Business Coaching

Are we headed for a lost decade in the United States? In the 1990s Japan experienced a massive recession which led to their “Lost Decade” a time in which Japanese economic expansion came to an almost complete halt.

Now, as the United States experiences economic growing pains, we are faced with the possibility that it could happen in this country.

But, while we’ve been mired in a painfully slow recovery from a major recession, some statistics show things are getting incrementally better, if you know where to look for them.

One area that is a positive is the change in the number of small-business bankruptcy filings from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2010. According to Equifax, over that time, bankruptcies dropped by 18 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 through the fourth quarter of 2009, which was the height of the recession.

Of course, when we take these numbers in a vacuum, they don’t tell us much but if we look at them in the context of the economy we can see some interesting things. First, weak businesses that weren’t prepared for the economic winter are no longer around and, secondly, the small businesses that remain are doing a better job of leveraging their resources so they should be stronger in the long run.

Let’s focus specifically on the first point: Businesses that weren’t strong enough have collapsed and their owners have filed for bankruptcy.

Sure, some well-run small businesses met their respective ends as well, but an economic recession brings problems and challenges to the surface so they can’t be ignored like they can during strong economic times.

Poorly run businesses are most likely to suffer in this scenario because they don’t have the resources or managerial talent to withstand it. Companies that have strong plans and talented leadership in place are not as vulnerable to those extreme economic circumstances.

Quite simply, economic downturns mean real trouble for poorly run businesses, but it also offers terrific opportunities for well run businesses. A well run business has the ability to change on the fly and adapt to difficult times. And, maybe most importantly, a well-run business is in position to reap the benefits of the struggles our economy has experienced.

A recession weeds out poorly run businesses, but even poorly run businesses have their share of customers, who need to buy from someone. If you’ve been competing with one of those businesses, you have a new group of customers you may be able to bring to your business.

If strong businesses can take advantage of this scenario to grow, we may be able to avoid our own “Lost Decade” but only time will tell.

Entries are being accepted in 13 categories for the Business Excellence Awards, which will take place on the last night of the 2011 Business Excellence Forum, hosted at Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami from August 19-20.

The Business Excellence Awards will honor the “best of the best” in small and medium sized businesses from around the world and entering the awards is also an excellent way to showcase outstanding performances of business owners, entrepreneurs, their teams and companies.

Winners will receive a 2011 Business Excellence trophy for their category, designed by the same company that designs the Oscars. They will also receive local and national publicity for the award-winning accomplishments.

The 2011 Business Excellence Forum and the 2011 Business Excellence Awards are sponsored by ActionCOACH, the world’s number one business coaching firm.

Theses events are part of the company’s on-going commitment to innovation and business re-education for small-and-medium sized businesses.

In addition to the awards ceremony, the Business Excellence Forum will feature some of the finest speakers in the world of business, including Les Brown and ActionCOACH Founder, Chairman and President Brad Sugars.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to attend a number of workshops, breakout sessions and networking events.
Deadline for entries is June 30, 2011, so sign up today and get recognized for your hard work in Miami in August.

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.

Trader Joe's is a different kind of grocery store.

With all the Whole Foods, Wal-Marts and specialty retailers struggling through this economy, it seems like there’s a silent killer among them: Trader Joe’s.

The privately held company’s sales last year were roughly $8 billion, the same size as Whole Foods’ and bigger than those of Bed Bath & Beyond, No. 314 on the Fortune 500 list. Unlike those massive shopping emporiums, Trader Joe’s has a deliberately scaled-down strategy: it is opening just five more locations this year.

The company selects relatively small stores with a carefully curated selection of items. Typical grocery stores can carry 50,000 stock-keeping units, or SKUs; Trader Joe’s sells about 4,000 SKUs, and about 80% of the stock bears the Trader Joe’s brand.) The result: Its stores sell an estimated $1,750 in merchandise per square foot, more than double Whole Foods’. Even better: the company has no debt and funds all growth from its own coffers.

The rise of Trader Joe’s reflects Americans’ changing attitudes about food. While Trader Joe’s is not a health food chain, it stocks a dizzying array of organics. It sells billions of dollars in food and beverages that years ago would have been considered gourmet but are now mainstays of the U.S. diet, such as craft beers and white-cheese popcorn. The genius of Trader Joe’s is staying a step ahead of Americans’ increasingly adventurous palates with interesting new items that shoppers will collectively buy in big volumes.

It’s a different take on the concept of a grocery store…Trader Joe’s isn’t a health food grocery chain, it’s not a dirt-cheap grocery store like Fresh and Easy…it combines lots of types of retailers into one…and it works.

Yes...that's a beer in a squirrel. A dead squirrel.

Next time you find roadkill, you’ll be looking at a marketing idea from a Scottish craft brewery.

Scottish craft brewery BrewDog produced a beer with 55 percent alcohol called “The End of History.” But that’s not its highest selling point, according to BrewDog —  this beer comes packaged inside a taxidermic rodent. At £500/$760 per beer, and from photos of the product, at least it’s not just roadkill wrapped around a cheap beer.

What BrewDog did was take an “out there” idea, and combined it with an in-demand product — a beer with a high alcoholic percentage. Combining two otherwise completely separate businesses and products might not normally work — such as beer and taxidermy — unless it’s very well-thought out and marketed well.

Oh, and in case you were wondering: the first batch of the beer served in dead rodents sold out on its first day on the market.

Can you think of any other small business that has combined a highly unusual product with its own to test and measure how that effects sales? Why do you think this idea was so successful?

The economy could nurture small business to success, believe it or not.

Has anyone else noticed that the recession has tilted the playing field in favor of small businesses?

We now live in an era where heavyweights like JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart, and the New York Times still dominate, but can be eclipsed in certain ways by small operations and wind up the follower rather than the leader.

Significant parts of the economy are vulnerable to an ever-growing flock of so-called little guys with more influence than ever before, thanks to a transforming technological and economic landscape that is leveling the playing field.

Small business boutique firms like Evercore, Rothschild, and Perella Weinberg ranked alongside JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions. In banking, the FDIC  is looking at more small banks versus large ones. These changes reflect a changing economic landscape that increasingly favors the little guy.

This new “little guy” economy is a world where value trumps revenue, and where business owners really have to figure out what the customer wants. Businesses need to be more flexible, and small businesses usually have more leeway to do so because they’re not answering to several higher-ups within a corporation.

This is a great time to figure out where small businesses need to strengthen and what strategies they should use going forward. The easiest way to figure this out in the short-term? A free business coaching session. This way, a business coach can give you strategies to improve not only in the short-term, but also in the long-term.

Think this new “little guy” economy could last for a while? What are your thoughts about this “new” economy and its effects on small businesses?

If you think franchising can only leverage and optimize revenue and profit for you, think again. It can also help boost jobs in the U.S., according to an article by Jane Applegate, the president and CEO of The Applegate Group.

Applegate tells the story of Jeff Haas, who bought a CertaPro painting franchise last year. The former Chrysler exec who resigned instead of waiting to be downsized, bought the franchise by tapping into his retirement savings at a time when the stock market was hammering his portfolio.

Rather than go it alone, he agreed to let the former owner stay on to work as an outside sales rep. It was a good move for both of them: the former owner now focuses on bringing in new business, while Haas manages the day-to-day operations and supervises the painting crews. Haas has 30 employees, including his wife, Gwen, handles customer service, sets up appointments and offers interior decorating and color consultations.

All in all, buying a franchise turned out to be a good thing for the Haases, and while it does take dedication, a successful franchise can ultimately help the economy, because it’s creating new jobs.

People who buy franchises are among those creating new American jobs—about 36,000 this year, according to the International Franchise Association. The trade association, which represents about 1,250 franchise companies and 10,000 individual franchises, recently reported that new job growth this year contrasts with the loss of 400,000 franchise jobs in 2009.

Read the full article here. Do you agree that franchising might be a good way to increase job growth in a still-shaky economy?

Obama talked small business with those who are directly affected: small business owners.

Imagine getting a call from President Obama? And not just any call, but a call that he wanted to meet with you, a small business owner, and talk about issues affecting small businesses?

That’s what happened to Steve Wheat and Bobby Pancake, partners in High 5 LLC, a six-unit franchisee of Buffalo Wild Wings based in Bear, Delaware.

The meeting took place on June 11th, and included Obama, Pancake, Wheat, a general manager of a Buffalo Wild Wings in Dover, Delaware, and two owners of a technology company in Rockville, Maryland.

Pancake called the meeting “intimate.”

“We talked about getting the banks to loosen up so business can grow,” he said. “We told him that if Congress were able to make changes, we would like to build a couple more restaurants and add more jobs. He was really interested in what we had to say.”

Specifically, Wheat said, the president discussed the need to raise the cap on SBA loans from $2 million to $5 million.

Following the meeting in the Oval Office, the group convened for a press conference, during which the Obama discussed the Small Business Jobs Initiatives and the need to “make it easier for smaller firms to hire and to grow.”

Noting that small businesses historically have created two-thirds of all new jobs in the country, Obama said, “we’re going to need to make sure that small companies are able to open up and expand and add names to their payroll” in order to replace the millions of jobs lost during the recession.

Think Obama’s meeting with small business owners will jump start any changes for small business?

You can learn the ins and outs of social media via Web tools.

Social Media exploded and confused many business owners in the process. “What on earth is a blog?” “Who are all these people who want to be my friend on Facebook?”

But it’s not impossible — small business owners CAN learn how to use social media to their advantage. And there’s no need to look to a “social media guru.” Look no further than Web tools already out there, like blogs, webinars and online forums. Check out the article SmallBizTrends.com wrote about it here to find tips small business owners — or anyone — are using to learn the ins and outs of social media.

What else can you learn as a business owner? Click here to find out what a business coaching session might teach you.

Even though the “hot” sites today for networking and business marketing are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, there are a few niche sites out there that might serve you well.

People can be blinded by the “big three” named above because the goal of marketing is getting your message in front of as many people as possible. However, it’s more important to get your message in front of as many people as possible who are interested in what you’re selling. That tactic will get you closer to a sale.

From niche European business networking sites to websites linking small business owners and entrepreneurs, Sitepointe.com gathered 20 smaller networking sites that specifically benefit business owners and entrepreneurs. Check them out and see who could become potential clients and who could benefit from a business coach.