Business Coaching

Founder and CEO of ActionCOACH Brad Sugars has a new audio interview series “Master Mentors,” a thought-provoking series of exclusive interviews between Sugars and various successful entrepreneurs, business elite, available for free on the ActionCOACH website.

Sugars’ goal with these interviews was to help others discover the insights and secrets top business visionaries use to drive their success. He wants to accomplish three things with this series: give people access to great business mentors and their advice, up-to-date learnings, and actionable matter that isn’t just theory, but can lead to results.

“These are people I learned about business from,” Sugars said. “They all have a passion for teaching and enjoy passing on their knowledge to people. And when I chose people for this series, I chose people who don’t just teach, they live by principle. These people all have a proven track record that shows they know what they’re talking about.”

His first interview was with Brian Tracy, a best-selling author and motivational speaker who has helped more than 4 million people achieve their goals.

Upcoming episodes of the series will feature Jeffrey Gitomer, notable speaker and author, and Michael Losier, author of Law of Attrraction.

It’s no secret that just about every newspaper in the country has had to make cutbacks.

But still, newspaper circulation is actively decreasing, meaning the fate of the newspaper is in question.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, circulation for 379 U.S. dailies dropped 10.6%, based on a cumulative average for the six months ended Sept. 30.

This is the sharpest drop in sales in more than 10 years.

Nearly two-thirds of the country’s 25 largest papers posted declines of 10% or more.

While everyone has their predictions about what will happen to newspapers in a few years if things keep going like this, one thing’s for sure – as a business owner, your business must change with the times.

Several businesses, whether they’ve expanded their reach and their key products or changed their investment strategy, have had to change in order to weather the economic recession.

Even some newspapers have weathered it as much as they can by investing more time and energy in moving online.

For example, The Wall Street Journal sold an average of 2.02 million copies and online subscriptions during the six months ending Sept. 30, a 0.6% increase from the same period in 2008.

Recognize where the times are taking people. For newspapers, there is now a greater demand for news online rather than an actual newspaper.

Some people don’t like change, but not changing could mean the end of your business.

Becky Stockbridge is the founder and president of iBec Creative.

It’s a tough year for young people looking for jobs.

This is making some of those people skip the job market altogether and start their own businesses.

Statistics show most start-up businesses fail within a few years. Combine that with little to no job experience and most college grads or young people are against the odds when starting their own businesses.

But despite the odds, some do end up pulling through.

BusinessWeek.com recently came out with their fifth annual Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25 list. Among the recipients, iBec Creative founder and Creative Director Becky Stockbridge was on the list.

Stockbridge first formed her company, a website and traditional design services company, in May 2006, right after she graduated the University of Southern Maine. There were a lot of elements involved, and she soon hired a Business Coach, Jim Lyon, to help her sort everything out.

She never expected to get recognized by BusinessWeek by hiring a Business Coach – she just wanted to run a successful business efficiently.

“My top expectation with getting a coach was having someone that I could talk to about all of the questions that I regularly had about the business,” Stockbridge said. “It is nice to have another person that knows your business really well.”

The number one thing that coaching has taught her, she said, is the importance of measuring.

“One of the first things Jim helped me out with was measuring my leads, referrals, proposals and closes per week,” she said. “As soon as I started doing that, my numbers immediately started improving because I was able to track where I was.”

Stockbridge is convinced that business coaching helped iBec Creative get to where it is.

“I will always have a Business Coach for my company – it has been a huge help in getting me where I am today and in helping me stay focused on my vision for the future.“

Marketing and advertising is very important in business – you want your company stuck in potential customers’ heads, and still stuck there for repeat business.

Derren Brown is a hypnotist, and he plays a trick on two men who work in a big London advertising agency.

You’ll see in the video the great lengths Brown went to put a subliminal message in both their minds – which, unfortunately, we all can’t do – but it proves how the power of advertising and having something everywhere that relates to your company really is powerful.

When you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, they don’t measure feasibility of that goal. They just tell you what they’d most like to do. Firefighter, veterinarian, police officer, the President…

But whatever their answer, they answer without a second thought. They don’t think about limitations or any plausible reason as to why they can’t do it.

That’s the difference between children and adults – adults tend to think through the consequences, pros and cons.

Not that that’s a bad thing – in fact, it’s a very good thing – but children don’t consider any options. No limitations, no second thoughts, they just tell you anything, like what they want to be when they grow up.

Sometimes too much knowledge can be restricting. Without thinking about something too much…why not just do it?

If we approached business strategies like that, most of them would be simple, but they’d probably be brilliant. As we blogged about before, Steve Jobs took a simple demand and created a product as the answer: the iPod. It was that simple.

Sometimes you don’t need to think about absolutely everything to come up with a great idea and implement it.

Fall is approaching.

With the change in weather, often this is the time of year when most people get sick. And even worse this year, in addition to viruses running rampant, a pandemic is going around, too.There have been about 70 deaths from swine flu in the U.S. so far this year, and people are taking precautions against the pandemic. Sometimes it takes a pandemic like the swine flu to force people to really take care of themselves; 40,000 deaths per year in the U.S. are from seasonal flu.

This can actually be compared to business. Let’s say an aspect of your business gets a “fever” – maybe you’ve never kept track of your numbers and it’s catching up to you – your business is at risk of getting sick.

Just like not getting enough sleep will eventually catch up to you and cause your immune system to weaken, not keeping all departments and business systems in top health will eventually catch up with your business.

Your company will be “sick” until you work to make it better. And that’s never good – sickness can slow any business down, and even cost it in sales, marketing or budget.

If your business gets a cold, treat it. Because if you let it go, before you know it, it could develop into something worse – like the swine flu.

And even worse this year, in addition to viruses running rampant, a pandemic is going around, too.

There have been about 70 deaths from swine flu in the U.S. so far this year, and people are taking precautions against the pandemic. Sometimes it takes a pandemic like the swine flu to force people to really take care of themselves; 40,000 deaths per year in the U.S. are from seasonal flu.

This can actually be compared to business. Let’s say an aspect of your business gets a “fever” – maybe you’ve never kept track of your numbers and it’s catching up to you – your business is at risk of getting sick.

Just like not getting enough sleep will eventually catch up to you and cause your immune system to weaken, not keeping all departments and business systems in top health will eventually catch up with your business.

Your company will be “sick” until you work to make it better. And that’s never good – sickness can slow any business down, and even cost it in sales, marketing or budget.

If your business gets a cold, treat it. Because if you let it go, before you know it, it could develop into something worse – like the swine flu.

Coca-Cola has had roughly the same brand since its inception.

Coca-Cola has had roughly the same brand logo since its inception. The script appeared in Coke ads first in the 1900s, and although it has had some minor tweaks here and there (with a brief use of a new logo in 1985 for “new” Coke, which was scrapped for the old logo again in 1987), it’s been pretty standard through the years. That’s the same logo for about 123 years.

Meanwhile, Pepsi-Cola changed its logo about 11 times since 1898.

In Business Week’s top 100 global brands list, Coke is number one. Pepsi is 23^rd.

There are lots of things to consider when marketing your brand: is your product filling a need? Is it a quality and valued product? And is it being marketed well?

Companies want brand logos that are instantly recognizable. It may take a while to get there, but once there, the payoff – your product and company visible and known from far and wide – is great.

Think about how you market yourself and your logo. That could make all the difference when it comes to being recognized vs. not being known at all.

The CEE wants to make sure that future generations are thoroughly prepared to make responsible financial decisions.

It’s a given that young people will face economic challenges and opportunities in the coming years. Perhaps spurred by the US recession, the Council for Economic Education (CEE) is committed to “empowerment and opportunity through economic and financial literacy,” it says.

An economic way of thinking is something that’s necessary in business and especially in coaching a business; you need to be able to foresee economic conditions and what economic solutions are best in each situation.

The CEE wants to make sure, however, that future generations are thoroughly prepared to make responsible financial decisions. To do this, it is focusing on developing training programs for K-12 teachers to teach their students.

Is this too early to learn about economics, supply and demand, and how to make informed financial decisions? It might be argued that it’s never too early to learn anything.

The CEE gives K-12 teachers tools they need to teach economics and finances with confidence, even if they themselves haven’t understood the subjects easily. Either way, this way the CEE is informing and educating more people – not only K-12 children, but also their teachers – and these classes and teaching tools will hopefully benefit everyone’s futures, helping everyone to make sound financial decisions later in life.

Why do people who want to lose weight lose the weight faster if they have a personal trainer or nutritionist?

Besides the fact that they’re paying the trainer or nutritionist to do a job (help them get healthy), those people are also there to push their client, you, into getting the best results possible. If you tell them you want to lose 10 pounds, they’ll help you lose 10 pounds – and along the way, they’ll teach you better eating habits and strategies to avoid overeating and ways to feel fuller longer. This enables their client to keep up all they’ve learned on their own.

This exact same situation, which many people may go through, is directly comparable to a business getting a business coach.

For a long time, having a business coach was looked at as a bad thing. Something that you only needed if you were making detrimental business decisions, or something you needed to have to help you out of a rut.

But now, we’re seeing a trend – it’s more acceptable to have a coach because people and businesses are realizing that even if nothing is wrong per se, with the business, and results are decent. People are finally realizing that with a business coach, someone can push them to achieve their absolute best results.

Think you and your business can achieve those kind of results yourself? Well, maybe you can. But having someone to push you for your absolute best, whether you hit your goal or not, is useful.

If you’ve ever had a personal trainer, you know that they might say 5 more, but after those 5, they’ll probably push you to give them one more good rep.

A business coach does the same thing. Even if you don’t want to or you think you don’t have it in you, you do – and a business coach, like a sports coach or personal trainer, will get it out of you, even if they have to force it.

Doesn’t necessarily sound fun, but hey, it gets great results: look at how many peoples’ fitness and eating habits improved with a personal trainer.

And look at how many peoples’ businesses improved with the help of a business coach.