Business Development | Bob Holdsworth

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Your competition is copying your best ideas while you’re sleeping.

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (0)

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

If you’ve got a great product or service, you’re going to be copied, challenged, reversed engineered or outright pirated, it’s a fact of business life.

When I first entered the medical billing business back in 1989, there were no other companies in my niche (ambulance billing) in my state. Fast forward 23 years and there are now ten companies that are directly competing with my firm for some part of the ambulance billing business in my home state.

Now the interesting thing is that only one competitor has opted to match service levels and they are the latest entry into the game. They have only 5 clients, none of them of substantial size or volume.

This poaching of clients, ideas or advertising offers and methods is simply part of business and it took me a while to both realize and to not to get angry about it. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but not when the flattery costs me money to get. Now all of this said, it doesn’t mean you should simply accept this as a fact of life and take it lying down. Read More→

I’m sorry to break it to you, but you don’t know it all.

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (0)

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Ever run across one of those people who believes that they know everybody and everything? They are constantly trying to one-up anything you say. They routinely speak up at meetings, not to contribute but more to just be heard by the group and feel good about themselves. If you’re in leadership…don’t be one of those people. As a matter of fact if you’re in leadership, counsel those people after the meeting about their behavior.

Of course, if counseling doesn’t work, the next time they speak up about something, assign them the task as project team leader to come up with workable solutions for an issue. They will quickly realize that they need other people to accomplish the task. I’ve used the ‘task assignment’ approach with success several times.

With all of the advances in technology, the speed at which information is disseminated around the world and each individual’s capacity for learning…no one, not even you, can know it all. Read More→

How to get twice the work done…in half the time.

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (1)

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Time is money

I don’t know about you, but my ‘IN’ box never seems to get close to empty. Voice mail, email, snail mail, periodicals, industry journals, client projects, travel schedules, kids on vacation, family time, the operational demands of running three different companies and of course writing, writing and more writing.

People routinely ask me how I manage to get it all done. I work only about 45 hours a week, I’m typically able to take about 6-8 weeks of vacation every year, I’m able attend the majority of my kid’s school events and still manage to build the profitability of each business on pace, each year.

I’m not the smartest guy in the world, I don’t have 26 hours in a day, but I do have very well developed delegation skills and I’m developing a greater ability to sort, prioritize and say no to distracting offers. I also make it a point to surround myself with people who can think through problems, follow through on projects, accept responsibility for their efforts and then I LEAVE THEM ALONE. The word micro-management is not in my vocabulary.

Training, mentoring, coaching, developing and responsibility are and I’m willing to take the time with a person to do the first four so that in very short order they can take on the fifth.

The keys to delegation are as follows: Read More→

Opportunity’s knocking, should I answer the door?

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (1)

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Opportunity's Knocking

My in box is full…again. Affiliate offers, joint venture deals, ‘greatest ever’ product reseller programs, credit card affiliate programs and of course everybody, including me, has products to sell. Do you ever feel overwhelmed?

I find myself deleting, turning down, opting out of lots of these offers every day. Many are from people I’ve never heard of and can’t find on the internet or Google. If I can’t find you, research you and determine what people are saying about you, you probably have a little chance of making it through my well-tuned hype detector.

The other critical reason to turn down these offers is that they are not complimentary to your core business. Don’t confuse your clients with offers that don’t make sense. Read More→

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Categories : Business - General, Business development, Entrepreneurship, Marketing - Sales, leadership, management

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