Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

Intelligent Coaching E-Brief

Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

October 4, 2007, Number 14

In This Issue:
*Business News
- The Rowan Report
- Austin Open 4 Business

*Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

*What's New
- Emotional Intelligence for Productivity and Relationships
- I Don't Work on an Island! How personality elevates teamwork and leadership in organizations


Contact Us:
info@executiveintelligentcoaching.com
512.947.5447

Business News

For those of you who prepare and conduct presentations, I have found a resource that I've actually referenced a few times. Don't get me wrong, I regularly search for authorities on specific issues and topics! I guess this just surprised me that for the last two or three presentations I have prepared, I actually went straight to this source thinking, "Can you help me with ...?" and there it was. The newsletter is also hosted out of Blogger, and is called The Rowan Report. Here are a couple of recent issue links: http://rowcom.blogspot.com/2007/08/breaking-rules-with-style.html

and http://rowcom.blogspot.com/2007/08/give-us-handout.html

An exciting new business conference is debuting in Austin next week. Austin Open 4 Business, sponsored by Business District Magazine and others, is featuring dynamic keynote speakers and four tracks of presentations and panel discussions for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the areas of: legal issues; funding; sales & marketing, and human resources. You can expect to find me there, all day! Actually, I am moderating a panel discussion on health insurance. For more information and to register, go to www.austinopen4business.com . This conference is inexpensive and here is your opportunity to attend for even less - enter the discount code, MAG1408.

Boutiques for Sole Proprietorships

For small businesses, independent consultants and sole proprietors, having a network of trusted experts around them can open the doors to exciting possibilities for business development. The business opportunities can have the look of one of two different paintings. Let's call one painting our Reciprocal Spiral and the other painting our Innovative Dance. The first painting has circular rings spreading out from the core mass at the center. The second painting has lines of different thickness and color, which intersect the central line and create splatters of a whole new color.

Our Reciprocal Spiral is made up of the people who independent business owners are most connected to in work, but who do not work inside their individual business. These are people who support each other in some aspects of their businesses; they likely provide their services or products to each other in some fashion, consult with each other, share social or business associations, and have a fairly sturdy relationship based on mutual trust and respect.
BENEFITS:

• thought-partnering
• business assistance
• emotional support
• innovation and creativity
• introductions and referrals to our businesses

The beauty of the relationships in our Reciprocal Spiral is that a level of trust has been established here, unlike the simple connections made in networking groups. Reciprocal trust, respect, and assistance with other independent consultants, sole props, small business owners, and start-ups largely increase the presence, impact, and reach of the small business!

Our Innovative Dance, on the other hand, occurs when two or more independent proprietors come together and form a novel product or service. The resulting product or service is a unique synthesis of these two or more experts, who may be from very different industries. These businesses team together to create and sell their innovative, very likely, niche product or service. The benefits of teaming up and collaborating with these partners, if you will, are that it adds a whole new dimension to each of the businesses; it may also open up a whole new market for them. But, the benefits to the internal workings of the business owner are invaluable. Motivation is spurred, creativity is inspired, and the workload is shared! The commodity of time is something a single business person cannot ever get enough of.

In both, the Reciprocal Spiral and Innovative Dance models, the business that was once a singular entity, now becomes a "boutique" - a collection of businesses who exude greater credibility, can serve a wider scope of customers, and meet more of the customers' needs. While this article is designed for sole props and small businesses, the principles can be applied in larger companies as well. In some companies it's done all the time. Using your network of co-workers to help get things accomplished and teaming up with certain co-workers to innovate and meet other demands, takes place in the greatest companies all over. Collaboration is the key and fine-tuning the collaborations so that they yield a strategic powerhouse is what eludes many. Stay tuned for upcoming information and resources that map the path to the powerhouse.

What's New

The start to this fall has been equally exciting and busy for Executive Intelligent Coaching. An article I wrote entitled, Emotional Intelligence for Productivity and Relationships, has been published in the newest edition of Business District. It is in the People Matters section and lists action steps for business owners for hiring and leadership. You can read the article online at: http://www.abdmag.com/people_matters_emotional_intelligence.htm



My first video training program is in the finishing stages and will be launched and available on Amazon very soon! I have collaborated with producer Joshua Shipsey, of Communication Simulations, Inc. www.commsim.com , to create, I Don't Work on an Island! How Personality Elevates Teamwork and Leadership in Organizations. Look for future news on the event launching this program.


_____________________________________________________________________

Support your business and colleagues - send them a link to this blog today! http://eicoachingblog.blogspot.com

Register to receive this newsletter in your inbox - go to www.executiveintelligentcoaching.com and follow the instructions through a link on the RESOURCES page.

_____________________________________________________________________

Executive Intelligent Coaching, Copyright 2007

Business Professionals on Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

Intelligent Coaching E-Brief

Business Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

May 24, 2007, Number 12

In this Issue:
Effortless Understanding
Skill Sets
Work Performance and Environment
Management
Entrepreneurs and Collaboration


Contact Us:
www.executiveintelligentcoaching.com
info@executiveintelligentcoaching.com
512.947.5447



Effortless Understanding of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence are skills for the workplace, family, and community that impact our happiness, motivation, stress management, and conflict resolution. If we think about what I call the triangle of success there is cognitive intelligence at one point, technical expertise at another point, the final point is emotional intelligence. It represents more than a dozen skills that encompass knowing what your feelings are and how they impact your actions, managing tendencies that are not helpful to a situation, understanding and incorporating others' perspectives, and fostering collaboration and productivity in others.

Tonja O'Neill, MBA, CEO of Soverex, a professional speaker and turnaround communications consultant, describes emotional intelligence as: acting in mature, intelligent, respectful, and common sense ways.


Emotional Intelligence Skill Sets
We are not born with emotional intelligence skills. These are things that we learn and master or not, as we go through life. They are the subtleties that help us, for example, resolve a disagreement between team members, know our limitations when we're starting a project, change our approach for the demands of a situation, and expertly meet a customer's needs. We can strengthen our emotional intelligence skills. We can learn from watching others, become aware of which skills we do well and which ones need to be improved, look for opportunities to refine the skills, and commit to improving them.

Tina Schweiger, President of Spoonbend, a strategic design agency, notes that these are skills that help you deal with all types of people. Emotional intelligence is a skill set that you don't learn in school. It is the intangible aspects that help us to be better leaders.


Emotional Intelligence Impact on Work Performance and Environment
In the global workplace of today and the challenges we're presented with to have knowledge-intensive, service oriented, and continually changing work that needs to be done, emotional intelligence skills are crucial to our success. For example, how flexible are we? How easily can we work with this team, then that team, and then yet another team say in a given year? How do we handle having one manager this month and a different manager next month? Obviously, strong adaptability, optimism, teamwork, service, and influence skills are very important.

Michelle Stinson, President of Impression Edge, a promotional products and marketing services company, reports that people often don't realize the impact these skills have on their relationships, environment, and performance at work. She describes emotional intelligence as our coping skills and ability to face issues that affect our work performance and environment.


Emotional Intelligence and Management
In managing our subordinates or managing our customers, we need to be skillful at handling our own emotions and display empathy and integrity, be adaptable, take initiative, and read the currents around us.

Diane Dean, M.A., owner of the The Learner's Edge and Organization Development for Tokyo Electron, relates that we can't manage others unless we first can manage ourselves. In this world of violence, it is more critical than ever that we are able to manage emotions and have an effective framework for handling this. The tendency is for people not to take responsibility and blame others, which is not effective.


Entrepreneurs, Collaboration and, Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence skills are our relationship management skills. They are manifested in: how cooperative we are, how we cultivate relationships, and how we support others.

Bijoy Goswami, Founder of the Bootstrap Network - an open-source community for bootstrap entrepreneurs and Co-Founder of Aviri - an innovation capabilities company, reveals that 0ur success is based on our ability to collaborate with each other which requires a high degree of emotional intelligence. This is seen in the Bootstrap Network; where the folks who are collaborating together, display strong emotional intelligence skills.


To listen to Nancy's recent interview addressing emotional intelligence on the Business District Hour radio program, click on the link http://abdpodcast.abdpodcast.com. This interview starts about half way through the program.

___________________________________________________________________

Would you like to learn more about our unique programs for
happiness in the workplace?
Contact Nancy Schill, M.A. at nschill@executiveintelligentcoaching.com or 512.947.5447.

___________________________________________________________________

Support your business and colleagues - send them a link to this blog! http://eicoachingblog.blogspot.com