ActionCOACH is in the business of helping companies with marketing, training, and other management strategies.  A company in St. Petersburg began working with ActionCOACH to help get through the tough market of home building.  Here is their story from the Tampa Bay Business Journal - by Mark Holan. 

The housing meltdown forced Joe Houlton to turn his business inside out. But even in challenging times, he has still been able to expand AlliKristé.

Eighty-five percent of sales were related to house and condominium construction when Houlton took over as CEO and partner in 2002. Now 85 percent of sales are remodeling contracts.

“We had to completely tear down and remake our company in all facets of operation between 2007 and 2009,” Houlton said. “Because I put financial controls and forecasting models in place we started cutting expenses and staff early. Thank God I was watching the numbers to see the downturn early and had the discipline to make the adjustments.”

Houlton cut his work force to 19 employees from a high of 65 as net revenue plunged 55 percent over a three-year period. By comparison, sales had increased six fold, up to $1 million a month, at the height of the building boom.

“It’s been a real ride,” Houlton said.

High-End Designs:

The business was founded in 1996 by designer Bob Ostrowski and is named after his two daughters. Brothers Joe Houlton and John Houlton became majority owners in 2002 with Ostrowski remaining as partner and senior designer.

“I didn’t feel right changing the name,” Joe Houlton said. “It was in the community. I wanted to continue the brand.”

The Houlton brothers are former owners of Application Profiles, an employee-screening and drug-testing firm. Joe Houlton invested $1.2 million in AlliKristé his first 18 months as co-owner. The money was primarily self-funded from the sale of the previous business.

AlliKristé’s goal is to become the largest high-end kitchen and bath design firm in Florida. The company works with 15 manufacturers in the United States and Europe in addition to what it builds in the 27,000-square-foot headquarters and showroom in north St. Petersburg.

Most of the firm’s kitchen and bath projects cost $10,000 to $30,000. A smaller share of the business falls in the $50,000 to $90,000 range. “We occasionally get jobs that are over $100,000,” Houlton said.
Houlton streamlined the business by breaking down the work into “functional specialties,” such as design, pricing, ordering and project management. “We’ve taken advantage of the personalities of our staff that work well with each of those jobs,” he said.

During the boom years Houlton expanded the company by adding showrooms in Naples and Sarasota. Then the housing bubble forced him to take another hard look at the company.
He renegotiated showroom leases and developed exclusive relationships with manufacturers. He had the company’s Web site redone to improve search engine optimization and began reaching out to interior decorators, architects and real estate professions for leads on potential customers.

“We are always looking to develop other networks,” he said.

Outside Help:

About a year ago Houlton also began working with John Lankford at ActionCoach Pinellas, which develops marketing, training and other management strategies. A key in the master plan they developed is improving the sales system, including nearly 200 hours of staff training over 10 months.

Houlton estimated that up to 30 percent of smaller cabinetry companies in Florida have gone out of business during the recession.

“We focus on the job we do well,” he said. “Our sweet spot is middle to high-end kitchen design. I am not competing with Home Depot or Lowe’s.”

Houlton has avoided mission creep, such as selling ancillary products and services.

AlliKristé does not offer customer financing. Most of its clients write checks against their credit lines.

The company is not carrying any significant debt, Houlton said.

So even as the economy sputters, AlliKristé recently opened a showroom in Jacksonville and plans expand into Orlando early next year.

“There are plenty of opportunities to increase market penetration,” he said. “We can grow our business even if the economy stays flat. There’s a certain flight to quality even in tough times.”

Find out how you can change the way you do business to achieve the results you deserve! Contact us now.

ActionCOACH, a business coaching firm serving clients throughout greater Tampa, Fla., continues to help companies attain record-setting results, even in the down markets of 2008, 2009 and into 2010.

Here are some of the results ActionCOACH clients are eagerly sharing:

Susan and Barbara McCarthy, Owners of Sun Country Dry Cleaners, said, "Our October 2009, revenue was up +7% over October 2008, while the dry cleaning industry was down 23% in Florida." These results indicated a 30% improvement over their competition.

Mike Haulsee, President of The Compounding Shop, said, "Once I learned how to build the important systems I needed for my first location, it became quickly evident that I could open more locations and even consider franchising my operation. WOW, did my dreams begin to change. It also helped significantly to have my 2008 net profit increase 319% over 2007."

Laurie Arth, CEO of The Arth Consulting Group LLC, said, "After my coach and I spent a significant amount of time working on my sales skills and improving my sales follow-up system, my second quarter profits increased 49.38% over 2008. My second quarter revenue jumped 214.42%."

Find out how you can change the way you do business to achieve the results you deserve! Contact us now.

ActionCoach's Ford Kyes recently had the opportunity to share his insights into the five keys of business success in any economy during a meeting of the Tampa Bay Association of Health Underwriters. 

"Focused on leadership development and growing profitability in companies of all sizes, Ford is both an accomplished business coach and motivational speaker whose expertise will be a significant benefit to our members and guests," said TBAHU President Kathleen Sullivan, executive vice president of business solutions for Lakeland, Fla.-based First Service Administrators, Inc. "Through education and coaching of senior executives and business owners, he has brought change to businesses in the Tampa Bay area."

Brad Sugars founded ActionCOACH and poses this questions, "Have you accomplished everything you planned to over the last 3 months?"  I’m quite confident you would say you didn’t.  That something happened to knock you off course towards one or more of your goals. You have all sorts of reasons. The economy got bad, team members didn’t perform, you were sick or injured. Whatever it is, something happened to cause you to not accomplish what you set out to do.

As a coach, I would have to take exception and tell you that you did meet your plans.  The problem is, once an obstacle occurred, you changed the goal instead of changing the plan of how to get to your goal.  Did you really WANT to meet your goal? Did you really PLAN to meet your goal or were you going to meet your goal only if everything went as planned?

Say, for example, your plan is to drive to Myrtle Beach for a week of vacation. As you start out on your trip, you find out a key road is closed.

Do you turn around and head home? Why of course not. You find a detour, another route to your destination. Yes, it’s inconvenent and may cause you a couple hours delay, but you make the sacrifice. The week vacation goal is too important. Now let’s say, for example, on your way to the beach you find out that a hurricane is forecasted to hit the coast.

What do you do now? In this case, you probably will plan to turn around and head home.

Why?

The goal of going to the beach for vacation is not as big a goal as keeping your family safe. 

That’s OK.

You took ownership and responsibility for the results you wanted to achieve. You consciously changed your plans and goals. You no longer planned to go to the beach. Unfortunately most plans are not changed for a bigger goal. Instead when circumstances happen requiring us to make changes, we negotiate with ourselves by using excuses and reasons to justify not accomplishing the BIG goals we have in our business and life.

Remember: successful people focus on the results. Unsuccessful people focus on the process. Make this a successful month.

Find out how you can change the way you do business to achieve the results you deserve! Contact us now.
 

Strategic Planning is the most important function of a CEO or business owner. It identifies where a company wants to be at a defined point of time in the future and what actions it is going to take to get there. Strategic Planning is critical to the growth and success of every company. And if the company has a Board of Directors, a formal strategic planning process enables the Board to have a significant impact on the company’s overall direction and on-going performance. For a company of any size, strategic planning is the “roadmap” to future success.

The strategic aspect of the planning process is to understand the current operating and performance situation of the company and the relationship to the outside business environment, the vision and mission of the company as identified by the executive management of the company, the resources and structure to achieve the roadmap goals, and the summary of how the outcome strategic plan will impact the future of the company. The structure of the strategic plan is designed to carry out strategic thinking, direction, and action that leads to the achievement of consistent and planned results.

Consequently, having skills to execute the planning process for any company is critical to the long term viability and success of the company. The process of planning includes the selection of the planning team, clarification of team member roles, careful structuring of the planning meetings, and the guiding of the team through the process itself.

In embracing the importance of strategic planning to achieve both short term (1-3 years) and longer term (3-5 years) results, there are 4 key issues to recognize:

1. It is essential the process be led by the owner or CEO and the executives as well as managers in the company understand and use the planning process.
2. There must be organizational commitment to both the planning process and the implementation of the plan; all the participants in the process must see the benefits to themselves personally as well as to the company as a whole.
3. The planning process is as important -if not more important –than the content of the plan itself.
4. The planning process is never done. It is part of the overall process of managing the company and the planning process is an ongoing process rather than an annual event.

Recognized internationally as the most practical book on the subject is, “The Executive Guide to Strategic Planning,” written by Patrick Below and his co-authors George Morrisey and Betty Acomb. This book was recently named by the Chinese Productivity Center as “one of the ten best books on U.S. Management.” Patrick Below is a long-term resident of Madison and over the past 30 years with his company, CEO Consulting Services, he has built a very successful domestic and international consulting business in this field of strategic and operational planning.

The unique approach to strategic planning in the below method for any sized company is a total framework for depicting the organization’s planning and control system. There are three specific processes that make up the ‘Integrated Planning Process’ framework:

STRATEGIC---------- OPERATIONAL-------------RESULTS
PLANNING                 PLANNING                    MANAGEMENT

As part of the Integrated Planning Process, the strategic plan focuses on the basic nature (mission) and direction (strategy) of the organization. The operational plan concentrates on how to implement the strategic plan and produce short-term results. The results management component is concerned with comparing performance with plan (both strategic and operational) and ensuring the achievement of results. Even though each component serves a different purpose, each of the components is fully integrated with each other. The strategic plan fits into the Integrated Planning Process as an activity that is developed at a point in time whereas the operational plan and results management defined within the strategic plan are implemented over a period of time, usually 1-3 years.

Specifically, there are 7 elements that make up building the Strategic Plan:

   1. Organization mission
   2. Strategic analysis
   3. Strategy
   4. Long-term objectives
   5. Integrated programs
   6. Financial projections
   7. Executive summary


A strategic plan must be seen as a living document clearly communicated throughout the company and should not be a “fluffy” document that ends up collecting dust on a shelf and wasted time and energy in its development. The purpose of planning is not to produce plans; it is to produce results. A strategic plan needs to be the result of a productive process of committed executives led by the business owner or CEO of a business –irrespective of its size –to provide the thinking and planning for the future success of the company allowing for the detailed operational planning to achieve short-term outcome results. It should also define measurement performance criteria representing the long-term success goals for the company.

No company has the option to hope it will be successful; every company must have a management committed and disciplined process of strategic planning to create a roadmap to both short-term and long-term business and financial success.

Find out how you can change the way you do business to achieve the results you deserve! Contact us now.

Bill Stack shares infomation about how best to manage your time with clear vision and goals. 

As we begin our look at time management, it only makes sense to start with the end in mind. Why is that important? Simply put - if you do not have a clear vision or goals in life or in business - then time management really becomes pointless.

Developing the right mindset and proper attitude sets the stage for creating effective time management habits and disciplines. Many of us feel chaos in our lives because we have not established the fundamental disciplines of time management. Some feel they are "cursed" with poor time management habits and have decided it's a hopeless quest to change them. You have to first believe your situation can change and that you have the power to overcome your ingrained habits. Once you have a firm desire and make the conscious decision to get control of your time, you will then be open and prepared to learn and embrace the key disciplines and tools of effective time management. Time management, like any learned habit, typically will take at least three weeks to develop and then many months and years to refine until you master the discipline.

Another necessary element to develop effective time management is vision. I know many people (and I'm sure you do as well) that waste so much precious time because they have little sense of purpose and vision. Therefore, they are content to live life, day to day, taking what comes and missing the possibilities that exist. Clarity is the most important concept when it comes to vision and personal productivity. The key reason why some people achieve more in a day than others (all things being equal) is due to the fact that they have complete clarity on their goals and objectives and don't deviate from them. The discipline of clarity prevents procrastination and provides the focus and motivation that propels individuals to reach their dreams.

Let's define vision. Vision can be described as your ideal state (for your life, business, career, etc.) in 10, 20, 30 years and beyond. You should be able to picture this vision with absolute clarity and describe it with precise detail. The more clarity you have with your vision, the more motivation you will have in your life.

Having this clear vision will help you determine what you must do today in order to achieve what you want tomorrow. Once you have established a clear vision, it's now imperative to develop the goals that will help you achieve that vision. While vision is the destination, goals are the short and long-term milestones along the path that get you closer and closer to achieving your ultimate vision.

Much has been written and said about goal setting, but here is a simple and effective process for setting goals:

1. Decide exactly what you want. Be specific and write it   down on paper. The very act of  writing down a goal significantly increases the likelihood that you will achieve it.

2. Make your goals measurable. Your goals should have clear metrics for their achievement. For example, a goal to "become the best salesperson" is a nice goal, but how do you measure "best"? To make this goal measurable, it could be restated in the following way, "I will achieve $1,000,000 in gross sales revenue, helping me reach the   top sales position in the company."

3. Set a deadline for your goals. This will help you overcome the human tendency to procrastinate and will exert some pressure for you to stay on task.

4. Make a list. Write down everything you must do to achieve each goal, including any activities, strategies, decisions, milestones, etc.

5. Finally, develop an action plan from the list of activities and immediately take action on your plan. Resolve to do something every day to get you closer to your goals. Clearly  written goals will have a powerful effect on your thinking and will motivate you into action.

They act as the "guiding lights" to keep you on task, using your time in the most efficient manner possible.

Find out how you can change the way you do business to achieve the results you deserve! Contact us now.

BABM Article Sept/Oct 2009: May I Help You? - The Customer Experience

The delivery of excellent customer service seems to be the exception rather than the rule in today’s marketplace. When was the last time you felt your business was was truly appreciated? Even though companies preach about customer service, do they really know how to do it? Think about your company; how is your company doing on customer service?
 
To master the delivery of an exceptional customer experience at every level of your organization would automatically set your company miles apart. You would join the ranks of the legendary service-oriented organizations. Companies that mastered the art of customer service have excelled in the several areas. Employee engagement, communication, employee training, and leadership development are all part of the customer service process. Having a business coach can help your organization focus on these areas.   
 
Keeping tabs on your company’s performance is something that needs to be measured accurately. Many companies overall estimate how they are doing. Having a solid idea of where you stand in terms of customer service will only build value to your organization. ActionCOACH has teamed with a company that offers an employee engagement survey tool.
 
In your business, there are many types of insurance you need to keep up-to-date. Have you ever thought about customer service insurance? You've probably never heard of it before, but it's exactly what you get when you develop a solid company-wide strategy for evaluation and training. Measure employee engagement and you'll see the direct effect it exerts on customer satisfaction. Offer continuing leadership training and team development, and you've got employee engagement.
 
 Many managers are accustomed to thinking about customer service as common sense or a soft skill. However, when great customer service is the exception, how likely is your staff to have experienced it first-hand? With some effort and attention, and the help of a qualified business coach, you can assure the principles of great customer service become ingrained in every aspect of your business culture and operations.

Find out how you can change the way you do business to achieve the results you deserve! Contact us now.
 

John Lankford won the #1 award as the Associate Business Coach of the Year and since winning, he is asked, “What do successful businesses have in common?”

This is his response:

The sober reality is that most companies lack the mindset, the assets, and/or the appetite to devote to strategic planning. he answer starts with a commitment to evaluation.

Changing your results is predicated on strategic planning, operational planning, and performance management planning. Strategic planning is the roadmap to the future. It means revisiting your vision, mission, and values - in other words, your “rules of the game”. Strategic planning is about where you’re headed and what you will accomplish when you arrive.

The purpose of planning is not to produce results, but to align your executive team and set the long-term course. This dialogue is critical to help these senior leaders adapt, focus, and commit.

The operational plan is “how” you are going to implement the strategic plan. Under normal circumstances, the operational plan should be completed during the fourth quarter. Determining a matching budget and key performance indicators are also obligatory segments of a well-designed plan.

Once you’ve purposefully mapped out the next 3-5 years and have designed an operational plan that articulates HOW you are going to implement the strategic plan, teams and individuals must be made to understand their roles. Most organizations try to use their performance management system. Unfortunately, this is where the plan falls short. But all the planning in the world will go down the drain if no one can state the top three priorities they must accomplish every day and what the company’s top three priorities are for the year.

And finally, a reality check. The likelihood a company will achieve its strategic plan is in its review of the operational budget to determine whether the required funds for success are allocated.

Find out how you can change the way you do business to achieve the results you deserve! Contact us now.