Not recognizing or Ignoring What YOU don’t do well and Not Seeking Help.

Not recognizing or Ignoring What YOU don’t do well and Not Seeking Help.

As a business coach, All business owners think their business is unique and no one can understand it like they do.  Wake up! All businesses have a set of clearly defined rules, when understood, make great sense. All businesses have some aspect of uniqueness to them but sound business practices work in every business.

RULE #1: Nothing happens until you sell something.
RULE #2: If you don’t know how to sell, ask for help.

Business owners typically have a strong need to be in control. They incorrectly believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness. This is not true. Business owners who ask for help have a tendency to do better than those who do not ask for help. Look at it this way.

Every Fortune 5000 company has a Board of Directors who job is to help the President with problems and hold him accountable for growing the business and doing what is in the plan. If they have help, shouldn’t you?

Every professional athlete has a coach. Why? Because we cannot be objective about our strengths and weaknesses; we cannot step away and see ourselves as others see us. It just is not possible. If Tiger Woods has a coach, shouldn’t you?

The biggest problem I see is that most business owners do not know how to sell. They have never been trained in sales.

RULE #3: Ask for help.

Many business owners do not know when they are in trouble. If they are not experienced they may not know they are in trouble. Henry Ford failed in his first car company and he filed bankruptcy. Walt Disney filed bankruptcy twice. Thomas Edison had 18 jobs in 12 months. Later in his career he took a $750K loan from Ford to get over some tough spots. I could list many more examples, some famous and some not so famous, who had problems and did not ask for help.

Business owners are busy people and they have a tendency to do everything themselves. After all they can do it faster and better themselves. This is true, initially. What business owners do not understand is that at some point in their business growth they must go from being a doer, to being a manager, to becoming a leader, if they are to thrive and prosper. The business owners who do not make this transition usually sell or lose their company.

I have a client who was promoted to CEO. She said “I could not believe some the decisions that were being made when I the vice president. I thought they we so dumb. As CEO I now have a new perspective for what they were looking at. Those decisions I thought we dumb are not so dumb from this perspective.”
You must understand that not one business owner was successful by themselves. Ford had Firestone and Edison in his mastermind group, Edison and Ford had their team of inventors, Carnegie hired professionals to manage his companies because he knew his strength was not in management but in sales.

RULE #4: Build your team and use them to help you make better decisions.

Not one successful business owner did it by themselves. Everyone needs someone to help them. It would be easy to give you testimonials of business owners who talked about a trusted advisor, a partner, coach, teach, mentor, spouse or others who made it possible for them to succeed. Smart business owners have their own trusted advisors, however informal, to keep them focus on what is important.

The business owners who are results oriented will ask for help. They know they are not an expert in every area of business and they ask for help before they take action. Successful business owners measure everything and their behavior is driven by what works.

Do yourself a favor. Create the relationship with a business coach, mentor, and board of advisors now before you need it, so you can avoid the types of situations that will cause trouble. If you are not sure how to do this call me. I can help with this.

Your business coach

Ron Finklestein
303-990-0788
ron@akris.net
www.rpfgroupinc.com

Being Overly Optimistic About Sales and Money

Being Overly Optimistic About Sales and Money

Do you want to make more money and grow sales. One of the hallmarks of an entrepreneur is that they are typically a confident bunch. You need that confidence to start a business. I often hear people say “they would be profitable in year one.” I also hear “I can sell anything.” Reality often provides a different lesson.

When I first started my business, I thought people would see my experience and appreciate how safe it was in working with me. They would see how knowledgeable I was and immediately understand the benefits of working with me. They would flock to me.

Boy was I wrong! I never met a sales projection in my early years.

To grow sales, I had to learn new sales and marketing skills, budgeting skills, and time management skills. The effective hourly rate was too high for the market I was selling into. The competition was intense. I was dealing with job seekers who were taking the work at pennies on the dollar just to put food on the table. Some of these guys were good. Some just wanted the work. Since their primary effort was on the job search, understanding how to price was not important to them. After all they just wanted to pay the bills.

I underestimated everything because I did not understand the market.  When I did close a sale, instead of closing in one call, it would take three, four or sometimes five sales calls.

It seemed they always had to check my competitors.

If I had built my business plan first that addressed growing sales, I would have understood these problems before I went to market. I would have understood my weaknesses better and put a plan in place to address these weaknesses. I would have understood the competition better. I would have understood why people buy this particular product or service and how to price it based on  market demand.

Here are some rules to follow that work.

RULE # 1: Never be overly optimistic. What you want always takes longer that you expect. Budget both time and money for this.

I was speaking with an accountant and he said people always underestimate the road to profitability. It usually takes 3-5 years just to start making money and 10 years to reap the rewards we expect. I am not sure I totally agree but I can understand where he is coming from.

RULE # 2: Test your assumptions. Ask others who have been there and done that. They will help if you ask correctly.

In other words, do your homework! Call prospects and ask them why they buy and how they buy. Call customers and ask them why they buy from you. I was cold calling and reached an owner of a business. I asked him if he ever bought from someone who cold called him. He said no. If he needed something and he did not have an existing relationship, he called his friends and asked them who they used! I stopped calling him because I knew it would be a waste of time, both mine and his.

When you understand the market and do your homework it is hard to be over optimistic about money and sales. It almost always takes longer that you think.

Call me if you have questions or need help to grow sales.
Your Business Coach
Ron Finklestein
303-990-0788
ron@akris.net
www.rpfgroupinc.com

Not Pricing Properly

Not Pricing Properly

As an experienced business coach I often see what people do, without knowing, to fail.

Today I want to address another reason businesses fail: not pricing properly.

A strong argument could be made that the pricing issue should be addresses in the business plan. Let’s assume it was addressed in the plan but the pricing is not correct. Let’s look at three reasons why this could happen?

1.    You never tested the pricing in the market or adjusted the pricing based on market demands.
2.    You did not include overhead or cost of sales in your pricing model
3.    You had wrong assumptions about pricing

Let look at why testing is so important. Several years ago I created a product and the intent was to buy my way into the market. I purposely priced it very low to make it attractive to my prospects. After talking to several people I realized this was a big mistake. Why? I priced it so low that people questioned the value. If it was so good why was it priced so low?

Over time I raised the price until I no longer heard questions about the value proposition. The questions changed. Now they are asking how they can afford it. Part of the reason the questions changed was that I built a better business case. I showed them why this product is important and how it could positively impact their business.

Ask yourself this question: Are you sending the wrong message to prospects by pricing to low (high)?

Let’s turn our attention to not including overhead into the pricing model. When pricing our products we need to include such things as overhead (phones, rent, cost of marketing, bookkeeping cost, cost of sales, salaries, etc) into our pricing model. If we do not include these items, we do not know if we are making a profit or if the profit we are making is enough to cover our expenses. Have your accountant help you with this. There is more to it than meets the eye and more then I have listed. I had many clients complain how busy they were but not making any money. Once we investigated the pricing model and assumptions we found they were selling the products below their cost.

The third issue is having wrong assumptions about pricing. This has more to do with your belief about pricing than anything else. If you think your product is only worth a specific amount, then that is all it is worth. In reality, the market may pay more. It is important that you test your pricing in the market. Compare your price to your competition, ask your prospects, and check with your business associates. Ask you accountant to verify your pricing against industry standards. Likewise the other extreme can happen: you believe you have THE product and you expect the market will come running to you so you set the price really high. After all, you invented a better mouse trap and the world should beat down the doors to get your product. Yet nothing happened. You may have built a better mouse trap but the world may not understand. It may not be a pricing problem but a marketing problem.

As a business coach I realized it is all about testing, measuring, and changing as you set pricing. It is always easier to set a high price and lower it than it is to set a low price and raise it, especially for existing customers.

So how did I handle the low price to the high price transition? Good question! I have maintained the price for those early adopters and as they move out of my program I raise the price to the new customers.

Call me if you have questions or need help.

Ron Finklestein
303-990-0788
ron@akris.net

No cost, No Obligation Assessment

If you are a business owner looking for a business coach and you live in any of the following communities, I will visit your office and provide a one hour, no cost, and no obligation, to see if it makes sense for us to work together.

Nothing is off the agenda. We can discuss lead generation, and lead generation techniques, peer groups, advisory boards, leadership, building effective teams, growing sales, increasing revenues, people effectiveness, teambuilding, small business marketing, business coaching, performance management, to name a few.
Just email me at ron@akris.net (or call at 330-990-0788) to schedule your date and time.

The following locations are within easy driving distance and I would be happy to visit. If you are outside this area, please contact me. Though I may not be able to visit I can provide the same service over the phone, via email or over the Internet.

Summit County
Cuyahoga Falls
Stow
Hudson
Barberton
Norton
Green
Springfield
Tallmadge
Mogadore
Richfield
Peninsula
Fairlawn
Bath
Copley
Coventry
Silver Lake
Sagamore Hills
Boston Heights
Macedonia
Montrose

Canton and all Stark County Ohio including:
Uniontown
Alliance
Jackson Township
North Canton
Canal Fulton
Massillon
Hartville
Waynesburg
Sugar Creek
Louisville
Minerva
E. Sparta
Brewster
Medina and all Medina County Ohio including:
Brunswick
Hinckley
Brecksville
Granger
Sharon
Wadsworth
Westfield
Litchfield
Guilford
Lafayette
Kent and all Portage County Ohio including:
Ravenna
Brimfiled
Suffield
Randolph
Rootstown
Streetsboro
Atwater
Deerfield
Aurora
Freedom
Hiram
Edinburg
Palmyra
Shalersville
Wayne County Ohio including:
Wooster
Doylestown
West Salem
Canaan
Marshallville
Orrville
Dalton
Sugar Creek
Lebanon
Shreeve
Maysville
Congress
Creston
Sterling
Rittman
Smithville
Fredericksburg
Apple Creek
Kidron
Carrol County
Tuscarawas County
Lake County
Geauga County
Cuyahoga County
Bay Village
Beachwood
Bedford
Bedford Heights
Bentleyville
Berea
Bratenahl
Brecksville
Broadview Heights
Brook Park
Brooklyn
Brooklyn Heights
Chagrin Falls
Chagrin Falls Township Township
Cleveland (County Seat)
Cleveland Heights
Cuyahoga Heights
East Cleveland
Euclid
Fairview Park
Garfield Heights
Gates Mills
Glenwillow
Highland Heights
Highland Hills
Hunting Valley (part)
Independence
Lakewood
Linndale
Lyndhurst
Maple Heights
Mayfield
Mayfield Heights
Middleburg Heights
Moreland Hills
Newburgh Heights
North Olmsted
North Randall
North Royalton
Oakwood
Olmsted Falls
Olmsted Township Township
Orange
Parma
Parma Heights
Pepper Pike
Richmond Heights
Rocky River
Seven Hills
Shaker Heights
Solon
South Euclid
Strongsville
University Heights
Valley View
Walton Hills
Warrensville Heights
Westlake
Woodmere

Lorain County
Amherst
Avon
Avon Lake
Beaver Park
Belden
Brentwood Lake
Brighton
Columbia Center
Columbia Hills Corners
Columbia Station
Elyria
Lorain
North Eaton
North Ridgeville
Oberlin
Penfield
Penfield Junction
Pittsfield
Rochester

Just a quick review. Nothing is off the agenda. We can discuss lead generation, and lead generation techniques, peer groups, advisory boards, leadership, building effective teams, growing sales, increasing revenues, people effectiveness, teambuilding, small business marketing, business coaching, performance management, to name a few.

Just email me at ron@akris.net (or call at 330-990-0788) to schedule your date and time.

The following locations are within easy driving distance and I would be happy to visit. If you are outside this area, please contact me. Though I may not be able to visit I can provide the same service over the phone, via email or over the Internet.

Ineffective Prioritization

Ineffective Prioritization

A business coach’s view on ineffective prioritization.

Many business owners, especially first time business owners, confuse accomplishments that are achieved with results; Think of it as the difference between being effective and efficient. Effectiveness is doing the right things, efficient is doing thing right.

Maybe an example will help.

I am a small business owner. If I spend all my time responding to emails (assuming it is not an email based business), I am being very efficient but not at all effective. I am efficient at answering email but I am not effective at growing my business.

I had one client who had a very efficient way of doing things but it was not what the customer required so they were not effective at keeping customers.

What are the activities you have to do daily that will ensure your success? Here is a suggestion. Build a little spreadsheet that has daily actions down the left side of the page. Have the days of the month on the top of the page.

Each day you do the required tasks put an “X” in the associated box. At the end of the month you will quickly see what you did and did not do. To build effective teams, have your team do the same things.

This way there are no excuses. There is no doubt that you are doing the right things.

If you are doing the right things and not getting the desired results, you know where to spend your time and money in creating new or improved skills. Let’s say you need to prospect daily. Every day you do not prospecting and you are not developing new customers. Successful people do what they have to do not what they want to do.

Call me if you have questions or need help.

Ron Finklestein
303-990-0788
ron@akris.net

Ron’s Top 10 for Small Business Marketing

Ron’s 10 Rules for Small Business Marketing

1.   Get clear on what you want, make a decision to go for it, then take action.

2.   Stay focused on what you want.

3.   Surround yourself with people that will hold you accountable and tell you want you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Research, research, research!

4.   Do the things that you are afraid to do or don’t want to do.

5.   Do not be afraid to ask for help you need it.

6.   Do not be afraid to fail. Test, test, test. Failure is essential to success.

7.   Ask for what you want, and keep asking until you get it.

8.   Never stop learning.

9.   Figure out what works and keep doing it.

10. Do rules 1 through 9 again.

Businesses Fail Because

Businesses Fail Because

According to SCORE, businesses fail for many reasons. I listed the top eight below.

Lack of a well-developed business plan  78%
Not pricing properly  77%
Being overly optimistic – sales, money  73%
Not recognizing, or ignoring, what they don’t do well
 and not seeking help from those who do  70%
Ineffective prioritization  66%
Denying problems exist  65%
Minimizing the importance of marketing  64%
Insufficient business experience  63%

Not having a business plan is the single biggest reason a small business fails and it drives all the other reasons a business fails.

Let’s translate what will happen when these problems occur:
1. Can not grow sales
2. Can not improve people skills
3. small business marketing suffers
4. can not build effective teams.
5. not reaching out for help – especially business coaching

A business plan has four primary objectives:
1.Defines what you do and why others will buy from you and your firm
2.Define the markets, companies, people, etc who can buy from you and how to reach them
3.Defines the road map to making money, where you need to spend your money (i.e., marketing, Internet, computers, fax, telephones, etc)
4.Defines weaknesses where you should be looking for help or areas to you need to address

A business plan is essential. You would not try to build a house with blueprints. Why would you start or run a business with the same type of blueprints.

The strange part is that if you don’t know how to do a business plan you need to ask. Number four above, really should be number one. If you don’t know what you don’t know, how do you know you don’t know it? How do you know to ask for help?

A business plan, depending on its purpose, can be a short as one page or more than 100 pages (venture capitalists want to know everything).

Just going through the exercise of writing a business plan will tell you more about what you don’t know about your business than any single exercise.

A business plan is a living document that should change as you and your business change. I will give you seven simple questions that you need to answer as part of your business plan:
1. Why are you in business? If you are not really passionate about your business, you will have trouble during the hard times and, most like you will lose interest and fail.
2. What are you selling? What problem do you think your product or service solves for your target market?
3. What is that one thing you do better than anyone else in my market? It could be as simple as free shipping to a lower price point using a new production break process.
4. Why would your target market care about what you do? Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself “what’s in it for me?”
5. Why would your prospects buy from you? Even if you are the best, will people buy form you and if so why?
6. How much money do I need to get started? Do not underestimate.
7. How will I make money and how long with it take before I am profitable.

I do not expect you have these answers to all these questions immediately (except #1). The answers to these questions will changes as you mature as business owner and you gain in understanding about your marketing, your industry, your products, your customers and your services.

The important part of this plan is to test everything. Ask your prospects and call your competitors, do research.  If you spend some time up front answering these questions, you will save yourself much pain and suffering.

Call me if you have questions and a free consultation.

Ron Finklestein
303-990-0788
ron@akris.net

Four Generations Working Side by Side

Four Generations Working Side by Side

According to Terri Murphy, there has been no other time in history where we have four generations working side by side. All required different communication style when you are marketing.
The Civic group is ages 61 and up. They demand respect. For effective communications, they like written or spoken communication and consider texting rude.

Ron Finklestein
Small Business Coach
ron@akris.net
330-990-0788
 
Baby Boomers, ages 44-60, likes long lasting relationships, stability, respect, and will delay gratification to get what they want. They tend to focus on team goals. For effective communications, they prefer email communication. Some will use texting but overall they tend to avoid texting.

Gen Xers, ages 32-43, are into personal gratification, like a sense of community. They are the original latch key children. They are independent and like change. For effective communications,, They like you to speak their language get right to the point.  They want you be supportive in action and words.
 
Gen Yers, ages 14 – 31, are confident, like technology and like to use technology for community building. This age group prefers text message, like 24×7 self service web sites and they are not brand loyal. They like a good price and good buying experience. For effective communications,, it is all about them. They prefer non-traditions work policy.

Business Advisory Board

Business Advisory Board

Would you like to get objective feedback from your peers (business owners)? They have no hidden objective except your success.

Would you like to learn small business marketing strategies that work? We share best practices all the time.

Do you feel overwhelmed because you have so much to do? If so you are not alone. Let us help you prioritize and stay focused on what is important.

Are you looking for an Ohio business coach you can trust? If so, how can you tell? Simple, look for the guarantee.

Are you looking to grow sales? If so call us today for your free consultation. There is no risk to you.

Ron Finklestein

Business Coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

Building an effective Team

Building an effective Team

To build an effective team you need to consider all the members of the team and the behavioral styles of each member.

When you are building an effective team you need to consider how people learn, who will be the leader and the style of the leader, and the nature of the project.

Effective teams need four styles:

Directors – the get it done folks

Socializers – the conceptual thinkers and influencers

Relaters – the people who are concerning about others and getting others involved

Thinker – the people who have a strong need to be right and are brilliant critical thinkers

When you all four styles on your team, when managed correctly, the team will produce outstanding results.

To Your Success,

Ron Finklestein

Small Business coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net