Take It to the Next Level: Are You and Your Business Prepared for 2011?

Are you and your business prepared for 2011? That question has been going around in my head recently; my friends and business colleagues are asking the same question. I wanted to know what the next step would be for my coaching business, LifePath Associates LLC, and an event offered me ideas.



I attended a Mastermind Dialogue group sponsored by my local chamber of commerce. They presented three different business experts to share their advice on "how businesses can fail" and what to do to prevent failure (the implied remainder of that statement).

The first speaker was an experienced business coach and consultant. He was trained to use several tools such as the Six Sigma Model. He shared a diagram that he uses with his clients - a great visual model that showed us what business owners need in order to grow and maintain a successfully performing business. He emphsized that you needed all the parts of the model to be aligned if you wanted to prevent business failure. Should any of the parts be out of alignment, it could spell performance failure or at least make your chances of business success extremely difficult.

The second speaker shared how he used his expertise as an executive turnaround and project management consultant to lead, organize, and deliver national and international large scale project and events such as the last G-20 Summit in western Pennsylvania. It was fascinating to hear how his business success relied upon leadership as well as hiring and managing competent people to design and produce the events. He emphasized that working with competent people and building strong alliances and coalitions was critical to business success. He stressed that if a CEO or owner believes that they need to work alone, then they can cause a failure.

The last speaker was a Regional Vice President who had attained his position by working up through the ranks of his current employer and company. He works to help others succeed in business - their own franchise business. He represents an international franchisor and he recruits and mentors franchisees in a large region in the United States. A couple of his franchisee attended the meeting - one was his top producer. He shared information about how marketing online and through direct mail were both important to business success - doing one exclusively weakened the businesses ability to attract and maintain customers.

Why am I sharing this story with you? Whay are these ideas important?

Because it became evident that small businesses can still be and are successful in this tough economy. At the very least they can use this time to re-evaluate their company; the business practices they use; the way they connect and partner with their workforce and business colleagues; and how they manage their finances. Once they conduct this analysis, they adjust their operations and marketing plans to strengthen their market position and continue to build a successful business.

I left the meeting encouraged about the future of small business. I acquired more ideas and action steps that I want to take in my coaching business so I can help more clients succeed in 2011.

In summary, the lessons I learned that morning:

• Make time to network with others.
• Invest time in learning more and reviewing your business and life.
• You derive positive energy when you build connections and alliances with others.

Here is my challenge to you is that you use the end of 2010, November and December, as a springboard to prepare your business for success in 2011.

Please share your comments or add ideas below to the ones shared in this article. Thank you and let's rock in 2011!