Business Coaching

Tools like Twitter are designed to grow any business, brand or image, but, like with any new platform, there are many avenues of wealth still left to be exploited in its use.

Celebrities have been at the front of using Twitter to connect with their fans and deliver their message directly. That was what brought Charlie Sheen to begin using Twitter, and why over a million people follow him setting a Guiness World record by accumulating 1 million followers of his Tweets in less than 24 hours.

It’s been a few weeks since Charlie Sheen was seemingly on every television show and radio station offering pearls of wisdom before moving to Twitter.

Sheen’s very public meltdown (or publicity stunt) gave us such classic memes as “Adonis DNA and Tiger’s Blood” or “Riding on a Mercury Surfboard”, to name just a few, but it also gave him a public pulpit he’d never had before.

While much of what he said was, to say the least, loopy, it certainly helped grow his already well known brand and take it to a new level.

Sheen started his public tirade the old-fashioned way, on television and radio, but he realized he was missing the social media boat. He contacted Ad.ly, a PR company that specializes in using social media and celebrities for commercial endorsements.

Say what you will about Sheen, but he saw that there was an opportunity and found away to cash in.

Sheen is now a member of Ad.ly celebrity roster, which is more than 1000 strong and while the crazy Tweets have slowed down, there’s little doubt his followers will be seeing plenty of Twitter endorsements from him.

Sheen’s story is a great example of how a business or a person can grow a brand with Twitter.

Sure, he was already well known and had the big advantage of being able to say any crazy thing he wanted without serious repercussions but it begs the question, what are you doing with your Twitter account to grow your brand, and your business?

We like to say in order to earn more, you need to learn more, and reading a steady stream of great business books is one way to do exactly that.

Here are two books we’ve been sharing with our TEAM over the past quarter, both of which offer great insight and perspectives into the world of business.

The first is about the value of customer service …
The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary by Mark Sanborn

… and the second is a somewhat “Politically Incorrect” take on why it’s called “work” …

It’s Called Work for a Reason! Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault by Larry Winget

You can grab both for your own “business re-education” program by clicking on the above links …

Enjoy!

To create a new idea of your life, a life where you can have ALL that you dream of, not just some little bits of happiness or balance, you’ve got to get the right mindset.

I’ve found there are steps that can help you get your mind right in creating the life you’ve always dreamed of.

You’ve got to consider your life in a positive frame of mind so begin by creating a list of affirmations starting with “I AM”. Affirm things like, I am a leader, I am rich, I am talented, etc. State these affirmations in the positive and present tense out loud every single day.

Secondly, create a dream chart. Find about two dozen magazines full of words and pictures for your new reality. Take several hours and cut out everything in those magazines that match what you want out of life, then glue them to a big sheet of cardboard and put it somewhere where you can see it every morning.

Finally, invest 20 minutes by yourself every single morning visualizing your new reality. Simply close your eyes and focus on everything you’ve pictured in your new reality.

Remember, you are creating a new you and if you’re becoming someone different, you will do things differently.

Since you can only be who you are, you have to change who you are to do things differently.

Your subconscious mind cannot determine the difference between dreams and reality, so feed it dreams often and make that your reality.

Follow these steps, create a bigger picture and then use these techniques to impress this picture on your subconscious.

The rest will take care of itself.

As you change who you are, you’ll change what you do and thus you’ll change what you have. Your new reality will unfold right before your eyes.

Everybody’s online these days, right?

It sure seems that way, but there are still a shocking number of businesses that aren’t taking advantage of the online world to grow.

In fact, almost 40 percent of small businesses in the United States have no online presence at all.

It’s easy to blame uncontrollable factors on failures, but a business that has no online presence and fails has no excuse. There is help for any business if they know where to look.

The economy may be bad, taxes may be high and the economy may be uncertain, but none of those factors mean anything if you aren’t taking full advantage of the opportunities around you and the internet is as powerful a marketing tool as we have ever seen.

People don’t look for the products and services they need in the Yellow Pages anymore.

In fact, many communities have done away with distributing phone books because most people search for what they want online these days and having a massive tome with everyone’s contact information was simply too expensive to produce every year.

For business owners that haven’t gone online with their message yet and then wonder why they aren’t finding enough customers, it’s time to move to the 21st century.  If a business isn’t marketing, it’s dying.

Developing your presence isn’t hard and it shouldn’t take up too much time, but it’s vital to your success.

If a small business doesn’t have an online presence, whether it’s a Facebook fan page or a dedicated, multi-page website, they are missing out on hundreds if not thousands of potential customers.

Online you can build a following of your best customers, interact with them and find easy, cost-effective ways to market your business.

An on-line presence is, arguably, the most important marketing tool available these days, so get online today and don’t lose any more business to your competition.

Did you read a newspaper this morning?

Now quickly, how many ads do you recall right now?

Consider this story.

An advertising agency has scheduled a team meeting. As the team filed into the seminar room they were all given a copy of that morning’s paper.

While they were waiting, most of them read it.

Of 100 ad agency people, only three remembered an advertisement. And that was within half-an-hour of reading the paper!

Of those three, only one was thinking about taking any action. She was studying a furniture sale ad — because she was planning to buy some furniture. The ad had not persuaded her to buy furniture, since she was already in the market, so what good did it really do?

It makes you wonder if any of the agency’s work was in that paper. It is also a clear example of why certain ads don’t work.

Ask yourself, do your ads stand out?

Are they noticed and remembered?

Do they stir people to action?

Do they drive people to buy from you?

Or when potential customers come to your ad do they simply turn the page?

In many respects, advertisers are the world’s greatest contributors to “charity”.

Lord Lever of Lever & Kitchen, which is now Unilever, once said he knew only half of his advertising worked, but he didn’t know which half.

This statement has also been attributed to John Wanamaker and Henry Ford, but whoever said it originally, the point is clear, advertising can be a drain on resources if you don’t have a focus on who you want to reach and how you are going to reach them.

Most advertisers aren’t even doing as well as half, because they are more concerned with winning awards than generating customers.

Nobody can be perfect with their marketing all the time, but by testing and measuring the response to your advertising you’ll soon know which ads are working, and which are merely a donation to the medium which you’re using.

The most common complaint we get today as Business Coaches to small to medium business owners is that our clients can’t compete with the big guys on price.

The perception in the market place is that people are shopping on price alone. The only reason your customer asks the price up front is because that is what we as business owners have trained them to do.

How many times have you gone into a business not really knowing what model, style, color or features you were looking for and purely asked for the price?

When you did, did the sales person come back with “that is $29.95″ or did they ask you some questions about what you were looking to use the product/service for?

What if the sales person simply said to you when you inquired about price, “just so I can help you best is it OK if I ask you a couple of questions about the kettle you are looking for?” Would you have answered yes? My bet is that the answer would have most definitely been yes!

From these questions the customer gets the idea that the sales person is genuinely interested in their needs and the salesperson is able to offer options about what is most suitable for their needs. It’s a win-win and the price is negated.

It is now just a matter of asking the customer to buy.

One of the indicators that tell about the growth and health of a franchise is franchisee satisfaction.

It comes down to one simple factor.  If franchisees are happy, then things within the entire franchise system are probably running smoothly. When this is the situation, the systems within the franchise make sense and, more importantly, they do what they are supposed to do.

That’s why it was such an honor that ActionCOACH was ranked 31st in the latest Franchise Business Review in the large systems category for the most recent poll.

“This is an award we strive for every year. We are proud to be recognized by the Franchise Business Review,” ActionCOACH CEO Jodie Shaw said. “No matter how great your company is, if your franchisees aren’t happy, growth simply isn’t possible. Our franchisees are our business partners, so the fact that they are happy speaks volumes.”

To review the entire list of businesses that ranked on the list, just click here.

The work ActionCOACH Business Coaches do is basically helping local communities by making small businesses profitable.

Taking the principles of business coaching a bit further, ActionCOACH’s Coaching for a Cause program is a global initiative that focuses on spreading the principles of gratitude and abundance by applying systems used by “for-profit” companies to the non-profit and charitable world.

Through Coaching for a Cause, ActionCOACH business coaches teach charitable organizations how to operate like businesses.

They do this by building systems and implementing them. In this way, non-profits learn how to make the most of each and every contribution they receive.

Last year the program helped increase donations to non-profits and participating charities by more than $3 million.

This year, we expect to teach even more non-profits how to be successful.

Click on the link to see how Coaching for a Cause works and how it has created success for participating organizations.

The Business Excellence Forum will feature the Business Excellence Awards Ceremony, which will honor some of the finest companies and entrepreneurs in the world of small business. The ceremony will take place Saturday August 20.

Awards will be given in 19 categories ranging from Most Innovative Company to Entrepreneur of the Year.

If you know a business that has done a terrific job in 2010,  nominate them as soon as you can.

Just click here and follow the instructions and nominate your business.

The Business Excellence Forum will take place at the world famous Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, Florida. The Forum will be held on August 19 and 20 and it promises to be one of the most exciting global initiatives ActionCOACH has taken on.

The Business Excellence Forum will be a great way for small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to learn from and network with, successful business people in one of the most beautiful hotels in the world.

On Saturday August 20, the Business Excellence Awards Ceremony will take place. This ceremony will honor some of the best companies and entrepreneurs in the world of small business today.

The Business Excellence Forum promises to be an outstanding event for any small business owner, entrepreneur or Business Coach.

Indeed, anyone who is involved in a small business will get tremendous value from the training, workshops and speakers scheduled for this event.

For more information on the 2011 Business Excellence Forum, just click here.