Business Development

Lately, a lot of my time has gone toward a new training venture. In this process, I’m documenting skills that I’ve used throughout my career to help new business owners get in front of the very hard learning curve. I’m a “hands-on” manager and prone to jump in, which is often the very wrong answer.  […]

July 2025 The U.S. labor market continued its steady, if subdued, expansion in June 2025, adding 147,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, July 5, 2025). While the pace of hiring remains consistent with recent months, a closer look at the data reveals that job creation is increasingly concentrated […]

How is it already August?  We say that at the start of every month, but somehow the rollover from July to August always feels a little jarring, like summer is on a rapid wind down and all of life is about to get a lot faster.  The next few weeks will have everyone in limbo […]

The U.S. labor market continued its steady, but slowing, trajectory in May 2025, adding 139,000 jobs, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.2%, a closer look reveals early warning signs that both workers and employers are entering a period of heightened caution. Pacing […]

Right now, do you pivot or stay the course? Hunker down or rise up? The landscape seems to change not by the hour, but by the minute. As the current presidential administration continues to sow chaos throughout the global economy, it’s nearly impossible for business leaders to stabilize their footing for long enough to make […]

Friction is just about everywhere you look. But if you’re the person in charge, it’s your job to minimize it as much as possible. Every transaction, customer engagement, product delivery, etc., is going to have some level of friction. That’s true for anyone who doesn’t operate 100% by themselves. While you can never completely remove […]

The U.S. labor market showed mixed signals in March, as job openings fell to their lowest level since 2024 while hiring remained steady, and layoffs stayed relatively unchanged. Data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics points to a job market that’s no longer overheating but not in free fall either. Total job openings dropped […]

If you’ve ever felt like the phrase “the job market is weird right now” is coming up in every client session (or career-related conversation), you’re not wrong.  It is weird. It’s been weird. And it’s probably going to stay weird for a while. But here’s the million-dollar question: can you explain why the market feels […]

We’re all guilty of it. The second we hear, “I’m struggling in my job search,” we flip into fixer mode. Resume? Keywords? Interview prep? Let’s go! It’s natural—we’re here to help, after all—but in our eagerness to solve problems, we can skip the most powerful step in a coaching conversation: curiosity. What if your best […]

By Stephanie Renk, MBA, CPCC, CERW, CPRW As of April 2025, the U.S. job market continues to demonstrate resilience, with strong job gains and a stable unemployment rate. However, emerging challenges such as trade tensions, evolving hiring technologies, and shifting candidate behaviors are adding new complexity to the employment landscape. National Employment Trends: Growth Amid […]

I’m a firm believer that wisdom can be found anywhere, and I recently made a new discovery while walking my dog. As the primary dog walker, I tend to take us around three basic routes. The first is a quick around the block, a 10-minute route where he can sniff and do his business and […]

It surprises nobody more than me that I am a staunch yoga enthusiast. About 10 years ago I signed up for a series of classes with my daughter, and my opinion of yoga was a lukewarm, “Well, it’s something for us to do together.” While she walked away from the experiment with a middling impression […]