you are going . And here is where most growing businesses stall: they mistake tactical goals for Vision. As owners, it has to be our job to connect the team’s d

TLDR: Don't let cultural fog become your growth ceiling. Stop using corny "wall art" values like 'Integrity' and 'Teamwork'. Instead, define 4-6 sticky, unique principles that truly reflect your company. These phrases must become your operating system, used actively to hire, coach, and make tough decisions (even firing high-performers) to protect the culture you need to scale successfully. KEEP READING for actionable, step-by-step tips, a comprehensive Values tool, and que