Archive for October, 2009
Orange County’s Fastest Growing Private Companies
October 16th, 2009
Congratulations! to the top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies in Orange County. Last night the Orange County Business Journal held a cocktail reception to honor OC’s Fastest Private Growing companies.
To achieve great growth and make the list requires a great vision, commitment, persistence and a winning team. Despite the economy these companies saw new opportunities or pushed through to make it happen. Great job!
Here’s a list of OC’s Fastest Growing Companies. When you’re out and about in the OC make sure to congratulate them.
Rank Company
1 Pacific Pharmacy Group
2 Stone Equity Group
3 Debtmerica LLC
4 Most Brand Development + Advertising
5 Networks In Motion Inc.
6 Point One Technologies Inc.
7 Stearns Lending Inc.
8 Cosemi Technologies Inc.
9 Monkey Hook LLC
10 Incipio Technologies
11 Affiliate Media Inc.
12 American Correctional Solutions
13 Lead Tracking Solutions
14 National Retirement Partners
15 Promotional Fulfillment Services Inc.
16 Earthbound Media Group
17 EPS Corp.
18 Telogis
19 Tallega Software
20 Synoptek Inc.
21 Blytheco LLC
22 Lifespring Nutrition
23 Tenacore Holdings Inc.
24 B.B. Graham & Co.
25 Electronic Cash Systems Inc.
26 Govplace
27 Increase Visibility Inc.
28 Golden Construction Development Co.
29 Genea Energy
30 International Education Corp.
31 Suite Solutions Inc.
32 Lexipol LLC
33 APR Consulting Inc.
34 Xelleration LLC
35 Absolute Screenprint Inc.
36 Custom Building Products, Inc.
37 Carrillo Business Technologies Inc.
38 Pacific Building Care Inc.
39 Quality Assurance Inspections
40 Trace|3 Inc.
41 Neudesic
42 Alar Staffing Corp.
43 Structure Networks Inc.
44 Rauxa Direct
45 Wireless Emporium Inc.
46 KnowledgeCentrix Inc.
47 UPS Protection
48 Hospital Associates
49 Vizio Inc.
50 Universal Services of America
51 Stremicks Heritage Foods LLC
52 IMS Co.
53 Wisdom Financial Inc.
54 IFiber Optix
55 Golden State Foods Corp.
56 LifeScript
57 Pacific Dental Services Inc.
58 Principal Technical Services Inc.
59 Pioneer Circuits Inc.
60 Options Investments Inc.
61 Fresh Start Bakeries Inc.
62 CDCE Inc.
63 BandCon
64 Pacific Rim Capital Inc.
65 Insight Investments Corp.
66 Yard House USA Inc.
67 Britstan Technology
68 WiLogic Inc.
69 Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo
70 Cummins Cal Pacific
71 Trinet Internet Solutions Inc.
72 Risk Management Group
73 Ventura Foods LLC
74 Aeronet Logistics Inc.
75 Keating Dental Arts Inc.
76 Intelli-Flex Inc.
77 Dougherty & Dougherty Architects LLP
78 Tawa Supermarket Inc.
79 Dr. Fresh Inc.
80 Linc Group
81 Cell Business Equipment
82 TriZetto Group Inc.
83 Play N Trade Franchise Inc.
84 MS International Inc.
85 In-N-Out Burgers Inc.
86 Architects Orange
87 AeroFlite Enterprises Inc.
88 Celeris Systems Inc.
89 Wahoo’s Fish Taco
90 Orange Label Art + Advertising
91 Akins Consulting Inc.
92 JIPC Management Inc.
93 Express Manufacturing Inc.
94 Silverado Senior Living Inc.
95 Murrietta Circuits
96 Specialized Marketing Services Inc.
97 Bright Now Dental Inc.
98 Kingston Technology Co.
99 Super D
100 Helpmates Staffing Services
To your continued success!
Mike Brenhaug
Guy Kawasaki’s Best Practices for Twitter
October 9th, 2009
Yesterday I attended the Orange County Venture Capital event in Newport Beach where Guy Kawasaki was the keynote speaker. Guy shared with us his Best Practices for Twitter. I have a Twitter account, and tweet every now then, but I never really understood the power of Twitter. For me, I couldn’t understand how or why anyone would have the time to sit in front of their computer and read tweets all day. Not that I’m an expert now, but I do have a better understanding of Twitter and will be tweeting much more while using Guy’s Best Practices.
Guy Kawasaki’s Best Practices:
1. Always link to something interesting. Link to something of interest that will peak the interest of others, create more followers and drive traffic.
2. The goal is to be re-tweeted. You want others re-tweeting your tweets.
3. Inform not Me form. What Guy meant by this is that don’t tweet useless tweet’s about yourself like “my cat just rolled over”. Tweet useful information that will “inform” followers.
4. It’s okay to repeat tweets. Guy repeats tweets every 8 hours. It’s like the news; CNN & Fox will repeat the same news clip throughout the day to reach viewers/followers.
5. Ignore those that complain you tweet too much.
6. This is my favorite and a direct quote from Guy “If you’re not pissing someone off on Twitter you’re not using it right”.
Now that you have Guy’s Best Practices go out and tweet someone off.
To your twittering success!
Mike
Upcoming workshops:
November 12th – “Accelerating Growth during an Economic Recovery”. A must attend for any executive looking to achieve growth and capitalize on the economic recovery. For more info visit: http://www.businesscoachpro.com/rockefeller-habits-executive-workshop/
Training: Your Secret Weapon
October 9th, 2009
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Training: Your Secret Weapon This is one competitive advantage you can hide in plain sight. By Bill Bartmann | October 01, 2009 |
We’re among friends, so let’s be frank, shall we? Training is one of those boring, tedious necessities that we businesspeople must politely endure–while examining our fingernails. Once we nod and agree that, oh yes, training’s important, we can maybe change the subject to much more pressing matters, like product development or finance.
That’s what I used to think, too. In fact, I was dragged into paying attention to my training department because I needed financing to grow my debt-collection operation. The rating agencies really wanted to see a comprehensive training department before they would give my company a solid rating.
I threw some money into developing a training program , never expecting it to become much of anything. Was I ever wrong. Our training became our secret weapon, because error rates plummeted and productivity shot up. Over time it expanded into a full-time, six-week intensive program that was called one of the best in the world for our industry. In fact, the training program was one reason we became a Harvard Business School case study.
Let’s examine six myths about training and the cold, hard reality.
Myth: If I hire quality people, I don’t need to train them.
Reality: That’s fine if you’re a cottage industry with a couple of employees. But the bigger you grow, the more detached you’ll be from daily operations. You simply cannot assume that even the best people are aware of your practices. Customers are far too expensive to attract and retain to leave them to haphazard treatment.
Myth: Highly trained employees will just leave and go to competitors.
Reality: Maybe, but so what? Ray Kroc built McDonald’s on the philosophy that “We can invent faster than they can steal.” Besides, great training programs are actually an employee-retention tool.
Myth: It costs too much.
Reality: An expense is something you pay that doesn’t pay you back, like potted plants. Training is an investment that should immediately pay big dividends in the form of fewer costly errors, higher productivity and greater customer retention .
Myth: I’ll do it when things get better, or I’ll do it when things slow down.
Reality: We’re among friends, remember? This is a lame excuse and a cop out. We can always kick the can down the road by saying now’s not the right time for anything we don’t feel like doing. Even mud knows to take the path of least resistance when flowing downhill. Leaders are supposed to be smarter than mud, and strong enough to make difficult investments today that will pay off big in the future.
Myth: On-the-job training is the best training there is.
Reality: I’m a big believer in on-the-job-training, but only when it’s part of a much larger package. We had our loan-collection trainees make calls very early on to live customers, but they were closely monitored. We discovered that when we just shoved them out to sink or swim, the learning curve was longer. When we mixed the live practice with classroom work, the trainees asked practical questions and could immediately put the answers to use on the next call.
Myth: We have something better than a training program; it’s a mentoring program.
Reality: This is a variation on on-the-job training and is almost always a cop out. The so-called mentoring consists of employees showing up to work and being run through a sheep-dip orientation by personnel. Then there’s the obligatory matching up of the New Guy with the Old Hand. It’s all new for the New Guy, but this is the twenty-eighth kid the Old Hand has trained. Because there’s no money or incentive in it, that training mainly consists of “monkey see, monkey do.” Unless you run a zoo, that’s no way to operate your business.
Create a superb training program, not for the brownie points it will get you, but for the cold, hard cash it will drop to your bottom line. Trust me: Your competitors will never figure it out.
Bill Bartmann is the foremost expert on helping entrepreneurs profit from buying bad loans and a leading authority on entrepreneurship in America. His book Bailout Riches recently became #1 on Amazon’s Best Seller List. Bill offers free educational materials for entrepreneurs at www.bailoutrichesnow.com and can be reached via email at askbill@billbartmann.com.
Team Work
October 7th, 2009
We all hear how important team work is to the success of an organization. I happened to be listening to Dan Clark the other day and he was talking about “teams”. One of the key points of his message that I found so true; team work is important, however, each team member needs to be individually prepared and ready. A team is only as good as the weakest link. When you think about the best teams in the world, they all individually come prepared and ready to win. It’s the individual preparedness that makes a great team.
What are you doing to ensure that you and your team are individually prepared to be a winning team?
Statistics show that coaching, training, and continuous learning are the key to individual and business success. So what’s stopping you from developing a plan that allows you to get the results you want?
