Business Coaching

China has seen economic results from putting money in state-owned businesses.

China’s leaders during the financial crisis have reaffirmed their faith in their own more statist approach to economic management, in which private capitalism plays only a supporting role.

The New York Times reports that the Chinese government has grown richer — and more worried about sustaining its high-octane growth — and therefore, it has pumped public money into companies that it expects to upgrade the industrial base and employ more people. The beneficiaries are state-owned interests that many analysts had assumed would gradually wither away in the face of private-sector competition.

The distinction may matter more today than it once did. China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy this year, and its state-directed development model is appealing to poor countries.

Would this strategy work with the US? Investing in state-owned companies, to see the economy skyrocket, just like China?

Kevin Dipetrillo owns Southern Insurance Providers, a commercial property and casualty agency in Marrietta, Georgia. ActionCOACH Rick Crain has provided him with day to day planning to help him grow his business and become more successful. In less than six months of working with ActionCOACH Rick Crain, Kevin’s average sale per account has increased by six times. Hear more about his amazing results above.

Levi's "Go Forth" campaign: is it really helping Braddock, PA?

Recently Levi’s opened a new ad campaign featuring the town and citizens of Braddock, Pennsylvania, but is this campaign effective corporate propaganda or corporate philanthropy at its best?

The company’s “Go Forth” campaign is employing the slogan, “We Are All Workers”, as it shows interviews with citizens of Braddock talking about better times as melancholy piano music plays in the background.

Braddock was once a thriving suburb of Pittsburgh with over 20,000 citizens at its peak in the 1950s. A steel mill created jobs for workers, stores were busy, people had money to spend and times were good.

Following the closing of the UPMC Braddock Hospital, the area’s biggest employer in recent years, today only 3,000 people live in Braddock. The site of Andrew Carnegie’s steel mill, Braddock is now just an afterthought in today post-modern American economy, as are many once-thriving small American towns.

It seems that Levi’s understands this and is taking action to help Braddock. Over the next two years they will give Braddock a million dollars to help improve Braddock’s Community Center, Public Library and Urban Farm. Citizens will also be featured in Levi’s ads.

But does the campaign go far enough? After all, when you say “We Are All Workers” for ads featuring American workers and then manufacture less than 3% of your product in America, are you being genuine or are you just trying to exploit a bad situation for your benefit?

Levi’s has brought attention to Braddock, but it hasn’t brought jobs. There are no plans for Levi’s to open a plant in Braddock. Instead Levi’s own site says this about the campaign, “…if they’re just matched with the right distressed consumer brand, distressed Americans are ideal marketing mascots.”

Is that what working Americans have become, marketing mascots? What do you think of Levi’s marketing campaign and how it can affect Braddock, Pennsylvania?

J.Crew has evolved from flannel to fashionable with the help of brand management.

Remember when J.Crew menswear was mostly about flannel?

Men, you have Frank Muytjens, head of men’s design for J.Crew, to thank for the transformation in the preppy retailer’s menswear selections in recent years.

Muytjens told Bloomberg BusinessWeek that he listened to what J.Crew’s male customers wanted and responded to current trends. While retail has struggled during the U.S. recession, it seems that menswear could be a big opportunity for sales; at least for J.Crew — besides the growth the menswear division has seen, J.Crew made $44.7 million in this year’s first quarter, up from $20.4 million in 2009’s first quarter.

Collaboration also helps broaden J.Crew’s appeal — Ray Ban, Levi’s and Sperry are just some of the 40 partnerships J.Crew has.

Sometimes just listening to what your customer wants can have a great effect…that can be great for your business.

Instead of flannel, plaid, and more flannel, J.Crew’s menswear has evolved to two suit silhouettes, the Ludlow and Aldrige, sperry top-siders and stylish ankle boots.

What can listening to your customer do? Can it get you more business?

ActionCOACH Linda Bigler worked with Amanda Johnson, a financial planner and advisor. Before working with Linda, Amanda was having difficulties hiring competent staff. Listen as Amanda talks about how she was able to hire the perfect personal assistant by using the ActionCOACH hiring process.

Would you choose passion over a steady paycheck?

On Friday, we wrote about how hiring for jobs is up, but only in terms of temp jobs.

A whole other crop of people are saying to themselves, “Hey, if I can’t get a job doing what I love, I’m going to do just that, instead of wasting away and bouncing from temp job to temp job.”

With the unemployment rate apparently stuck at or near double digits, more people seem to be choosing a passion over a steady paycheck. Rather than waiting for companies to open up their payrolls, these people are taking matters into their own hands and defining their own jobs, going online to find each other, leverage each other’s capabilities and services, and learn faster by working together.

While this is a big risk, but these people realize that they’ll be far happier if they can find something they love doing and figure out creative ways to make a living from it. Focusing on work that offers greater meaning makes it easier to withstand the perils and roadblocks they will face as they leave the corporate fold.

Read the whole article over at Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

BP CEO Tony Hayward is getting serious flack for not handling BP's situation well.

The BP oil spill is finally under control. The well is capped and oil is no longer gushing into the gulf. In fact, most of the oil has been cleaned up and most beaches on the gulf coast are clean and open for business.

Unfortunately, the beaches are too open. So open they are virtually empty and with just a few weeks left before summer travel season ends, businesses are struggling to make ends meet.

The extensive Media coverage has been a double edged sword for residents of the gulf coast. The attention has ensured that BP worked as quickly and efficiently as possible in cleaning up the spill. On the other hand, all of that attention has kept tourists away, as most assumed that the beaches were virtually destroyed by the spill.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sure, there are tarballs, but for the most part, the cleanup has gone well and beaches all over the gulf coast look as pristine as they ever have. But there aren’t any tourists to enjoy those beaches.

In early spring, it looked like the area was poised for a big summer. But after the spill, things went south very quickly.

For example, in May and June, the Inn on Destin Harbor lost $102,000 worth of reservations, and it didn’t get better in July. The Inn usually expects 90% occupancy in July, but this year, the occupancy was off by over 30% and they’ve had to cut their prices to fill rooms.

That is the story for businesses throughout the gulf coast, which, like most tourism communities, rely on seasonal visitors to make enough money to get through the rest of the year.

The BP spill and its aftermath should serve as a wakeup call to communities that rely on tourism throughout the United States.

Communities and businesses that count on tourists need to find different streams of revenue and seek ways to draw visitors no matter what happens.

What can your community take ensure you aren’t adversely affected by the forces of nature? What steps have you taken so your business can weather adversity?

WePay cofounders went after their dreams of starting a start-up.

If you’re a recent college grad with

Rich Aberman and Bill Clerico faced a tough decision as they approached the end of their senior year at Boston College. Start an innovative online-payment processing company, or start a new job and grad school?

They decided to take the latter option –Aberman set out for law school at New York University and Clerico took a job as an investment banker at Jefferies — and they promised themselves that, one day, they’d start their business. But they soon saw themselves getting sucked into their day jobs, with little time left to “really start on” their entrepreneurial ambitions.

“It only gets harder to start a company as time goes on,” Aberman, 25, told entrepreneur.com. “As you get used to a salary, you start getting comfortable with a certain lifestyle, which becomes hard to leave for the uncertainty of being an entrepreneur.”

WePay launched March 30, which allows individuals and groups all over the world to establish an account and collect money in a variety of ways–from paper checks to credit cards–and then use a debit card to spend the money in the account. They already have several thousand users, ranging from sports teams to fraternities to groups of roommates managing rent and utilities. WePay collects transaction fees ranging from 50 cents for bank account payments to 3.5 percent of credit-card payments for each payment received; outgoing transactions are free.

Aberman and Clerico were able to get their college business idea back on track after a minor detour, but they strongly recommend starting right out of college.

“You have the degree under your belt, and you haven’t tied yourself into a particular lifestyle or career path,” Aberman says. “If you take a risk, and it fails, the worst that happens is that you have a unique experience that you can use as an impressive factor to get you into graduate school or to rock a job interview.”

Adds Clerico, “If you wait until you work for a few years or go to graduate school, you are just piling on reasons not to take the risk, and you reduce the chances that you ever will.”

What do you experienced entrepreneurs out there think…is it better to get started with a start-up sooner rather than later?

Mark Schmelder of Cimbrian, a marketing technology company in Pennsylvania, was experiencing rapid growth, but the company was unable to handle the growth because it lacked organization. Since working with ActionCOACH Jeff Witmer, the business has become more streamlined. Cimbrian has increased its earning ability and profitability. Working with an ActionCOACH has allowed Mark to find the perfect balance between his business and personal life — just watch the testimonial above!

This past year has been rough on small businesses.

Recently, it seemed like economically, things might be looking up for small business…but we may have spoken too soon.

It’s no secret that times are tough for small businesses but the semi- annual mid-year economic report from the National small business Association released at the end of July show just how difficult this year has been.

The report, which surveyed 400 small business owners in varying fields found that only 11% have hired workers in the past year, 25% have cut jobs and 41% say they are unable to secure adequate financing.

These numbers are obviously not very promising for our economy when it comes to job creation. It takes a 5% increase in GDP to create enough jobs to lower unemployment by just one percentage point.

“Given the direct correlation between access to capital and job growth, unless small-business owners are able to secure financing, we will continue to see high unemployment,” Todd McCracken, President of the NSBA said.

Other numbers were equally bleak. Almost three quarters of respondents said economic uncertainty was their top concern, up from 64% in December. Almost half, 44% don’t expect any growth opportunities in the coming year and 45% believe the economy is worse now than it was a year ago. Just 59% of those who responded felt confident about the future of their business, down from 61% in December.

But all was not bad — only 25% predicted decreases in revenue for the next 12 months, down from 31% in December. There were also more businesses reporting higher revenue since the last survey in December, 26% this month, compared with 22% at the end of last year.

To view the National Small Business Association survey, click here: http://nsba.biz/

Do you see these numbers reflected in your business? Are things turning for the better or are we headed for a double-dip recession? Tell us what you think.