Advanced Referral Marketing
Filed under: Business Growth, Pittsburgh, Profitable Growth, Top Line Growth, Uncategorized
If you run a company, lead a sales and marketing team, or sell for a living, you know that referrals are your best source of new business.
- Nothing beats an introduction from a peer who knows what you offer to a prospect who needs your value now.
- No matter how strong your sales skills, marketing programs, or products and services, a referral to a qualified prospect most helps you close the sale.
- If most buyers turn to colleagues they trust for recommendations when making a purchase, who do yours turn to?
If referrals are your business’ best way to grow, why don’t we develop our referring skills and seek out more and better referrals? Instead, too many businesses lament the lousy referrals they get from well-meaning business friends. Whose fault is that? Rather than launch a costly and risky lead generation effort, why not improve your advanced referral marketing skills?
The Basics of Getting Referred
To review, there are some critical ingredients to getting a referral. You must:
- Provide specific value to a defined target prospect. If you do not have a Best and Highest Use® please define yours now or settle for being referred as a commodity.
- Be excellent. Always grow your track record of quality work and results.
- Stay in front of those who refer you. Communicate with them regularly and provide new and valuable information.
- Be trusted. Prove to your referral sources you will treat them and their referrals with respect.
While these fundamentals never go out of style, enough people practice these well enough now, that distinguishing your “refer-ability” takes even more effort.
Five Steps to Advanced Referral Marketing
To grow better and get more referrals, here are five steps you can take now:
- Determine Your Need for Referrals
- Understand Your Prospects’ Buying Process and Then Align Your Selling Process and Referrer’s Role
- Define the Ideal Relationship Your Referral Source Should Have With Your Buyer
- Give Referrals to Get Referrals
- Develop Specific Tools and Tactics
Here are the five steps in detail:
1. Determine your need for referrals. Are you clear on where in your sales and marketing process you need a referral and for what purpose? Do you need help finding, keeping or growing your existing business? Do you need an introduction, validation, or affirmation from your referral sources? At which point in your sales funnel are you most in need of their support? Is it in qualifying prospects or developing prospects? For help in determining this, review the PACER Process.
2. Understand your prospects’ buying process and then align your selling process and role for your referrer. Understanding your customers’ buying process is not new but applying this knowledge in obtaining referrals might be. Where can your referrers have the most impact?
If your business is a relationship or an anniversary business, your referral sources need to be constantly cultivating your prospects for you, but if your business is more transactional or event-driven, then you want your referees to be far more opportunistic and pounce when they see the chance to recommend you. Here are two articles to help you decide this. Click Events or Anniversaries: What’s Your Business? Or Relationships or Transactions: What’s Your Business?Once you understand the role your referral sources play in your prospect’s buying process, you will of course align your selling process to parallel their behavior. And the role that your referees need to play will be clear.
3. Define the ideal relationship your referral source should have with your buyer. What are the ideal referral sources for your business? For example, some businesses enjoy most of their referrals from law or accounting firms while others are best referred by suppliers or even their competitors. To determine who is best for you, understand the role your referral source plays with your prospects and why a prospect would accept their referring you to them. For example, a parts supplier is unlikely to refer a financial planner to a purchasing agent because this is not a likely topic for them to discuss. Consider whether your referral source has the sufficient trust and professional intimacy with your prospect to make such a referral. For example, a specialist can often refer another specialist while another specialist will seldom refer a generalist. Also, your referral sources must see you as a scarce commodity as opposed to being abundant. If every business broker is hounding every banker to refer them their next deal, how can anyone care or remember which one to refer to whom? The 80/20 rule applies just as much as to referees. A few will refer a majority of your leads and most will only refer you once. Understand who falls into which groups and why. Finally, make it as easy as possible to refer you. I provide any referral source with the following description of my target prospect and exactly why when and how they would hire me. Come up with your own example along the following lines as I have in my business.
A target prospect for Birol Growth Consulting is a majority owner/operator of a business who is:
A. Dissatisfied with his or her business’ level of profitable growth.
(as good or bad as it may be)
B. Impatient to grow their business to the next level
C. Is a
a. Services Firm
b. Wholesaler/Distributor
c. Manufacturer
D. Willing to take and apply advice by working with an expert who empowers optimism
E. Willing to pay for the value of outside advice that generates ten times the investment
4. Give referrals to get referrals. Apply the Golden Rule in your referral activities. Generously and freely give away as many referrals as possible. While many will disagree, I urge you not to take commissions or fees for referring business. The time you put into developing a fair scheme is not worth the loss of trust you face when your peers learn you are making money off of whom you referred to them. Despite many opinions to the contrary, do not enter into tying, exclusive relationships or “Circles of Influence” with only one referral source such as a single law firm. Your power in referring and being referred comes from being able to match the right people with the best skills and style. There is no one size fits all here. But most importantly, remember who did refer you, follow up and keep them posted on how your or their referral faired. There is nothing more disappointing to refer or be referred and never hear what happened. If you do refer someone constantly and there is never any reciprocity, ask yourself if you have fulfilled the basics as outlined above. Before getting annoyed with your non-responder, ensure you have refocused on the basics, if you have, then it is time to find new advocates.
5. Develop specific referral tools and tactics. Make it easy for your referral sources to refer you. One of the great tools is the reciprocal referral letter. Attached at the bottom of this article is a sample letter you can send, one-for-one, with a mutually referable source. Making it one-for-one is fun, as it challenges both parties to provide great referrals and then to hone their selling skills in obtaining as many appointments, proposals, and closed sales as possible.
Find ways to donate your services to charities so that your referral sources can place you in highly visible venues. Serve as a subject matter expert for their customers where you can showcase your expertise while helping your referral source’s clients.
Summary
Referral marketing can be one of the most enjoyable as well as the most profitable tactics in growing your business. Develop your skills and practices in this area and you will surely enjoy better clients, better relationships not only with those who value you the most, but most of all with people you like whom like you. And after all, isn’t this what business is supposed to be all about? For help in accelerating your referral marketing efforts, to explore how we can refer each other, or simply to learn more, please contact me at (412) 973 2080 or at abirol@andybirol.com.
Here is a sample referral letter you can modify for your business or, (with my gratitude) use to refer Birol Growth Consulting:
Mr. John Smith
President
Smith Products
222 Allegheny Blvd, Suite #4
Wexford, PA 15444
Dear John:
Growing my firm has always been challenging and risky. I often wrestle with questions of what to invest in and when. I wanted to pass on an intro of an exceptional business expert and friend of mine, Andy Birol, of Birol Growth Consulting. He is a published author (5 times I think), accomplished speaker and advises small to mid-sized operating businesses owners on effectively driving top line profitable growth.
- How has my marketplace changed its buying behavior and how should my firm respond?
- How can I create more profitable growth?
- What new channels for profitable growth can I pursue?
While you may not have heard of Andy, I know him personally and he has an extensive record of working nationally to great reviews. In his short time here in Pittsburgh, he has become a regular columnist for eTEQ Magazine and has been accepted into Leadership Pittsburgh.
I told Andy you were on my short list of must-visits and I’ve suggested he give you a call. He’s making a positive impact in Pittsburgh’s small business community. I’m sure meeting with him will be a good use of both your time. You can learn more about Andy before he calls, checkout his website at www.andybirol.com. His articles, client list and newsletters are particularly interesting. No doubt you’ll get an autographed copy of his latest book, The Five Catalysts of Seven Figure Growth, CareerPress, 2006.
If you have any other questions or need anything further please don’t hesitate to give me a call.
Thanks so much and take care,
Sincerely,
You
Your Company
Your Address
Pittsburgh, PA 15232
Practice “The One Thing:” Abundance and Scarcity:
Filed under: Business Growth, Pittsburgh, Profitable Growth, Uncategorized
Remember the movie City Slickers where Jack Palance tells the boys to find “The One Thing!”
What is the one thing for your business? If creating profitable growth sounds right, read on.
Whatever you make and sell, if you practice abundance while offering scarcity, your profitable growth will follow. Why?
First, let’s define abundance and scarcity.
- Abundance is your confidence that there are always more customers with new wants and needs. Your and their glass is always half full.
- Scarcity happens every time you convince buyers that your business is different, better and unlike every other business. Scarce means you are in demand.
Here are five ways to practice abundance and scarcity and create profitable growth.
Five ways to practice abundance
- Move beyond your industry’s certifications and best practices and create your own. Find and follow your own best and highest use. Here’s my YouTube video to show you how.
- Invest in your own business. You will always have too little money or too little time. Your confidence and conviction will have much more to do with your success.
- Donate your time and your money where you believe it will have impact not visibility.
- Give more referrals than you get. Paying it forward works!
- Write, speak, present and react to issues where you are an expert. Social media makes it easy.
Hines Ward, of the Pittsburgh Steelers is a great example of living an abundant life. At this writing, he’s a finalist on Dancing with the Stars. What is next for Hines?
Our two-party system, which boils most issues down to destructive platforms and sound bites, is the opposite of abundance.
Five ways to practice scarcity
- Be truly independent and unbiased in your advice and build all the trust you can with your clients.
- Find the extraordinary in the ordinary and give your customers unique ways to accomplish what they want to.
- Discover, propose and sell third and fourth alternatives to problems when everyone else sees only one or two.
- Say no to cutting your price, accepting bad business and indulging bullying or non-paying clients.
- Be fun and still get the job done. Work hard, play hard! Make people need you.
Barbara Streisand, Cher and Madonna rarely tour but always sell out when they do. They are great examples of scarcity.
Creative advertisements for GEICO, Progressive, State Farm and Allstate Insurance come so fast and often we forget who made which ad and sells what brand. Not scarce at all!
Combine Your Scarcity and Abundance and They Will Create Profitable Growth.
Being scarce with an abundance mentality comes down to having the unconscious and innate confidence that you can make life better for your customers and clients than any of your competitors or they themselves can. Practice practicing scarcity and abundance. When you do so, profitable growth will follow because your customers will connect you with their successes and will not be able to duplicate this with your competitors. And they will be willing to buy more from you and pay you more for it. And that is profitable growth!
If Contracting is Your “Wild West,” Here’s 3 Ways to Become the Only Sheriff in Town.
Filed under: Business Growth, Profitable Growth, Uncategorized
Even in an improving economy, why does the contracting industry still feel like the last frontier? As long as financing stays unpredictable, customers pay late and subcontractors/tradesmen slip up, does running your business seem like a series of showdowns at the OK 
Corral? After helping dozens of owners in the building trades, I’m clear that formal planning and forecasting don’t work in the face of erratic weather, desperate bidding, and poor project management. But good contractors survive. And a few have learned how to adapt and actually thrive by creating scarce capabilities and unique services. And some builders have done it so well that they have, in a sense become “The Only Sheriffs in Their Towns” in the “Wild West of Contracting.”
Recently I personally met, spoke with and asked over 20 PA-based contractors what they needed to do to succeed in the next two years. They said three factors mattered most:
1. Competitive estimating/pricing
2. Quality work
3. Great project management.
But they agreed that these factors are not a strategy for long term success. In the short run, every contractor may survive by delivering quality work on time and on budget. But as labor and material costs grow and credit stays tight, only the largest or cheapest firms may succeed over time by doing more and charging less.
So what is the answer? Focus, perform scarce services, and move with the market. Here are three “Wild West” strategies I’ve helped my contracting clients invent, develop, and implement.
1. Focus on your Best and Highest Use®. WK Thomas Construction has focused on being a leader in building Butler® pre-engineered steel buildings.
2. Invent and Perform Scarce Services. Menard USA is a design-build specialty geotechnical contractor offering expertise on ground improvement for sites with poor soil.
3. Move as the market moves. FlorLine Group® is expert in the design and application of industrial floor, wall and ceiling coatings for electrostatic and other regulated (FDA) environments.
So which strategy will you take to become the only sheriff in your own town? The first step is to decide which of your differentiated skills, expertise and services you can charge more for to generate better margins. Although new products, markets and technologies are hard to develop and must be constantly protected from copycat competitors, they will turn your “Wild West” into looking less like “F Troop” and more like “Bonanza!”
Andy © Copyrighted by Andrew J. Birol, President of Birol Growth Consulting, who helps owners create profitable growth by growing their Best and Highest Use®. Andy can be reached at (412) 973 2080, abirol@andybirol.com or www.profitablegrowth.com
Are You a Contractor or Subcontractor? How Does Your Outlook Drive Your Business?
Filed under: Business Growth, Profitable Growth, Top Line Growth, Uncategorized
If your business outsources work to, or does work for another business, you understand contracting and subcontracting. But no industry knows contracting better than the one that invented it: the building trades. Last week, I was invited to lead a workshop/meeting for the Master Builders Association. As part of the program, I gave this hardened group of building- trade executives, those next in line to run their family businesses, an exercise whose results reveal valuable insights for any business.
Each participant was given the following key success factors that dozens of my building-trade clients have taught me matter most. The group was asked to rank the ones they felt were most critical to master in the next two years. Here are their ranked responses which could apply to your business too!
| TO SUCCEED AS A (SUB) CONTRACTOR YOU MUST: | Ranked as most important to master in next two years |
| Produce quality work | Second |
| Have a competitive price | First |
| Complete work on time | Twelfth |
| Get paid | Sixth |
| Operate safely | Fifth |
| Increase/maintain skills | Eighth |
| Use right equipment & technology | Tenth |
| Manage money | Fourth |
| Have great project scheduling / management | Seventh |
| Have great first line supervision | Ninth |
| Sell incoming work to match available labor | Thirteenth |
| Be good at job tracking and forecasting | Eleventh |
| Be good at estimating and job costing | Third |
What conclusions can we draw from these data and the comments of the group?
The (sub) contracting business remains a tough one where providing top quality at a competitive price is the key success factor.
- Managing projects, materials and labor is perceived as the next most important factor.
- The group is concerned that subcontractors who don’t manage these key skills will likely go out of business in the face of reduced project-funding sources and increased competition.
- In the face of government cutbacks, the sector is counting on private projects to take up the slack.
- The group understands that differentiated skills and services, like value-engineered solutions and LEED certifications produce better margins. Although they are hard to develop and protect from copycat competitors, new products, markets and technologies have historically ensured profitable growth for the industry.
My thanks to Brett Pitcairn of PJ Dick Construction and Jon O’Brien of the MBA for giving me the opportunity to present to the Master Builders Association.
5 Reasons to Believe in Your Business Confidence
Filed under: Business Growth, Profitable Growth, Top Line Growth, Uncategorized
What a time we’re living through! The economy is rebounding but shaky. Government’s broke and may—at best—repair its own damage. Our human, physical and social infrastructure is fractured, while America’s endless infighting continues despite real enemies lurking in the shadows. Is it too late? No! The last six months gives me great optimism for small business. Why?
Small business is growing confident again. As the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you makes you strong.” After enduring years of scarce capital, government meddling, society demanding and large companies bullying, small business is adapting and regaining its mojo. Proof? Beyond the national data, every client, owner and audience I’m seeing is hiring, investing or at least thinking again in terms of years and not months. And after years of turning a blind eye, government, non-profits and large companies smell small-business’ success and are demanding more charity and favors.
Why are small businesses doing better? Here are five reasons why small business has regained confidence and conviction. Successful small businesses see their:
1. Worst fears are over, and they are better off. Small businesses have learned to run on lower credit lines and not to finance their customers. More and more are raising prices on unprofitable customers. The days of sloppy pricing and 90+ days of average accounts receivable are over.
2. Margins have grown when they sell expertise and a better customer experience. Small business can’t out save their competitors on purchased materials or hiring cheaper. They’ve learned to sell their expertise and the experience they provide their customers. Those who are doing this well are raising their prices.
3. Customer’ buying behavior is changing. Most companies have changed how they are buying or their criteria for buying. Most feet-on-the street sales people have learned to sell their smarts or face selling to voice mail.
4. Services grow, particularly as they support products. Buyers may demand low prices on the products they purchase, but the users they represent are demanding more service and support. Small businesses are learning to charge more and profit on their time and value.
5. The folly of doing good without doing well. Being green, sustainable and socially responsible is common sense but is no substitute for exchanging real value for a customer’s real money. The new economy is no place for businesses without a clear value proposition to rely on social entrepreneurism to replace paying customers.
So much is changing so fast for small business. But following these five reasons for success will lead to your business being much better off regardless of the world around you.
What Would You Do?
Filed under: Business Growth, Profitable Growth, Top Line Growth, Uncategorized
Do real-life stories hit home for you? Years ago, I had just been engaged by a partnership. After contracts and checks were signed, one of the partners waved me into his office and said, “There is something I need to tell you.” Closing the door behind us, he anxiously confessed his need to tell a secret. I responded, “OK.” Then he said, “I’m having an affair with one of my partner’s wives, is that going to get in the way of our growing the company?” Stunned, I responded, “You’re telling me this for a reason?” And he said, “I want you to know this because no one else here knows.”
What would you do if someone said this to you?
When I ask this as a case-study exercise in a workshop, most respond, “Void the contract and return the check.” Although this is the safe choice given that the client was trying to entrap me in his turpitude, there is a better win-win decision.
If you’re faced with a similar situation, don’t confuse the bad judgment of business leaders with the needs of the business. Despite the owners poor leadership, their company dearly needed a growth strategy to best support its customers, employees, vendors and their families and charities.
What happened? I told the irresponsible partner that I would not divulge his sin, but if asked I would not deny I knew. I took the project and helped grow their businesses, as it was clear their company needed to be split into two firms. Surprisingly, the other partner never discovered the unholy alliance.
The teaching moment: Small business serves many good causes and feeds many mouths besides the owners. Too often the brave, risk-taking intentions of owners get undermined by the actions they take (and don’t take) as ill-trained leaders. If you are running or trying to help another small business succeed, talk to the owners about the actions of their leaders, even if you are speaking to the same individual!
Why Partnerships Succeed: Seven Lessons from the Best
Recently, a group of partners of successful law, accounting, investment, and M&A firms met me for lunch and explained why their partnerships worked so well. I was most taken with how their success contrasted with the pain suffered by so many small businesses. Why do partnerships work so well with professional services firms and are so challenging for the rest of small business?
Here are the lessons I took away from the discussion:
Lesson I: Partners with the same professional degrees and training form tight, loyal and like-minded groups.
Implication: Small business partnerships are founded by experts with unique and complementary skills. Don’t expect different owners to think or act similarly. It will be harder and take longer to achieve the same esprit d ‘corps among small business partnerships.
Lesson II: The real definition of any Partner is to be a Rainmaker, who can land and grow clients, regardless of whether they have managerial duties in the firm.
Implication: Small businesses require strong operations, finance and sales/marketing in equal measures, so different Partners proficient in different functions are needed.
Lesson III: Successful partnerships do not pay compensation to equity partners based solely on their shares but on their performance and contributions to their firm’s profits.Implication: Regardless of ownership percentages, small business Partnerships would be well served to set up compensation plans based on their partner’s job descriptions and performance.
Lesson IV: Professional services firms make new partners, regardless of their experience or financial buy-in, work in their firm for a couple of years before bestowing formal partnership titles. This ensures they “fit” with the Partners regardless of how they “look on paper”
Implication: Small businesses would be well-served to similarly “date before marrying” instead of rushing into the arms of new partners, VC’s or private equity firms.
Lesson V: Professional services firms recruit talented individuals by offering partnerships, especially to those with books of business that can produce immediate revenues for the firm. Partnerships also provide the firms with the ability to institute and enforce non-competes’ on Rainmakers, protecting the firm’s long-term cash flow and revenue streams. Implication: Small business partnerships are usually created when partners bring different resources to the table including technology/inventions, operating ability, money and sales/marketing. As a result of these divergent contributions, it is not as easy to protect the firm from the power or departure of any one Partner.
Lesson VI: Partners in professional services firms build long-term client relationships which are leveraged through having less experienced/expensive professionals perform most of the actual “work.” Having the right amount of these professionals is critical to the Partnerships’ profitability.
Implication: Despite the personal relationships small business Partners build with their customers, much of the actual delivery of their firm’s value cannot be done by the partner.
Consequently, maintaining the same level of trusting relationships is difficult. So is the actual delivery of consistent “work” in the form of products, especially through distributors or inexperienced professionals.
Lesson VII: The recurring nature of relationship sales allows Partners in professional services firms to wield extraordinary marketplace power by closely managing their clients.
Implication: The transient nature of most buyers and customers makes building relationships much more difficult, especially since sales are usually more transactional than they are relationship-driven. Few Partners in small business know their customers as well as their counterparts in professional services do, despite spending more time and money on formal sales and marketing.
Partnerships in professional services firms have been around for centuries and laws and business practices ensure many of these will continue for decades and centuries to come. The goal of the small business Partnership should be to learn and apply the characteristics that can work in their businesses and not try to imitate what cannot be applied to their businesses.
The Three Biggest Mistakes Businesses Owners Make
As businesses struggle to succeed in our economy, mistakes are often deadly. And we see many businesses making deadly ones all the time.
Too often, insufficient capital, poor controls or inadequate customers are blamed as the main reasons a business flounders or fails. While these reasons are obvious, I believe they are symptoms, not root causes of business failure. The root cause of most business failures is the owner’s reaction to adverse events. Long before a business sinks, its owner has likely become distracted, detached or depressed. Why?
Business owners are still about the most independent citizens in the world. They act on their free will and build companies by pursuing their irrational dreams to deliver a product or service to customers who will pay for it. If you see an owner making one of the following three mistakes, admonish them to change their ways as soon as possible if they are:
1. Not exhibiting confidence and conviction in their actions to “Get There,” wherever “There” is for them.
Owners are excellent at implementing plans within their comfort zones but in tougher times often develop ambivalence or apprehension about what works or what to do. They
a) Don’t take quick and decisive action,
b) Straddle between multiple goals and
c) Implement tactics half-heartedly.
Lack of confidence and conviction saps their money, their energy and eventually their passion for business. The easiest remedy is to force or create a defining point in the business to rekindle confidence and conviction. Terminating a problem customer or employee, changing pricing or replacing vendors all can force a defining point. These shocks to the system open a business owner’s eyes to new possibilities.
2. Not refocusing on their Best and Highest Use (BHU) which is:
a) What they and their business are good at doing,
b) What they and their business like doing and
c) What has been valued by the market for what they do.
Businesses often get complacent and distracted from BHU. What would a detached, unbiased, outsider with “fresh eyes” learn from talking to your customers? Is your company still selling the same things your customers say they want to buy? After interviewing over 5,000 customers of my 450 clients, I have never seen a company who can’t better align what it offers to meet the needs of customers.
3. Not recognizing when their personal goals and actions are diverging from goals and objectives of the business.
When asked, “What are your goals?” fulfilled owners always list business goals alongside personal ones. When an owner gets bored or disheartened, his or her personal goals often diverge from their business passion.
If an owner admits he or she has lost their mojo, they have three opportunities to regain it fast by:
a) Reconciling their personal goals with those of their business,
b) Outsourcing their responsibilities to a president or
c) Selling their firm.
As long as a company is run by its owner-operator, he or she still plays the most critical role in its failure or success. Before their company fails or succeeds, that owner repeatedly faces (and hopefully overcomes) their own crises of confidence. If they are acting focused, engaged and optimistic, their firms will succeed. If not, they must confront and eliminate their doubts. For our economy to return to profitable growth, we need every business and their owners to hire more people, introduce new value and expand their capabilities. And that’s no mistake!
A Shout Out for Michael Couch: A Pittsburgh Entrepreneur
“Never buy anything from someone who doesn’t use or do what he sells.” If you agree with my mantra, then you should know about Michael Couch. While many Industrial/Organization Psychologists say they can help corporations with strategy, culture, talent and processes, Michael has a most interesting way of showing how. Michael Couch & Associates Inc. www.mcassociatesinc.com helps the consultants who help his clients! Interested? Learn how Michael does it here.
How did Michael get started? After 25 years plying his trade in OD, HR and Quality Improvement roles, and running a Business Unit that manufactured and sold small diameter steel tubing, he founded MC&A Inc.
When Michael started MC&A Inc., scores of local consultants were attracted to his value and supported, guided and challenged him. He didn’t want to lose his valuable resource so he assembled his like-minded solo-practitioner consultant-fans into a local network he calls “The Pittsburgh Consulting Community”. The Community has grown into a tribe of more than 350 folks that have a mutual interest in learning how to run and grow a consulting practice. The group is connected virtually but also meets regularly to share successes, hear from experts, and discuss opportunities to collaborate. Michael “walked his talk” when he graciously invited me to speak to his community. If you are interested in consulting with Michael or joining the Consulting Community, contact Michael at http://www.mcassociatesinc.com. And just think of how he can bring your organization together!
You Can’t Be Serious!
Filed under: Business Growth, Profitable Growth, Top Line Growth
After last month’s piece in the Pittsburgh Business Times, (read it HERE), a Pittsburgher challenged me; “You can’t be serious! Topography can’t be why Pittsburgh has thrived relative to Cleveland!” Seriously, I believe Western PA is mostly thriving because it’s mustering energy, creativity and commitment to keep climbing out of its valleys and avoid falling off its mountains. I’m finding Pittsburgh’s business community to be focused on innovation, science, and applying what they have learned to help new customers rather than fixating on politics and the economy. There is a steep learning curve for those uncomfortable with change but every day I’m meeting more businesses who are driven to understand and solve new problems of their customers and create more profitable growth. In this month’s newsletter you will read about the best practices I am seeing and a story of one local entrepreneur I’m watching succeed through his Junoon. Give me a piece of your mind publically here on my blog.
Here’s to your profitable growth! – Andy.
