The Alternative Board Northwest Arkansas

The Alternative Board Northwest Arkansas Diana Rogers, owner of TAB NWA, helps business owners in Benton and Washington counties grow with coaching, peer boards, and strategic tools for success.

We all know what our revenue is with exact detail. That is probably the number many business only think about. Whoever, ...
06/18/2026

We all know what our revenue is with exact detail. That is probably the number many business only think about. Whoever, if I ask them give me their break-even number, a big part of them can't even answer it.

It's one of the most important numbers in a business, and it's the one I find most often carried in someone's head instead of written down anywhere. The owner has a general sense of it. The CFO might know it. The bookkeeper probably doesn't.

That's a problem. Every quote you put out, every project you say yes to, every hire you make is priced against a break-even number whether you've calculated it or not. If you don't know yours, you're guessing.

The owners I work with who run sharp businesses know this number cold. They know what it costs to keep the doors open. They know what margin every line of business needs to clear. They know the revenue level the company has to hit before profit even starts.

TAB corporate has a free Break-Even Calculator that walks owners through this exercise. Fixed costs, profit goal, cost percentages in, required revenue out. Worth twenty minutes for any owner who's been carrying these numbers in their head instead of on paper. Link in comments! 🚀

Wether its a business owner or an employee working for a big corporation with a great job position, not many of us think...
06/17/2026

Wether its a business owner or an employee working for a big corporation with a great job position, not many of us think about our retirement. We are almost never planning to make an exit anytime soon.

The hard truth is that by the time most owners get serious about exit planning, the window to do it well has already started closing. Building a business that's worth selling, or that can transition to a successor without falling apart, takes years. Not months. The work has to start long before you're ready to leave.

The owners I sit across from who eventually exit on their own terms started the work in their forties or early fifties. They built a business that didn't depend on them being in the room every day. They developed a leadership layer that could carry the company without them. They got clean financials, clear systems, and a real story about value that a buyer or successor could understand.

The ones who waited until they were tired and ready to be done usually had to take whatever the market would give them.

TAB just released a Leadership Exchange podcast episode with Jason Zickerman and exit strategy expert John Dini on exactly this. They get into why the planning has to start now, even if the exit feels years away. Link in comments! 🚀

One of the conversations I find myself talking about a lot is the difference between managing and leading. Most owners u...
06/16/2026

One of the conversations I find myself talking about a lot is the difference between managing and leading. Most owners use the words interchangeably. The work behind each one isn't the same.

Management is about the systems.
Are people doing the right work?
On the right timeline, to the right standard?
Leadership is about the direction. Where is this team going. Why does it matter. How do we make decisions when the path isn't obvious?

A business needs both. The trouble is when one person is asked to do both without anyone naming the difference, or when the company keeps training managers and wonders why nobody is leading, or trains leaders and wonders why the trains aren't running on time.

The owners I work with who get this right develop both skills on purpose. They invest in management training because the systems matter.

TAB corporate just published a piece called Leadership Training vs. Management Training: What's the Difference? Link in comments! 🚀

Letting go some of the work thats in our desk is not always the wrong decision. I've met many owners that struggle with ...
06/15/2026

Letting go some of the work thats in our desk is not always the wrong decision. I've met many owners that struggle with keeping unnecesary work on their desk and that is what makes them be stuck.

Almost every CEO starts by doing everything themselvs. That is how many of us have been taught. You do the sales, the operations, the hiring, the finances, the customer issues at ten at night. The business exists because you carried it. And then, somewhere around the point it stops being a small company and starts being a real one, the thing that built it becomes the thing capping it.

Delegation sounds simple. In practice it's the hardest skill an owner has to learn. It means trusting work to people who won't do it exactly the way you would. The owners who make that shift stop running the business and start leading it.

The ones who don't stay stuck doing the same job they were doing five years ago, just with more revenue and more exhaustion.

TAB corporate just published a case study on Mike Mayo, who built Nanohmics by wearing every hat and then worked with his TAB board to learn how to step out of the day-to-day and lead the business instead. Worth a read for any owner who suspects the next stage of growth means doing less of the work themselves. Link in comments!🚀

Let's end this week with another quote, this one from Henry Ford."The only thing worse than training your employees and ...
06/12/2026

Let's end this week with another quote, this one from Henry Ford.

"The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay."

I think about this one often in coaching. Most owners I sit across from have at least one person on the team who stopped growing a few years ago and never left. It's rarely the employee's fault. The investment in their development quietly stopped, and so did they.

The owners who build durable businesses keep developing their people even when there's no guarantee those people will stay. Some leave. Most don't. And the ones who stay are sharper, more capable, and more loyal than they would have been if you'd held back.

One of the questions I ask owners early in coaching is where their time actually goes. Most can't answer it with any pre...
06/11/2026

One of the questions I ask owners early in coaching is where their time actually goes. Most can't answer it with any precision.

They have a sense of it. A lot of meetings. Email somewhere in there. But when we actually map a week against the priorities they say matter most, the gap is almost always bigger than they expected. The strategic work they swear they're focused on takes up maybe four hours. The administrative work they keep saying they'll delegate takes up fifteen.

You can't fix a calendar you've never actually looked at.

The owners I work with who get their time back start with this exact exercise. Not a new productivity system. Not another app. Just an honest look at where the hours are going compared to where they want them to go. The reframe usually happens in the first session. The hard part is the discipline to act on what they see.

TAB corporate just released a free Work and Life Balance Calendar that walks owners through this exercise. You map your week visually and see whether your time is actually going to the things you've decided matter. Worth twenty minutes for any owner who suspects the answer is no. Link in comments! 🚀

Many business owners don't realize how much work can be taken off their plate with the right help. At first, it shows up...
06/10/2026

Many business owners don't realize how much work can be taken off their plate with the right help. At first, it shows up as something small that can be taken care off easily.

Whoever, there are cases where the owner is spending time in meetings that shouldn't need them. Handling a customer escalation a manager could have handled and many more.

Most of the time, it's developing the ones already in the seat. Teaching them how to have the conversations they're avoiding. How to set clear expectations and hold the line on them. When that work happens, the owner gets their time back. The team gets the leader they needed. And the manager finally feels like they have the tools for the job they were handed.

TAB corporate just released a HI-MAP white paper that breaks down how this kind of management development actually works in practice. Link in comments! 🚀

Some people that get promoted to Management roles were never really trained to be managers in the first place. This is s...
06/09/2026

Some people that get promoted to Management roles were never really trained to be managers in the first place. This is something very common that business owners make and don't think about before making the call.

Promoting a strong individual contributor into a management role without giving them the training to lead is one of the most expensive mistakes I see owners make. Not because the person isn't capable. Because nobody handed them the playbook for the new job.

Cases like these happen all the time. Having a great performer and filling an additional seat seems obvious at first. But being good at the work and being good at leading the people doing the work are two completely different skill sets. And without the training to bridge that gap, you've taken your best individual contributor and set them up to struggle in a role nobody prepared them for.

TAB corporate just published a piece called 15 Signs Your Managers Need Leadership Development. Worth a read for any owner who suspects something is off in the middle layer but can't yet name what. Link in comments! 🚀

One of the harder shifts I see in coaching is the moment an owner stops chasing every opportunity and starts being selec...
06/08/2026

One of the harder shifts I see in coaching is the moment an owner stops chasing every opportunity and starts being selective about which ones they actually take on.
It feels like the wrong decision at first.

Most owners spend the early years of the business saying yes to almost everything, because that's how you build momentum. The problem is that the habits that got the business to grow at first are often the one that make the company be stuck there.

The owners I've been working with, break through that ceiling usually have the same realization. Growth isn't about doing more. It's about doing less, on purpose. The wrong project costs you the bandwidth to take on the right one.

Saying no is the work. Saying yes is the easy part.

TAB just published a case study on Mikael Wedemeyer and Nathan Mussig of Niche Studio, who worked with their TAB board to get more intentional about which clients they took on and which opportunities they walked away from.

Worth a read for any owner who suspects the next stage of growth is on the other side of a few harder no's. Link in comments! 🚀

A great quote to end this week is from Harvey S. Firestone."The growth and development of people is the highest calling ...
06/05/2026

A great quote to end this week is from Harvey S. Firestone.

"The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership."

I come back to this one often. Most owners I work with started their business to build something, and eventually the way the building started to mean people more than product.

The strongest leaders I know stopped measuring themselves by what they could do, and started measuring themselves by who grew under them.
That shift is hard. It's also the work.

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50001 Founders Drive
Rogers, AR
72758

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+14792221910

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