Business Coaching

Business Turnaround Coaching With Mark Joyner & Simpleology

I am continuing to review the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit produced by Mark Joyner and Simpleology and an important bonus element of the program is that there are two series of coaching call recordings:

The first set of business turnaround coaching calls are with the original guinea pigs, (or Space Monkeys as Mark calls them) for the program and these are small group, interactive sessions.

The second set of business turnaround coaching calls are with the first batch of clients and because of large numbers, these are more of a presentation from Mark Joyner as he answers questions raised by the members.

Background To The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit

Before I look at the calls in any detail, if this is your first contact with the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit, it would be a good idea to read my earlier reviews so that you understand more about the program and in particular the structure of the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit:

Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit - Simpleology - introduction

Business Turnaround: To Thine Own Self Be True - Day 1

Cost Cutting In Your Business Turnaround - Day 2

Business Turnaround: Finding Your Cash Injections - Day 3

Business Turnaround: Generating Cash Urgently - Days 4 to 6 (Day 7 is preparing for the future)

7 Day Turnaround sales letter - at the moment this is available as a 7 day trial before you have to pay so that you can improve your business and generate the extra cash required.

Business Turnaround Coaching Calls - An Optional Extra?

The 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit is a very intensive program designed to do exactly what it says on the tin. You will be very busy working through the compulsory material, applying the ideas to your business and taking action (the essential step if you are going to get the results you want).

Because the coaching calls are not listed on the daily program, the two coaching calls in my opinion can be considered as optional extras but they will help you if you feel stuck or need extra information.

Day 1 Business Turnaround Coaching Calls

This is very much the introduction to the program and both the Space Monkeys call (50 minutes) and the first group call (80 minutes) have to be seen in that light.

Mark Joyner emphasises the importance of working purposefully through the program but Day 1 is about reviewing your own feelings towards the success (or failure) of the business and what it means to you and the people who depend on you together with the start of the review process to gain control and stop the bleeding on time and money.

Both calls have "celebrity guests" with Tellman Knudson on the Space Monkeys call and Joe Vitale (Hypnotic Marketing and "The Secret" film) on the first group call sharing their thoughts and experiences.

I consider these calls to be "nice to hears" rather than essentials assuming that you are serious about working through the turnaround program. Download and listen to in the car if you have long journeys but if you are short of time, concentrate on the main program activities for Day 1.

The Day 1 questions are challenging nut essential. You may find that the information is not easily available but you must not use that as an excuse to delay taking action.

To save time I listened to the recordings of the turnaround coaching calls through some clever software called FasterAudio which allows you to speed up and slow down recording speeds and I found it comfortable to listen at 135% of normal speed and take notes saving me about 30 minutes.

Day 2 Business Turnaround Coaching

There are another two hours of coaching calls for the Space Monkeys and the first group.

The Space Monkeys call reinforces the need to tackle the Day 2 issues and the relief that comes from taking action to cut your costs.

Focus then moves on to preparation for Day 3 in terms of developing cash injection missions with interesting stories from Andy Duncan (information product over the Internet) and Tellman Knudson (professional services) of how quickly cash can be generating. This is inspiring stuff and nicely balances the Internet/real world issues.

In the group coaching call, Mark Joyner is again reinforcing the important points from the first two days of material and then features interviews with of the two Space Monkeys. A great story from Andy Duncan about how the Day 2 Space Monkey call inspired him to take action with a new idea which generated significant cash very quickly.

Andy also offers a great bonus recording which you have to get for the Day 5, creating cash out of thin air.

The other Space Monkey featured is Tom Justin, author of "How To Take No For An Answer and Still Succeed". I haven't read it but it sounds a great philosophy.

A big problem is that people won't try things because of the fear of failure. Or people will start but not finish because of a desire to make it perfect.

In the business turnaround, you have to just go out and do it.

Take action.

If it works great, if it doesn't, identify what you have learned for next time.

Day 3 Business Turnaround Coaching

In day three the coaching calls get longer with a total of 169 minutes.

The Space Monkeys call (76 minutes) has a presentation from top copywriter Mike Morgan (in advance of his video in Day 4) which is again excellent and very focused on the topic of creating cash injections and then Mark Joyner explains methods for how you can find your thirsty crowds to make your offer to.

It is an excellent, informative call but I know that Mark Joyner would urge you to focus on completing your first cash injection mission as a higher priority.

Just taking action:

a) will create such a positive feeling for you. It marks the transition from being in totally reactive mode worrying about your lack of cash before you start the turnaround program to pro-actively making things happen that will generate cash for you.

b) you will learn so much from trying to use the PMCFT formula which will help you in your next cash injection mission tomorrow.

The group coaching call is even longer at 93 minutes and again features copywriter Mike Morgan taking you through the basics of copywriting and in particular short cash injection copy. This does mean that there is duplication between both calls. Whilst repetition takes time, it also reinforces your learning and makes it easier to move from theoretical knowledge to practical application.

In this group coaching call, Mike Morgan gives away some excellent free information to help you to create emotional copy to encourage browsers to become buyers together with several other valuable resources.

The more I look at the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit, the more I see this as a complete business development system.

Day 4 Business Turnaround Coaching

The Space Monkeys call (47 minutes) is more interactive than previous calls with Mark Joyner continuing to encourage taking action on the cash injection missions on a ready, fire, aim basis.

Just do it and then improve is the basic message at this stage.

The call also includes some recommended copywriting resources but the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit is already strong in that area and particularly with the great bonuses from Mike Morgan.

The Group coaching call is 68 minutes long and Tellman Knudson pops up again with tips and stories about creating cash injections missions and Tellman also provides a bonus set of videos to help you with list building.

In my view neither of the Day 4 coaching calls fall into the "must hear" category although both are useful to hear but shouldn't be at the expense of taking action.

Day 5 Business Turnaround Coaching

The Space Monkeys coaching calls for day 5 lasts 68 minutes and is an interactive session answering questions about how you can create information products out of thin air.

The group coaching call was 68 minutes and featured two guests, Pat O'Bryan and Ladan Lashlan (one of the original Space Monkeys) to share their stories and ideas about creating information products.

This call also included a pooling of resources to help make teleseminars, ebooks, audio CDs easier to produce. Both guests also give away for free helpful resources to help you to develop your Internet information business further.

Again neither of these calls fit into the unmissable category if you need to create your cash injection missions urgently but both are valuable and interesting over the long term.

Day 6 Business Turnaround Coaching

The Space Monkeys coaching call for day 6 was an interactive session to help people complete their first cash injection mission.

The group coaching call included two guests and focused on helping to find the best ways to forge joint venture deals or in Mark Joyner's terms advanced integration marketing - Jason Henderson, the space monkey who was using the course to attract votes for The Next Internet Millionaire contest and Stirling Valentine, an expert in joint ventures.

Day 7 Business Turnaround Coaching

On day seven, Mark Joyner is laying the foundations for the future development of the business and explains the extra resources which are included as bonuses in the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit.

The Space Monkeys call is a summary of people's success stories but also includes some important lessons about persuasion and in particular presuppositions.

The group coaching call introduced us to Dr Michael Hudson who has provided four business development calls to cover the future strategy for the business.

Conclusion on the Business Turnaround Coaching Calls

All the calls are good to listen to and valuable as the issues brought up will be relevant to at least some people but none of the calls are essential in my view.

If you are in a cash crunch then it is essential that you concentrate on taking action on both blades of the scissors - your revenue/cash receipts and your costs/payments. To be fair to Mark, this is a point that he keeps emphasising in the calls. The cash flow problems in the business will only be corrected with action.

The main Seven Day Business Turnaround Program is already comprehensive with the necessary information introduced in the daily lessons and supplemented in the guest videos.

Listening to more learning material if your business is rushing down the slippery slope to oblivion is not the thing to be doing. On average you will have more than two hours worth of calls per day to listen to and I believe the time is better spent working on your cash injections missions:

1. Thinking about them
2. Creating them
3. Marketing them

If you need help, I recommend reviewing past post on the forum and if necessary posting a question yourself. Just remember the forum is visible to Google so be discrete.

I continue to be very impressed with the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit and while I haven't done a cash injection mission because I want to work on some longer term strategic issues, I can see that the techniques work and this is confirmed by all the success stories for the product. I have gone back and reviewed more of my costs and knocked a few more regular payments on the head because I'm not getting value.

Mini Moans

Inevitably there are a few ways that the product could be improved:

1. The emphasis remains on selling information products for Internet marketers and I would have liked to have seen more effort to relate it back to non-Internet businesses.
    
   The basic process of the seven day turnaround kit applies to any business and I understand the attractions of creating information products to sell on the Internet but I would have liked to see examples of how this approach can quickly drive extra leads and cash to a primarily off-line business. It looks like I will have to write my own article on using information to sell tangible products
    
   
2. Given the critical importance of time which is the theme of Simpleology 101, I would have liked to see summaries of these coaching calls so that it was clear what was included or transcripts available so that they could be quickly scan reviewed.
    
   
3. The focus on the coaching calls was very much on the cash injections but many people will have difficulty dealing with the difficult decisions required in day 2 to cut costs and this will be especially true if there are excess staff to remove. It is an unpleasant task so more support and reassurance about how handle the conversation would have been helpful.

But these are minor niggles and I continue to believe that the Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit is an excellent product for any small business in financial difficulty or for any small business which wants to give itself a quick boost in performance.

There are still a lot of bonus resources which I haven't worked through including Dr Michael Hudson's "Making It Stick" coaching calls, and the Simpleology courses to implement the ideas  from Mark's books "The Irresistible Offer" and "The Great Formula".
To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Business Growth Coaching - Scott Hallman

This is the first of a series of reviews which will introduce you to the business growth coaching concepts included in Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club.

Scott Hallman is one of my ten Business Growth Superstars and if you are a regular reader of my blog, you will have read some of his excellent Tuesday Profit Tips which are re-published in my Business Coaching blog. (just click on the Scott Hallman link)

If you are not familiar with Scott Hallman and his background, I have written a "Who Is Scott Hallman?" blog posting which includes testimonials from Jay Abraham, Chet Holmes and Jay Conrad Levinson.

Just seeing that list and then adding in Scott's commitment to systemisation a la Michael Gerber and the E Myth means that you will understand why his ideas strike such a strong chord with me.

The Small Business Growth Club

The Small Business Growth Club is the membership site which I wish I had created but Scott beat me to it. (see my guide to finding your way around the website further down the article)

The Small Business Growth Club is full of high quality materials organised in flexible learning channels and with the emphasis on practical implementation to generate measurable results.

Have you noticed that most of the time when you buy a business book or audio/video program you are told what to do but not how to do it?

This makes the jump from knowledge to purposeful action difficult and is one of the reasons why too many programs are bought as intellectual entertainment but don't translate into the promised extra profit.

Scott Hallman noticed this problem and has developed a solution by developing training lessons  to lead you through the process step by step and then tell you to monitor your improved results.

The Small Business Growth Club Is Not Perfect

I joined the Small Business Growth Club back in September 2007 with the intention of "spying on a competitor" to see what I could pick up and learn.

I was blown away by what I found and it has caused me to re-think my approach to business growth coaching because of the quality of program that Scott Hallman is providing for less than a dollar a day.

But the Small Business Growth Club does have some flaws, one of which has held back my progress through the materials and reduced the recommendations I have given it.

1. The audio lessons cannot be downloaded and have to be played while you sit at the PC.
   
   I am a big believer in audio learning but the two times I listen to most of the programs are a) in my car when I am driving on my own and b) when I am walking my dog or just generally out and about.
   
   Soon after I subscribed to the Small Business Growth Club, Scott contacted me to ask me what I thought. Great customer care but I took up this issue with him and Scott explained that he didn't allow downloads because of the intellectual property issue.
   
   More recent communications have been much more positive and Scott has assured me that download facilities will be included in the Small Business Growth Club soon which from my perspective has opened it up to making much more positive recommendations. As of 10th June 2008, we are not there yet.
    
   
2. I find the Small Business Growth website confusing to navigate around and find myself going around in circles unsure whether I have found everything. A site map would definitely help or an updated contents list which you could mark off what you've gone through. I haven't found the Members Forum yet!
    
   
3. I also found that the membership site would log me out unexpectedly and until recently I have been using Internet Explorer which didn't seem to want to hold the password cookies so I struggled to log back on. Now I've switched to Firefox things are much easier but the Small Business Growth Club does log you out after a time period and I am not convinced that all the paths are cleared for members as I find myself unexpectedly back in the public site.
   

These last two are minor gripes compared to the quality of the business growth training materials and the incredibly low price of the Small Business Growth Club.

The confusing website design in point two is partly caused by one of the big advantages I see in the Small Business Growth Club and that is the flexibility of approaches into the materials. It may be a case that I can't have my cake and eat it.

Let me explain.

At the heart of the Small Business Growth Club are a series of 99% standalone modules and instead of just listing them in order, Scott has put them into work streams so a key module will occur in a number of different work streams which take you progressively through a business development course.

I think this is a great idea turning the Small Business Growth Club into a structured business training program, whatever your business needs.

The Three Main Business Growth Coaching Work Streams

Scott has identified three main work streams through the material

1. Generate New Business - this is designed to turn your business into a systematic marketing machine and produce a continuous stream of new customers.
    
   
2. Implement / Manage - this work stream teaches you to implement new systems and procedures, overcome barriers to change and improve the control over your business.
    
   
3. Optimise Profits - this works stream contains a series of modules mainly aimed around increasing the profit you make from your existing customers.
   

It is the last of these three work streams, Optimise Profits which I will be reviewing first because I firmly believe that many businesses are sitting on a fortune of hidden opportunities and assets, just waiting for someone to turn into profit. (You can tell that I have been indoctrinated by Jay Abraham's ideas).

The Alternative Routes In The Small Business Growth Club

It may be that you would prefer to tackle the Small Business Growth Club by function rather than effectively by management process.

This isn't a problem as Scott Hallman has built this flexibility into the program so you have the option to work through the modules organised into sections from the Business Success Cycle:

1. Marketing
    
   
2. Sales
    
   
3. Management
    
   
4. Profits
    
   
5. Success Mindset
    
   
6. Health

You can also tackle the modules on a free form basis so if you decide that you want to improve your referrals, you do the referrals module.

Focus on Implementation

What makes Scott Hallman stand out is his focus on implementation.

He knows that as an entrepreneur, you are busy. In fact it's impossible to get everything you want done.

So Scott makes implementation simple with a step by step procedure and only wants you to focus on ONE introducing one idea at a time. Each program takes you through the process with lots of examples, ideas and recommendations but Scott encourages you to narrow down your options and pick one thing.

Then you try it, test it, improve it and then build it into your standard procedures and then you move on to the next idea. That way you move up the staircase of performance gradually, effectively but persistently.

A compound 1% improvement every week means over 50% improvement in a 12 month period all from taking one step, making it work in your business and then moving on.

Reviewing The Small Business Growth Club

I will be reviewing the work streams and individual modules but if you want to have a look at the Small Business Growth Club before I have reported back, can I suggest the easiest way through the site.

Click on the Small Business Growth Club  and do you see the "Not A Member Yet Take A Guided Tour" banner advertisement which is flashing on the left hand side. Click on that and open it up in another window. This takes you to a gentle sales letter but before you read it I'd like you to have a little look around by clicking on the different streams.

That way you can see what's included, then return back to the Home page and take a look at the testimonials. Then come back to the sales letter page when you have a much better idea of what's included.

For less than a dollar a day I recommend that you sign up, begin your business growth coaching and start working ON your business. 

If you are not yet convinced you can wait for my reviews on the contents of the club.

But why wait. I am certain that you will be delighted with the contents of the business growth coaching / training program and the price is tiny compared to the value. I should be advising Scott to put the price up (I would be charging much more) but I know that he wants to have a major effect on entrepreneurs and small businesses around the world.

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs.

Business Coaching In A Recession Or Tough Times

My mind is increasingly focused on the issues faces businesses in tough times, whether there will be a recession and in particular if any recession will see an increase in the demand for business coaching services.

A Generation Since The Last Recession

In my working life I have had to confront two recessions:

• 1981-82 when I was just starting as a trainee accountant and I saw clients struggling one year and out of business the following year and
   
• 1990-92 when I was Finance Director of an engineering business selling products into the building industry. Ouch!

I have told the story before but it is worth telling again quickly

Business Profit Plummets During A Recession

For about nine months my company ignored all the talk of recession and we continued to generate profits of £100k or more every month. Other businesses in the group were seeing profits fall sharply but not us.

With hindsight we were protected by the lead times in our industry. Buildings started had to be finished but developers didn't need to start new projects.

When the recession hit, it hit us hard. I had never seen such a sudden swing in profitability which equated to about 15% of sales value, from big monthly profits to substantial losses. It only took three months.

We were caught in a pincer movement of rising costs (from productivity issues and production managers who thought it would be a good time to overhaul machines while they were quiet) and falling sales volumes and prices.

   

It was the classic break even point squeeze as shown in the graphic above. Our break even point shifted from BEP1 to BEP2 as our economics moved from the solid lines to the lines of dashes. Each hurt the business and our volume slid leftwards as well to compound our problems. Our sales volumes below the new break even point.

I have explained in the Beer Game, how businesses need to be seen as an integrated system but they also operate in a much bigger system. Sudden changes throw the whole industry system out of balance and take months to settle back down to a stable level.

Three Types Of Company In Recessions & Tough Times

I see three types of companies and how they will face up to the economic pressures of the recession and times of tough trading:

• Company A - prepares carefully for the recession. Uses this time to re-focus the business and comes out the other side leaner, fitter and much stronger.
   
• Company B - ignores the warnings until the business is in trouble (like my employer in the early nineties, we didn't believe anything we couldn't see in our own results and thought that we were a special case.) Company B will suffer a lot of pain adapting to the tough times but will come out the other side as a profitable business.
   
• Company C - ignores the warnings and doesn't have the necessary control systems in place to keep the managers up-to-date with what is happening to profit and cash flow. "Sales are down a bit but things can't be that bad can they?" Many of the C type companies will not survive.

In my chart I have started company A, B and C from the same profit position to make the comparison easier. In reality, company A has proactive management and is likely to be starting from a higher profit position.

As the economy improves, the company As of the world can start buying up the better company Bs on the cheap. Owners of Bs will be exhausted from the struggle and just grateful to have something left from all their efforts.

The critical factors that will determine whether a company is type B or type C are:

1. The skills of the managers, their willingness to seek outside advice and assistance and the desire and ability to make the right decisions backed up with successful implemention of purposeful actions.
    
2. The size of the business problems. A company losing money at the rate of 3% of sales has more chance than one losing money equivalent to 10% of its sales each month.
    
3. The surplus funds available at the start.
    
4. The degree of crisis within the business and the extent to which any decline is clear to outside stakeholders - customers, suppliers and the bank.
    
5. The extent of any competitive advantages the business has and the actions of competitors.

Business Decline: The First Step is Seeing The Problem

Two academics Weitzel & Jonsson researched business decline and developed a stages of decline model.

1. The first stage is that managers are blind to the problems,
    
2. The second stage is a period of inaction as they assess what is happening,
      
3. Third is a faulty action stage where actions are taken but they fail because of inadequate diagnosis,
      
4. The fourth stage is crisis, by which time it may be too late to recover. A firm cannot sustain losses indefinitely and
    
5. In the fifth stage, dissolution occurs and the business is declared bankrupt.

So do you have the performance measures in place to tell you if there is a problem? Can you see that leads and orders are down? Can you learn what is happening further along your supply chain?

Back to my experience in 1990-2, we had official construction industry forecasts which indicated that expenditure was expected to fall year on year by say 10%. But in 1990 we didn't see any reduction and we weren't looking at the fall off in new projects starting. We were lulled into a false sense of security but at least we had the control systems in place to tell us when things started going wrong.

This was in pre-Internet days when market information and news was more difficult to find. Now there is even less excuse.

The third stage is interesting - faulty diagnosis.

It is easy to become confused between causes and effects, problems and symptoms. Waste time treating the symptoms and the problem can get much worse, especially if there is temporary relief in the symptoms.

How Do You Decide What is Happening?

During the assessment stage, the business owners and managers must make causal attributions of the problem to identify where and how to apply a solution.

According to another academic researcher into business decline and failure, Weiner, these attributions will be along three dimensions:

• Are the problems arising from causes internal or external to the firm?
   
• Are the problems controllable or uncontrollable?
   
• Are the problems temporary or permanent?

Using this model yet another academic, Ford argues that the initial attributions are usually external, controllable and temporary.

So here we have the business owner thinking "The problem is caused by the recession but if we just work harder and make more sales calls we can pick up enough business over the next few months while the economy recovers from this short term recession."

Business owners and managers will therefore increase their commitment to their normal business methods.

If the problem is not resolved, Ford argues that the attribution will switch to external, uncontrollable and temporary.

Now the business owner is thinking "It's still the recession doing all this damage but there is nothing else anyone can do. If we just sit this out, the recession will be over soon."

So No One Needs A Business Coach In A Recession?

This "external, uncontrollable and temporary" diagnosis is the exact opposite to the attribution needed to start a business coaching or turnaround consultancy assignment.

For business owners and managers to be motivated to bring in outside help, they must believe that the problem is internal (we must change), controllable (something can be done) and permanent (something must be done).

Let's just go back to the three possible outcomes of companies A, B and C and to save you having to go back up to the top, I'll repeat the graphic.

For company A, who continues to generate profit and cash throughout the recession, this attribution makes sense. Profits may be lower than the business would like but the survival of the business and everything the owners and managers have worked for over the years is not threatened.

The attribution doesn't make sense for Company B and Company C who are losing money.

How temporary is temporary?

Is the underlying industry strong and sure to recover or are industry forces moving against your business? For example is the Internet an increasing force where you are weak (eg music, books)?

The decline from the recession is permanent for any Company Cs. All the spare resources ran out, there was no cash left and the clock stopped ticking.

Are you sure that the problem is external rather than internal?

Are your competitors faring better or worse than you during the tough times?

I am a big believer in competitor analysis and benchmarking studies wherever possible. If you know that a competitor is more profitable than you and is growing faster than you, even if the information is a year out of date, it forces you to accept that better performance is achievable.

Unfortunately it is often impossible to get the underlying results because in the UK and many other countries, small businesses do not have to file detailed accounts in the public records. But you may be lucky. You may belong to a trade association which runs a benchmarking scheme where you can compare your performance in key performance metrics against the best, average and worst performers (by number not name).

Controllable not uncontrollable

Finally I challenge the idea that any performance problem is uncontrollable rather than controllable and I urge you to as well.

As an entrepreneur, you know that you can make a difference. The strong beat the weak and the best win again and again.

I believe that there is always scope for new ideas and that there are always opportunities for improvement.

Performance Problems Are Controllable, Based On Internal Issues And May Be Long Term

Now we are in the right mood for business advice and I'd like to talk to you about the basic three levels of support that are available to help you survive the recession, trade successfully during tough times and come out the other side a stronger business.

The key issue is what you need and when you need it.

The three categories of support for you to turnaround your business and restore it to profitability are:

1. Self help - there is a vast range of books, audio and video programs and training courses where you can learn new ideas to turnaround your business.
    
2. Business coaching and consultancy - this is the traditional adviser relationship where you either learn with the help of a business coach and put the plans into action yourself or you turn to a business consultant who will do the work for you.
    
3. Turnaround managers - these are professionals who specialise in turning around companies outside of an insolvency/bankruptcy procedure and are sometimes called Company Doctors. Turnaround managers will take control of your company and working to your brief, make all the difficult decisions for you and then implement them.

It is the second of these that I will concentrate on but I will give you some pointers to the self help guides.

Self Help Guides To Turnaround Your Business And Restore Your Profits

First three books

Turning Around Your Business - Mark Blayney, a good introduction to business turnaround for a smaller business.

Getting Everything You Can - Jay Abraham, this could open your eyes to many other opportunities for profit (I would have recommended his Mr X book but I believe it will be taken off the market imminently and replaced by a new, much more expensive version.)

Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times - Jay Conrad Levinson, the title says it all.

Programs

7 Day Business Turnaround Kit - Mark Joyner, low cost and a good guarantee from a  highly reputable source (See the start of my reviews Seven Day Business Turnaround Kit).

Small Business Growth Club - Scott Hallman's excellent business growth training with the emphasis firmly on implementation (see the start of my reviews Scott Hallman Business Growth Coaching).

Accelerated Business Growth System - Peter Thomson (This is a premium product and not specifically for turnarounds but it is an extremely good business development program.)

Business Coaching During A Recession Or Tough Times

Working with a business coach to improve your performance during tough trading can be extremely effective for a number of reasons:

1. You receive an independent and objective assessment of your position from your business coach.
    
   Sometimes it is hard to see what is really happening in a business when you are living with it 24 hours per day. In fact the mind plays tricks on you and is so effective at protecting you from contradictory information, that you just don't see anything that challenges the way you think.
   
   To help with this assessment, the business coach will have a business health check or diagnostic process. Mine health check is based on the Four Pathways To Success Or Failure (depending which way you are heading).
    
2. Through your business coach you will gain access to new skills or higher level skills which are backed up with extensive experience of different types of businesses - large or small, manufacturing or service, very profitable or losing money.
    
3. You will be introduced to a business coaching improvement methodology which will focus your efforts. I have my Eight Pillars Of Business Prosperity, E Myth Worldwide have their E Myth Mastery Program, ActionCOACH have their business chassis and improvement program.
    
4. You will prepare and agree with your business coach an improvement action plan which lays out what will be happening in the foreseeable future.
    
5. You will be required to implement performance measures around the main drivers of performance so that you are up-to-date with what is happening and no longer have to rely on gut feeling, instinct and guesswork. Your business coach will need to see this feedback from your actions through the performance indicators.
    
6. You will be challenged and held accountable. An invaluable element in the coach / client relationship is that you will be expected to have taken the agreed actions between weekly coaching sessions or you will have to explain why. Don't expect an easy ride if you fail to meet your commitments because the coach is committed to helping you to reach your business objectives.
    
7. Your business coach may agree to perform certain duties so that you have a limited "done for you" service although in the main, business coaching works through changing your actions.
    
8. You have a confidante and a sounding board. It can be lonely running any business but particularly lonely when you own a struggling business and face some very tough decisions. Your business coach becomes your business best friend.

As you can see, there are some big advantages to working with a business coach during a recession or tough times.

The Potential Problems Of Working With A Business Coach During Tough Times

There are three potential problems with working with a business coach during a recession.

The first problem is the cost. You will be asked to incur an additional expense when you need to be reducing costs. I understand that and can understand why people prefer the self help route if possible.

I ask you to look at what it would mean to you if your business didn't survive. The loss in income, the loss in wealth (Is your home locked up in a bank guarantee?) and the stigma that attaches to a business failure.

The second problem is that business coaches like to work with successful businesses who are making money.

It sounds better to say that a client's business has improved from profits of £50k per year to £150k (i.e. a £100k improvement) than the business has reduced its losses from £150k per year to £50k (the same £100k improvement but the percentage improvements don't look as good (200% v 67%) and the second business is still losing money.

This means that the later you leave it in the decline stage and the worse your performance, the less interested most business coaches will be in helping you to improve your business.

On top of this is the fact that the market could be extremely busy in the next couple of years and the best business coaches will be booked solid, or at least to the extent to which they want to fill their diary with one to one coaching.

Yes you will find the inexperienced business coach with spare capacity and the business coaches without solid management experience but is that what you want for your struggling business?

The third potential problem with business coaches is the fact that they work through you but you still have to do the work. You have to find the time for the business coaching sessions, complete the agreed actions and do all your other work.

Your business coach will teach you how to manage your time and prioritise your activities so I would hope that you are able to delegate some tasks that you shouldn't be doing and stop doing some altogether because the payback doesn't exist.

But if you want a "done for you" service then you need a business consultant or interim manager.

Working With A Business Consultant Or Interim Manager In A Recession

If you need to bring someone into your business to do things then you need to find a business consultant or interim manager.

An interim manager is an experienced, usually self employed professional who has made a career out of short term, high intensity assignments. These people are usually over-qualified and experienced for the role so that they can hit the ground running.

Taking this "done for you" option is more expensive but it will be faster and speed could be critical in a turnaround situation.

The person you need will depend on the issues in your business.

Do you remember I said that one of the stages of decline was faulty action that came from a wrong diagnosis? This is a problem with bringing in a specialist who is bound to find things in your business which can be improved. You may find that you are treating symptoms and not the underlying problem.

A business coach is a generalist, just like you, and will look at your entire business. You know that your sales are not high enough but perhaps the issue is in your marketing, your sales process, your customer service or your purchasing.

Working With A Turnaround Manager

The turnaround manager specialises in rescuing companies from failure

The situation is now serious and when you appoint a turnaround manager, you will be handing over the control of your business.

While I have worked in turnaround situations I know that I am a business improver rather than a surgeon ready to cut away 60% to save the profitable core of a business.

There are various professional turnaround manager organisations

Society of Turnaround Professionals - UK

Turnaround Management Association - North America, Australia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Southern Africa, Spain, Taiwan, and the UK.

Conclusion

Throughout this very long blog post I have tried to be fair about the difficulties companies face in a recession or tough times (if the economic definition of a recession isn't met) and the issues of looking for business advice.

I believe that this is probably the most important posting I have written on my Business Coaching blog.

Let me know what you think. Do you agree with me or do I need to be corrected?

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Business Problems Try A Business Health Check

Business failure & the role of management

Preparing for a recession Changing customer demands

Michael Gerber E Myth Mastery - 4 Stars

"E Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company" by Michael E. Gerber can be seen as the follow up to his classic The E Myth Revisited."

I was going to review his new book "Awakening The Entrepreneur Within" but after reading it, I have realised that Michael Gerber is on a voyage and I can't comment on the new book until I have explained my thoughts about "E Myth Mastery."

The E Myth Story So Far

In "The E Myth Revisited" Michael Gerber explains why most small businesses don't work as they should.

Most businesses start when someone who is working in a business has an entrepreneurial seizure and says "This is crazy. I shouldn't be working for him. I know more about doing the real work than him but he goes home with the profit, lives in the big house and drives the fancy car. I can do that."

Unfortunately the person is a technician and knows exactly how to do the work of a technician but little about the work of a manager controlling the business and managing the team and nothing about the business building skills needed to be an entrepreneur.

The technician finds a few customers but carries on preferring to do the technician's work being is busy, busy, busy with the work of the other roles piled on top but never getting done to the right level.

It's a classic case of being too busy working IN the business to work ON the business.

Meeting Sarah From All About Pies

The book starts with Sarah, the role model from "The E Myth Revisited", ten years after her business had been transformed. Only it hadn't been transformed because Sarah hadn't been changed. She was still a small business owner at heart.

Sickly, Syrupy Writing

Many parts of this book are excellent and I have given copies to clients and recommended that others buy it but I must warn you that the biggest drawback is the sickly writing style which makes the audio version of "E Myth Mastery" completely unlistenable.

Michael Gerber seems to think that he is Barbara Cartland writing bad romantic fiction. To make my point I opened the book at random and found this on the first page I tried (page 71).

"Her face was bright, flush with life, her eyes clear and excited, her smile beaming. We hugged each other like old, old friends do, and spoke each other's names..." Yuck!

There is no place for this type of nonsense in any business book that intends to be taken seriously as much of E Myth Mastery deserves to be.

Unless you want more of this rubbish do not buy the E Myth Mastery audio program because you even miss out on the compensating good stuff.

The Seven Disciplines

The good stuff is that Michael Gerber draws on the Seven Disciplines covered in the full E Myth Mastery business coaching program which costs thousands of dollars for businesses to work through with an E Myth coach. I know because I am one of the thousands of people who have bought it.

The seven disciplines are:

1. Enterprise leader
    
2. Marketing leader
    
3. Financial leader
    
4. Management leader
    
5. Client fulfilment leader
    
6. Lead conversion leader
    
7. Lead generation leader

You get the actual text from a selection of the E Myth Mastery workbooks together with details of a website where you can download the E Myth form templates to work through.

While I may not agree with everything written in E Myth Mastery, what you do get is outstanding provided you are prepared to work through it.

Michael Gerber believes in systemisation and letting the system carry the strain so that the coaching can be done by less experienced employees. This effectively means a system which helps and encourages the business owner to find their own answers across the seven disciplines. There is plenty of general business theory which you will see as I describe each discipline in more detail.

The Enterprise Leader

The real book starts on page 71 although there are one or two nuggets of enlightenment within the opening section which makes it worth quickly scanning. It also sets the scene as the conversation/love-in with Sarah continues throughout the book to introduce each new discipline.

You get introduced to the five essential skills of leadership - concentration, discrimination, organisation, innovation and communication which I can't argue with.

The Business Plan That Always Works

This is basically the heart centred plan based on fulfilling a meaningful vision rather than the head based logic of what you think your financial backers need to see.

There is a lot of sense here which echoes my own views that too many business plans are not worth the paper they are written on, let alone the hours spent preparing and reviewing them.

Pillar 2 of my Eight Pillars of Business Prosperity starts with your vision and moves it down to how you are going to spend your time taking action. 

Business Quantification

No arguments from me here either. Your Key Numbers is pillar 1 of my Eight Pillars. If you want to improve and achieve, you have to know where you are starting from and how you are performing as you try new things.

The Marketing Leader

Pillar 3 of my Eight Pillars is your marketing position in the competitive world and the discipline of the marketing leader looks at the same issues.

Your Most Probable Customer

You get introduced to customer demographics -  who, what, where - all essential to know if you are going to correctly target your most likely customers.

Customer Perceptions and Behaviour

This one section is worth at least five times the price of the book and why I spend all that money on the E Myth Mastery program. I hoped to learn more but it's all here in the E Myth Mastery book.

This section introduces you to the idea of understanding how your customers think and make decisions - the art and science of psychographics.

I have been fascinated by the idea of how customers make buying decisions and weigh up the value they receive from buying and compare it against the price they pay for more than ten years. While I have read much about customer value, this was the first time that the term psychographics entered my brain and stayed there.

As I expand my thoughts about being a customer focused entrepreneur you can expect much more on this blog about this subject but the E Myth Mastery book is a superb introduction.

I have been reading marketing books for over twenty years and achieved a distinction in my MBA because I was a swot and love reading about business. I have never seen the logical/emotional parts of the purchase decision better or more comprehensively explained.

In fact the marketing books tend to emphasise the rational side of the decision, perhaps because it is an academic subject and perhaps because logic can be measured.

It is only in the sales training books and audios that I have found the idea that customers buy emotionally.

The basic explanation of the conversation that goes on in your brain included here is excellent although I do have some reservations with where Michael Gerber takes it.

There are some profound issues here and in trying to systematise, you can lose some of the subtle nuances which make all the difference.

Basically there are various influences on the unconscious mind like people's perceptions of themselves and their situation. It defines their reality which when combined with their motivations and drives goes a long way to explaining their behaviour.

The buying decision itself is a conversation between their gratification preference (emotional desires going straight to the subconscious) and their purchase preference (logical justifications for the purchase) which are bounded by subconscious associations.

This really is great material if you want to spend a few hours trying to put yourself in the shoes of your typical customers and try and work out how they think and look at the world.

If you can't be bothered then it won't appeal to you as much but the more you try to understand, the more you confirm your theories through observation and conversation. The more you actually understand, the more your marketing campaigns cut through the clutter like a laser beam and that means better results for lower cost.

Positioning and Differentiating Your Business

As any business student will tell you, the more you differentiate your business away from your competitors in ways that customers value, the more successful your business will be.

Again the contents of this section are great.

Financial Leader

I found this section interesting from two aspects

1. By qualification I am a chartered accountant so I find money issues easy so it was fascinating to read the insights about how many business owners fear dealing with money issues because it all seems so complicated and intimidating.
    
2. Michael Gerber was in financial trouble. He had told this story before in "The Power Point" but the business that became E Myth Worldwide effectively over-traded. They thought they were doing well. The top line was growing but the cash position was desperate and at one stage it looked like the business may have collapsed.
    
   If you feel intimidated by money and the idea of talking to your accountant and/or bank manager, then I am sure that this chapter will resonate. You will find comfort that even a business great like Michael Gerber has struggled with financial control.

Getting You On the Right Path

An explanation of the financial model of the business is provided including some pricing calculations.

Maximum Cash

Critical cash control ideas.

I wrap all this up in my Pillar 1 on Key Numbers.

Management Leader

Creating A High Performance Environment

This is about building the culture of the business to achieve your vision, starting with self management.

I pick this up in Pillar 7 about leading your team together with the self management issues in Pillar 2 from vision to action.

Operations Manual

One of the ideas that Michael Gerber is most famous for is systematising the business and creating a franchise prototype, even if you have no intention of franchising. In this section he explains how to set up your operations manual.

This comes through in my Pillar 8 systematising your business.

Client Fulfilment Leader

This is effectively your operations and how you meet the promises made to your customer before they decided to buy.

Your Client Fulfilment Baseline

This is back to knowing your key numbers for your business processes connected with client fulfilment.

There are basically three processes:

1. The production process
2. The delivery process
3. The customer service process

If you buy rather than make, your purchasing process would be your production process - how you actually obtain what you sell.

The delivery transfers the value to the customer which is easy to understand for physical goods. For services, production and delivery may be combined eg hairdressing.

The client service process is everything you do above the bare minimum of producing and delivering.

I pick this up in my Pillar 6 turning one time buyers into repeat buyers.

Systems Innovation

Michael Gerber walks you through the E Myth systems improvement process which you may find basic if you have been involved in big process improvement projects but could be a revelation if you haven't seen any systematic process improvement methods.

Pillar 8 again for me, systematising your business also includes improving the underlying processes.

Lead Conversion Leader

Lead Conversion

This is basically the selling process. Marketing has produced a lead from your advertising, your direct mail, your website... but the prospect hasn't bought anything yet. This takes you through a nice simple generic consultative selling system. No complaints there from me.

On my approach, this is all about Pillar 5 sales lead conversion.

Client Re-Conversion

This deals with the persuading one-time customers to buy again by developing great relationships.

My pillar 6 here, increasing the lifetime value of the customer.

Lead Generation

Channels reaching your target market

To buy from you, your customers have to know that you exist so in this chapter Michael Gerber looks at the different ways of reaching your target customers based on where they are and what they do.

Application of Lead Generation Principles

In this section, Michael Gerber explains very concisely how you can get your message across in a ten step process.

This section on lead generation is wrapped up in my Pillar 4 Lead Generation.

Conclusion

As I have worked my way through the E Myth Mastery book I have shown you how the Mastery program fits with my Eight Pillars of Business Prosperity.

You will have seen that while the order and the way the components fit together is different. I have a preference for getting orders flowing in to make more money while Michael Gerber likes to fix the business first.

Because we seem to agree on so much you can understand why I like the core of the book and why I am happy to recommend it to clients.

The E Myth Mastery by Michael Gerber is a great resource for any small business owner looking to improve their business. It is not the whole story and effectively serves as a long lead generation technique for the full E Myth Mastery program.

I would buy "The E Myth Revisited" book first because that helps to set the scene but "E Myth Mastery" is a much more practical book, especially when you download the worksheets from the website.

I can't forgive it for the sugary text that is just too sickly for words and the book is docked one star from the five stars that I would have given it - so that is a four star rating from me. The book is highly recommended.

Just grit your teeth, pour yourself a brandy to settle your stomach, skim read the first section and the introductory sections for each of the seven disciplines and start learning how you can build a world class company.

You can buy the book from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com and I'll earn about 20p.

If you check the dotcom reviews you will see that the E Myth Mastery is certainly polarising opinions with 11 five star ratings and 11 one star ratings

Michael Gerber Is In The UK - 24 June 2008

I've announced this before on my blog but you may have missed it. Michael Gerber is making one of his rare trips to the UK in June at the DreamStart Conference at the Royal Armouries in Leeds on 24 June 2008.

Even better I have been able to negotiate a special price for the readers of my blog and email newsletter. The normal price is £99 per ticket which looks a great deal anyway to feel the special aura around a business guru like Michael Gerber. The special Your Profit Coach price is just £75 per ticket. I don't know how long this special offer will last so take this opportunity to book because I am sure the event will be a sell out.

To take advantage of this special deal, all you have to do is book the Dream Start tickets through this link and enter Your Profit Coach as the booking reference in the space provided. You will then be invoiced at the lower price.

Don't miss this chance to find out why Michael Gerber is a legend in the world of small business advisors.

Awakening the Entrepreneur Within

If you are wondering about my review of Awakening The Entrepreneur Within, I expect to publish in about a months time.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Michael Port - Book Yourself Solid - 4.5 Stars

I have just finished reading "Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest and Most Reliable System For Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling" by Michael Port.

Michael Port specialises in helping service professionals (accountants, business coaches and consultants, chiropractors, realtors/estate agents...) to market themselves more effectively so that they are booked solid.

Let Me Make This Simple For You

Let's skip the blah, blah, blah and cut to the chase.

1. If you are thinking about venturing out on your own as a professional service provider, buy Book Yourself Solid. It will tell you what you need to know about marketing to become successful.
    
2. If you are providing professional services to a small number of clients but there are more hours available in a week than you currently work, buy this book. It will give you new ideas to find new clients.
    
3. If you already a successful service provider working all the hours you want, buy Book Yourself Solid. It will help you to develop more status so that your fee rates can be increased and help you to find ways to break out of the "fees for time" syndrome which can restrict your income.

What Makes A Great Book?

When I read and review a business book I look for three key things:

1. The book is well written. Check.
    
2. The book introduces me to new ideas or gives me a new way of looking at currently known techniques. The book must increase my knowledge or if it is an introductory book, it must explain the ideas clearly. Check.
    
3. The book must move me from theory into action. It is only by applying knowledge through action that your results improve. Check.

So that's three big ticks/checks for Book Yourself Solid.

You Want The Review?

I think that some of my readers like it best when I pull a book to pieces rather than be nice about it but let me explain why I believe that Book Yourself Solid is the book to boost the marketing of your professional services.

A Real Action Focus

Throughout the book you will find written exercises and links to useful resources to help you to implement the ideas.

Even better, when you buy the book you learn the password to get the 90 page Book Yourself Solid workbook from bookyourselfsolid.com. This lays it all out so that you can conscientiously work through and complete the exercises and captu