Exciting Announcement and Offer

We're excited to be able to offer our most loyal friends and followers the pre-release purchase of "Just Give Me 5 Minutes" being released in November
2010. Here's what you'll receive as an Insider;

An advance copy of "Just Give Me 5 Minutes"

A One Year Access to your own online 5 Minute Office – Normally $9.95 per month subscription (that's a $119.40 VALUE)

We will make a $2 donation to one of three Charities, or you can even suggest a charity to make a donation to on your behalf. Please recommend a charity that is focused on empowerment.

You'll be able to go into a local book store to buy your copy after release $19.95, or you can buy it now and enjoy all of these benefits while helping someone else out.

Learn and put into practice the powerful success principles that Clients have paid up to $24,000 for 3 days of Private, in person, coaching sessions. These principles include;

Gratitude - the first principle of success

Values - the element of attracting the Co-Workers/Partners, Employees, Vendors and Customers who value you most

Alignment - improving the process by getting everyone and everything moving in the same direction

Consistency - success is about joyful choices not tedious obligation

Action – your loudest "voice"

Brand – the product of your customer's experience

Influence – entice them to action Vs convincing them

Purposeful Games - success truly is a matter of "child's play"

Home - you do not need to "go out into the desert" (a label for going to a special workshop or camp for change) lasting change happens when we implement strategies within the reality of our daily lives)

Presence - the strategies and mechanisms that provide daily growth and maintenance of what you value most.

And enjoy access to the "self-coaching and team coaching" tools that will allow you to put into practice these simple truths in an affordable way that allows you to succeed within the context of your daily lives. Affordable tools that your employees and vendors can use, putting your entire team in alignment.

 

ProFormance SOLUTIONS

"Results through coaching you to discover what the right actions are, and holding you accountable to do those 'right things' consistently."

As a 17-year-old student at Newport Harbor High in Newport Beach, I enjoyed a diverse circle of friends. Some of the kids in the community had their lives planned out. We knew that John Wayne's son Ethan would be an Actor. Other friends would follow in the footsteps of their successful parents and go to Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Stanford, and become Physicians, Attorneys and Business Owners. But I also had friends who were the children of Immigrants. I knew that most of them would not attend College. And while attending college is not a perquisite to success, I had a sense that most of those friends would not achieve the real dreams of their hearts without additional education. I asked myself how to best serve those friends. The answer I came up with was that I would learn the Art of Sales, Practice it, Succeed and then Teach. I chose a very competitive industry, Copiers. As an employee of Royal Business Machines (later Konica), I was privileged to learn from some masterful teachers and Mentors. I applied what they taught me and became the recipient of every award that was available. I also enjoyed a wonderful lifestyle as a result. Sailboat, sports cars, vacations and a great young family. I was also given the opportunity to begin my Coaching career. It established a success pattern of helping business partners find success through the training I was allowed to offer. In the Diamond Industry, as a Manager and then Brand Manager for Ditta Myor, that strategy allowed us to bring a new division to market and achieve profitability in six months from start up. Moving over to the role of Eastern States VP for F-Matic of America I was allowed to firmly establish the value of bringing sales training to our Dealer Network in 16 states of the northeast. As a consequence of gaining a reputation for helping Distribution Partners enjoy increased success which led to increased sales for my company, I was recruited to become the Director of Training for a multi-national manufacturer, National Super Service. Now I was allowed to take my training and mentoring strategies worldwide. The first book I published, Major League Selling was implemented in a training tour with the largest companies in our industry. I reveled in the joy of witnessing students double their incomes while dramatically improving their quality of life by freeing up time to spend with family and friends. While it was very satisfying, I had a dream of coaching a student to $1 million of success. My family told me they wanted to move back to the Western States, and I felt that the time was right to start my own coaching company. I challenged myself to achieve a remarkable start up. With the help of a Mentor, I was able to generate my first $1 Million, in only 30 days. It was liberating to learn that "Success is as easy as we allow it to be, or as difficult as we want to make it." I still hadn't coached a student to achieve the same. The Universe provided me that opportunity when I was recruited into an industry that relied heavily on coaching. My model was "Learn, Do, Succeed, and then Teach. I do not teach principles I've only read about. I only teach that which I've learned, put into practice and yielded success with. During the past 6 years especially, I have witnessed clients acquiring $1M, and more, in as little as 7 months. I still have a desire to help a Client create $1M in 30 days. It's been a great adventure. It has inspired me to write this book. "Just Give Me 5 Minutes" as a Self Coaching tool. I know that not everyone can afford to pay for one on one coaching. This book and the accompanying tools are an answer to making Executive coaching a reality for even starving students or artist's Let me know how it works for you. And as a side note, I still take private clients and corporate assignments. Perhaps we could create some "purposeful play" for your team.

How do You Select a Good Coach?

SELECTING A COACH

It's important to give an executive coach the same scrutiny that you would give any other professional. These are six questions that are valuable to ask.

1. How do you define coaching?

Coaching is the Art and Science of helping Clients 1) Get Clear on what they value most. 2) Get clear on what their individual value is. 3) Assist Clients in getting more of what they value most. This is done by helping Clients become accountable for what they say they want to produce, and by doing it through asking the right questions.

2. May I see your code of ethics?

1. I do not possess all of the answers, rather the answers lie within the Client.

2. You are enough. You need not change a thing, unless you desire to produce something that you've not produced before.

3. You do the "heavy lifting." I'm here to help you decide on what that needs to be.

4. A good Coach will help you create systems that are sustainable without relying on the Coach as a crutch.

5. I value Coaching and have my own Coaches as well. Coaching reduces the learning curve by avoiding the repetition of "trial and error."

6. I guarantee the value of the Coaching I deliver. If you don't produce 4 times the value of what you pay me in 1 year, I will refund your coaching fees. I am a Business Coach Vs being a Life Coach because we have a scorecard. That scorecard is your bank account. I will regularly ask if you put money in the bank.

7. Our relationship is based on trust. There is confidentiality in our conversations, even if your boss or Manager hired me and pay me to provide coaching for you. I'm not here to be another set of eyes on you, nor to provide additional review and rating services for your company. I work for you.

There is no "lesson" of the week. My focus is on you and your specific needs and situation.

8. I am not here to change you, I am here to support whatever growth or accomplishment that you desire.

9. I focus on the process.

10. You are responsible for keeping your promises to yourself. If you say you're going to get something done for a purpose that serves you, you must get it done. Keep your promises, and make no promises that you can't keep.

3. What principles do you favor in your coaching?

1. G.R.O.W. the organizational model for our coaching sessions;

G. - GOALS Everything we do together is driven by YOUR Goals.

R. - REVIEW Review the activities and results of the previous week

O. - OPTIONS We consider optional ways of achieving what you desire, or to get better results out of your actions, or to get you to do what you say you want to do.

W. - WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO, AND WHEN WILL IT GET DONE? Weekly Assignments

MUST DO - There are actions that you agree to that must be accomplished before our next meeting. Failure is not an option with "must do's," they are the things or actions that will be taken, and would get done even if you went to the Emergency Room, but were physically capable of doing, before you go to sleep that night.

VALUES - One must be clear in what they value most, so much so that you can effectively communicate those values to the world. As a result, you will attract Employees, Vendors and Customers who value the same things and are willing, even anxious to do what you have them do or pay the price that you would have them pay. Values are raised like a Military standard which; a) Gathers the team b) Provides a sense of direction and a sense of achievement for the team c) Provides for the morale of the team.

TIME VALUE – If you sell your time for less than it's worth, you will not find satisfaction. You know what your time value is. It's important to get clear on what that time value is so that you communicate that value to others.

INVESTMENT - While scholarship may be provided, I have discovered over the past 25 years or so that individuals do not take the required action (I challenge you to do the things that have been avoided up to this point) unless they have a vested interest.

CONSISTENCY - Success is nothing more than making the right choices, at the right time, consistently.

PRINCIPLE CENTERED Vs STRATEGY ORIENTED - Principles are lasting, strategies are situation based. Principles allow us to create the best strategy for the moment, but do not require going back to school, as it were. 

ONCE A CLIENT, ALWAYS A FRIEND - I have a vested interest in your success, whether that may be accomplished in a day or 20 years. I remain dedicated to your success, even when you may wish to give up.

4. What will you require of me?

 

1. Weekly meetings at the agreed to time and day.

 

2. Accountability. Reporting of achievement, or lack of.

 

3. Complete Honesty, including letting me know when you disagree with me.

 

4. Elimination of the words, "should have" and the concept of guilt. Instead, the use of "I choose to" and acceptance of the results as what you desire more than perhaps even stated desires.

 

5. Does the proposed program match my needs?

 

Minimal time requirement is 1 hourly meeting each week, for a minimum of 12 weeks. Ideally we will work together for 1 year.

 

A minimum of 5 minutes of daily effort on each stated objective or accepted assignment.

 

6. Is confidentiality clear?

 

Once again, our meetings, and what we discuss is held in strict confidence between us, even if a Company or Manager pays for your Coaching.

 

Lastly, ask my current and previous clients if they would hire me again. I'm more than happy to provide you with a list of people that you can call.

Are Your Clients Experiencing Any Kind Of Economic Recovery?

A multi-millionaire friend of mine asked that question of me the other day. I thought that my answer was worth sharing with you as well. In response to his question I said that many of my small business owners have been enjoying, and continue to enjoy economic success, regardless of national or worldwide economic conditions. People are still spending what money they have. Tires still wear out, books are still being read (indeed, witness the overwhelming success of the iPad), people are still buying computers and technology, people are still buying houses and getting mortgages. Regardless of the community that they are in, I am witnessing client successes throughout America.

SUCCESS IS AS EASY AS WE ALLOW IT TO BE, OR AS DIFFICULT AS WE CHOOSE TO MAKE IT – THE PRINCIPLE OF ALIGNMENT

Raji Rykert (her nickname is Superwoman) lives in Southern California. She has been enjoying success on two fronts. Real Estate Investing (how many people can say that today) and a new business startup (www.3facesmedia.com) signing new clients like Shari Belafonte the actress daughter of Harry Belafonte. I had the opportunity to sit and coach Shari briefly. What a remarkable person. Shari is introducing Raji to her best celebrity friends and growing Raji's business for her. How has Raji enjoyed such remarkably rapid success? It's not by hiring a great sales team or implementing an aggressive sales approach. Surely, Shari had many options when it came to hiring a Publicist. The traditional approach would have been costly. But by simply "seeding" the success of others, Raji seeded her own success. This is consistent with the behavior that I model in "Once a Client, Always a Friend." Would you like a friend who will be there for the long term? Give me a call at 801-755-6823.

There's a wonderful article about Augie Nieto, the founder of LifeCycle which grew to become a $550 Million business. Augie started out with a national sales tour that would ultimately cost a great deal and show no success. He found his success was much easier when his efforts came into alignment with his value of "Reciprocity." Read the article HERE and buy his book.

Mike B owns a towing and auto shop service in small town USA (population 4,505). When we began the coaching process he told me in our third session "I got mad at you for getting me to dream again. I had grown to accept my situation." Because of our work together he became aware of business losses that would ultimately force him to shut down his business (as so many small business owners do in America). By getting clear on what he values most, we are now identifying remarkable profit enhancing opportunities for his company. How many of you have struggled with business expansion opportunities when cash flow just isn't what it needs to be? Do you go out and finance your inventory, only to further erode profits? Have you offered products and services at deep discounts, not only eroding profits – but devaluing your products and services further? Or have you implemented measures that allow for profitable growth, like Mike?

STEP 1: GET CLEAR ON WHAT YOU VALUE

How can we align with our values if we don't know what they are? Stanford University research points to this as the fundamental reason for lack of success in peoples' lives. We have a great free tool available to help you get clear on what you value, and document them in a way that adds to more exercises that will grow your business. Again, IT'S FREE. Just email me at coachfrits@gmail.com for your copy.

But to get you started, answer this question. If you were admitted to the emergency ward today, and were coherent, what would you make sure got done before you went to sleep tonight? The answers to this question will give a huge head start on getting clear on your values.

An ancient story is told of a General living in peacetime, only to discover the enemy's preparations for a new war. The General was wise and caring, and desired a short war with minimal casualties, on both sides. In his wisdom he decided that the way to ensure a short conflict was to gather around him seasoned warriors who valued the same things that he valued. He knew that they would have experienced many of the same things that he had already experienced. He also knew that he would avoid having to convince those warriors of his strategies and tactics, saving additional time and avoiding loss of lives. With the lives of his friends and family in the balance, he wrote down the principles that he valued most, on an animal skin, and raised it as a standard. Military standards are used as a rallying point. As long as the standard flies, is held aloft, in the heat of battle it provides an inspiration to keep working towards the goal. Listing his values attracted warriors of similar value to his cause. A standard is also valuable as it allows us to measure progress – ground gained or lost relative to the standard. So a standard also provides a sense of direction, especially in the disorienting moments of a melee.

So it is in our communities and our companies. Success is so much easier, the challenge reduced, when we are surrounded by others of a like mind and value. You can save yourself significant hours and dollars when you are surrounded by those who value what you value. Get clear on what you value and then communicate it to your universe of potential customers. You'll discover that you are acquiring new customers that are very much like your best customers. The customers who value what you value, and allow you make a profit. We know that 80% of our revenues and profits come from 20% of our customers. By duplicating that 20%, and "firing" the 80% (or at least not expending as much time and energy on them) you can almost double company revenue and profits while getting you home earlier, or at the least allowing you more time for the activities that you value most. You can grow your business, even if you only have 5 minutes, by getting others to sell your products and services for you. Who better than your best customers? You'll discover how much easier success becomes at this point.

Coach Frits

MARCH MADNESS REPORT: Tourney Could Cost Employers $1.8 Billion

"It is March once again, and like the swallows returning to Capistrano, basketball fans across the country will return to their favorite sports websites to research every one of the 64 teams playing in the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament, fill out tournament brackets and enter one or more betting pools in what has become an annual rite of spring as sacred as green beer on St. Patrick's Day." This was reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. "The original outplacement company" on their blog @Work.

It's absolutely amazing how much distractions at work can cost. The implied question is; "How do we avoid the costs of "distractions?"

 

"In fact, with worker stress and anxiety heightened, a little distraction could be just what the doctor ordered. The key for companies is finding a way to maximize the positive aspects of March Madness so that they outweigh any potential negatives," Challenger noted.

This report brings a focus to the issue of increased Employee Engagement. And that focus presents significant opportunities for companies to bring about improvements in corporate productivity. Workplace distractions are certainly not limited to March Madness. In fact, corporate America would be relieved if distractions and the impact on productivity were limited to a few weeks each year.

Allow me to add two additional strategies for increased focus and productivity among employees;

1. Convert employees into acting as Corporate Owners or CEO's. How do we achieve that level of engagement? The solution is actually very simple; teach employees how to present their ideas for improvement as a Senior Executive might make a presentation to the CEO, by creating a presentation that documents the improvement opportunity with Needs, Requirements, Costs and Return on Investment. We can help you accomplish that with powerful employee training and tools. In fact, with our "90 Minute Profit Recovery Jumpstart" we will pay for ourselves as well as pull additional and significant pure profit dollars out of "thin air." It's really not as "magical" as this choice of words may appear. In truth, it's a simple process that we guide your employees through. In fact. We are so confident that we can produce these results for your company, regardless of size, that we will deliver this powerful approach at no cost, until we produce those dollars.
   
2. Another great approach to producing greater productivity within your company is to enable your employees to engage in their work "foe their reasons." What does that mean? We can help you show your employees how to show up on time and work a full day by spending a few extra hours at work each week as they build new business opportunities for themselves. New business opportunities that will contribute to additional revenues and profits for your company. Let's face it; we are losing employee focus to their efforts at building their own businesses through Network Marketing and traditional business startups. Why not harness that energy in a way that builds your company as well?
   

Improved employee focus on the job can produce remarkable improvements for your company. Whether you need to show performance for the board or shareholders, or you have a small company that can benefit from improved revenue and profitability (face it, who doesn't need these improvements in today's economy) these strategies are powerful. Imagine what those improved profits can do at a time like this. Those profits can fuel market expansion (read – take market share away from less profitable competitors), invest in capital improvements and leave your company in a superior position that would be difficult to compete with, only allowing you to grow your company's market share, revenues, profits and efficiencies in sustainable ways.

March Madness, $1.8 Billion loss, or improvement opportunity, you choose and we'll support you. Regardless of where in the world you company is located, regardless of the business you're in, these truths can serve to help you build a business that's unstoppable.

Coach Frits

coachfrits@gmaiil.com

801-755-6823

From Miracle Monday last week, to today, the miracles keep rolling in

I want to share some powerfully valuable truths with all of you. The important thing to note is that they will only become valuable and true for you when you choose for them to be valuable and true for you. Interestingly enough, I have already shared these ideas with most of you, but I thought you might find it valuable to hear these ideas from someone who has earned great credibility with the world at large, the actor Will Smith.

"There is a redemptive power to making a choice"

"The first step, before anyone else believes it, is that you have to believe it"

"There's no reason to have a Plan B because it distracts from Plan A"

"I think that there's a certain delusional quality , that all successful people have to have"

"You have to believe that something different, from what has happened for the last 50 million years of history; you have to believe that something different can happen"

"Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity"

"Why would you be realistic? It's unrealistic to bend a piece of metal and fly people across the ocean, fortunately the Wright brothers thought otherwise. I'm gonna do it, it's done. It's already done the second I decide I'm going to do it"

From a Will Smith interview with Charles Osgood

As I shared my "delusional" spirit with one of my clients today, Bill Sturman in Minnesota, he was quick to thank me for the delusional attitudes that I both possess and impress upon others to adopt in their lives. Bill is a software engineer by profession. About 5 years ago, he closed the doors of his own software engineering company, and went to work for a much larger company. Towards the end of 2009, he went to the hospital with what he thought was a heart attack. Wow, talk about a wakeup call. Fortunately it turned out to be an acute anxiety attack (okay, better to be relaxing on the beach in Tahiti – but definitely better than a heart attack), the product of working for a company that put sales revenue ahead of customer satisfaction. Bill was getting stressed by long hours and too many meetings with unhappy clients, because his employer couldn't deliver on promises made. Most of you know that I believe that there are no accidents in life. So Bill said to me this morning, "Because of your coaching Frits, and I really do mean that, …the (School) Board was very complimentary of the strategic plan that I presented, and they went on to approve the first half of my 6 month project for them. That represents about $80,000 that I'll put in the bank. Not bad for 6 months of work." Continuing on as he spoke about a Budgeting system he had created for Vo Tech through 4 Year Colleges, and in reference to the "fire sale" strategy that I had shared with him; "I actually helped wrap up a project on that. This afternoon I go out to one of my old customers (5 years ago) to establish a maintenance/improvement service contract. There are ½ dozen Universities that are using my budget management, software that will yield $20k to $50k annual contracts." So Bill will enjoy his best income and his "Best Year Ever"™ in 2010. From stress to joy in about 4 months flat, that's faster than a Ferrari's 0 – 60 performance.

Bill reminded me of the conversation we had regarding riptides. The key to surviving a riptide is to not fight against it, but to let that energy do its job and swim across the riptide. The "Universe" has perfect love and generosity towards each one of us. As we allow its energy to guide us, rather than struggle against it, life will become much easier.

Witness Raji's, (my awesome Publicist) successes in finding great new clients, or Mark's success in the corporate world as he "rises to the top" of a large multi-national pharmaceutical company "I put more money in the bank this year Frits." They provide additional evidence that what you dream is within reach, as long as you follow five simple rules; Ready for those "rules?"

1. Dream, or as my friend Chris Nelson the famous Jamaican bobsledder of 1988 says, "Dream Big." Be delusional and unrealistic. Regardless of what your life has been like, good or bad, you are allowed to have more. Get clear on what "Success" looks like.
   
2. Wake up, get dressed and leave the comfort of your home. You don't need to know what it is that you will do after "leaving home," simply step out in faith, with no preconceived notion of what the "steps to success" have to look like, just be clear on what success looks like. After you take the first step, the next step will be revealed. Just be sure to "wake up" from your dreaming, and "go to the well." Regardless of whether or not the bucket comes up empty or full, keep going to the well (or perhaps find another well to go to).
   
3. Be delusional, unrealistic and demand the best for yourself and all that you love (like Lynda who loves millions of people in Peru).
   
4. Remember that life and success are both simply the product of choices. Don't like the life that is being "produced?" Make different choices. Don't want to make different choices? Love the life that has already been produced. That choice, to love what you have, brings you "more" in the moment that you make that choice.
   
5. Destroy the expectations of perfection, great joy and beauty can be created from that. For example, through the years, many of you have seen "horrific" typos in my communications with you (I thought I was going to be a professional football player, so I skipped typing class – for you youngsters, that's what we called it back in the day, you know it as "keyboarding"). Today, my beautiful wife is sometimes addressed as "Oyu" [sic], and it's a designation that we both have come to appreciate as a result "good enough." As my new friend, Dr. Brian Alman, said over dinner last week; "I am perfectly good enough." Everything really is as it should be. In this moment, you are what you need to be. Your life is what it needs to be. Or, as the great teacher "Sandy" Meisner taught his students to say to themselves, say to yourself "I am enough." Each of you has great beauty and value, I know, I've seen it. If you can't see it, allow me to help you "see it."
   

I cherish what I was told today (some of you will recognize this). "It's working, Coach! Every day you're getting closer! Everything you've ever wanted is being pressed toward you. Everything is clicking. Don't let the illusions trick you. Don't let the events of today dampen your spirits. Things couldn't be any better than they now are. You couldn't have more reasons to celebrate. Now! Do it! The hardest work is done! Just show up, be present, open every door and let events unfold. Life is your stage. This is your parade." What's the hard part? Dreaming Big, being delusional and unrealistic. But those aren't very difficult, are they? When that stuff becomes easy, life becomes easy. I hope your 2010 is exciting and rewarding as mine. Thanks for being a friend of mine.

Make this the "Best Year Ever,"

Coach Frits

Making Life Easy

I realize that this week's posts seem to be centered on technology. But as a business owner it is imperative that you discover and using any and all tools that allow you to get to the most important part of your business, as quickly and effortlessly as possible. While you don't get paid to select the best computer or office equipment, making good selections can make your life easier. The last thing that you need in a busy day is to have your computer stops working, or for you to experience problems with your software. Today I'd like to talk to you about incredible tool that will help you get through the administrative tasks quickly and allow you to move on to finding new customers or providing service to your customers.

Microsoft Windows 7 contains within it a powerful speech recognition technology. It's like having a secretary taking down dictation for you. All of your correspondence, forms and e-mail is all so much easier to deal with when you have a powerful speech recognition tool available. I'm using an inexpensive gigaware a USB stereo headset (which is Skype certified) and the powerful new Microsoft Office 2010, in combination with the speech recognition tool available in windows 7. Set up was easy and the microphone performed well.

So now I can type as fast as I can talk. Which frankly, as much faster than I am capable of typing. It's amazing to watch these words appear on the screen, exactly as I intend them to. If you've ever used speech recognition in the past, you'll have to agree that it could be a bit difficult. The computer doesn't recognize the words you mean to say, leading to typos that took too much time to go back and correct. But you will find that the new speech recognition technology is amazingly accurate right out of the box. And of course, you still have the opportunity to teach your computer how you speak. As you go through the process of teaching your computer your speech patterns, as well as making corrections in text as you speak it, the computer is less likely to make errors. You'll find with today's new technology that you will not be as frustrated as perhaps you were in the past. There is an end of sentence absolutely no reason to put off the decision of use speech recognition call technology any longer. Life and success really are all about choices. And ultimately that comes down to two fundamental choices. Those choices are; 1) what do I need to do to get the results that I desire? 2) can I make choices and be happy with the results I'm getting? "Success is nothing more than choosing to do the right thing, at the right time, consistently." What is the right thing? The thing that produces the results you want. When is the right time? Now! So you can continue to say use the old fashioned way and either type correspondence out yourself, or hire a secretary to do it for you (which I highly recommend, as an assistant can do so much more for you), if it's in the budget. Or you can make a small investment in today's new word processing and speech recognition technologies.

 

Coach Frits

Here’s a Great Profit Improvement Tool – Part 2

As an update that underscores the ease of use and versatility of this tool, I want to report that I have made 22 new blog posts in under an hour. Pretty cool. So let's consider how this tool saves you the added expenses of upgrading your office computer system or systems.

Forget the fact that software now costs more than the computers that we're buying, the biggest expense of a new computer system in the office is learning to use the new productivity tools, especially if you are the only "employee" of your Small Office/Homes Office based business. If you aren't familiar with "opportunity cost," it is simply defined as the possible profits that you could have earned by using a resource differently; in this case it's the resource of time that we are considering. As the only employee of your company, you need to be busy doing whatever it is that customers pay you for. If you don't have enough customers yet, then the most valuable activity that you can be engaged in is Selling. Even if you are a tech support company, your time is best spent fixing other people's computers, or improving other businesses computers, rather than working on your own computers. There is a legend that great businessman Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Panasonic (known as the god of manufacturing," I'll post his story later) once walked into one of his manufacturing plant offices and saw a "computer" sitting on an employee's desk (it was actually the monitor). Legend has it that he picked up the "computer" and in front of his astonished staff walked to a window and threw it out. He proclaimed that "computers do not work, people do." I am certain he was aware of the power of the computer, but he wanted to make the point to his employees that they could get bogged down. Certainly, the learning curve of a new system is just like that. Some of you may remember WordPerfect, after they took over WordStar's market (yes anyone who remembers WordStar and Lotus, and even Word Perfect is as old as Steve Jobs and me. Of course I remember when word processing was an electronic typewriter with a small 1x4 lcd)? If you do, you'll remember how we had a new learning curve. We used keyboard templates, and competing software companies had "WordPerfect commands" capabilities wherein we could switch back to WordPerfect commands because it was too difficult to relearn the new Microsoft commands. It seems almost laughable to today's generation of computer literate workers. But that reality helped us to understand that when new technology was purchased, we had to pay attention to the training element of learning how to use the new equipment.

Today, that challenge is made so much greater as we have to learn how to integrate all of the equipment in our office, while at the same time learning how to get it all to work with the Internet, Networks - both physical and virtual, email and email Clients. It has simply gotten to be too complex. Have you ever felt like you have become the Computer Help Desk or Tech department in your small business? Have you ever felt like tech requirements and technical support (calling up the mobile technicians and paying them to fix a problem that wasn't' there yesterday)is draining your working capital as well as your precious time? The entire Office 2010 suite seems to have the potential of eliminating most of that. Buy Word 2010 (of course, you're already seeing that I would recommend buying the entire suite), and you won't have to go through reading a "Cloud based" service's "help pages" trying to figure out how to get it and your word processor to talk to each other. With the growing cloud computing model, it was time that a software company figured how to simplify all of that for us. Once again; bravo to you Microsoft, for getting it right for us and making it so we can focus on our businesses not our office equipment.

Last, but not least, it seems that Microsoft's marketing department has been working in unison with the Developers, and made "getting Office 2010" as east as using it. The new pricing model is in line with our needs as small to medium sized business owners. In addition to being a more affordable pricing model, Microsoft has made it possible to "try it, before you buy it" buy allowing free downloads of the Office 2010 beta. The new suite of tools is scheduled to arrive on store shelves in June, 2010. I strongly suggest that you download it now, and see if you aren't as excited about its features as much as I am.

Here’s a Great “5 Minute” Business Improvement Tool

If you're like me and millions of business owners around the world, you are trying to use "Social Marketing" to your advantage. In your Social Marketing mix, you probably have a blog that you manage, just like this one. I manage 12 Blogs, along with 2 Social sites. That would seem a giant task, too large for anyone to manage. I'm no "superman," I have just found tools and advisors that help me, and I'd like to share one of those great tools with you.

Microsoft Word 2010

This may read like a tech page, but believe me, it's a very important part of our businesses toady. I strongly encourage you to read this to the end, unless you're already a raving fan of the new software, and are pretty confident with it's new features. Why didn't I refer to the entire set of work productivity tools now named Microsoft Office 2010? A great new marketing approach by Microsoft is that they will offer each Office 2010 product as a standalone application. So now, if you choose, you can buy just Microsoft Word 2010 by itself. Additionally, the entire suite of products is being offered under some great new pricing models. Along with "Upgrade," you'll also find "Card Key" which allows you to unlock pre-installed Office 2010 software when you buy a new computer. Lately, software prices have been higher than some new computer prices.

I am so excited about the tight integration and ease of use of Office 2010 that this may appear to be a Microsoft commercial, or ad. I assure you that I am not on Microsoft's payroll. Why am I so excited? I was just complaining to my wife how computers and software require a technical level of expertise to "keep it all working." Microsoft is changing all of that. A new standard is coming back to the tech industry. That new standard will only bring us, as consumers and businesspeople, ever improving ease of use and reliability standards we could only dream of (wait 'til you see how easy it is to set up your e-mail accounts in Outlook 2010 – but that's another story).

You will marvel at how easily you can link all of your blogs to Word's new "Blog Post" feature. No more "running around" the net logging into your one or many blogs. You're in control from the "Blog Post" tab in WORD 2010. Gone are the days when you had to learn different ways to spell check or format your bog post when using different service providers. All of the spell check, insertion, formatting and other features that you've become so comfortable with; are now all available to you when you're typing that next blog post. This is all possible from within the comfort of Word. Have you ever experienced the frustration of "fixing" spelling errors, or formatting errors, only to lose the entire document because your blogging server timed you out? That won't happen with Word, because the only time you will interface with the server is when you click on "publish." Combined with the power of your voice recognition capabilities, it won't get any easier until Microsoft figures out a way for us to think it and get it on the page. It's that good. More in the next blog.