Business Coach Training Update June 25

Hi, I just checked in with some of the coaches who went through the last training ( it was this week).



Both of them already had solid leads by the time they got off the flight home! One coach had a lead come in from us while he was in training. He called her right away and had a meeting set for the Wednesdays of his return.

Another one of the coaches was standing in line as we were getting lunch on day 4 of training. He was chatting with another lady who was on her break too. It turned out she owned the clothing store next door, but was selling it so she could move back to Hawaii to concentrate on running her 2 restaurants there!

Well, this FocalPoint coach now has a lead for coaching this business owner in Hawaii! That's how it works! Of course, having a client in Hawaii never hurts either...

We're already planning for our next training in July, and our conference in August. I wonder what stories will come from that?

Blog to you soon!
Steve Thompson,
President
FocalPoint Coaching
www.focalpointcoaching.com
http://www.fbr50.com/profile/FocalPoint-Coaching
http://www.briantracy.com/coaching/
http://askabusinesscoach.blogspot.com/

Business Coach Training is done for June

Hi again,
It's Tuesday, June 4, and we've just waved goodbye to our latest group of Business Coaches.

Training was held in Las Vegas, Nevada, at an absolutely beautiful resort. Over 6 intense days, our coaches were introduced to the start of training.

"The start" you ask? Yes, live-in training is only one of three discrete parts of training. After a rigorous selection and qualification process, the coaches who we invite to join our team immediately begin Induction Training. This is part 1, and we've designed it so that a Business Coach is able to get their business up and running as soon as possible when they return home.

Part 2 , is , of course, the live - in part. Our next training is scheduled for July 21st to 26. We already have a number of Incoming Coaches and Area Developers waiting to attend.

Part 3 of training is very interesting. It's forever. Business Coaching is a very interesting and profitable business - especially for those coaches who can leverage solid brand recognition and a proven, repeatable system for business growth. It takes forever because that's how long our support and training lasts - forever. As a matter of fact, some of you may recognise "forever" as one of our culture statements.

Business Coaching is our passion - it's what we do. Brian Tracy has been in the business of business improvement for over 30 years. We think that's a pretty good start!

Training is a lot of fun and the amount of knowledge transfer is unbelievable. Our coaches learned not only how to "be a coach", but also what kind of marketing it takes to get clients, how to keep clients, how to get results and how to grow a profitable business they'll love.

Thanks for checking in, I'll post another update soon.

Steve Thompson
President,
FocalPoint Business Coaching
www.focalpointcoaching.com
http://www.fbr50.com/profile/FocalPoint-Coaching
http://www.briantracy.com/coaching/
http://askabusinesscoach.blogspot.com/

Business Coach Training update June 19 2008

Hi, Just checking in quickly to let you know that our Business Coach training is going very well.
We've got a full and engaged class. Today we covered off some of the interesting elements of selling a business and how FocalPoint Business Coaches help with that.

It's a growing trend and we're certainly proud to lead the way.

How could I forget? We also have a major win, company wide! Our first National Account deal has come to fruition. One of our Texas coaches has brought on a new client as a direct result of this deal. Many more will soon follow!

We'll continue to develop National Accounts for the benefit of our coaches.

Thanks for checking in!
Steve Thompson,
President,
FocalPoint Coaching, powered by Brian Tracy

www.focalpointcoaching.com
www.stevethompsonfocalpointcoaching.blogspot.com
http://www.fbr50.com/profile/FocalPoint-Coaching
http://www.briantracy.com/coaching/coachingprograms.aspx

Business Coaching and FocalPoint's Passionate Commitment

Hello curious reader!,

Let’s keep on looking in more detail at what it means to be a Business Coach at FocalPoint Coaching.

We’re a group of elite Business Coaches who draw on the deep, proven experience and brand recognition of Brian Tracy. That’s why our full name is FocalPoint Coaching, powered by Brian Tracy.

We have a unique and manicured Culture here at FocalPoint, and over the past few weeks and months, I’ve been sharing the defining points of our Culture with you.

If you’re here, reading this blog you have some sort of interest in us. Thanks for visiting. I hope this gives you a better sense of who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

Passionate Commitment is our 5^th point of Culture.

Whatever we do, we do with full passionate commitment.

We thought long and hard about this one. Would you believe it started out as “a Passion for Fitness.” ?

During one of our retreats, we began to think differently about this. What if the perfect business coach was not into fitness, but rather, into Gardening, or Bird Watching? What if the perfect coach for our team was more fit than any of us? Perhaps a Triathelete ( we have a few already), or an Expedition Mountaineer? Was our definition too constrictive?

We felt it was. So we changed our perspective. ( welcome to thinking like a Business Coach!) What we really wanted to attract to ourselves, model ourselves towards and hold as our standard became “Passionate Commitment”

With that refocused viewpoint, even more possibilities came to light.

A FocalPoint Coach is a person who is Passionately Committed to:

• Their own success
• The success of others
• Finding a way around, through, over or under “resistance”
• Excellence
• Their families
• Their communities
• Fitness
• Hobbies
• An Industry
• Volunteering to help others ( one of our Coaches has 40 years of service to the Boy Scouts of America)
• Being an excellent parent, spouse, son or daughter.

In short, our culture lasered in even more by changing our perspective. We embody excellence because that’s what we think about and move towards every day. Being "Passionately Committed" is the fuel that keeps us on that track.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog,

Steve Thompson, President,

FocalPoint Coaching

www.focalpointcoaching.com

http://www.fbr50.com/profile/FocalPoint-Coaching

http://askabusinesscoach.blogspot.com/

Steve Thompson, President
FocalPoint Business Coaching

FocalPoint Business Coaching and Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day!

As you might imagine, a lot of us at FocalPoint are Fathers - so happy Fathers Day to us!

But all of us also need to take some time today to thank our Dad's.

Our Dad's took us to football games, lent us their cars, and showed us how to go fishing. Maybe they gave your prom date a hard time, or walked you down the aisle. Whatever picture flashes through your mind when you think of your Dad, today is the day to reach back out to him and say thanks.

Some of our Fathers fought in World War 2. You may have missed it, but June 6 was the anniversary of D-Day. That was the day the Allied forces took the beach at Normandy in France. Here's a quote I pulled from the US Army web page dedicated to D-day....

"...June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.”

More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy.

The D-Day cost was high -more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded -- but more than 100,000 Soldiers began the march across Europe to defeat Hitler...."

Source: http://www.army.mil/d-day/

Do you remember how you felt as a kid before the big game? Did you get nervous? How about speaking in public - does that make your stomach churn and lurch? I wonder how those 17, 18, ad 19 year old kids felt before they went into a battle as intense as that.

Those are our Dad's. Or, maybe their Dad's...

Whether our Dad's fought for us in the war, or showed us , by example, how to be who we need to be, we thank you.

Happy Fathers Day, Dad.

Steve Thompson,
President
FocalPoint Coaching.
http://www.focalpointcoaching.om/
http://www.fbr50.com/profile/FocalPoint-Coaching

FocalPoint Business Coaching Culture Update - Excellence

A few weeks ago, I started defining our corporate culture. Business Coach Training and a number of other tantalizing topics always loom, but let me pick up where we left off.......

When defining the FocalPoint Culture, I can't leave out Excellence.

We expect Excellence and we create Excellence.

Example:

§ If there is an opportunity to improve a process or system, we share it with the team.

§ We are all striving for constant improvement. We view excellence of an object or subject or body of work as part of a whole.

I'll be the first to admit; this is a tough one. To us it means that we can never be satisfied with ourselves. My partner, Dominic Rubino, likes to say that everything is written in sand (as opposed to stone) and it would be ignorant of us to think that every system was complete, and perfect. I agree. He's a pretty wise guy.

Excellence to us means "We expect Excellence and we create Excellence". At the end of the day, being a successful business coach is about getting client results. We have tons of formal testimonials, and far more internal stories and even legends about client results.

I heard one today from one of our top coaches, Brad Ness (go Columbus!). One of his clients is a Civil Engineer (he makes subdivisions have the proper elevations of land and use of space). When Brad started with him, things were tight. Annual profits were hovering around 30k. Since December (5 months) by working with Brad he now has the company posed to do a deal that will net him 300k in profit annually – yes, 10 times more than he used to do.

Excellence! For the client, from Brad, for his industry. The hard part I referred to is that we can't really rest on our laurels much. Whatever we just did has to be topped next time.

I love this stuff! And so do our clients.....

Steve Thompson, FocalPoint Coaching

http://www.focalpointcoaching.com/

Proud of our Ranking in the Franchise50 Awards.

http://www.fbr50.com/profile/FocalPoint-Coaching

Business Coach Training at FocalPoint, powered by Brian Tracy

FocalPoint Business Coach Training for June is fast approaching.

We're very excited, the whole training team is buzzing as we prepare for one of our most exciting internal events - the addition of Business Coaches to our growing team.

It's not easy to become a FocalPoint Business Coach, powered by Brian Tracy. The whole process is one of two way qualification through a series of increasingly difficult steps. Add to that the fact that just to start the process a candidate has to be a top notch business person in their own right.

We must be doing something right, because we've built an elite team of high performers, and this seems to attract even more high performers to begin the process.

This training features coaches from Canada! Business Coaching in Canada will never be the same. We have coaches joining us from Abbotsford, Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. We also have coaches joining us from Saskatchewan, Saskatoon and Regina.

Columbus and Cincinnati Ohio has an very exciting and interesting addition coming on board. Texas , of course, can't be left out, we'll have coaches in training who will be in Houston and Dallas. I'll post more on that later.

Not only is the process for joining us very detailed , but the training process is as well. We like to say that Business Coach training is actually only the START of training. Those who've been through it know what we mean.

Welcome to the team Coaches!
Steve Thompson,
FocalPoint Coaching, powered by Brian Tracy.

Brian Tracy answers !

Hi Again,

Brian was kind enough to send us a copy of the info with the proper credit to the author.

Here is his email.....
* * * *

The five parts of political power were first explained by Adolf Berle in 1935 in his book "Power." They are:

1. Power arises to fill a vacuum; there must be an unsatisfied need or demand.

2. Power is based on a philosophy or set of beliefs; it must be clear what that is, and people must support it.

3. Power is invariably personal; it is given to specific individuals who touch people emotionally.

4. Power arises only with the support of established institutions in society; this is an essential part of building credibility.

5. Power arises to confront a field of action; it is always "power to do." It must therefore be clear to those from whom you request support what you will do with their support (votes).

All of these aspects of political power can be applied to economic power and the ability to sell a product or service.

Brian
* * * *

Thank-you Brian!

Great lessons in business come from so many places. This is what can make it difficult to know where to start when "improving a business". That's the vacuum that FocalPoint Coaching fills...

Thanks for reading our Blog, we're proud to share this with you.

Steve Thompson, President,
FocalPoint Coaching, powered by Brian Tracy

The 5 Principles of Power - with a Business twist

Last week, I met with Brian Tracy at a meeting we call the San Diego Summit. This is a meeting that happens every 6 weeks and it is focused on 1 thing. How can FocalPoint coaches continue to be recognized as the elite Business Coaches we are?

Given the optics on the current political process, with Obama beating Hillary, and the next Election looming, our discussion took an interesting turn.

What is Power, how is it achieved and how can we apply that to Coaching? Ultimately, from what we know of "Power" how can we help business owners?

Brian outlined the 5 points of Political Power. I was writing fast and I missed the author he quoted. If you know who it was/ is, please let me know – we have to give him credit!

From my furious notes, the points were as follows:
1.Power rises to fill a vacuum. In Coaching, we look for he vacuum that’s been created by missing business systems, low profits or owner frustration

2.Power is personal. And so is Business. If you’re in business, its’ not for Business sake – it’s so that you can have something else in your life. As coaches, we hear that owners want freedom, time, and choice.What is your "WHY" for being in Business?

3.Power arises on the basis of a philosophy. That’s a big statement. Is your business philosophy to be excellent? To be the low cost provider? To dominate your market? We only work with high performers – is that a philosophy? We believe in the right of everyone to make a profit – that’s a good philosophy. What is yours?

4.Power arises with Institutional Support. It needs big, ingrained organizations to support it. In the case of the Democrats, they draw on the unions. As Business Coaches, we’re capitalists, so Unions don’t really line up with us. But Banks and Lenders do, Trade Associations do, Accountants and Lawyers do. Does the field of Business Coaching have institutional support? Judging from the amount of referrals we get from the industries mentioned above, I’d say we definitely have that support!

5.Power is always the power to do something – to enable someone to DO something. Business Coaching gives a new level of power to the Decision Maker. The Owner or Chief Executive gets the power that comes with a smooth running operation.

This conversation was an interesting part of our Summit, and a great warm up exercise to keep all 4 of us thinking like Entrepreneurs. Focused on the future – that’s’ where we’re going!

Thanks for checking in. If you have any thoughts or questions, or know the author of the 5 principles of power, let me know!

Thanks,
Steve Thompson, President,
FocalPoint Coaching, powered by Brian Tracy.