Time2Market Business Development Coaching & Consulting

LinkedIn - Beyond Jobs. Business.

Yes, LinkedIn can be used for more than your job search. This topic came up today while meeting with a business associate.  So, here's a quick Top 5 list specifically for those who have leadership roles, or are in consultative, business development and sales roles.  

5 LinkedIn features that can help you build your business:

1. Companies. Research and follow companies, tracking headcount changes, job openings, your connections there, statistics about employees, and more. This feature is getting better all the time. Are there prospective client companies that you should be tracking? Do you know what's happening at the company where your customer works?  Are there competing companies that you want to keep an eye on?
2. Events.  Are there events you or your staff should be attending for networking or professional development?  This feature can help, allowing you to search and find relevant events and/or see which events your contacts (customers and/or colleagues) are attending.  Identify events relevant to your business and connect with people who are important to your business.
3. Groups.  Join them! These provide an opportunity to build your expertise and/or showcase your knowledge/products/services/events.  You connect to existing and new contacts.
4. Updates.   Periodic updates keep you intouch with your network.  Read others' updates and post yours! Let people know what you are doing, or where you are going. You can also use updates to announce new products/services/events/company news, etc.  I’ve found some great information from watching updates, including identifying research of interest for my clients. I've even identified consulting projects to pursue.  You can too.
5. Applications.  Add your business blog to your LinkedIn page, highlight upcoming trips, post presentations and more.  There are many applications that can be used to further connect with your network. 

Resilience - it's ordinary, not extraordinary

Resilience: recovering from or adjusting easily to change or misfortune. You may think it's something you're either lucky to have or unlucky to lack, but that's not so. Resilience is an ordinary ability, and you can take focused action to build it in your life. Don't wait. Start today.

The first step to building resilience is accepting change. With Spring being a time we welcome change, this first step should be easy. Beyond acceptance, focus on your adaptability, strategic planning, results-oriented actions, and persistence-- so you can build resilience and achieve goals. While the economic forecast is looking rough in many parts of the world and here in New York the Department of Labor warns that 2008 was the good year, 2009 can still be fine.

To work toward keeping 2009 just fine, concentrate on building your resilience a little bit at a time and successfully seizing new opportunities. A few tips to do this include:

1. Avoid viewing crises as insurmountable.

2. Establish and grow your professional support network, making contact to ask for and accept help, and to help others.

3. Nurture a positive outlook, discover what restores you mentally, and take care of yourself physically.

4. Do not stop looking for new opportunities.

5. Take decisive action to work toward goals, proactively working a plan.

Resilience is an ordinary ability that everyone has, it is not extraordinary. But you must build and foster this ordinary ability to have it ready in challenging times to drive favorable business and professional results.

Work the list on your own, or foster your resilience working with a Time2Market coach or consultant to move forward faster. We're helping professionals daily. Contact us here if we can help you or your organization be resilient too.

Linkedin - Can it help you build a network to support your business and professional development efforts?

I think the answer to this is, Yes!  But, as with all networking, you'll likely see better results if you make it a two-way street.  And, this site makes it easy to do that.

As you focus on your professional and business development, you may consider Linkedin one good resource to explore, with tools and functionality, for relationship building. Here are 5 main reasons why I think Linkedin can help your development efforts:

1. It’s easy to find and invite others to join your network - get back in touch, and reach out to new contacts.  And, if you are concerned about the privacy of your network, you can keep contacts hidden.
2. Referral functions help you explore new career and business connections faster.
3. Question/answer features can facilitate your knowledge and network build faster.
4. Changes in your network can be viewed daily, so you can stay up-to-date easily (if that feature is enabled by those in your network)
5. You can move your information out to others quickly, with forwarding, pdf, and messaging capabilities. Or, others can find you as a professional match with key word searches, and communicate quickly as well ....

10 Business Building Strategies - Grow

Looking to build your business in the New Year? Here are 10 strategies to grow your business in the next 12 months:

1. Expand the number of locations
2. Franchise
3. License your products
4. Form an alliance or partnership
5. Diversify your offering
6. Target new business markets (i.e., consumer, business, government, etc.)
7. Target new customer segments
8. Buy a new business or merge
9. Expand your business footprint internationally
10. Build your online presence

Time2Market’s business development coaching and consulting services focus on these very things, but this list is from Karen Spaeder, who wrote 10 Ways to Grow Your Biz for Entrepreneur.com. My terminology here is slightly different, but it's a great list and article to share.  Contact us to help.

Start up and Small Business Tips - Lessons Learned

9 small business owners share what they would have done differently starting their businesses today and the following tips result:

• create a marketing plan to promote e-commerce and build your customer base faster
• focus time and money on search engine optimization, especially if you are in a competitive market that is closely tied to on-line shopping and/or information gathering
• emphasize employee commissions as incentives to drive more business
• seize multicultural product offering and/or marketing opportunities
• consult your board of directors to sound out ideas for growth
• have a marketing and PR budget
• create a local, scalable, sales development program/model
• have a partner to work with
• get help/staff to support the business and pick up some of the work

Check out the article from Entrepreneur.com, which highlights e-commerce, real estate, health-care management, restaurant, hair care, catering, video game, and apparel retail businesses.  And, contact us, if you need to move forward fast with tips above for business growth.

International expansion – Are you prepared?

If your business is expanding internationally, look closely before you leap.  Both large and small companies sometimes underestimate the requirements and difficulty of expanding operations abroad.  Recently noted examples in the press include Google’s experiences with Orkut in Brazil, as well as the experiences of smaller firms.

Apart from understanding the business environment from a marketing perspective (e.g., business/consumer demographics, competition, etc.), examine key areas, such as:

• country specific practices and regulations relevant to your business operations and industry
• cross-border, as well as, local taxes and duties
• labor laws and practices
• foreign currency, in the context of local and global economic trends

You can read about how these factors have impacted some large and small businesses by clicking the links above.  Be sure you are prepared to create detailed market analyses and entrance plans for growth.  And, find a dedicated local person, or firm, to help establish your local presence in target markets before launch.

Plan, Do, Achieve - Business success

Action planning can help you get there fast!                                                               Full Article here

What sounds more fun - Business planning or business success planning?  You need action for success, and here are 5 Business Success Planning Tips to Move You Forward Fast:

1. Get clear on your purpose and products, and pace yourself – Understand and be able to convey why you are in business, your vision and mission. Identify and plan competitive products/services to sell today and tomorrow. And, pace yourself.  This is not an overnight trip, so outline your milestones.
2. Write it all down – Document everything along your business journey!  With good documentation, you will be surprised how much of the work will already be done when you need to share information for marketing, sales, financing, staffing or other business requirements.
3. Validate your plan, share it and always be open to revising it – Share your findings and action results with “independent parties”.  Listen carefully to their reactions and recommendations. Be open to making revisions that will help you to be successful.
4. Get help to develop and maintain your success plan to meet milestone commitments, and adjust your course as necessary – Working with a business consultant or coach can help you stay on track to meet your mark!
5. Do the math – Think through (and document) the financial requirements for your business in the near, medium and long-term.

Use these tips to make your journey business success-oriented and rewarding – you can even aim to make it downright fun by getting into action with Time2Market tips and business coaching to plan, do and work toward business achievements.

Sign up for our newsletter to learn more.  And, e-mail us or click here to read the full 5 Business Success Planning Tips article!

Build your Business - Sign up Now for August 14th Women's Leadership Exchange Event

If you've got a business to build and products or services to move to market, don't miss this one day event to work on doing it fast! Please join us and e-mail me if you would like to meet there in person.

In one day, the Women's Leadership Exchange Conference offers women business owners:

• Acclaimed facilitated networking sessions which allow you to connect with successful business owners, professionals and top executives that will have an impact on your business going forward.
• QVC Quick Product Review (!!!)
• Workshops from top experts
• Speed coaching 

I am pleased to again invite you to this unique one-day conference for women in business and offer you a special rate! Women's Leadership Exchange is committed to supporting the growth of women-led businesses in all sectors through the sharing of knowledge, resources and contacts.  Their conference is an investment with an invaluable return.  You have to see it to believe it!!

For details, see below or visit www.womensleadershipexchange.com. Please register for the conference at www.womensleadershipexchange.com and use my Source Code: AMBASS07 for $25 off.  Also, note if you are a member of a listed Supporting Organization, you receive an additional $25.00 off!

See you at the 5th ANNUAL SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CONFERENCE!
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
from 7:30am–7:30pm

Long Beach Convention Center
300 East Ocean Boulevard
Long Beach, CA

Winning Business Introductions

I was the featured speaker at the annual mixer for the National Latina Business Women Association in Orange County, and we worked through a 20-30 minute exercise to get people in action creating winning business introductions, which was well received.  Great business introductions help you build business fast...

5 Key Areas of Focus for Building Business

While you plan and grow your business via build, buy and/or partnering strategies, it is useful to review these five areas and to monitor them frequently. You will more readily identify business weaknesses in areas such as finance, marketing and sales, and operations and be able to strengthen your business development and growth along the way. Study what did and did not work for your business and others, then develop steps you can take that will see you through to your goals. 

We talk about 5 Key Areas of Focus for Building Business here and all 6 in our monthly newsletter. So, sign up!