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

Company: IAC
Case Study
IAC is a technology organization that creates on-line communities for alumni organizations. They have clients in institutions of higher education all around the world.

Situation: Renewal rate for contracts was at 48%. This caused significant cash flow problems and other customer service issues.

Opportunity: Goal was to raise renewal rate to 80% within 12 months and increase cash flow.

Action: Moved responsibility for sales of renewals to sales and started to treat it as a sales opportunity instead of a maintenance issue to be handled in customer service

Results: Renewal rate was 85% within 4 months resulting is a significant improvement in sales and cash flow.

Company: IAC
Case Study

Situation: Clients were unhappy because of problems that were occurring. As a result customer service was spending too much time on problem resolution for clients and testing products before they went to the customer. This resulted in significant non-selling activities.

Opportunity: Create an opportunity to allow the customer service to implement processes that changed how the company did business. This created more selling opportunities for IAC.

Action: Diagnosed the root causes of the problem and implemented business processes to address the problems at the source. The Customer Service department was reorganized to allow a dedicated team to up sell and cross sell products and services to the client.

Processes were implemented to ensure the quality of the products before it was received in customer service, created a first line support organization to address all customer service and maintenance issues while driving those changes through out the company.

Results: Client Relations is now accountable to up sell $3K to each of its 156 customers. This resulted in an entirely new revenue stream.

Case Study

A new CEO was hired to increase enrollment in this private school. The business plan was created but there were challenges in getting the plan implemented. There was also personnel issues that needed to be addressed.

Situation: A new CEO was hire to make significant changes in the organization. Progress was being made but not nearly as quickly as necessary.

Opportunity: New senior management personnel were to be replaced and it was necessary to create an alignment of the organizations goals and objectives with the new management team. This required that we drive new behaviors thoughout the organization.

Action: Aligned the business plan goals and objectives with a expectation of each individual manager. Implemented a change management strategy in the organization.

Results: Plan currently being implemented. New personnel identified.

Company: Kelley Blue Book
Case Study

Situation: A west coast company had an obsolete technology infrastructure and needed to have a Request for Proposal written quickly.

Opportunity: Staff evaluations were in process to determine who would step up and accept their new roles and responsibilities within the organization. This proposal needed to be done quickly and at the same time the staff was being evaluated.

Action: The request for proposal was written in 5 business days and management release the proposal within 10 of receiving it.

Results: Within six weeks a contact was negotiated with a company to create a new corporate infrastructure (valued at over $750k)

Case Study

Situation: A large insurance company wanted to create A business case to see if it was financially feasible to automate a critical business process within the organization.

Opportunity: There was a significant opportunity to increase productivity, drive out expense and reduce stress on employees. This would reduce employee turnover and allow the company to reduce the costs associated with processing a claim.

Action: Two teams were created that traveled to remote office to interview management and define the business objectives that this upgraded process would need to meet (i.e., minimum user impact, cost saving, increased productivity).

Results: It was determined that there was cost saving that warranted moving forward with a proof of concept. The location was identified, the application created and the project was approved.

Some more food for thought!

Reduce Web Product Development Time from 9 Months to 1 Day – A web development company needed help implementing a process that would reduce product development time. Implementing business discipline and defining the process allowed his company to reduce its product development time to 1day.

Reduce Invoice Processing Time From 90 Days to One Day
This was done by redesigning the workflow and implementing tools to capture and route invoices to the correct Accounts Payable specialist for processing.

Saved $140,000 in Overtime
This was done by automating the workflow used in the tax department of a mid-sized Ohio city. Productivity increased by a whopping 150%; not including the elimination of yearly overtime expense of $140,000.

Reduced Three Weeks to One Day
A manufacturing company that was growing through acquisitions was having problems getting sales orders and sales history reports. In the market where price changes happen quickly, waiting three weeks for reports was a problem. After the installation of a data warehouse, current sales reporting was available within 24 hours, allowing the organization to respond much faster to changes in the market.

Aligning I.T. and Business Objectives
New Revenue Stream
A company in the voice conferencing industry needed an IT strategy that integrated into their business strategy. This strategy played a key role in defining their long-term business strategy. The company was moving from large dollar, low volume sales to low dollars, high volume sales and needed the infrastructure to support this transition. A plan was developed that integrated the Business and IT strategies, resulting in the implementation of a CRM system and a redesign of the associated business processes. This resulted in tracking customers’ maintenance requirements and the billing for different maintenance plans that were previously offered at no charge.

Having a book published is the new business card for consultants and business owners looking to promote their business.

Having an MBA after your name used to open many doors but there are so many people with MBAs that it does not have the same allure it had just 15 years ago. Many people are looking for other ways to differentiate themselves from their competition and having a book published is one way to do that.

This differentiation started when people would self-publish a book; any one with a few dollars could do this; you could sell your book on the web as an e-book. Now everyone is self published. Being self published has lost much of its luster.

Authors are now looking to have a reputable publisher publish their book. Having been through the both the self published route and the publisher route, I can tell you it is less expensive and more credible to have a publisher publish your book.

If you have a business book you want published and you are not sure where to start, send me an email and let’s talk (info@yourbusinesscoach.net)

If you have a business book you want published and you are not sure where to start and it is applicable to one of the following business topic call me.

• Company Culture
• Customer Service
• Work/Life Balance
• Discipline
• Attitudes of Success
• Managing Risk
• Business Strategy
• Financial and Budget
• Business Process
• Information Technology
• Marketing
• Sales
• Training
• General Business Advice

Send me an email and I will share with you what it takes to get your book published under the Celebrating Success Imprint. I can be reached at info@yourbusinesscoach.net

Sincerely,
Ron Finklestein
Small Business Success Expert
Celebrating Success Imprint
info@yourbusinesscoach.net
330-990-0788