Posts Tagged ‘United States’

ActionCOACH Brings Opportunity to Veterans

May 10th, 2011 by stevezog

ActionCOACH is embarking on the Free Franchise for the Forces program that will award $7.6 million in franchises to 100 eligible Veterans from the U.S. Armed Forces in select U.S. states.

This will be the largest franchise scholarship in the history of the United States and shows the great respect and admiration ActionCOACH has for the armed forces and the sacrifices they make.

One of the best parts about this program is that the Veterans who are successfully awarded an ActionCOACH Franchise will be in a unique position to help America’s small business sector continue to grow.

ActionCOACH franchisees have enjoyed a 20% increase in average quarter over quarter revenue in 2010 and an ActionCOACH Business Coach earns significantly higher income than other brands or independent Business Coaches in other systems do.

A number of the top Business Coaches in the ActionCOACH system have a military background and it is clear the military is a great training ground for success in the business world.

The majority of Veterans return home with skills in leadership, teamwork and integrity, all skills that are integral to success in any field.

Add the fact ActionCOACH follows a proven path to success with a disciplined approach and it is an especially good fit for veterans.

As part of the giveaway, ActionCOACH will waive the $50,000 franchise fee as well as the training and tech fee of $26,250 for qualified and chosen applicants.

Candidates will still be responsible for ongoing royalties and marketing fees as well as their travel arrangements to and from Las Vegas, Nevada where training will take place in the months of September and October.

Free Franchise for the Forces is another initiative in which ActionCOACH focuses on abundance through business re-education.  In addition to this program, ActionCOACH also sponsors Coaching for a Cause and The Business Excellence Awards.

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Why Do Franchises Do So Well on Wall Street?

February 16th, 2011 by stevezog

Consistency, systems and profitability are three major factors Wall Street investors look at when deciding where to put their money.

Investors want companies with a proven history of growth and profitability year after year. They want stability and the resources to continue moving forward, despite challenges individual stores may face.

Does that sound like the description of a particular industry to you?

It sounds like the franchise industry to me.

The University of New Hampshire Rosenberg Center Franchise 50 Index, which tracks a representative set of 50 publicly traded franchising companies in the United States, grew by 11.5 percent toward the end of 2010.
The index was up 15.8 percent over the year, compared to an increase of 2.3 percent for the S&P 500. Since its inception in 2000, the index is up 89.23 percent, compared to a drop of 18.2 percent for the S&P 500 over the same period.

What’s even more interesting is that since the 2nd quarter of 2001, the Franchise 50 has outperformed the S&P 500 by percentage every quarter.

So does franchising sound like a good investment? What do you think about the growth of franchisors?

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Going to Miami

February 7th, 2011 by stevezog

We are going to Miami, so pack the sunscreen and get ready for some fun in the sun on South Beach at the end of August. The ActionCOACH 2011 Global Conference will take place from August 21 through 26 at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, Florida.

Every Conference, both Global and Regional, are important to the ActionCOACH community, but the Global Conference is always a unique event because it brings together the best Business Coaches from all over the world.

What makes this year’s Conference even more impressive is the list of featured speakers who will take part. From the world of leadership and management, best- selling author Stedman Graham will speak on Monday August 22.

Graham has authored ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers, “You Can Make It Happen: A Nine-Step Plan for Success” and “Teens Can Make It Happen: Nine Steps to Success. Build Your Own Life Brand!”

Graham has also taught courses in management at some of the top universities in the United States, including the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He also founded and directed George Washington University’s Forum for Sport and Event Management and Marketing.

On Tuesday August 23, Dr. Ivan Misner, the Founder and Chairman of BNI will be the featured speaker. Dr. Misner has been called the “Father of Modern Networking” by CNN and the “Networking Guru” by Entrepreneur magazine.

He is considered one of the world’s leading experts on business networking. He has been featured in the L.A. Times, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times, as well as numerous TV and radio shows including CNN, CNBC, and the BBC in London.

The following day, legendary motivational speaker Les Brown will be the featured speaker. Brown is the author of “Live Your Dreams” and “It’s Not Over Until You Win”, two of the most inspirational books on the market today.

Brown is a self-educated man who has faced both good and bad times straight on. Through life experience and constant self-education he has built an impressive career motivating people to accomplish more than they thought possible.

With this terrific lineup, the beautiful setting of the Fontainebleau Hotel and myriad events and experiences to be had, the ActionCOACH 2011 Global Conference is one that can’t be missed.

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Nothing But Coupons for a Year?

August 17th, 2010 by stevezog

Could you live by using coupons every day? Think of the savings!

Remember the days when the Sunday newspaper would plan out everything your family would buy for the next week, thanks to the hundreds of coupons printed on smooth, glossy paper? It would take hours, paper cuts and smudged ink all over your hands, but coupons were clipped and money saved at the register.

Times have changed. You can still get the coupons in the Sunday paper, but today there are better, cleaner ways to find all the coupons you need. Sites like Groupon offer hundreds of coupons to subscribers all over the United States. These sites can also give small businesses a boost by adding another layer of marketing and customer cultivation, but Groupon is taking coupon marketing to another level.

In a campaign to promote the strength and versatility of their site, Groupon picked one person and offered them a reward of $100,000 if they were able to go through a whole year without using cash, only using Groupon coupons.

The winner of the contest was 28 year old Josh Stevens, from Chicago, Illinois. Stevens has been on the road for about 100 days at the time of this writing. He has been traveling around the United States, visiting the northeast, south and the Midwest, with unlimited coupons, but no money at all.

He often has to barter or depend on the kindness of strangers to get around and there have been a few nights when he wasn’t sure where he was going to sleep, until a sponser came through for him.

Stevens told CNN that the hardest part is that he is only allowed to visit with friends and family five times during this excursion. Aside from unlimited free coupons, Groupon provided Stevens with a laptop, camera, internet card and phone for the trip. Everything else Stevens has on the trip he’s gotten by using online coupons.

What do you think about Groupon’s coupon experiment? Can your business benefit from working with an online coupon site like Groupon?

You can keep up with Stevens’ travels here.

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Will Financial Reforms Help or Hurt Small Businesses?

July 22nd, 2010 by stevezog
Think financial reform will help or hurt businesses, especially small ones?

Think financial reform will help or hurt businesses, especially small ones?

On July 21st, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Financial Regulatory Reform Bill into law. The Dodd-Frank bill will make some of the most sweeping changes to the US financial system since New Deal reforms in response to the Great Depression.

So will the new laws stimulate the economy or hamper growth? More importantly, how will it affect your small business?

For many entrepreneurs and small business owners, the most important aspects of the new law are how it relates to banking and credit cards.

Banking on the small business level shouldn’t change too much in the near future. The new law allows banks to delay the full impact of the law, in some cases for as much as a dozen years, for good reason.

The delay in getting to the banking standards was necessary because new rules dictating how much cash banks should have on hand could have made it more difficult for businesses to get loans.

Changes to credit card rules will probably have more impact on small businesses immediately.
Thanks to the new law, credit card companies will no longer be able to collect outrageous “swipe fees” every time a customer used a debit card.

For many small businesses, “swipe fees” are their second largest expense item, behind only labor costs, so for these businesses, the reform should help them save a lot of money.

It is important to remember the reforms in the new law are supposed to protect the United States’ economy from the mismanagement and corruption that made the 2008 meltdown so alarming. No longer will financial institutions be “too big to fail” and subject to bailouts from the American taxpayers.

Instead, regulatory commissions will monitor these massive institutions to ensure that they are working responsibly.

Since he took office, President Obama’s opponents have been claiming that his agenda is “anti-business”. What do you think of the new reform law? Is it good or bad for business?

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Balancing Business with Social Responsibility

July 20th, 2010 by stevezog
Hello Rewind turns old T-shirts into laptop sleeves.

Hello Rewind turns old T-shirts into laptop sleeves.

Companies all over the world are taking a more progressive look at business. These businesses feel that it takes more than a strong bottom line to make a company a success, it takes a social conscience.

The latest BusinessWeek poll was America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs, which highlighted 25 businesses that are generating profit and positive buzz while doing good things for the community at large.

The poll’s winner, with about 17% of the vote, was a company called Hello Rewind.

Hello Rewind recycles old t-shirts into sleeves for notebook computers while partnering with not-for-profit Restore to help victims of the world sex trade break that terrible cycle.

Demands for Hello Rewind’s product have grown faster than expected, with online retailers and computer companies looking to carry the recycled sleeves. More importantly, Hello Rewind is helping people find a better life, while building a profitable enterprise.

Finishing second in the poll was the Redwoods Group, an insurance provider that specialized in providing for underserviced groups like YMCA’s or Jewish Community Centers.

The Redwoods Group provides insurance for more than half of the YMCAs throughout the United States and has used data from its customers to help create a safer, more family friendly environment.

Thanks to The Redwoods Group’s efforts in safety and retraining, drowning has gone down considerably at nation-wide YMCAs, as have incidents of abuse. In fact, there was not one drowning at a United States YMCA last year and incidents of abuse have dropped 40%, facts attributed to The Redwoods Group’s efforts.

View the results of the poll here or submit your application as one of the great young entrepreneurs here.

What do you think of social entrepreneurism? Could being more social-minded help your business?

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Microloans Pay Big Dividends

July 13th, 2010 by stevezog

In today’s economic climate, finding money for small business startup or expansion can be very difficult. Traditional loans may be hard to come by, but there are still ways to gain capital for small businesses.

One way for small businesses is by opening an Individual Development Account. IDA’s are a great way for small businesses to generate funds while learning about business.

Generally, an IDA is a relatively small account in which your savings is matched or exceeded through government funds. Typically, for every dollar you save in your IDA, it is matched by $2 from the government. These accounts stay generally limited to a few thousand dollars but that could be just enough to expand your small business or just get it off the ground.

One of the great benefits of using an IDA is that you must complete financial literacy and business coaching courses to receive the money. This ensures that no IDA business is just throwing money away.

The importance and benefits of IDAs has become crystal clear over the last few years. In 2003, there were just 12,000 IDAs in the United States. By the end of 2008, that number had grown to 45,000 and it is expected to continue to increase as President Obama’s economic strategies take hold.

The most important aspect of IDAs is the coaching strategies.

Even the government understands that owning a business is not just about your product. Funding your company without the basis of a strong business education is not feasible and leads to failure.

Small businesses more than any need to know how to create profit and the government is taking steps to provide that information to those that need them most, small business owners.

As you can see, using Individual Development Accounts are a growing trend throughout the United States. If you’re looking to fund your small business, IDAs could be an option.

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The Two Sides of Debt

August 25th, 2009 by stevezog

Warren Buffet wrote a column about how the U.S. could lessen its debt.

Warren Buffet wrote a column about how the U.S. could lessen its debt.

“The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery.”

That’s what billionaire Warren Buffet wrote in a column in the New York Times August 19. He added, “But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects.”

Buffet is not so subtly referring to debt.

It’s tough to not incur debt, when it seems like the only answer is to borrow money. After all, when you need money, it seems like the solution – and the side effect, debt, is just something that comes later.

Money and debt are two things business owners must deal with every day. Credit is necessary and a necessary part of business. But borrowing beyond the capacity to pay is dangerous, as many large companies found out last year.

Overly leveraged, they couldn’t afford to meet their interest obligations, and many defaulted.

For those companies and individuals who have overleveraged themselves, now is the time to do something about it.

Brad Sugars, founder and CEO of ActionCOACH, says the best way to get out of debt is to not borrow excessively in the first place. However, if you do need to borrow, you need to stay on top of your numbers and make certain you can pay down your outstanding balances as quickly as possible.

These days, creditors and suppliers may be looking to extend or revise terms, because the credit markets are still tight, and everyone wants to “stay in the game” of business.

Try going to your creditors and see if you can change or revise your terms. Then get on a budget and stick with it.

“Knowing your numbers,” as Brad would say, is one key to succeeding in business and in life.

Knowing when to borrow (and when to pay down what you have borrowed) is key to long-term financial success.

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