Family Buisness News

Consulting Business Management – 3 Key Strategies For Success With Clients

Here are three key strategies to be more successful with clients;

1. CLEAR AGREEMENT

The very best favor you can do for yourself and for your client is to get to an absolutely clear agreement about your relationship and the work to be done before beginning.

If you prepare a written proposal — this is the perfect opportunity to very clearly and firmly set out the objectives, describe what you will (and will not do), the timetable, the measurements of accomplishment, payment terms, everything … without the brutal formality of a contract, filled with “legalese.

If you deal with entrepreneurs, as I do more often than not, they have no “norm” in mind for what proposals ought to look like, so you have great flexibility. If you’re dealing with association committees, government agencies or big corporations, you’ll probably need to be more formal.

Brief or long, formal or informal, one thing to strive for in your “documentation” is to anticipate and prevent every possible future misunderstanding or disagreement.

2. FREQUENT, CONTINUOUS, QUALITY COMMUNICATION

First of all, all past and present clients and targeted prospective clients, referral sources, important peers, etc. should be on a “VIP mailing list” and get a regularly published newsletter or some sort of email communication from you.

Second, clients with projects in progress need to be kept informed. Here’s an important tip: the client waiting for and anticipating results feels time pass differently than does the consultant working on their behalf. A week seems like an eternity to the client, a few hours to the consultant. You can keep off a whole lot of problems by keeping your clients informed of your work and progress.

Personally, I like to send unexpected emails for this purpose. I’ll get brief up-to date memos off to my clients early morning or before the close of a business day. Sometimes I will even record a message and email it to them for clarity. Time spent sending out emails and recording messages prevents hours of needless phone conversations.

3. MANAGING FOR PROFIT

One of the the things I notice with new and experienced consultants is that they lose their focus in general. They start giving away way to much advice for free and then they feel really crummy. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of being in the consulting business? Your primary purpose must be to make as much money as humanly possible from your expertise, time, energy, resources and client relationships.

Of course, you want to deliver extraordinary services. And you want to have an impact in your niche. And you want your clients to prosper, etc., etc., etc., But the smartest business decisions get made when there is one governing priority taking precedence over all others.

One issue this leads to is that of “product.” One of the very few ways for consultants to gain “leverage,” and make money outside the box of billable work/projects, is through selling your clients useful products linked to your advice and expertise.

I strongly recommend developing products of your own to support your consulting activities.

Stay in The Loop and Get The Scoop:

I’d like to invite you to visit http://www.coachingwithapril.com for more leading edge tips and tools for building your consulting business. You can also subscribe to our monthly Building A Profitable Consulting Business Newsletter

Gain your access to the technology, tools and rules of on-line and off-line marketing!

April Gregory, CPMC–Personal Branding & Personal Effectiveness Expert

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=April_Gregory

 

Technorati Tags: business management news

Mr. Johnny Earle’s lecture series will tell the story of just exactly how he turned a simple idea into a multi-million dollar business using nontraditional methods. Starting his business at the age of 19, Johnny developed his company without a business plan, start up loans, investors, wholesaling, or even conventional advertising! Johnny has managed to launch one of the most recognized t-shirt brands in the US, with locations in Boston and Los Angeles.

Johnny’s lecture focuses on the importance of branding; starting a brand + business (both web based & retail) with little-to-no start up money; entrepreneurship; small business management; product development, marketing, and communication; and graphic design.

From tips and tricks for approaching business in innovative and unconventional ways to useful advice, tools, websites, and direction for those interested in starting a new business, Johnny’s lectures provide a comprehensive picture of how small businesses get off the ground.

All around the globe, Johnny’s sold out lectures have proven to inspire and motivate both students and faculty alike.

-Voted America’s #1 Young Entrepreneur by BusinessWeek ‘08.
-Inc. 500’s fastest growing independent business’s.

Also featured on: NPR, CNN, CNBC, MTV, Entrepreneur Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Web Marketing For Dummies, Fox News, WWD / Women’s Wear Daily, Nylon Magazine, Juxtapoz Magazine, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Associated Press, The Big Idea with Donny Deutch, Computer Arts Projects, USA Today, Sportswear International, Cargo Magazine, Complex Magazine, The New York Post, G4TV / Attack Of The Show, & many more.

Lectures@JohnnyCupcakes.com

http://www.johnnycupcakes.com
http://www.twitter.com/johnnycupcakes
http://www.facebook.com/johnnycupcakes

Duration : 0:10:0

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Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, john earle, johnny cupcake, johnny cupcakes, johnny earle, johnnycupcake, johnnycupcakes

the UAE’s and Saudi’s ability to buy our bonds in the near future?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aFIHYzyZB0gA

‘Never Go Bust’ Families Mean End of Easy Credit (Update2)

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) — Maan al-Sanea, one of Saudi Arabia’s richest men, operates his corporate empire barricaded behind a four-foot high concrete wall, painted in bright red stripes. A second, higher wall is topped with barbed wire, a reminder of the terrorist attack on his company’s nearby residential compound five years ago that killed 22 people.

Now al-Sanea is under a different kind of siege, this time from the family he married into and helped make him wealthy. In a region where business disputes are routinely settled in private, the family feud between the two most prominent names in the Saudi oil city of Al-Khobar — Algosaibi and al-Sanea — has erupted into public and curbed lending across the Gulf.

Eighty banks, including BNP Paribas SA and Citigroup Inc., are owed at least $15.7 billion, sparking a flurry of litigation. The battle has increased pressure for more transparency among the region’s family-run firms and less reliance on name lending, or borrowing based on reputation.

“With Maan al-Sanea or the Algosaibi family, the perception was that they would never go bust or never default,” Yazan Abdeen, a Dubai fund manager at ING Investment Management, said. “Facts are showing that this can happen. The banks in Saudi, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will get a hit, and this will make the banks alter their own lending models. It’s like a ‘black swan’ event, something no one saw coming.”

Al-Khobar, an oil-rich seaside city in the Persian Gulf, 250 miles east of Riyadh, is the center of a legal and financial struggle that has seen some of the Algosaibis accuse al-Sanea, ranked 62nd on this year’s Forbes magazine list of richest people, in court filings of siphoning off $10 billion in assets while he was running a money-management business for them.

Accounts Frozen

The Saudi Arabian central bank ordered a freeze of al- Sanea’s accounts, bankers familiar with the instructions said on May 31. The Algosaibis then used a Cayman Islands court order to try to freeze $9.2 billion of his assets, court documents show.

“All of the allegations made are wholly without foundation,” al-Sanea’s company, Saad Group, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “While maintaining an absolute focus on its own restructuring, the Saad Group will respond appropriately and in a timely fashion to the erroneous claims made against it. However, this will be through a proper judicial process and not through the media.”

The Algosaibis declined to comment for this story, James Courtovich, a Washington-based spokesman for the family, said.

read the rest— http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aFIHYzyZB0gA

Yeah, but not as much as latin america agreeing to a centralized currency zone not based on the dollar, etc.

hey-i was wondering if you guys knew an article about a country or region in Latin America that had any new geograhical news…it can be buisness by the way(: TY!

you can find the article on the FOX News website.

July 3 2009. ESMT Associate professor Jörg Rocholl LIVE on BBC World News, talking about the German government’s ‘Bad Bank’ plan.

Duration : 0:3:12

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Technorati Tags: Bad Bank, BBC, business school, ESMT, financial crisis, Jörg Rocholl, Leadership, management, MBA, plan, technology

Africa Business Report 4 – Green Kenya Nigeria Business South Africa Space Race – Recorded from BBC World News on 19.09.2009

A monthly look at business across the continent. We talk to the people and businesses who are changing the economic face of Africa. BBC correspondents within each country will report on the growing trends and latest business developments in this region. Recorded from BBC News.

Duration : 0:10:57

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Technorati Tags: Africa, banking, BBC, business, economy, finance, Green, Investment, Kenya, management, marketing, news, Nigeria, Opportunity, Race, Recycling, report, Review, Satelites, South, Space, Waste

There is a possible deal in the works to sell the NBC group of stations to Comcast. Analyst are saying this could mean the new management will shift the news to the "right". If this happens will the "left" cry foul play? MSNBC ratings are very low compared to Fox, if the new management makes a business decision to chase ratings, like a well run TV business should, will that be wrong?

ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh
ahmo teyellya,,,,,,,comcast,bsmsnbc folks decide to each discard
a losing card,or two,,,,,comcast sells,,,I dunno,,,one or two among their myriad services that lose money
g.e and the schmedia folks look at declining nielsens ratings for its news ops,,issue layoffs among all nbc affiliates,,,a few folks inside each city,,,and replace olbermankethermanandesoncoopermanmadrachel
tinglematthews,,,with truth seeking news bloodhounds,instead of
democrat lackies