In This Issue...

B's Club News:

Welcome Club Members!

This week's newsletter is going to be a real treat. We are covering the Balanced Lifestyle with Paul Hoyt, and he gives some real insight into living a balanced life. Read the Introduction to The Foundation Factor to get this insight.

We also have a new alliance partner in our club called Barter Bucks. We will be talking more about this partner and how it can help the group members in future newsletters.

I also want to remind everyone about our next teleseminar on April 23rd. I will be sending out an announcement very soon about the teleseminar with details on how to sign up to reserve your spot, the time and other important information.

Congratulations to George Bigger and Kathryn Alexander, who are featured members on the CCQH-Leadershipclub group and Squidoo. If you would like to see yourself featured on this group, add your lens, or create one using this link.

And speaking of Squidoo, and a shameless plug, I will be featured in an upcoming spotlight interview for the weekly SquidU Review at Squidoo! Apparently, they liked what I was doing there and want to interview me! How cool is that?

Be sure to post any questions or comments or connection requests on the forum. It is there as a resource to you. We will have more exciting things in the future to help facilitate the process of meeting others in the club, but in the end, it will be for you, what you make of it.

To Your Success!

B. Hopkins
CCQH Club Manager

B. Hopkins, owner of Psiphon Consulting specializes in Internet Business Development for small to mid sized companies. This includes creating Ecommerce Solutions, Internet Marketing Strategies, Automation of Website Business Strategies, and Website Programming.

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Featured Leader :

Paul Hoyt

Introduction to The Foundation Factor

By Paul Hoyt

About the Author

My Story –- Part One

“If I'm so darn smart, how come starting a business is so darn hard?” 

The first time I started a business, the question ran through my mind a dozen times a day. I was a very good computer programmer, no, a GREAT programmer, and I just knew that it was my destiny to run my own business - my very own highly profitable, fabulously successful business.

I soon discovered that being really good at delivering a service did not necessarily translate into business success. There were other things that were even more important, like getting business through sales and marketing. And unless you count the years behind the counter at the taco shop, or the summer I spent selling encyclopedias door-to-door, I had no sales experience at all. I also didn’t know what marketing was, or why it was important, so I was blissfully unaware of that weakness.

Still, by many accounts, my first business was a great success. When I shut down the business, I had almost as much money in the bank as when I started. My health was good, and I had less debt. The business simply did not meet my income expectations or my lifestyle requirements anymore. My two children, then ages three and five, were the primary factor in my decision: I needed and wanted to spend more time at home. When I took a job, my income was reduced by 33% and so was my workload. I spent a lot of happy evenings at home performing “daddy duty”. But deep down, at least in part, I felt that I had failed.

That first business venture lasted almost five years. I learned the hard way that sales and marketing were very important, that not all people could be trusted, and that good partners were very hard to find. After I closed shop, I chose to return to corporate America for the next 18 years, determined to gain the experience I needed to be much more successful the next time I started a business. There was a lot to learn.

How Many Make It?

The common knowledge has been that 80% of new businesses fail in the first five years. But in an article by Brian Headd of the SBA at the following website, t (http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/bh_sbe03.pdf, March 20, 2002), the notion is dispelled a bit. He says that half of all businesses survive over four years, and that 30% are “successful” upon closure. Those with employees and decent financing had better chances of survival.

HG Parsa, Associate Professor of Hospitality Management at Ohio State University, says that 57-61% of new restaurants fail in the first three years (26% yr 1, 19% yr 2, 14% yr 3), which is “in line with other businesses”

(http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/restfail.htm). Many fail not because of bankruptcy, but because the owner doesn’t want to continue for family or personal reasons.

The common wisdom is that it takes two years to break even in the average business, and four years to show a profit. It may take much longer (over six years) before the business starts to generate a substantial return on your investment. Many new businesses are not funded nearly well enough to survive that long.

The bottom line is that we don’t have accurate data on the number of businesses that close during the first three to four years, but I think that many business owners simply come and go without leaving a large trail. My guess is that way over half close their doors by the end of the fourth year, and that is not a good track record. Our society is not doing as well as anyone would like when it comes to successfully starting small businesses, and all too often, the Great American Dream turns out to be the Great American Nightmare.

Who is There to Help?     

Small businesses have many support systems in place, including:

• The Small Business Administration, through its loan programs, SCORE and the Small Business Development Centers,
• Chambers of Commerce, with their marketing, networking, and professional development opportunities,
• Coaches and Consultants, and
• National Training and Development firms.

There are also hundreds or thousands of businesses, many of them Multi-level Marketing firms (MLMs), that encourage people to invest hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars to start their own business to sell products, build distribution channels, and “make millions!”  The most unscrupulous of them parade the relatively few successes they have as a testimony to the glory that awaits, but never address the dismal track record of success of their affiliates and “down-lines”. I have no idea what the success rate is for those who sign up for an MLM, or even how they define success, but I suspect that as many as 95% of them never get the results they are looking for.

All of these organizations share a common problem: it is very difficult to tell who will succeed and who will fail. They have no way of measuring Personal Strength, or the success potential of a business person and their support team. They have all been surprised by people to whom they gave little chance of success, but who became fabulously successful. They are reluctant to be discouraging, because they don’t want to dash people’s dreams. They see their role as one of “giving people a chance” and professional encouragement. Many of the support organizations make money, or at least gain some statistical benefit, from each aspiring businessperson who signs up with them, which I think at least contributes to their consistent encouragement. No one wants to say “no”.

Small Business Owners are Great!

I have the utmost respect for anyone with the optimism, courage, and confidence to start and run their own business! Almost every small businessperson I have met over the years shares my values and my goals.

We all want:

• To provide a great service at a fair price,
• To have happy customers who speak well of us, will purchase additional products and services, and pay on time, and
• To nurture our families while we are building our fortune.
• We share the common traits of:
• Being willing to work very hard (perhaps too hard) to see our dream of profitability and growth come to pass,
• Having a sense of honor, fairness, and integrity, and
• Wanting to get along with practically everyone.

We are great people! We are good friends and hard workers, trying the best we can to be successful at a very hard job. We show up every day, and give it our best shot. We have a strong need for approval from our customers and employees. And yet, 50% (or more) of us will close down our businesses, having failed to meet our personal expectations within just a few short months or years.

So What Do We Do About It?

I believe that the reason our success rate is only at 50% at best is primarily because the job of starting, growing, and managing a business is really, really hard. It takes broad experience and diversified talents, and corporate success does not prepare us adequately. Neither does an MBA. It takes a tremendous amount of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual strength. It takes proficiency in each of the Seven Key Performance Areas, because a weakness in any one of them will seriously impede our growth or cause us to fail. Those Seven Key Performance Areas are:

• Leadership,
• Marketing,
• Sales,
• Financial Management,
• Operations and Administration,
• Product Development, and
• Customer Service.

I encourage business owners to think of them to be of equal importance. While I understand that some take more time or are more difficult, it is a mistake to overlook any one of these Key Performance Areas, and showing them as equals helps people understand than none of them can be overlooked.

(For “the rest of the story”, order The Foundation Factor™ today at www.hoygroup.com, and soon to be available at www.ccqh.com or the CCQH Leadership Club Store.

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To post your comments and/or feedback, please reply with your blog on this forum.

Paul Hoyt's Profile

Paul M. Hoyt, owner and principal consultant with the Hoyt Management Group, has over 30 years experience leading teams to improve profitability and productivity. Comfortable “from the boardroom to the boiler room”, he has worked with dozens of organizations across many industries, and at all levels. His experience includes P&L responsibilities at EDS, Oracle, Litton Industries, and Qwest Cyber Solutions. In addition, Mr. Hoyt has successfully started and managed two professional services companies, and consulted with hundreds of companies of all sizes.

Paul has a passion to help others succeed, especially small business owners. As a Business Architect, he is an expert at helping new businesses develop their initial plans, financial models, and growth strategies. For existing companies, he has enjoyed tremendous success at helping them develop and execute strategic plans to achieve their growth and exit strategy objectives. His general expertise in Leadership, Marketing, Sales, Financial Management, Operations, Product Development, and Customer Service enables him to analyze and assess the strength of a business foundation, and then develop great plans to correct deficiencies that impede profitability and growth.

Paul Hoyt is an authority at managing complex, large-scale cross-functional project teams to achieve both incremental and revolutionary improvements. He has extensive experience in managing high risk, large-scale programs requiring enterprise-wide teamwork and involving multiple and international locations. He has mentored many project and program managers, and has written an e-book on advanced techniques in Project Management and Project Auditing. He has specific expertise in helping companies design, implement, and manage Alliances and Partnerships, and Channel Marketing and Channel Sales organizations.

Paul Hoyt is on the Board of Directors of the Greenwood Village (Colorado) Chamber of Commerce, and has served on the board of the South Metro Denver Small Business Development Center (SBDC). He gives frequent seminars on a variety of subjects to facilitate the growth of small businesses in the Denver Metro area. Paul holds a faculty position with IBI Global, and is an active member of IBI Colorado.

Paul is the author of The Foundation Factor™, a manual of critical measurements in business strength, which helps business owners and investors focus on the importance of building a great business foundation. The Foundation Factor gives them the insight they need to understand what a great foundation looks like, and provides the means for them to develop their own business foundation profile™ to measure the strength of their business. The book was first published in October 2004.

Paul is also the author and recording artist of Remember, a simple, gentle, and powerful pathway to your magnificent potential. Remember includes a book and narration, along with music on a CD, that has a timeless message guaranteed to inspire all who listen.

Guess Who:

Guess Who . . . is the leader in current times who has exemplified poise and grace in all six LIfestyle Areas. He/she has displayed a successful attitude at balancing spirit, mind, body with family, work, and society. He/she has expressed a solid faith in God, earned a degree in education and has become a strong proponent for literacy and education, carries himself/herself well with an attractive physically fit appearance, considered happily married while raising young adult children and enjoying R&R vacations together, conducts business in a prominent position daily, and serves society at-large in philanthropic and cause-related programs.

The Guess Who™ Game focuses on celebrating famous leaders who display leadership qualities related to one of the Lifestyle Areas in Balance, Spirit & Passion, Mind & Purpose, Body & Power, Family & Plan, Work & Productivity, or Society & Profitability.

If you are a Club member, SUBMIT YOUR VOTE HERE, and if you get this right, you could qualifiy for the Guess Who Game surprise gift.

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Last Newsletter's (V.1/I.7) Guess Who Leader is . . . Oprah Winfrey.

Insights To Success:

Balancing the Six P of Success

Tools for Courageous Leadership

Contribute through Plan, Productivity, and Profitabilty

Success has been defined by Earl Nightingale as the "progressive realization of a worthy ideal." An Ideal is an idea with which you have fallen in love, and would trade your life for its fulfillment. Yes, trade your life—moment by moment. Often times, people will put hours of thought into planning their vacation. How about planning your life? Balancing the Six P's of Success in your daily life will add a tremendous sense of peace and joy to your journey. Now. let's explore these Six P's of Success, starting with a summary of all six of them.

The Six P's of Success include: Passion, Purpose, Power, Plan, Productivity, and Profitability. (Philanthropy becomes an implied part of Profitability). Each of these elements of success will strengthen the other, yet, the first three are qualtiies that will empower you to strengthen your leadership skills and abilities. Whereas, the latter three elements are qualties from which you can contribute your leadership and serve humanity in making the world a better place for all to enjoy. Leaders at all levels of their abilities and development need to nurture each of these lifestyle areas in order to create a sense of balance in their ability to give and receive. The operative message here is that in order to give, we must receive, and in order to receive more, we must give away, so the cylce is everlasting and expanding. Yet, it must be respected with a pattern of balance, and an ebb and flow through your daily choices and activities. Before we discuss the Contributing Lifestyle area qualities, let's review the Empowering qualties.

During our first article on this series of Balancing the Six P's of Success, we covered keys for Self-Empowerment through the first three lifestyle area qualities of:

• Passion
• Purpose
• Power

Our intent was to assist you in accessing these qualities, so that you become more of who you desire to be. These elements of success empower you to be and do more, and become happier, healthier, and more able to move toward contributing more of who you are with others. Once you untap your passion, purpose naturally becomes essential. Power will provide you the fuel to realize your purpose. This is the exhilaration of Self-Empowerment.

During this second article of the series on Balancing the Six P's of Success, we will cover keys for Contribution through the second three lifestyle area qualities of:

• Plan
• Productivity
• Profitability

There is a natural urge among leaders to share what they have learned and grown to become during their life's journey. As empowered leaders, we are in an optimal state of being to contribute ourselves and our leadership strengths to others. These next three lifestyle area qualities fully equip individuals to contribute their leadership successfully. The first step to your contribution with any other human being is having a plan, whether it be in family, work, or society. Think about any type of activity that you embark upon. Even the notion of doing nothing is an intentional plan of rest. As you build upon your power to be a resource for yourself and others, you gradually become more adept at building plans for your leadership. The first plan of contributing importance to your well-being is within your family circle. Family can mean any personal relationships or support systems that either reside with you in your home, or anywhere in the world that you consider a meaningful connection. Family life also means planning your home life, even if you are or intend to remain single. How will you spend your lesiure time? What will your career path be? Are you beginning, continuing, or completing your education aspirations? Would you like to buy, remodel, or begin decorating your home? With whom would you like to build relationships? Would you like to create a business plan and start or accelerate the growth of a business venture? If married, are you planning to start or expand a family? As parents, have you discussed how you plan to raise your children? Do you have financial and/or retirement plans personally or professionally? Plans come into play in all aspects of life, including sports, work, hobbies, relationships, cooking, gardening, and in everything that you care about creating more productivity.

I know that I feel a tremendous sense of self-fulfillment and reward in helping others when I have created a plan that contributes more productivity to everyone involved in the outcome or experience. Again, think about all the areas of your life where this can apply and you can relate to this element of success. Productivity is a natural extension and sequential outcome of a well-constructed plan. Productivity is often associated with work or our calling, yet, this can also be construed as our labors of love, hobbies, or any activity in which you are contributing your passion, purpose, power, and plan in order to serve the world (and yourself!) for the greater good. Whether we are referring to your leadership in hosting an Easter gathering at your home or building a more efficient business model, your contributions will be experienced by others in ways that will bring them more value in their lives. VALUE and QUALITY of LIFE are enhancements that you will enjoy, and you will also enjoy experiencing your reflectiive results in those that you touch and impact, directly and indirectly.

Lastly, we will touch upon profitability as a natural extension of productivity. This makes perfect sense in work environments, especially in for-profit organizatons. Yet, take this lifestyle area quality to also represent profitabilitiy as wealth or "added value". As I just mentioned, it bears repeating that VALUE and QUALITY of LIFE are enhancements that you wil enjoy, and you will enjoy experiencing in those that you touch and impact, directly and indirectly. Profitability can also be associated with the wealth of an added value and enhanced quality of life for society at-large. Priofitablitly is also synonomous with philanthropy, as we desire to give more freely of our leadership resources. As our leadership grows and emerges to larger circles of influence, we are in that phase of our lives where we yearn to make a difference on a grander scale, build more profitability, offer more of ourselves, and advance our legacy in leadership.

This is where the excitement builds off the charts! As leaders key into profitability, they learn how to transform problems into opportunities that can harness more and more value for others. True leadership will eventually bring this element of success to anyone who desires this abundant lifestyle. Great leaders care about leaving their hallmark of leadership through a legacy that will live on timelessly. Go forth and begin yours, today!

Until we meet again, remember to . . . go out and make your dreams come true!

All My Best,

Cheri Lutton

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Post your comments and/or share your experiences related to this article on our Forum.

Gain more on how to use this tool to increase your profitability in society through Insights to Success. Excerpt from Insights to Success, The Six P's of Success. ©2006 by Cheri Lutton. All rights reserved.

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—Contributed by Cheri Lutton, CEO & Founder, CCQH, Inc. Cheri serves through her work as a Leadership Development Expert, Author, and Media Host/Speaker.

For more on Cheri. or to contact Cheri, submit here.

Steve's Creations:

Gardening Balance:

Balancing your Diet with your Garden Crops

Steve's Tip™: Spring is the ideal time to start planting some cool weather crops such as carrots, broccoli, and spinach that will promote a balanced diet for you.

We could probably all admit that we could use more leafy greens in our diet. Why not take a shot at growing your own salad bowl? Our family loves to eat freshly steamed spinach. It feels like your eating a bowl full of vitamins, having just picked the leaves fresh from the backyard. There's nothing like the crisp texture and vibrant colors of just-harvested greens. Not to mention, the reassurance that no pesticides or harmful chemicals were used in what we're putting on the table. It's deeply satisfying to myself and my wife, as parents, knowing also that we are providing our family with wholesome nourishment. So, let me share with you how you too can make this happen for your family's garden.

Many of the garden vegetable crops that we think about like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers can only be grown in the heat of summer. Cool weather crops, however, are vegetables that can sustain freezes at night. When the soil is thawed and dry enough to be worked in late March and early April, it's time to sow some Spring seed. Lettuces, spinach, and carrots can be planted as early as mid-March. I start my broccoli in pots indoors six weeks before transplanting to the garden. These vegetables have a cell structure that permits them to tolerate Spring freezes. Even if it snows in the Spring, they will be okay.

So, let's plant! Grab your tools for cultivation, break up some soil, and plant a few packets of cool weather crop seeds. In an upcoming issue this Fall, I'll explain how you can start spinach in the fall for an extra-early harvest in the Spring.

Until later, happy gardening and enjoy the early Spring blooming flowers!

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Post your questions &/or feedback for this article by submitting to our forum here.

Excerpt from Steve's Creations-from Soil to Skillet®.©2006 by Steve & Cheri Lutton. All rights reserved.

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—Contributed by Steve Lutton, CFO, CCQH, Inc. and Renegade Press, Inc. Steve serves through his work as a Cooking & Gardening Expert and Business Manager

For more on Steve, or to contact Steve by email, submit here.