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

Grow Sales through Small Business Marketing

Small Business Marketing

In today’s economic times, as a business owner, it requires you think differently about small business marketing to grow sales.

Always have at least three small business marketing initiatives going on at all time to grow sales. The intent is to make sure at least one is always producing. Three small business marketing initiatives that can help grow sales could include:

Blogging

Develop referrals

Email marketing

I get at least six leads a month over the internet. I belong to a referral group that helps small business market themselves through using others networks. Lastly, I follow up with everyone I meet using email.

Remember to grow sales through small business marketing.

Sincerely,

Ron Finklestein

Small Business Coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

www.akris.net   

Five Powerful Reasons for Small Business Coaching

Five Powerful Reasons for Business Coaching

1.     Introduction of Best practices

2.     Objective Feedback

3.     Keeping You Focused

4.     Hold You Accountable

5.     Reduction of Risk on Your Difficult Decisions

Ron Finklestein

Small Business Coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

10 Reasons for a Personal Executive Coach

10 Reasons You Need an Executive Coach

1.     Objective feedback on pending actions

2.     Honest feedback of impact of your action

3.     New ideas

4.     Introduction to best practices from other organizations

5.     Brainstorming the best approach

6.     Accountability to work on what is important not whati s easy

7.     Keep you focused

8.     Introductions

9.     Continuous Learning

10.  Personal and Professional Growth

11. Results

Ron Finklestein

Executive Coaching

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

26 Ways to Improve People Skills (both at work & home)

26 ways to improve your people skills

At work

1.     Ask questions so you understand

2.     Listen so others feel hear

3.     Do a lunch and learn on a topic of interest to all parties

4.     Be clear on your expectations

5.     Treat others the way they want to be treated (The Platinum Rule)

6.     Build relationships with people the way they want to build relationships

7.     Let others be right

8.     Let others ask questions

9.     Build an effective sense of team

10.  Be a leader and create a vision for people to rally around

11.  Ask for feedback

12.  Give deadlines

13.  Define roles and responsibilities

At home (create a great marriage)

1.     Get your wife a cup of coffee in the morning before she gets out of bed

2.     Tell your wife how beautiful she is at least once a day

3.     Wake your wife up with a kiss every day

4.     Load and run the dishwasher

5.     Load and run the washing machine

6.     Give her a hug when she gets home every day

7.     Watch TV with her – even if it is a chick flick

8.     Cook a meal so it is ready when she gets home

9.     Clean up after you cook the meal

10.  Gas up her car

11.  Just listen and do not try to fix

12.  Get her oil changed for her

13.  Let her sleep late

Ron Finklestein

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

A Bad Presentation

I do a lot of public speaking, training programs, workshops and seminars. I need to know my way around a presentation.

As president of our local toastmasters, I have a good idea on the presentation skills someone needs when they speak or present in public.

Some common mistakes include:
1.    Reading from the slide of a PowerPoint presentation
2.    Not staying focused on the material
3.    Not engaging the audience
4.    Lecturing instead of having a discussion
5.    Improper lighting and room setup
6.    Not practicing your presentation/speech

Have respect for your audience. Practice your presentation before delivering it. Nothing looks more unprofessional than being unprepared. Tape your presentation. Do a dry run. Know how much time it will take.

A bad presentation can do more harm to your business than you can possibly imagine.

Ron Finklestein
Small Business Coach
330-990-0788
ron@akris.net

14 Principles for Success

Let us move our attention to why they succeed. How does a small company become successful? It’s such a provocative question that it prompted me to do some research. Despite the bad news we so often hear about businesses closing or moving, I found some encouraging news. After interviewing and working with many small companies, common trends began to emerge regarding what they did to be successful. There are a total of fourteen principles and the successful companies implement most, of not all of these principles: attitude, sales, business strategy, marketing, information technology, risk taking, process improvement, company culture, work-life balance, customer service, finance and budget, general advice, discipline and training.

It is essential to build effective team, create powerful relationship, become an effective leader and implement these concepts in the fourteen principles above to get results.

Ron Finklestein
Small Business Coach
330-990-0788
info@yourbusinesscoach.net

Great Sales is About People Effectiveness

As a business coach and consultant I am surprised by the number of business owners who have responsibility for sales but don’t have a clearly defined sales process. They do not understand that making sales is about clear and effective communications. It is also about leadership. The art of helping people make good decisions.   

There is a six step process that anyone can learn to grow sales. Like anything else, it takes a bit of practice to master. This material is not designed for the professional sales person who is out on the street every day, through this is something they can use as well, it is designed for the business owner who needs to sell but does not know how, and does not want to look or becomes a “slick willie” kind of sales person (or anyone in the organization who has sales responsibility but is not a professional sales person.

The sales process to grow sales looks like this:

A. Action – What action do you want the client to take, or stated another way, what is the desired outcome for this sales call.

B. Build Rapport – Building rapport, if done incorrectly, can ruin any chance for creating a buyer/seller relationship. In this section we will discuss different ways to do that.

C. Create and agree on an agenda – Many sales people fail because the buyer does not know the reason for the meeting or how the selling process can and should work. In this step you gain agreement on the sales process, ask permission to ask questions and agree on the reason for the appointment.

D. Define Pain – Here is where you ask question that allows the client to tell you the problems they are experiencing.

E. Explore Pain – In this step you explore with the prospect the impact of the pains uncovered in the Define Pain step. The step explores what will happen (especially to the prospect) if action is not taken.

F. Finalize nest steps – this is a logical outcome of a well structured sales call. Is the outcome another meeting to further explore specific issues, is it time to ask for the order, is it time to ask for introduction to others in the organization that will help you further the sales process. This should have been defined in the action step and here is where you determine your success.

To improving your people skills,

Ron Finklestein

Small Business Coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

17 Actions Small Business Owners can do to Improve Business Performance

17 action small business owners can do to Improve Business Performance:

1.     Improve people skills. We call all get better in this area.  

2.     Improve your people/leadership skills

3.     Develop the people skills of your managers  

4.     Hire a personal executive coach to get an outside perspective and to hold you accountable

5.     Create effective communication training so everyone in the organization knows the rules for communicating

6.     Manage people and their performance  

7.     Teach people to support performance management

8.     Perform activities that support building an effective team

9.     Understand workplace team building and its impact on your business

10.  Create a team building challenge

11.  Attend management negotiating skills training to create win/win opportunity 

12.  Provide negotiation skills seminar for your team so they can create win/win opportunities

13.  Learn presentation skills tips to improve your effectiveness when delivering your message  

14.  Implement a business coaching program to receive ideas on implementing these 17 actions

15.  Attend a business advisory board to gain feedback from your peers

16.  Take time to communicate & coach communication skills you want in the organization

17.  Celebrate your small business success stories. This keep morale strong. 

This is a long list but the good news is you do not have to do them all at the same time. Pick any three and get started.

Ron Finklestein

Small Business Coaching

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net