Vol. 5, No. 42 - May 08

Thoughts From Your Strategic Thinking Coach

In This Issue:

Business Coaching:
A Series of Strategic PR Tips and Prescriptions, Part 1 From The PR Doctor
      
Business Help:
Critical Skills Needed To Be A Strategic Thinker, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
      
Business Building:
The Great Value of A Strategic Business Connector, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
      
      
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Glenn's Golden Grains To Grasp
Recommended  Reading: 
“Creating a World Without Poverty:  Social Business and the
Future of Capitalism”
By:  Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Winner of Nobel Peace Prize,
Founder of Grameen Bank and best-selling author
ISBN:  13: 978-1-58648-493-4
Available online at www.publicaffairsbooks.com
and www.amazon.com

Dr. Yunus in “Creating A World Without Poverty” goes beyond microcredit to pioneer the idea of social business – a completely new way to use the creative vibrancy of business to tackle social problems from poverty and pollution to inadequate health care and lack of education.  This book describes how Yunus – in partnership with some of the world’s most visionary business leaders – has launched the world’s first purposely designed social business.  ……  Yunus’s “Next Big Idea” offers a pioneering model for nothing less than a new, ore humane form of capitalism.”  (taken from front flap of book)  This is another book for your “MUST READ” list.

Words to the Wise for Work:
“My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask
a few questions.”
                   - Peter Drucker, famous writer, management consultant,
                     and self-described “social ecologist.” Widely considered
                     to be the father of “modern management

Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach’s
Challenge to Commit:
I CHALLENGE YOU TO COMMIT: “that you will select one organization to volunteer your time, talent and treasure to for the remainder of this calendar year and beyond “to make a difference.”

Please send me your responses to my challenge to commit.

Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach’s
Recommended Resource
My recommended resource for this month can be found online. I recommend that you check out Business Expert Webinars by going to: www.businessexpertwebinars.com and reviewing the community of business experts comprised of best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus.  best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus. This group is here to share their secrets of success with you.  I also invite you specifically to click here, I believe you will recognize the speaker.

If you would like to have some of your thoughts, comments or web sites included in the next issue, let us know by clicking here and entering your items in the comments section.

Business Coaching
A Series of Strategic PR Tips and Prescriptions,
Part 1 From The PR Doctor
By J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Founder & Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group™

How healthy are your public relations efforts and your media relations?  Do you have a prescribed plan to achieve healthy publicity for your organization year in and year out?  Do you have preventative measures and cures for unhealthy media relations and media coverage for your organization?  Do you complain that your organization never gets the media coverage you feel you deserve?  Well, if you do not have a healthy relation with the media and you are faced with some real public relations challenges, “The PR Doctor” has a series of strategic PR tips and prescriptions to help. 

This article is the first in a three part series of a prescription to present those strategic PR tips.  Here are the first 10 strategic PR tips in the 3-part series.

Strategic PR Tip #1:  Develop a clearly defined written yearly plan for your public relations initiative

Strategic PR Tip #2:  Develop clearly defined and measurable goals for your plan. 

Strategic PR Tip #3:  Develop a public relations plan that is comprehensive and includes newspapers, weeklies, magazines, radio, television, cable television, word of mouth, events, presentations, etc.

Strategic PR Tip #4:  Develop media lists that will include local, regional and national media.  Make sure the contact information is kept up to date.

Strategic PR Tip #5:  Develop a planned series of ongoing media releases and media advisories each month throughout the year.

Strategic PR Tip #6:  Develop professional relationships with your target media so that they will both be more receptive to placing your stories. 

Strategic PR Tip #7:  Work to establish yourself as a resource of information and/or story ideas for your target media.

Strategic PR Tip #8:  Make sure that your news releases contain something that is truly “newsworthy” and make your case of why it is newsworthy to the media.

Strategic PR Tip #9:  Develop an effective media kit for news media with consistent and accurate background information.

Strategic PR Tip #10:  Establish a speaker’s bureau to help “spread the word”
To your target audience.

“The PR Doctor” encourages you to commit to developing a strategic public relations program.  If you would like to learn more about how “The PR Doctor” can facilitate and guide you in that endeavor, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at www.prdoctor4u.com or by emailing Glenn.

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Business Help
Critical Skills Needed To Be A Strategic Thinker, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
By J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Founder & Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group™

Strategic thinking is a process that defines the manner in which people think about, assess, view, and create the future for themselves and others.  Strategic thinking is an extremely effective and valuable tool.  One can apply strategic thinking to arrive at decisions that can be related to your work or personal life. Strategic thinking involves developing an entire set of critical skills.  What are those critical skills? Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach offers the following list of critical skills that the best strategic thinkers possess and use every day.

Critical Skill #1:  They have the ability to use the left and right sides of their brain.  This skill takes practice as well as confidence. Developing the logic and creative sides of your brain are tremendously valuable.

Critical Skill #2:  They have the ability to develop a clearly defined and focused business vision and personal vision.  They are skilled at both thinking with a strategic purpose as well as creating a visioning process. They have both skills and they use them to complement each other.

Critical Skill #3:  They have the ability to clearly define their goals and develop a strategic action plan with each goal broken down into tasks and each task having a list of needed resources and a specific timeline.

Critical Skill #4:  They have the ability to design flexibility into their plans by creating some benchmarks in their thinking to review progress.  Then they use those benchmarks to as a guide and to recognize the opportunity to revise their plans as needed. They have an innate ability to be proactive and anticipate change, rather than being reactive to changes after they occur.

Critical Skill #5:  They are amazingly aware and perceptive.  They will recognize internal and external clues, often subtle, to help guide future direction and realize opportunities for them and their companies or organizations. Great strategic thinkers will listen, hear and understand what is said and will read and observe whatever they can so that they will have very helpful and strategic information to guide them. Strategic thinkers often have those  “Ah Ha” experiences while on vacation, walking, sitting and relaxing or during many other activities because they see or hear something that resonates and because they are so aware and perceptive.

Critical Skill #6:  They are committed lifelong learners and learn from each of their experiences.  They use their experiences to enable them to think better on strategic issues.

Critical Skill #7:  They are committed to and reserve time for themselves.  The best and greatest strategic thinkers take time out for themselves.  Their time out may be in the form of a retreat (some prefer to call it an “advance” since it “advances” their thinking”); a walk in a special environment; relaxing in a comfortable chair in the lobby of an historic hotel; or an afternoon in a quiet place with a blank sheet of paper or their lap top computer with “their thinking caps” on.

Critical Skill #8:  They are committed to and seek advice from others. They may use a coach, a mentor, a peer advisory group or some other group that they can confide in and offer up ideas for feedback.

Critical Skill #9:  They have the ability to balance their tremendous amount of creativity with a sense of realism and honesty about what is achievable in the longer term.  This ability to balance does not deter them in their thinking.  Sometimes they refer to themselves as realistic optimists.

Critical Skill #10:  They have the ability to be non-judgmental and they do not allow themselves to be held back or restricted by judging their own thinking or the thinking of others when ideas are initially being developed and shared.  This is especially true during any “brainstorming” exercises to ensure a flow of great ideas.  There will be time to test the ideas AFTER the “brainstorming” is concluded.

Critical Skill #11:  They have the ability to be patient and to not rush to conclusions and judgments.  Great ideas and thoughts require time to develop into great successes in the future to reach your defined vision.

The greatest and most successful organizations in the world, over many years and decades, world think ahead and encourage great strategic thinking at least somewhere in their business plans.  However, the challenge to that in too many organizations today is the “self-centered,” “greedy,” and too often “unethical” focus on the short-term measures of the current year’s bonus and dividend.  A sustainable successful future requires much more, no matter how big or small your business is, and a major requirement is strategic thinking.  Therefore, Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach recommends that you develop the critical skills of a strategic thinker to use in your business and personal life to ensure success.

"Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach" encourages you to develop and enhance the critical skills of a strategic thinker.  If you would like to learn more about how a coach can facilitate and guide you in that endeavor, please contact Glenn Ebersole through his website at www.businesscoach4u.com or by emailing Glenn.

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Business Building
The Great Value of A Strategic Business Connector, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
By J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Founder & Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group™

Many entrepreneurs and business owners struggle to build a network of contacts and resources by themselves.  My professional career path has afforded me the opportunity to work with many business owners (including many entrepreneurs) to help them plan, start and grow their businesses.  And my assistance to them for the starting and growth of their businesses and organizations comes through providing my professional business coaching, business consulting and business counseling services and giving them access to my network of strategic contacts.

Powerful business connectors have the ability to open up their networks to connect their clients to virtually anyone who can be helpful to start and grow a business.  With the extensive and diverse network I have established over more than 30 years, I have become known as “Your Strategic Business Connector.”  A strategic business connector is able to connect entrepreneurs and other business owners to the right people. That can help them establish and grow their businesses.

There is great value to being associated with a strategic business connector and that value comes from the following list of strategic accesses they can provide to entrepreneurs and other business owners.
   
1.  Strategic access to business coaches and mentors.  Business coaches and mentors are an invaluable resource for people starting a business and/or desiring to grow their business.  It is always wise to seek advice.  A strategic business connector will know highly qualified and professional business coaches and mentors and can refer you to them.

2.  Strategic access to needed expertise.  Specific expertise needed to be successful may not exist among the business owners or employees.  Access to outside experts is another valuable resource.  A strategic business connector has an entire network of people with diverse areas of expertise and can refer you to those people. 

3.  Strategic access to a validation of the business idea and model.  An independent, unbiased, and professional review of the business idea and model is another invaluable resource for both startup companies and companies planning to grow.  A strategic business connector may possess the talent to do this and if not will have referrals to others who can.

4.  Strategic access to equity capital.  Most entrepreneurs and business owners need capital at some point in time.  Raising needed capital requires access to investors and that also requires a high quality referral.  The strategic business connector has those contacts and can provide the needed referral.

5.  Strategic access to resources to start the business.  These resources may be available within the community but you may not be aware of them.  A strategic business connector will be able to refer you to such resources as SCORE, SBA,
and other organizations to provide some resources for you.

6.  Strategic access to peers.  There is great value in building a network among your peers and a strategic business connector can provide introductions for you to peers in your business or industry sector.

7.  Strategic access to potential business partners.  Where it becomes clear that a partner will benefit the business and help it grow, a strategic business connector can introduce you to prospective partners for your business.

8.  Strategic access to talent for the business.  The recruitment and hiring of great talent seems to become more challenging each and every day.  Having a strategic business connector to “plug you into his network of talent” can be a very valuable resource that will save you money and increase the probability of a successful hire.

9.  Strategic access to prospective clients.  Networking is a critical activity for business owners and it is  a required part of building those lasting relationships with people.  A strategic business connector can assist you in identifying the best events to attend and can be an invaluable aid to introducing you to key influencers and prospective clients and customers for your business.

10.  Strategic access to exposures in the community and the market place.  Developing an identity within the communities you do business is vital to your success.  A strategic business connector with PR skills can provide very effective guidance in this area.  

Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach recommends that you focus on building relationships so you can meet a strategic business connector and establish a relationship that will enable you to use the power of that person’s network to start and/or grow your business. If you would like to learn more about a strategic business connector, please contact Glenn Ebersole thorough his website at www.businessconnections4u.com or by emailing Glenn.

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