In part one of this series you took a hard look at the performance of your business in seven different areas. And in part two you learned the top three reasons why most small business owners fail to achieve as many goals as they have potential to. Now in part three of this article series, you’ll learn about the secret weapon that successful business owners like Oprah, Sir John Templeton, and Tiger Woods use to grow at an exponential rate — and how you can do that same!

The power of the professional view from “outside your box”

If I had listened more to my mentors and business coaches along the way, I would have ended up moving from New Jersey to the paradise island of Hawaii years earlier than I did. (And with more money in the bank too!)

You see, in preparing for the sale of two of my previous businesses my CPA and I made a somewhat disparaging discovery. He pointed out that I could have put at least another $1.2 million more in my pocket if I just handled the “people-side” of the businesses differently during the last four years of my ownership. I was pretty ticked at myself to say the least.

I, like most owners and managers out there, was way too close to my business to clearly see the solutions to challenges and opportunities for growth right in front of my nose. I was so focused on the day-to-day operations of the business and addressing the urgencies of running my businesses that I didn’t always reserve the time required to work on my businesses.

Thank God my mentors were at least able to knock some sense into me when it came to severe issues. When they alerted me to the danger or potentially serious situation that lay ahead, I’d take a week or two off to concentrate my time to working ON my businesses, instead of IN them. Admitadly not the most efficient way to handle things, but it worked. And more imporatantly it gave me a tremendous advantage over competitors.

How to take that “outside” insight to a whole new level

As helpful as my own mentors have been, (and believe me, they saved me from hundreds if not thousands of costly mistakes) they didn’t follow any set program or have a systemized approach. Things would have to reach a critical point before I’d recognize the need to reach out for guidance or to dedicate some serious time to the long range goals of my businesses.

If I only had the advantage of a set schedule and a structured coaching program I would not have had to take two weeks in a row to focus ON my businesses. I could have achieved more, done it in less time, and had more fun too!

These are two of the big differences between having a mentor, and having your own business coach - accountability and structure. For example, when I partnered with my first business coach, he helped me with that structure in three specific areas that my mentors had not.

1. My business coach helped me set a schedule that worked for me. He consistently reinforced me to focus 20% of my time on my business. This allowed me to leapfrog past competitors with ease.

2. With my business coach I had a level accountability that I didn’t have with my mentors. Not only was it my hard-earned money invested with my coach that motivated me to get results, he would hold my feet to the fire and make sure I followed through on actions I committed to doing.

3. My business coach helped me save countless hours of trial and error trying to reinvent the wheel. With regularity he showed me how the answers to my greatest challenges were right in front of my face. I was just too close the see them.

If you’re not satisfied with your answers to the questions in part one of this article, now may be the time for you to put this secret weapon to work for you. Find a business coach for yourself. Your search does not have to be a matter of luck either.

No matter what action you take today, make sure you remember that you must ask better questions in order to get better answers. If you don’t like the answers you had to the questions at the beginning of this article, then you have to gain insight from a trusted person outside your business who can help you ask yourself better questions in the planning stages, before you take action. If you let life “just happen” you’ll never have control over the answers you get.

John-Paul Micek is known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club. He’s a weekly columnist for the business section of the Honoulu Star Bulletin, and a managing partner with the international small business development company RPM Success Group Inc.

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

In part one of this series, we looked at some crucial questions that business owners have to give serious attention to if they want to create a company that’s a rock-solid cash flow machine. How did you do with your answers to those questions? (Click here to review the questions from part one.)

If you’re honest with yourself, I would hallucinate there were at least one or two areas that you could have done better in. That’s been my own experience, and it’s something I’ve seen proved out with our business coaching clients over and over again. Focusing on improving existing systems, or optimizing strategies you already have in place can yield surprisingly big returns.

You’d be amazed at how easy it is to add $25,000 or more in six months right to the bottom line of a company with just a $200,000 per year gross! And it’s not at all unusual for us to see a 400% increase in cash flow for start-ups in 90-days or less! It’s pretty darn exciting when you think about it! Those type of untapped increases exist in every business — and some companies hold much more potential than that. If you’ve had your head down, working hard in your business, I can assure you the same potential is lurking right there in your own business as well.

There are business systems, sales or marketing approaches, employee hiring/motivation techniques, and customer service procedures that you could have implemented or leveraged better. It’s quite likely you could have added thousands more to your bottom line, uncovered more hours each week, and had more fun running a fully systemized business. Yes — the right business running the right way is really fun to run!

So, back to the questions… why didn’t you do better in some areas?

I know it’s not for lack of trying. More than likely it’s simply because “life happens.” In today’s fast moving marketplace, it’s tough to stay focused.

And it’s probably not a lack of knowledge either. Many small business owners who’ve made costly mistakes state they “should’ve known better.” And in fact — most do. The reason for sub-par results is a little more insidious than just “working hard” or even “working smart.”

The top three causes of sub-par results in small businesses

During the the last five years coaching small business owners, we’ve found the #1 most common cause is NOT “too much going on.” (That’s the #2 cause of poor performance returns - being controlled by your business instead of you controlling it.)

It’s NOT “hiring the wrong people”, and “motivating the right people the wrong way” (that’s the #3 cause.)

The #1 cause for making costly mistakes and getting poor performance returns is — being too close to your situation and way too familiar with your work environment to see the best solutions.

In my next post in this series I’ll share the secret weapon successful business owners are using every day to reach more goals in a year than most owners do in a decade!

John-Paul Micek is known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club. He’s a weekly columnist for the business section of the Honoulu Star Bulletin, and a managing partner with the international small business development company RPM Success Group Inc.

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

How can you do a better job of reaching your full potential as a business owner? How can you achieve more, do it faster, and make fewer mistakes? We’re all looking for that edge, that competitive advantage that will equip you to take a leadership position in your chosen niche. As a matter of fact, it’s your expertise in your chosen niche that can often be the biggest stumbling block.

As busy business owners, we’re often too close to the problem to clearly see the solution. It’s just an unavoidable natural result of being an expert in your niche. I experience it myself, and I see it with our business coaching clients from cultures all around the world.

And on top of that — when you’re passionate about what you do, it’s tough to maintain a clear perspective as your life seamlessly blends with your work.

What you’ll learn in this three-part article series

The good news is that there are solutions that successful business owners are already using to overcome this challenge. And there is one secret weapon you can use to quickly apply those same solutions to take yourself to higher levels of performance, profits and personal fulfillment. (Yes, you can have all three…. really!)

In this article series you’ll learn what the secret weapon is, and how you can use it to put yourself on the fast-track to lasting success.

But before we do that, it’s critical that you to take at least 10 to 5-minutes to take real hard look back at the last 12-months.

Print this post out and ask yourself …

- Could you have better systems in your company, systems that help run the business whether you’re there or not?

- Can you take off a month or more and still have your business hum along without you?

- Could you have spent more time growing your business, and less time letting your business run you and your life?

- Could you have done a better job identifying under utilized resources and optimizing the top profit centers already in your company?

- Could you have attracted more of your “ideal client” instead of just taking any client who walked through the door?

- Could you have done a better job turning your new clients into raving fans - for life?

- Could you have hired or motivated your team a little better? Hired employees that would be “round pegs” in “round holes”?

Give these questions some serious thought, then in part two we’ll take a look at what may be getting in the way, and how you can remove that barrier to exponential growth.

John-Paul Micek is known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club. He’s a weekly columnist for the business section of the Honoulu Star Bulletin, and a managing partner with the international small business development company RPM Success Group Inc.

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Here’s a common question that business owners have when looking to leverage and optimize both online and off-line marketing channels.

Business Coaching Question: I’m ready for the next phase of marketing for our training workshops for chiropractors. We’ve fine-tuned our sales letter and follow-up messages as you suggested in our last coaching session. How do you think we should proceed — with email or traditional mail delivery? What’s going to give us a better response rate?

Business Coach’s Answer: To be perfectly honest, as far as the response comparison of e-mail versus snail mail … I don’t know. Anyone who tells you that one method will pull better than the other is full of it. You will never know what delivery method is most effective until you test.

The only comment I would have on the surface is based on what we know about your target market. You’ve even mentioned a number of times the fact that many chiropractors are “behind the curve” when it comes to the Internet and e-mail. But that’s subjective, and we need to test that observation.

We can develop a plan for testing email versus traditional mail delivery in our next coaching session. I’ll need to know the answer to a few basic questions:

· Who’s the list comprised of? (I.e.: are they warm prospects that you’ve contacted before? Or are at a brand-new prospects who’ve never heard of you?)

· How many doctors are on the list?

· Out of the total number of doctors, how many have e-mail addresses? (More importantly, how many have e-mail addresses that show they have their own web site? This is a good indication of their use and understanding of technology and the Internet.)

This should keep you busy until our next business coaching session.

Once we have the answers to these questions, I can help you to split the list for testing. And we’ll develop a timeline and marketing plan for your upcoming workshops too. With this approach I’ll help you minimize misses/mistakes and maximize your response rate because you’ll be marketing scientifically instead of subjectively the way most business owners do.

Aloha, and make it an awesome day!

John-Paul Micek is known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club. He’s a weekly columnist for the business section of the Honoulu Star Bulletin, and a managing partner with the international small business development company RPM Success Group Inc.

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Question to the Business Coach:

For people who are not in a definable “industry” (alright, I know what my industry is….but, there isn’t a ton of info on the retail side of things in it , and I’ve never found anything that talks about it extensively) - what would you suggest?

Since my “industry” is really historically based, there isn’t a lot of “news” coming out of it today.

In grace,
Dee

Answer From the Business Coach:
In response to your question in re: to what you should write a Press Release about - I’d recommend creating a one-page Press Release about your hand-crafting process to putting your client’s leather journals together - a fine art and craft that is “fading away” w/ all the “machine created products”, producing an inferior quality of a journal - not to mention leather.

You can talk about the fine art of Journaling - and how precious it is to people. Emphasizing how people’s thoughts, ideas and journal entries deserve to be preserved in a book equal to the quality of their thoughts, thereby leaving a legacy for their children, and their children’s children.

There - that should get you started on two topics.

#1) The fine art of hand-carved and hand-crafted leather journals (coupling this with the dying art of all things created “hand-made” in today’s society.)

and

#2) “Leaving Your Legacy” on the finest quality journal created in America today
(this will also appeal to those who will only buy things “made in the USA”).

I’m sure once you get going on these two topics, you’ll get on a creative roll onto other PR ideas to submit.

Once you’re done, you’ll want to minimally submit your press release to:

A. The most LOCAL paper and publication in your town.

B. Specific Crafting Publications, Trade Publications, and newsletters focused on Hand-Crafted items.

C. PRweb.com so it goes all over the internet to be picked up.

D. All other newspaper and magazine contacts you’ve got listed in your database.

John-Paul Micek is a weekly columnist for the business section of the Honoulu Star Bulletin. He’s known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club.


The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

June 2, 2005 was the last day Corey Rudl enjoyed one of his favorite hobbies, as he was killed instantly at 10:40am. on the California Speedway while he was the passenger in a porshe he was considering buying.

He had just finished racing his own porshe on the track, when he decided to be the passenger for a “test drive” with his buddy, Benjamin Keaton. They took several hot laps at 150 mph around the track to check out a new 2005 Porsche Carrera GThe was considering buying.

The car lost control on the fourth and final lap, after missing a Ferrari, careened onto a grassy area off the track and struck a barrier.

Medical personnel used for NASCAR and Indy Racing League responded immediately and extinguished the fire.

But it was too late for Rudl. He died instantly from the impact, and was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:40am on June 2, 2005.

Corey’s friend, Benjamin Keaton was airlifted by Mercy Air, to Loma Linda University Hospital, where he died about an hour later at 11:31 AM, according to the report from the LA Times referencing the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office.

“Both suffered multiple traumatic injuries, but neither suffered burns,” said Supervising Deputy Coroner Randy Emon, “the driver’s side was in good shape, but the passenger side was obliterated.”

Corey Rudl, founder of Marketing Tips, was only 34 years old when he died, and just got married in 2004 to Tracy, who originally met him at one of the seminars he was giving.

His wife, Tracy, bravely told friends, “Corey went doing what he loved. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

Our heartfelt thoughts with much Aloha go out to you, Tracy, and the family of Benjamin Keaton. The Internet Marketing World will surely miss the innovative genius and Marketing Legend, Corey Rudl.

Ken Calhoun created a beautiful memorial site for Corey Rudl, one of his students who Corey inspired and helped build his online business.

A private viewing will be held today, June 6, 3005 for family and friends. Corey’s funeral will be on Wednesday, June 8, 2005.

Feel free to post your comments and prayers for his family here if Corey Rudl inspired you and your internet business, or benefited from one of his many books produced while he was with us, and I’ll pass them on to his wife, Tracy, so she’ll always remember the special guy she married.

Corey will most certainly be missed.

With much Aloha,
Coach Deb
Business Owner’s Coaching Club

“Tagging” is currently all the rage among click-and-mortar business owners, business bloggers, and just about anyone else addicted to or immersed in digital content. If you’re not familiar with tagging or how it works, I came across an excellent article that helps explain the process in simple terms. You’ll also learn about the pros, cons, and some of the inevitable detours down the road for tagging.

With this introductory article on tagging you’ll have a better understanding of what tagging is and just how much time you should invest in it right now.

If you’re a digital info junky, you may not be able to resist jumping headlong into tagging (if you’re not already there.) BUT … if you’re a small business owners with limited time — you must test the waters and enter slowly.

How should you start tagging posts, images, and video?

I would never coach a busy business owner to avoid tagging altogether, that would be sticking your head in the sand. However, I also wouldn’t coach an owner to jump into tagging all their existing digital content either.

Start by tagging new content as you produce it. Test by implementing tagging in incremental steps with different types of content. Track your results and let measurable results prove the worthiness of tagging — not the hype.

There are a lot of bugs that need to be worked out of the filtering software for tags, and overly aggressive internet marketers and spammers may crash the system before it even gets going. Let’s hope not though. Tagging has the potential to be the salvation of busy business owners as we attempt to sift through the ever expanding mass of digital data available on the net and our own hard drives.

Be prudent in the amount of time you and your company team dedicate to tagging before it proves itself. If you get started systemizing the tagging of new digital content in small steps you can’t go wrong. If tagging takes off, you’re already started and just have to ramp up your efforts. If it fizzles out, your downside is protected because you didn’t go whole-hog retroactively tagging all your digital content.

If you’d like to learn more about tagging, check out this introductory article on tagging here.

John-Paul Micek
The Click-and-Mortar Business Coach
Business Owners Coaching Club

The © Copyright to all audio, video, images, and text are held by RPM Success Group Inc. and licensed under a Creative Commons License.