Strategic Work is all about the big questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? Tactical Work is all about answers: This is the system we use to do each task. This is how we do it, how we measure it, how we monitor it.

The kind of work you do, when you do it, how much of it there is, and who you delegate it to are often the cause of the quasi-schizophrenic behavior seen in many business owners and entrepreneurs.

More than a few studies have shown that the five people you spend the most time with represent you - so you need to decide - who do you want to be?

Steve Jobs didn't seek solace among minimum wage workers. He sought it from highly educated men and women who understood and shared his focus on growth, technology, and company-building.

Your first job, as an owner and an entrepreneur, has to be to understand how the business is going to actually work.

Your success starts with how you are able to get clients in the door, get their business, and leave them satisfied. If you, personally, have to spend too much time doing that, you have simply bought yourself a job, not an enterprise. Take hints from success stories all around you!

If you make converting a lead into a sale harder than a trip to the local DMV, then you lose sales to someone else - with an inferior product - who can make it painless. Don't do that!

Understand this - as a new company, if you don't know how to get interested prospects into your company, then you don't have a company. At the same time, if you, as a owner, have to drive every lead into your business, then you need a real lead generation strategy.

If you ever hope to get ahead as an entrepreneur, the answer is not becoming an effective juggler, but in understanding and designing the systems to keep your team, not you, busy, busy, busy.

The world of the small business owner is all about moving multiple items forward at once, and it's a fool's errand to believe one person can do it all when the shift comes from linear to parallel.