Can a Business Plan Hold You Back?

From the BusinessWeek Blog

When an industry is constantly evolving, successful entrepreneurs roll with the trends. Just ask Tony Zoccoli, founder of Nine O'Clock New Media, a Web-development and creative-services firm based in Fremont, Calif. When he founded the company in 1995, it was called ProGraphix, had a single employee and focused exclusively on design for print products.
When Zoccoli started his company, offering Web services wasn't even a consideration. "There was really no push for Web work," he says. "The Internet was too new." But as a growing number of his customers started requesting Web sites, Zoccoli reinvented his business to grow with the burgeoning industry. And he didn't bother with a business plan.
To read the full story on AllBusiness.com, click here.

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If you think of a business plan simply as a document, it probably can’t hold you back, but it won’t likely have a big impact on your success. A good business plan is a mindset more that a document. An effective business plan could be thought of as the conscious choices the leaders of an organization make about how they will meet the demand and opportunities of the business environment. It allows a business owner to stay focused his value-add in the marketplace, and addresses the interface between the organization and its environment. A good business plan lays the foundation for tomorrow’s success while helping a business stay focused on competing today. My experience has been that most organizations that lack a well-defined, and well communicated, strategy lose their focus and eventually fail. However, a periodic re-assessment of the business plan will allow a business owner to make sure he/she is taking advantage of today’s opportunities as well as exploring new and future opportunities.

Randy Bancino
Managing Partner
Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

The Decision to Trust

One of the very first sessions in the Profitable Growth Partners Boot Camp for Managers program is a workshop on building trust. In the session we help professionals understand the consequences of win-lose relationships and help them develop strategies for creating win-win relationships. A recent article on the topic of "trust" highlights the impacts on a business that is unable to build trusting relationships.

In his HBR article entitled “The Decision to Trust” author Robert Hurley reports that roughly half of all Managers don’t trust their leaders. We all know that a distrustful environment is an uncomfortable place to work, but a business with an un-trustful environment is also at a significant competitive disadvantage. Hurley lists 10 factors in establishing trust, and practical ways of managing trust. The first three factors apply to the decision maker himself (the “truster”) while the last seven apply to the person asking for trust (the “trustee”):

- Risk Tolerance: Spend more time explaining options and risks.
- Level of Adjustment: Be patient; it simply takes longer to build trust with some people.
- Relative Power: Provide choices when possible; avoid being coercive.
- Security: Find ways to temper the risk inherent in the situation.
- Number of Similarities: Use the word “we” more and the word “I” less.
- Alignment of Interests: Be clear yourself about whose interests you are serving.
- Benevolent Concern: Take actions that demonstrate a genuine concern for others.
- Capability: Find ways to demonstrate competence in carrying out the task at hand.
- Predictability and Integrity: Under-promise and over-deliver.
- Level of Communication: Increase the frequency and candor of your communications.

Trust is a measure of the quality of relationships. Leaders must provide clear reasons for people to trust them. When leaders are able to establish and environment of trust they are able to establish a more dynamic and sustainable foundation for productive relationships.

Randy Bancino
Managing Partner
Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

Claire Zevalkink Completes Certification in Strategy Development and Business Coaching

GRAND RAPIDS, MI (PRWEB) December 18, 2006 -- Profitable Growth Partners, LLC., a Grand Rapids-based high performance business strategy and people development firm, announced that Managing Partner, Claire Zevalkink, completed certification in High Performance Strategy Development and Business Coaching with the Center for Organizational Design, Inc. of Littleton, Colorado.

Ms. Zevalkink's background includes numerous leadership and executive marketing positions in large, global organizations, as well as significant people development leadership at the corporate level. She has various degrees, including a degree in Education from the University of Colorado, an M.B.A from the University of Vermont, and extensive executive training from the University of Michigan. This latest certification expands the depth and level of expertise that Profitable Growth Partners, LLC. provides to their business clients.

"The program really helped to refine the strategic planning process that we bring to our clients," said Claire Zevalkink, Managing Partner with Profitable Growth Partners. "And, the business coaching is a great addition to our High Performance People Development offerings that allows us to work one-on-one with clients in between group sessions."

Certification training is provided by The Center for Organization Design, and is focused on organizational assessment, strategic business design, and executive business coaching. Participants gained in-depth knowledge of the principles of high performance and their real-world application through a series of lectures, exercises, and case studies.About Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

Profitable Growth Partners, LLC. works directly with the leadership of small and medium sized companies to help them harness their potential to accelerate growth and enhance profitability. Through their exclusive Business Acceleration Process and their Top Gun for Business People series, the experienced business growth experts with Profitable Growth Partners deliver improvements to a business's strategy, processes, structure, systems, and culture, resulting in measurable improvements in both the top line and bottom line.

Contact Information
Randy Bancino
Managing Partner
Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.
616.942.4769

Profitable Growth Partners ... What's in a name?

At Profitable Growth Partners we sometimes get asked about our company name. Some people see the name and think financial services. In reality we provide high performance strategy development and high performance people development. So why Profitable Growth Partners? The main reason is that we come to both strategy and people development from a business results point of view. And what result is more important that profitable growth?

At Profitable Growth Partners, we have a well defined and scientific methodology for working with business leaders to develop impactful business strategy. But the impact is not designed to be theoretical. Rather, the impact should be business growth that is sustainable and profitable.

Our people development services reflect this same philosophy. While there are many benefits of investing in people, we always work to ensure that he personal growth we help create leads to increased productivity, and increased profitable growth for the business.

At Profitable Growth Partners, we partner with business leaders to create and accelerate business growth and profit. It is that simple…

Randy Bancino
Managing Partner
Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

Do you know what your organizational capabilities are?

In an insightful article in the Harvard Business Review, authors Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood create a blue print for organizations to audit their intangible assets. Although managers tend to pay more close attention to the aspects of their business that they can easily measure, often it is the more intangible assets that create real and sustainable competitive advantage. The authors list 11 intangible assets that well-managed companies tend to have. These companies typically excel in only three of these capabilities, while maintaining industry parity in the rest:

• Speed: making important changes rapidly.
• Shared mind-set and coherent brand identity: ensuring positive, consistent perceptions of the company among employees and customers.
• Accountability: demanding high performance from employees.
• Collaboration: working effectively across organizational boundaries.
• Learning: generating ideas with impact.
• Leadership: embedding leaders throughout the organization.
• Strategic unity: articulating and sharing a strategic viewpoint.
• Customer connectivity: building enduring relationships of trust with targeted customers.
• Innovation: developing breakthrough products and processes.
• Efficiency: managing costs.

Just because intangible assets are harder to measure, few would argue that they are not important to the success of an organization. A powerful strategy recognizes the value of these organizational capabilities and capitalizes on them to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

Randy Bancino

Managing Partner

Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.