Launch Youniversity

Turning Good Intentions into Reality in Your Career, Business and Life

growing

111: Taking on More Roles and Responsibilities at Your Job

by Leave a Comment

The Launch Youniversity Podcast
The Launch Youniversity Podcast
111: Taking on More Roles and Responsibilities at Your Job
Loading
/
Summary:

Stretching yourself to try new things isn’t always comfortable, but part of the formula of success is continued growth. Real growth comes from new and different experiences. So whether you are an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, give yourself the freedom and grace to risk being vulnerable.

Join Jeff and David as they encourage you to create more capacity for new opportunities.

Welcome to episode 111 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

Crushing It by Gary Vaynerchuk

Mindset by Carol Dweck

LYP 106: How to Go From Good Intentions to Reality with Blake Canterbury Purposity

Purposity

Three Takeaways:

1. Assess what you can hand off.

If you have a team who you trust to take on more responsibility (and you should), see what job duties you can pass to them. Handing off your responsibilities can free you up for the new opportunities. Your success will be governed by the strength of your team.

2. Remember your boundaries still exist.

You should never allow a new role or responsibility to take away from your previous commitments, unless you can hand off tasks as previously mentioned. To help draw boundaries, block your time for specific activities whether it’s family time or work-related activities. This way you are less likely to blur the lines.

3. Focus on clarity

The first 90 days of trying something new can look murky. You are in the process of figuring it all out and don’t always have the big picture. As you walk through this phase, stay focused on clarity. Ask yourself and the team these questions: What does success look like in the short term? What does it look like in the long term? What is my/our unique contribution? You and your team will go further if everyone knows what success looks like and how they play into accomplishing those goals.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!

 

109: The Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship with Kevin Peak of Strategic Treasurer and CaJa Popcorn

by Leave a Comment

The Launch Youniversity Podcast
The Launch Youniversity Podcast
109: The Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship with Kevin Peak of Strategic Treasurer and CaJa Popcorn
Loading
/

Summary:

All of us are trying to launch something, whether it’s inside a business or outside of one, a startup, or a side hustle. And with any launch, there is usually a gap of where you are and your ultimate destination (with a lot of stops, detours, and unexpectedness in between). Along the way, you’ll encounter points where you have to make critical decisions for your business or idea, and sometimes, you might feel a bit out of your element. This is why we do this podcast — we seek to link you with resources and shared experiences of others to help you where you are right now.

That’s why we were happy to sit down with Kevin Peak for today’s interview — Kevin has been where you are. For nearly six years, Kevin owned and operated CaJa Popcorn, a wholesale and retail popcorn company that specializes in artisanal flavors such as pimento cheese, spicy BBQ, and sea salt caramel. Then, he decided to return to his first love as a treasury consultant, selling his successful business and starting over from scratch. In today’s episode, you’ll hear the highs and lows of being solopreneur, when he knew it was time to sell the business, and the skills he’s acquired along the way.

Welcome to episode 109 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

CaJa Popcorn

Strategic Treasurer

ATDC: Technology Business Incubator

BizBuySell

Three Takeaways:

  • Spend time with people who are doing interesting things. You might want to launch something new, but you’re not quite sure what it will be. That’s OK! We encourage you to hang out with people who are doing cool, creative things (and not necessarily in the exact industry you’ll be launching in). Get some inspiration, perspective, and new relationships — all these things will guarantee a great launch later.
  • Brace yourself for challenges. Launches are almost always met with challenges. Be prepared for them and keep reminding yourself: the tension won’t last always.
  • Find others to help in your areas of weakness. There will come a time during your launch when you’ll be confused about what your next steps should be. Lean on your existing relationships (or make new ones) to help you navigate those areas where you lack adequate knowledge.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!

094: Lauren Gall and Melanie Ammerman of VaVa Virtual Assistants on Why and When Solopreneurs Should Delegate and Invest In Their Businesses

by Leave a Comment

The Launch Youniversity Podcast
The Launch Youniversity Podcast
094: Lauren Gall and Melanie Ammerman of VaVa Virtual Assistants on Why and When Solopreneurs Should Delegate and Invest In Their Businesses
Loading
/

Summary:

For many launchers, what jumpstarts their visions is a problem to be solved, a community that needs caring for, or a desire for independence. No matter the size and scale of your vision — whether you desire to work for a large organization or imagine yourself as a craftsman who makes a difference on a smaller scale — it’s difficult, if not impossible, to make a difference alone.

Today, we hear from Lauren Gall and Melanie Ammerman, cofounders of VaVa Virtual Assistants, a virtual assistance firm that specializes in executive assistants, marketing and creative support for businesses. Together, they share their story about launching their business, what it means to be an owner and operator of a business (or solopreneur), and share telltale signs of when your business needs extra help.

Welcome to episode 94 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

VaVa Virtual Assistants | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Takeaways:

  • Know when it’s time to ask for help. You might be used to doing everything on your own, but it’s important for you to look for and acknowledge when you need to bring others on to your team to support you. How do you know when you need help? Do you often feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get things done? Do you often feel you’re at the end of your rope in terms of capacity? If so, then it’s time to delegate.
  • Build processes. There will come a time when you’ll need to delegate certain tasks if you want your business to grow. Start taking notes on the things you do repeatedly on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Repeated tasks are often those you can pass along to someone else to do.
  • Stay the course. Launching is hard, but remember what brought you here in the first place. View every challenge as an opportunity to help grow your business.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!

081: Predictable Success with Les McKeown

by Leave a Comment

PREDICTABLE SUCCESS with Les McKeown on The Launch Youniversity Podcast
The Launch Youniversity Podcast
081: Predictable Success with Les McKeown
Loading
/

Summary:

Les McKeown is joining us on the Launch Youniversity Podcast, and we couldn’t be more honored to have a conversation with him. Les is the brilliant mind behind books like Predictable Success and The Synergist. Today, Kevin and Jeff are sitting down with Les to talk about Predictable Success: the underlying, repeating patterns in the context of any organization. Les is sharing his knowledge on how to get there, how to stay there, and how to diagnose where your business is in the life cycle.

Welcome to Episode 081 of The Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

Predictable Success by Les McKeown

The Synergist by Les McKeown

Three Takeaways:

1. There are three stages of growth.

The growth stages are where 80% of all new businesses fail. These stages are fun and exciting, but challenging, as you begin to make mistakes and land in white-water.

Early struggle means you haven’t broken through to profitability. If this is where your business is, you need to focus on one thing: finding a profitable and sustainable market.

Les’ advice: Having one large client doesn’t mean you’ve found a market. You can quickly lose that one client and find that you actually have no market.

2. The peak stage is Predictable Success.

The peak stage is the stage of Predictable Success. What’s the difference between this stage and the fun stage? Scalability. When you’re in this stage, you can grow your business to however big your industry will allow. It’s a stage of fun and excitement while having the right processes and procedures in place to keep things on track. If you do the right things, your business can stay here forever.

3. There are three stages of decline.

The treadmill stage is the opposite of white-water. In white-water, you have no process. In the treadmill, you have too much process. There’s a checklist for everything, and the team is motivated by seeing that each box has a checkmark. The business becomes numb to the fact that it’s beginning to decline.

When the business finds itself in the death rattle, there still may be signs of life. You might still have clients or team members…but they’re false signs of life. You don’t have a market for your business anymore, you aren’t growing or doing anything new, and your talent decides to move on.

038: Brewing Beer and Business With Purpose: Joel Iverson of Monday Night Brewing

by Leave a Comment

Brewing Beer and Business With Purpose: Joel Iverson of Monday Night Brewing
The Launch Youniversity Podcast
038: Brewing Beer and Business With Purpose: Joel Iverson of Monday Night Brewing
Loading
/

Summary:

Joel Iverson is one of the three founders of Monday Night Brewing, a top craft beer brewery in the Atlanta area. As the official Taste-Testing Ninja of Monday Night Brewing, Joel is joining Launch Youniversity on the podcast today to talk about how beer deepened relationships, relationships built a brewery and how the brewery is launching and thriving with purpose.

Welcome to episode 38 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

Monday Night Brewing

Monday Night Brewing blog

The 10% Entrepreneur by Patrick J. McGinnis

Three Takeaways:

1. What’s your purpose?
There are a variety of craft beer places in Atlanta, but what makes Monday Night Brewing special is it’s purpose: To deepen human relationships over some of the best beer in the country. Monday Night Brewing was built from relationships, so their goal is help facilitate and invest in relationships. Similar to a sticky statement, it’s powerful to be able to summarize your purpose in a single sentence. It’s your job to tell the marketplace what you want to be known for, and give them the words to communicate it.

2. It Takes Time.
Not every person can quit their job and launch headfirst into entrepreneurship. Joel and his partners had families and jobs and responsibilities to think about. So they started small and gradually grew. In time, through consistent efforts and producing a quality product, they were able to go full time and see their business thrive.

3. Do you need to hold on or let it go?
Joel credits learning how to discern this question to time. As the entrepreneur of your business or mastermind behind a project, it’s so instinctual to want to take the reins on any and every issue that needs to be fixed. But creating a culture of asking questions, learning, and problem-solving means that you need to not be the person to swoop in, but help your team figure things out along the way.