When The Economy Shifts

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No matter when you are reading this, I am sure that the economy is shifting or in a state of flux, and you needing to know how to monetize in this ALWAYS the new norm.

And yet, even though the economy has shifted, think about it — there are people and companies that are doing great! Right? And there are also people and companies who are doing average or failing.

How can that be? How can some companies do great (even in the same industry) and others fail miserably if they are all working under the same economic conditions?

Take a moment to really think about this. No matter where the economy is, there are people who are monetizing, even making huge profits. So is it the economy that is ultimately going to determine whether or not a person or businesses is a success? Absolutely not!

Ok so now what?

So here is what you should be asking yourself right now: If it’s not the economy, who or what is it? What is going to determine someone’s monetization success?

Yes, you are right, it is the leader or entrepreneur that is ultimately going to determine his own success! Yes, this is you! And the skills you have and the actions that you are willing to take using these skills will be what set your success apart from other struggling businesses.

The Reward is simple…

And what does the world reward – information or action? Yes, action!

That is why you need to take action now, consistently and always!

It is important to focus on what you want and make sure you consistently take deliberate actions towards achieving your goals.

Why?

Here come some acronyms

Because, as entrepreneurs, we are easily affected by the Shiny Object Syndrome (S.O.S). While it may feel like ADD or ADHD, it’s not quite it! S.O.S is where a new idea captures your imagination and/or attention and you become distracted from the bigger picture and go off on tangents!

With all of the new gimmicks out there, it is easy to become distracted by S.O.S’s latest fad, gimmick, or short term idea. Do you know anyone like this? Do you know them intimately?

Yes, it is a challenge to avoid going off in a million directions when there are so many opportunities out there. However, what happens when you give in to the S.O.S. temptation is that you never really complete anything. Shiny Object Syndrome and the inherent loss of focus may very well be costing you hundreds of hours a year in lost opportunity, productivity, and lost hours, not to mention what this can mean financially!

Why is this such a draw for an entrepreneur?

There’s great energy and excitement in something new. Plugging along with a proven, consistent system can seem boring in comparison. So we hear of a new product, a “ninja” marketing idea, a new online marketing method, or a powerful new closing technique and POW! We are off to the races! Well, at least for a short period of time, until the next shiny idea comes our way and we steer off course to chase that next best thing.

The challenge with S.O.S is that many things get started, while few of them ever get finished. In addition to things not getting completed, precious time is wasted on the tangential item, technique, product, or service. And how many of these shiny objects are truly beneficial for our businesses? Lack of focus and being overwhelmed can be paralyzing!

Now, just so you know that we are not picking on the creative-thinking business person, S.O.S is not just an affliction of entrepreneurs. This phenomenon crosses over to every industry.

The Examples

For example, many people have started blogs and abandoned them almost as quickly! Why do they quit? They quit because they got tired of writing posts — or worse, no one was reading the posts because they didn’t know how to market it to attract readers’ attention and drive traffic to their blog.

When we have so many very cool ideas coming our way, it’s a challenge to not get excited about them. After all, that’s what drives us, right?

So, what can you do to monetize? How can you continue to be energized by all the possibilities without robbing your business of your time, talents, and ultimate success?

Think strategically.

Start with a vision, goal, and plan, and make sure each tactic that you implement is tied to furthering your overall monetiziation strategy!

With any new idea, tactic, or tool that you’re presented with, you must stop and ask yourself, “Is this in line with my businesses vision, goal, and plan?” If it’s not, you must pass on the “opportunity,” or at least put it in a parking lot of good ideas to be evaluated later.

Let the habits begin

So get in the habit of asking yourself the following set of questions before implementing something new in your business:

• Is this idea, concept, product, or service right for my business?
• Is this something my target market wants?
• If yes, are they willing to pay for it?
• Am I willing to invest what is needed to make it successful?
• Is there a return on investment for the time, money, energy, or resources I will spend?
• Do I have room on my plate to take this on?
• Do I have the resources to manage it or can I easily acquire them to make it a success?
• What can I remove from my plate to take this on?

There’s nothing wrong with loving innovation. You must constantly monetize in your business to make it successful! You just need to do it wisely and strategically to make sure that you don’t lose focus on what’s important.

Ready to Monetize?

By the way, if you are ready to monetize your business more effectively and accelerate your business results, let’s connect. I know we can help.

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Modeling the Availability of Jet Fuel from Biomass

Modeling the availability of woody biomass (organic matter from trees and plants) in heavily forested areas was the focus of a recent project conducted by the U.S. Forest Service and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), one of the national laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy. 

A joint team set out to build a software model to show the economics behind harvesting woody biomass as an energy source, and how harvesting could create benefits to boost forest restoration and reduce the risk of wildfire. The study focused on biomass from commercial thinning and timber harvesting and evaluated the delivered costs of biomass from restoration activities, factoring in data from nearby markets, processing, and transportation costs. 

Initial results from the team’s research, based on a specific geographical area, showed that nearly 1.5 million tons of economically viable biomass were available for bioenergy use. This included delivery of about 395,000 tons of wood chips at or below $60/ton and another million tons generated from mill residue.

The team’s research further validates everything that NWABF has been pursuing in the past years. Creating jet fuel from biomass is a viable proposition for the future. This was confirmed in the 2013 NARA (Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance) study, released by the Department of Agriculture. The three-year, $40 million study explored the availability, the costs, benefits, and logistics of using forest residuals and mill residues as a source of SAF. It confirmed that more than 10 million tons of woody biomass is available to create jet fuel from biomass. 

This is encouraging news, as Northwest Advanced Bio-Fuels takes woody biomass, gasifies it and through a sophisticated proven technical process, converts it to Premium Renewable Sustainable Aviation Fuel from the conversion of slash, forest residues, and mill residues in forests. Having a better understanding of the availability of woody plant biomass available to convert jet fuel from biomass will help NWABF with its long-term operational forecasts. 

To learn more about the NWABF Project, converting woody biomass to sustainable aviation fuel process, please contact us at info@nwabf.com. You can also get more information on woody biomass, sustainable aviation fuel and much more on our Biofuel FAQs page.

Get to Know Mark O’Brien Chicago

Value Growth Partners Founder and now a partner at Newport, mark o brien Chicago has over thirty years of experience in Business Growth, Successions, and Transitions as a business owner, executive, and advisor to privately held & family businesses. He is adept at accelerating sustainable growth in competitive & challenging markets. 

Knowledge, skillset, and experiences enriched through hands-on work in manufacturing and distribution within aerospace, automotive, woodworking, plastics, supply-chain logistics, & technology worldwide.  Mark is highly experienced with innovating, improving, & implementing manufacturing & supply chain solutions that yield improvements in productivity, cost reductions, and throughput resulting in sustainable growth.

Mark supports business owners with realizing their value potential, achieving life goals, and fulfilling dreams by supporting growth, transition, & succession plans that assist with Getting-2-Next©.

After many years of assisting owners in transitioning their business, Mark and VGP partners help business owners realize that one of the biggest challenges is executing succession and transition is the lack of a plan for "What's NEXT?"

It's very challenging for an owner or executive leader to manage a leadership succession and even more difficult to manage a business transition without a transition plan that addresses "What's Next." We understand and have a plan that will assist.

Find out more about Mark O Brien Chicago on our website and contact us if you are looking for help with a business transition strategy. Value Growth Partners/Newport can assist you in knowing and growing your business value before the transition - (312) 525-8382.

Value Growth Partners Founder is a Certified Business Transition Expert

The Managing Director of Value Growth Partners, a successful business growth, succession, and transition advisory firm, Mark O’Brien, MBA, CMAA®, CEPA®  has added another high-level accreditation to his name and business. O'Brien can add the title certified business transition expert to his name after successfully completed the rigorous course requirements to become a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA®), as certified by the renowned Exit Planning Institute.

As a CEPA®, Mark is now certified to lead business owners in the strategic process of successful business succession, transition, and exit planning. This includes advising clients on the program’s key principles of:

1) Maximizing business value and transition-risk mitigation

2) Personal financial planning and personal-risk minimization

3) Life after business planning and happiness maximization.

“I have been blessed to know such wonderful mentors like Peter Christman, Richard Jackim, and Chris Snyder in the field of exit (succession and transition) planning,” said Mark O’Brien. “These experts have been very supportive in my goal to become a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. I am thrilled to have learned and worked with them to be certified and I look forward to continuing to assist business owners with executing successful succession and transition strategies.”

The CEPA® process emphasizes that a good exit strategy is a good business strategy. It is about building, harvesting, and preserving family wealth for generations to come and integrating best-in-class business practices into daily operations.

To qualify initially for the CEPA® program, an exit planning advisor must have already finished a bachelor’s degree from a college or university, and have worked 5+ years full-time working directly with business owners as a financial advisor, attorney, CPA, business broker, investment banker, commercial lender, valuation advisor, estate planner, insurance professional, business consultant or similar professional capacity.

Mark supports business owners with realizing their value potential, achieving life goals, and fulfilling dreams by supporting growth, transition, & succession plans that assist with Getting-2-Next©. If you are looking for a certified business transition expert  contact Mark O'Brien and Value Growth Partners today.

Marketing…. A Key Lever In Monetization

What does effective marketing do?  It helps you put your concept, product, service, or offering in front of your ideal or target audience.  If it is great marketing, they will be compelled to engage with you and listen to what you have to say.

So, you should Always Be Marketing if you want to monetize more effectively.

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?

“ALWAYS BE CLOSING”

This is a little variation of the sales adage “Always Be Closing,” but selling and marketing are a little different. It’s amazing how many business owners refuse to do any type of consistent marketing or advertising! They mistakenly believe that they should only market when they need a quick influx of cash. And they often believe that they can only market when the economy is good or they are flush in cash.  Think about it: in tough times, what do businesses often cut first?   Yes, marketing and advertising gets slashed, when, in fact, that is the last thing that should be stopped. Henry Ford once said, “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.”   Whether the business is new, struggling, or just in plain need of customers we often hear, “We do not have money for marketing.”  Even though the “open it and they will come” strategy worked in Field of Dreams, when it comes to building a business, that kind of approach rarely, if ever, works.

There is no doubt you must have a consistent and targeted marketing strategy if you want your business to be profitable and lasting. You see a small little ad in the local newspaper or community publication once or twice a year can hardly be considered marketing consistently. Yet many businesses will do just that, believing that they are properly “marketing” their business. But, even if you spend more than that on advertising, marketing extends beyond the occasional sales ad and into your everyday business interactions.

Something to Think About

Here’s something to think about: If we were to meet you at a business event, how would you introduce yourself?  What would you say about your business?

If you’re like most business owners who hire us, you would probably tell us what you sell or simply say that you are in a certain industry, right? Isn’t that what most people say when asked this question?  Well, it’s true that you do sell something and operate within some industry. However, your answer to that question should quickly educate any potential customer and lead to questions that will help you to learn more about them.  For example, if someone were to ask us what we do, we would say, “We teach companies how to grow their business 15% – 75% in six months through sound education-based marketing and sales strategies.”

If an “education-based marketing” approach is not part of your typical response, then you’re most likely part of the group of businesses who are not maximizing their profit potential and may in fact be having serious profit problems.

Quite frankly, many business owners are confused about what business they are in, and they make it sound more complicated than it actually has to be. So let’s break down your responsibilities as a business owner. The most important activities in your business should be as easy as 1-2-3:

It’s easy as 1, 2, 3

1. Understanding your clients’ wants, needs and desires and then providing the education-based information they will benefit from.
2. Creating compelling marketing for you, your concepts, products, services, and/or ideas.
3. Selling and then delivering the promised result(s).

If the doors of your business are open, you should be focusing on these three activities every day!

We are not here to beat you up over what you’re not doing, or over what you don’t know about marketing. We are here to show you a system that works—today! After working for years with business clients, we have come to realize that most business owners do not know what works and truly are not to blame for their inability to put together effective marketing campaigns.

Food for thought

Think about this: Did you receive an instruction manual about how to get customers when you first started your business? Was there a course offered in grade school, in high school, in your college major, or at a trade or professional school designed to teach entrepreneurs how to attract qualified customers to their business? Heck, no!

Plus, what’s more, most of the books on marketing talk about how to build a compelling brand –the old method, which worked when you could create a TV ad to monopolize the 4–7 stations in your media market, but THIS is no longer a effective or cost-efficient model.

When you first opened your doors, you probably just went out there with a spirit of bravado and told everyone what you were doing. Then, with great expectation, you sat back and waited for customers to come rolling into your business with cash or credit card in hand. After all, your idea was a sure thing, right?

When things start slow

Back in the day, So when things were a little slow to start, you probably turned to industry publications, magazines, and newsletters, which focus solely on products and customer service as the solution to your problems. Now days, we have google, apps, software and more to TELL US EXACTLY what our customers like and don’t! Easy right??

Then,, you looked around at what the competition was doing and you probably began to think that if you offered your product or service at a lower price, customers would flock to your business instead of your competition. But what really happened?

Initially, you may have seen a rush of customers after you ran the promotion offering the product at a low price, but did that rush of customers continue? Did most of them return after the sale was over? No.

Then, as time went on, you probably began doing less and less advertising because you weren’t seeing great results from your advertising dollars. Deep down inside, you may have had the gnawing feeling that you should be doing some sort of marketing and advertising, but you didn’t have a clue what to do. Then, since you spent your available money, you were up the creek without a paddle.

You may have even bought into the false belief that you were just a simple small business owner, selling a gadget or providing a service, but not a marketer.

This terrible mistake in thinking has been made across the country by entrepreneurs who fail to realize that they have to become marketers.

See, if you want to be a successful and profitable business owner, then your primary job every single day is attracting more customers to your business. That’s it!

What’s the only way you will make money?

Why? Because the only way you make money is if there is an exchange of money for the value that you will be delivering.  You need people to come to your business willing, ready, and able to pay you money in exchange for what you offer.

Other day-to-activities that do not bring in revenue can easily become the focus of a misguided small business owner.

SOME EXAMPLES

For example:

• You don’t get paid when you counsel employees.
• You don’t get paid when you do payroll.
• You don’t get paid when you answer questions about when the next delivery truck will arrive.
• You sure as heck don’t get paid when you sit around all day hoping and praying that someone is going to walk into your business or pick up a phone and call you!

How DO you get paid???

You only get paid if a transaction occurs, if you deliver value in exchange for money.  Because of this, your number one job each and every day should be to implement your strategy and make sure the tactics that you implement are driving more paying customers through the business’ proverbial doors. And once they come in the first time, you must make sure that you have an effective plan in place to capture their information and sell to them again and again. Then because of the outstanding job you and/or your team did, you become honored with their referrals. The only way to do this is to become a marketing and advertising zealot.

When you begin to embrace the role of marketer in your business, it will become very easy to see if you are using the right tactics to attract customers. And, more importantly, this focus and attention will allow you to easily navigate any economic conditions that may arise. This is the edge that you want and need as a business owner. We know some business owners who had NEVER advertised their business. It was as if they rely solely on luck to keep their books balanced. However, when things got tough, they were forced to adjust quickly or they went belly-up.

Why is marketing is so crucial?

Marketing is so crucial to your business that if you want to be making money every day, you should have different campaigns in play at all times.

Now, the questions you may be asking at this point are,

“Isn’t that excessive?

Won’t that just overload my customers?

Will I be seen as tacky?”

And the answer to each of those questions is exactly the same, “Not if your marketing is good.”

So, if my marketing is good….Then what?

If your marketing is good, then your customers will never feel like they are being “sold.” With the right kind of marketing strategies, prospects and customers won’t get tired of seeing your ads because you are bringing them compelling information that impacts their lives and gives them value.

Are you avoiding marketing and advertising because you believe that it is too expensive? Even now you may instantly associate the word “advertising” with those multi-million dollar Super Bowl spots and think that only the “Big Boys” of business can truly play in the marketing sandbox.

Well, here’s the great news for today’s entrepreneur — that is no longer the case!  In our “information overload” society with over 400 channels on some cable or satellite systems and all of the new media strategies, it is much easier for smaller companies to get themselves noticed.  In fact, you can not only get noticed, you can move someone to take action through compelling, targeted advertising.

Today there are at least one hundred or more ways to advertise your business on a shoe-string budget, many of which didn’t exist 10 years ago. And you will be amazed that most of them cost less than what you spend on lunch for the week. Actually, many of them are free.

Did you just say FREE??

Yes, I said F-R-E-E. You can afford that, right?

But you MUST view yourself as the marketer of your business–not just the owner of a business–in order to succeed in the new economy. Heck, to succeed in any economy.

Ready to learn more?

You can excel and be a very successful marketer if you thoughtfully implement the strategies outlined in all of the upcoming blog posts…Stay Tuned!!

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How To Start Your Blogging Career With Education Category?

When someone subscribe for your free gift (an eBook, a video training etc) a new lead will be added in your email list. However, if you are assuming that using your blog to earn tons of cashes will be just a walk in the park, you might need to change your perception sooner or later as the purpose needs some serious dedication. So many ignore this great way to generate free leads on autopilot and leave a lot of money on the table. The best way to drive more prospects to your blog is to ensure massive exposure

Blogging tips are always the most reliable tool for the novices out there who want to try their luck in the world of blogging and competition. Success in blogging is like a tail of a serpent that is so hard to hold. First, you need to conceptualize of a niche that interests visitors and readers. The extra cash will make your work from home experience even better

So that will allow you to leverage yourself and in turn become known as an expert. The time you invested has allowed you to become more of an authority as a result of your experience and research. Since your blog is related to your business, chances are these readers are interested in what you are selling. Establishing a web presence can allow people to share their opinions, thoughts, and ideas with the world. In either case with the proper amount of diligence and patience the efforts you invest will likely be rewarded

If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. Summary: Most consumers have heard (and believe) the old adage "the customer is always right. Do not be too serious or self-important. However, it is equally important that you likewise consider what your goal market would like to look into on your blog

Highly useable blogs and websites are less frustrating and yield more subscribers than websites that make users work to determine where to subscribe or find out more. Have an awareness of what blogging is worth, and set your price appropriately. Google will also rank the site higher when fresh content is posted frequently. The more aggressive you are with your blogging campaign, the more traffic that you will generate

Your First Bestseller: How to Self-Publish a Successful Book on Amazon

Easy Ways To Boost Your Management Skills

She was the head of state of the similarly prominent Helmsley resort chain as well as mosted likely to jail when her workers handed out resort documents implicating her in tax evasion plans. As soon as you embrace these three laws, you are on your means to ending up being a really successful leader, and you will develop a thriving organization as you browse your way via the tumultuous sea to the land of brand-new opportunities not seen by many.

This woman was renowned for her tyrannical design of management. He was an extremely charismatic leader that, together with his spouse, turned the White Residence into a fairy tale story.Demand that your leader dreams. Think about 2 various individuals you understand that you would certainly think about significant leaders.

Our most exceptional leaders have actually realized that they need to utilize their creativity to develop important objectives that can buy into, care about and also take on as their very own. When a leader uses his crucial vision to motivate followers to accept his image as theirs, these people typically become the most fully committed and most difficult working.

This is why undertaking management training is a must for every single company. Leadership growth is significant because organizations handle the personality of the leaders. Be open to reviewing different visions and also paying attention for new ideas to include value to your initial suggestion.

Construct relationships constantly with your straight reports as well as various other divisions for political assistances in times when you require to introduce ideas and changes Successful results are substantiated of consistency instead of problem. As we increase the corporate ladder, we come to be increasingly more remote from our fans. A good leader is friendly as well as has an open-door plan.

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