Author: Leah Zander

Creating Goals that Inspire You

Posted on by Leah Zander

It’s a basic fact of navigation: if you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know how to get there. This is true for sailors, it’s true for pilots, and it’s true for business owners.

Consider: what is it you spend your time doing, and what is it you wish you spent your time doing? By answering these questions, you can map a course from where you are to where you want to be.

As the creator of Profit Minds Growth System, I talk a lot about the relationship between profit, process, and productivity. In order to make progress in these three key areas, you first need to find a goal that inspires you. This goal should be based on your priorities, not someone else’s. It should concern a part of your work or life on which you can make self-directed progress every day. And it be something you really care about. 

The best goals are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. This is a tried and true method for achievement.

 Need proof? Just look at the moon landing. In 1961, President Kennedy said that by the end of the decade America would put a man on the moon and bring him back safely. By 1969, we’d done just that. Having a specific, measurable goal that was theoretically achievable with available technology, relevant to America’s interests, and bound to a time-based deadline allowed NASA to rally the motivation and the resources they needed in order to make it happen. Pretty SMART!

 You probably aren’t making a trip to the moon this year, but sometimes your goals seem just as far away. That doesn’t mean you can’t plan your journey to success. Once you’ve chosen an inspiring year-end goal, you can identify your ports of call. 

In fact, I find a very effective way to plan this year is to look three years in the future. Set your goals for 2026. Then ask: where do you need to be at the end of the year? The quarter? The month? The week? What do you need to do today to make progress toward your “moonshot” three years from now?

If you want to find the answers to these questions and so much more, schedule a 20-minute Readiness Review call. We’ll work together to chart a course to phenomenal growth. I hope to talk to you soon.

What Caroling Taught Me About Living My Values

Posted on by Leah Zander

All year, I look forward to caroling with my family and our church group. It’s a cherished tradition that connects me to my faith, my community, and a musical tradition passed down from generation to generation.

This year, controversy struck—and from the unlikeliest of sources. While rehearsing the hymn “Lo How A Rose E’er Blooming,” it occurred to me that the line “she bore to men a savior” (referring, of course, to the Mary and the birth of Jesus) could easily be changed to “she bore to all a savior” without losing either its musicality or its meaning.

Some of my fellow carolers disagreed. They pointed out that Michael Praetorius created the harmony to “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” (which was translated to “Lo How A Rose E’er Blooming”)  around 1600, when “men” was often used to refer to everyone.  Taking the hymn in the context of its time, “she bore to men a savior” was a universal declaration. In fact, the translation we most commonly use is from Theodore Baker (1894), but the universality of “men” still applies.

But we are no longer in the 17th or even the 19th century. Times have changed, and so has the way we use language. If Michael Praetorius (or Theodore Baker) were to write (translate) “Lo How A Rose E’er Blooming” today, he wouldn’t have used the word “men” to mean “everyone” for the simple reason that it no longer does!

What would Michael Praetorius or Theodore Baker think? Well I, for one, think both would be on board with my proposed revision. The point of the lyric is to convey a message. In order for that point to be interpreted properly by listeners, the correct word is no longer “men,” but “all.” By changing the word, we actually more clearly convey the message of the song: that Christ has been born for all humankind.

You might be asking what Christmas carols have to do with a business blog. Well, it’s important to me that my readers know who I am and what matters to me. Everything I do in life is motivated by my values. I’m not just the creator of the Profit Minds Growth System: I’m also a husband, a father, a man of faith, and someone who believes that the hopeful message of the season can—and should!—include everyone.

I hope you take this season as time to think about your values. What motivates you? Do you feel like the work you do reflects the person you are? If not, what changes might you make in the coming year? Feel free to comment below and be sure to reach out to me if you want to discuss how to make your values live in your business.

Building Robust Business Practices for Scale

Posted on by Leah Zander

Are you an entrepreneur who’s working hard to grow your business but frustrated to find yourself responsible for everything? Good news: the Profit Minds Growth System will enable you to scale your business by building robust business processes.

Building a business operating system for scale starts with locating your values and your vision.

In order to identify your values, ask yourself: What drives you? What are the behaviors that define you and your business? The answers to these questions are your values.

To help you find your vision, Simon Sinek would ask, What’s your why? And, proceeding from that, what’s your BHAG: your big, hairy, audacious goal?

Once you’ve nailed down answers to these questions, you can narrow your scope. Consider where you want to be in three years, and then in five years. What projects do you need to start right now in order to reach those goals? Who is accountable for those projects? Who should be on your team, and how will you evaluate their performance? And what metrics should you track on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?

These are the elements of BOSS: the business operating system for scale.

The Profit Minds Growth System will teach you how to develop a BOSS that allows you to reach even the biggest, hairiest, and most audacious goals through effective project management, performance tracking, and successfully delegating responsibilities. You will find your results amplified beyond your expectations.

If you’d like to learn more, send me an email. And if you think you’re poised for real growth, let’s schedule a 20-minute Readiness Review call. I personally look forward to talking with you very soon.

The Path from Executive to Successful Business Coach

Posted on by Leah Zander

Are you a successful executive who’s just been told that you’ll have to return to the office…for real this time? 

Maybe you’re not sure that you want to go back. Working from home for the past two years has given you so much freedom. Sure, there have been challenges—a barking dog, the neighbor’s lawnmower—but it’s been worth it to have total control over your time. You’ve realized that there are more important things than your job, and you want to climb off the hamster wheel in order to prioritize the parts of life that bring you the most joy.

If this sounds like you, I have good news! There’s a solution: create your own business.

I’ll bet you’ve learned enough over the course of your career that you could bring enormous value to clients as a coachsultant. You’ll find it both fulfilling and profitable to share what you’ve learned with others.

I invented the Profit Minds Growth System to deliver the art and business of coaching to small business owners like you. The Profit Minds Growth System will give you the tools and training to build success on your own terms, and in your own home.

Today I’m going to give you a brief overview of the three parts of the Profit Minds Growth System: enhancing profit, boosting productivity, and building robust business process.

 1) Profit. In this first part, we cover the fundamentals of building a thriving coaching practice. You will identify your unique gifts and learn how to turn those gifts into teachable strategies. In this way, you will generate a steady stream of ideal prospects, turn them into clients, and grow a profitable business.

2) Productivity. The second part is all about how to get stuff done! As a certified facilitator of Dr. Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” I’ll teach you how to work more efficiently and effectively. You’ll learn how to pass these lessons on to your clients.

3) Process. Thirdly and finally, you’ll discover the secret to creating robust processes. All entrepreneurs get stuck and need to build systems to enable their business to grow. With the Profit Minds Growth System, you’ll scale your coaching practice and achieve your goals.

The Profit Minds Growth System is designed to build on what you already bring to the table. The practices that will be imparted to you are the product of proven success. My own coaching business saw unprecedented growth even during two years of COVID lockdown!

Of course, I use the Profit Minds Growth System when I coach my clients. All of my clients who’ve finished the first year have signed up for a second year, and all those have finished the second year have signed up for the third. Their loyalty speaks to the incredible results this system has produced for them.

With the Profit Minds Growth System, you will attract and retain high-quality clients. Not only will they want to work with you, they’ll want to keep working with you for years to come. 

Start your journey on the the path from executive to successful business coach today!

Productivity is About Progress, not Perfection

Posted on by Leah Zander

In my last post, we talked about the Profit Minds Growth System: an innovative approach to increasing profit and productivity while building business process for scale. In this post, I’m going to focus on how the Profit Minds Growth System accelerates your productivity, enabling you to make huge strides towards your business goals.

Most entrepreneurs have a pretty good idea of what they need to do, but they just aren’t getting it done. I call this the knowing/doing gap.

In my 25 years as a certified facilitator of Dr. Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” I’ve seen entrepreneurs fall into the knowing/doing gap time and time again. I’ve combined Covey’s method with time-tested methods from other authors and thinkers to create the productivity portion of the Profit Minds Growth System.

There are five steps to accelerate your productivity.

1) The first step is to create inspiring goals. These goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. With the Profit Minds Growth System, you’ll use the SMART model to make real progress toward the business of your dreams.

2) The second step is to work out of your priorities. So many entrepreneurs start their day by checking their email and then get lost in reacting to what others have sent to them. The Profit Minds Growth System will teach you how to create a day-by-day and week-by-week plan based on what you need to accomplish.

3) The third step is about best practices. Through the Profit Minds Growth System, you’ll learn to manage your to-do lists, email, and calendar. Over time, you’ll get better and better at using these practices until they’re second nature. It’s about progress, not perfection!

4) The fourth step is managing distractions and procrastination. Science tells us that we can’t truly multitask—so stop trying! You must turn off your distractions in order to achieve a state of true focus. With the Profit Minds Growth System, I have identified six  procrastination triggers and can teach you how to overcome them.

5) The fifth step is building new and better habits for the future. Our brain wants to make everything a habit because this reduces the energy we expend when thinking about new things. But the brain can’t tell the difference between a good habit and a bad one. The Profit Minds Growth System provides simple steps to follow in order to make new, good habits that will help you meet your business goals.

I’ll dig deeper into each of these steps in future blogs.

Are you ready to escape the knowing/doing gap? If so, take the short quiz at productivitycheckup.com. If it’s time for you to join the growing number of entrepreneurs finding huge success with the Profit Minds Growth System, set up a Readiness Review call by using the link below. In just 45 minutes, I can find $30 to $50,000 or more in untapped revenue for any small business.

I look forward to talking with you very soon!

What is the Profit Minds Growth System

Posted on by Leah Zander

What is the Profit Minds Growth System?

Are you an entrepreneur who isn’t seeing your hard work reflected in your bottom line? Do you know exactly what you need to do but just can’t manage to get it done consistently? Are you looking to take your small business to the next level?

If so, the Profit Minds Growth System is for you! I can help you find $30 to $50,000 or more in untapped revenue in under 45 minutes. My revolutionary approach increases profits, accelerates productivity, and builds robust business process for scale.

In this blog, you will learn how the Profit Minds Growth System can build your business into the success you deserve.

The first area we look at is profit. The Profit Minds Growth System will teach you how to generate prospects, turn leads into clients, maximize the value of each client, and improve the profitability of your products or services. You’ll expand profits by growing both the top and bottom line. The result? A streamlined, stronger business model that will put more money in your pocket.

The second area is productivity. How do you get it done? By focusing on progress rather than perfection, the Profit Minds Growth System will help you set goals and work out of your priorities. By avoiding distractions and procrastination, you will make daily progress while building new and better habits for the future. Our system is all about taking little steps today in order to build success tomorrow.

The third area is process. So many small business owners try to do it all themselves. Trust me, I’ve been there! It feels quicker and easier to fix a problem yourself rather than take the time to teach someone else to do it. But that approach doesn’t scale. Profit Minds Growth System will show you how to build a team, delegate effectively, and identify the key metrics necessary to drive business growth. My unique three-year visioning process will help you develop a business operating system that scales efficiently and effectively.

If you want to learn more, follow along with my blog posts as I go into more detail or go to my YouTube channel and subscribe. If you’re really ready to jumpstart your business, the next step is a 20-minute Readiness Review call. We’ll work together to determine if your business is poised for real growth and incredible success. I hope to talk to you soon.