Characteristics of Missionaries and Mercenaries

Missionaries:

• Purpose-Driven: Focused on the company’s vision and values, often motivated by making a meaningful impact.
• Long-Term Commitment: Likely to stay with the company through ups and downs, seeing their work as a calling or part of a larger mission.
• Team-Oriented: They prioritize collaboration and the overall success of the team over personal gain.

Mercenaries:

• Outcome-Focused: Driven primarily by personal benefits such as compensation, bonuses, and other perks.
• Short-Term Commitment: Their loyalty is as long as the benefits last; they may quickly move on if a better offer appears.
• Individualistic: Tends to prioritize personal achievements and recognition over team success.

2. Identifying Missionaries and Mercenaries in the Workplace

Missionaries:

• Look for employees who advocate for the company’s values and are enthusiastic about company-wide goals and missions.
• They often go beyond their job descriptions to help colleagues and advance the organization’s objectives.

Mercenaries:

• Identify those who frequently negotiate for higher pay or better titles without corresponding increases in their contribution to team goals.
• They may exhibit high performance but are less interested in collaborative projects unless these directly impact their personal targets.

3. The Strategic Use of Mercenaries in Business

When You’d Want a Mercenary:

• Special Projects: For short-term, high-impact projects where specific skills are crucial, and the commitment is finite.
• Scaling Operations: When rapid scaling is needed, mercenaries can accelerate growth given their focus on outcomes and deliverables.

4. Encouraging Missionaries to Thrive

Stoking Up Missionaries:

• Align Roles with Passions: Ensure that their roles are closely aligned with what they are passionate about within the context of the company’s mission.
• Recognition and Empowerment: Recognize their contributions in meaningful ways and empower them with the autonomy to lead initiatives.
• Foster a Purpose-Driven Culture: Strengthen the company’s mission-oriented culture, making the collective mission a central part of daily business operations.

If you want to join the conversation with other entrepreneurs, click here.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

I get between 30 and 300 messages on FB every single day. Usually, I ask, "what are your goals for the business?" and the entrepreneur answers, "I need more clients." But in many ases, they have lots of clients, and that's not ht eproblem. They're chasing the wrong metric. In fact, they're chasing the hardest metric. They should be chasing profit. How do you get more profit and impove that metric? Getting more revenue and cutting unnecessary expenses. You improve those 2 metrics. How do you improve the revenue metric? More clients, maybe...or maybe more rev per client, or maybe less churn. You improve those 3 metrics (headcount, ARM and LEG) But what if you just improved one of those metrics right now? Like ARM? well, every client goes up $10/mo. If you have 100 clients, that's 1000 more/mo. So you improve revenue. Since that revenue doesn't come with additional expenses, the new revenue is all profit. Bingo - you've improved hte metric you actually want to improve. Now let's look at the alternative. You want to improve revenue so you increase client headcount. Well, more clients comes with some expenses: staff, equipment, etc. A good benchmark is that 44% of your revenue, per client, goes to staff. So you bring on 10 clients paying $100/mo...and you have to add coaches and equipment. So maybe about $550 goes to the bottom line. You've improved revenue by $1000, but profit by only $550. Obviously there are a lot of factors here. BUT the key is identifying the right metric to improve. Professionals can actually grow a lot faster by increasing the frequency and value of their services than by increasing their client count. This is where a mentor helps: You start with the end in mind. If your mentor is asking "why do you want that?" it's because they're trying to guide you to the endgame - the picture of success that you have in your head. You might not even have taken the time to craft this picture, which is why you're chasing the wrong metric. Or maybe you know where you want to go, but haven't 'considered all sides of the coin. THat's where a mentor can help too: they can show you the easiest ways to get to your goal once you have it. It's up to you to track these metrics. and when you become a very good business owner, you can identify these opportunities for yourself. Until then, though, if you think that 'more clients' = success, I'd seek an outside perspective.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

When most entrepreneurs get their business running smoothly, they turn their eyes to the next thing: the next level, the next opportunity, the next location, or the next big idea.

This means they no longer spend all of their time caring for, feeding and protecting the Golden Goose. They might entrust its care to someone else...but that person doesn't have all of the context, experience or knowledge of the business owner.

We call this "moving from Farmer phase to Tinker Phase". When you leave your farm in the hands of someone else and start tinkering, you have to mentor the new farmer.

In this episode, I talk about the step that most successful founders skip: mentoring their team.

I tell you why it's important, and how to do it step by step.

If you want to join the conversation with other entrepreneurs, click here.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

No matter what kind of service business you own, you must carefully consider their first 3 visits into your service. These first 3 interactions set you up for long-term client retention...or early washout.

Here's how to do it.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

Last week I shared the story of the Smokejumpers, and the horrible tragedy that happened in Mann Gulch, Montana in 1949.

But as in all tragedies and all business setbacks, there's a lesson that we can learn and take from this. In this lesson, the foreman of the Smokejumpers--Wagg Dodge-- did something that seemed counterintuitive and didn't make sense to his team: he lit an escape fire. And this brave act ultimately saved his life, and it shares profound lessons for businesses facing their own kind of wildfires.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

In the annals of firefighting history, few events are as heartbreaking and instructive as the tragedy of the Smoke Jumpers in Mann Gulch. This group of elite wildland firefighters met their fate in a devastating fire in 1949, which claimed the lives of 13 brave souls. Their story is not only a poignant reminder of the hazards faced by firefighters but also serves as a metaphor for businesses navigating the treacherous landscapes of change and competition.

Smoke Jumpers are specially trained firefighters who parachute into remote areas to combat wildfires. They are the first line of defense against some of the most dangerous fires in rural and wilderness areas. On that fateful day in August 1949, a team of 15 Smoke Jumpers descended into Mann Gulch in Montana to fight a fire that had erupted in the area. What seemed like a routine operation soon turned into a nightmare as the wind shifted unexpectedly, causing the fire to engulf the gulch at a breakneck speed.

The tragedy was compounded by the terrain—a steep 70-degree slope that the firefighters had to climb to escape the rapidly advancing flames. Investigators later found that none of the fallen Smoke Jumpers had dropped their heavy gear; they perished with their packs intact, loaded with heavy saws, shovels, and poleaxes. It was speculated that had they discarded this burdensome equipment, some might have outrun the disaster.

This tragic event underscores a crucial lesson: the importance of agility and the ability to let go of unnecessary weight when facing an existential threat. For businesses, especially those that have been around for decades, this can be a metaphor for shedding institutional baggage to stay relevant and competitive.

Long-established companies often carry their own kind of heavy equipment in the form of outdated practices, legacy systems, and old ways of thinking that no longer serve their purpose. These can drag a company down, making it less nimble and unable to pivot quickly in response to market changes or technological advances. Like the Smoke Jumpers, companies might find themselves racing uphill against challenges that are exacerbated by the weight they carry.

The first step in avoiding this fate is recognizing what constitutes unnecessary weight. This could be an inefficient process that consumes valuable resources, a product line that no longer meets customer needs, or policies that stifle innovation rather than foster it. Once identified, the difficult but necessary task of letting go must commence. This might mean restructurings, like streamlining operations, investing in new technologies, or overhauling management practices to enhance decision-making speed and efficacy.

The lesson from Mann Gulch is clear: survival might depend on the ability to drop what’s heavy and run unencumbered towards safety. For businesses, this doesn’t just mean surviving but thriving—turning potential disasters into opportunities for growth and renewal.

By learning from the past and being willing to adapt, businesses can navigate the uncertainties of the future more effectively. Just as the landscape of wildland firefighting has evolved since the Mann Gulch fire, so too must businesses evolve by shedding the institutional baggage that can hold them back. It’s a vital strategy for staying ahead of the curve and ensuring long-term success in an ever-changing world.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/