Profile of an Exceptional Business Development Consultant

People often ask me what business development means.  It’s a fair question.  To me, business development is bigger than sales.  It’s bigger than marketing.  It’s a combination of business planning, marketing, sales, technology, finance, and people.  So I thought I would share our version or profile of an exceptional business development consultant.

When I started this business back in 2002, I was not completely clear on my positioning.  But the bottom line is, as exceptional business development consultants, we live to help you grow your business.

The WealthNet Partners business development consultant is exceptional by virtue of the life and business experience he or she brings to clients.  While education and pedigree can be indicators of useful talent when it comes to consulting and growing a business, life and business experience means a lot.  Our seasoned business development consultants offer decades of experience and a suite of services specifically designed for the small and medium-size business owner and professional.

Developing a successful business requires consistent success in each of these disciplines.  Good business is about planning, marketing, selling, managing the finances, technology and people.  Miss in any one category over too long a time period and you’ll likely be in hot water.

At WealthNet Partners, we are always attracting talented business development experts to work with small and medium sized business owners and professionals.  Our consultants are experts in guiding clients to develop each of these critical disciplines.

1. Crafting effective and useful business, marketing and strategic plans.

2. Implementing a marketing plan.

3. Implementing the sales force development plan.

4. Evaluating and leveraging affordable and free technologies.

5. Benchmarking and targeting ROI-based campaigns.

6. Addressing key financial issues.

7. Human capital.  Attracting, developing and retaining top talent.

8. Business coaching.

This is an expanding suite of services that are meant to be “plug and play.”  Clients leverage us a their Chief Marketing Officer or their VP of Business Development.  And we can typically get to work with clients within 24 hours.

If we are doing our jobs well, we become the most trusted advisor of all to our clients.  Their wealth and success is directly related to how well their business is doing or not.  Whether that’s good or bad doesn’t matter.  What matters is entrepreneurs put it all on the line to start, fund, market and grow successful businesses.  And we want to be the the most trusted advisor of all, helping our clients to create real wealth through entrepreneurship.

Do we intend to raise the bar when it comes to consulting entrepreneurs?  Absolutely.  We intend to help millions of entrepreneurs in the years ahead.  Which means ample opportunities for us to train business development consultants who leverage the WealthNet brand and the many systems and resources we continue to develop.

Being a business development consultant is an incredible way to make a difference in other people’s lives.  If you or anyone you know is interested in learning about our training programs for WealthNet Partners, LLC business development consultants, please visit us here.

Want to Share Your Entrepreneurial Success Story?

Share your entrepreneurial success story with the WealthNet Partners community of entrepreneurs.

What’s On Your Reading List?

I love to learn.  So I spend a lot of time reading online and off.  It’s a powerful way for me to gather, organize and absorb knowledge that is new to me.  I love most to read books, articles, magazines that have to do with the internet, marketing, business development, entrepreneurship, inspirational transformation and leadership, history, technology and more.   It helps me grow my business and be a better human being able to hopefully help serve the planet a little better than I did yesterday.  Like helping people create real wealth through entrepreneurship!

So what’s on your reading list?  What have you learned lately?  And most important, what are you doing to contribute to the world with your knowledge?

Let me leave you with this question.  Do you think you could grow your business more effectively if you made more time to keep a reading list and read every day?

Clifford Jones, Founder
WealthNet Partners, LLC
“Discover The Art of Business Development”
Scottsdale, Arizona
Follow up on twitter http://twitter.com/WealthNetTeam
Get LinkedIn with us at http://linkedin.com/wealthnetpartners

Do You Know the Cycle of Democracy?

An old friend of mine asked me this question today.  He went to Washington and Lee and is one of the few guys I know who actually paid attention in college and can retain stuff like this.  He asked me if I was familiar with Alexander Tytler’s work, the Cycle of Democracy.  I didn’t.

So I Googled it and here’s what I found.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

“From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.  These nations have progressed through this sequence:

“From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage.”

Dr. Alexander Tytler, a Scot professor, wrote a scholarly tome, from which this concept comes,  called “The Athenian Republic” which was published shortly before the thirteen American colonies gained independence from Britain.  “Google” him to learn more.

So where do you think we are in this cycle?  More importantly, are we not headed  toward dependency right now?  Dependency on a bigger government, more control, other people to give us a job, other people to be politically active, other people to start a business and give us a job, on other people to transfer their wealth?

The real question is what are you doing about it?  We are working to grow businesses and create wealth.  We want to offer as many resources as possible to help entrepreneurs.  We commit to being politically active.  To fully participating in the game of wealth creation, job creation, and positive growth.

Thanks to Tom, my friend, for bringing this great point of view to the WealthNet Partners community.  We are committed to helping you start, fund, market and grow successful companies.  We can be a wealthy nation again.  We simply need to take the right actions to help small businesses launch and grow.

Please share your comments and thoughts.

Clifford Jones, Founder
WealthNet Partners, LLC
“Discover The Art of Business Development”
Scottsdale, Arizona
Follow up on twitter http://twitter.com/WealthNetTeam
Get LinkedIn with us at http://linkedin.com/wealthnetpartners

Great Employees Available at a Discount. Act Now!

Over the past couple weeks, WealthNet has been looking to expand our business development efforts by bringing on a couple new employees.  We placed an ad on Craigslist ($25 for businesses in Phoenix), and received dozens of replies.  I won’t go into the art of writing an ad, but needless to say we set a very high bar to discourage  unqualified applications.  We also shared the compensation right in the ad; no “depending on experience” and we didn’t give a range either.

While the position has some incentive compensation, allows for telecommuting, and offers flexible hours, it is part time and the base is $10 per hour.  And yet I’d say a full half of the people we’ve been interviewing have been amazing.  I recognize that people can lie through their teeth on their resumes and in person, but you can’t really pretend to be more articulate than you are (unless you have a really good British accent).  Aside from presence, our interviews also involve an element of creating hypothetical goals based on past experiences.  If they aren’t experienced, people can’t articulate how their performance should be measured, and what reasonable goals would be.  About 25% of the interviewees set goals that were far too low, or goals that were impossibly high.  And lastly, we do a role play.  I give them the scenario before the interview, and ask them to prepare for it.  Again, the way people prepare for the role play and how they conduct themselves during the actual event is indicative of their experience, their ability to think quickly, and their demeanor and composure.

WealthNet is going to be grabbing some fantastic talent in our quest for growth.  I feel bad for businesses that are letting people go instead of picking people up.  In some cases we will be picking up this talent for more than 50% less than what they made in previous positions.  I don’t deceive myself that I’d be able to keep these tremendous individuals at this price forever, but it’s a great advantage in the short term.  And fortunately, being as nimble and entrepreneurial as we are, there’s a lot of room for growth and advancement for this new crop of talent.

Have you also picked up some great talent this year?  Are you letting great people go but don’t know how you can possibly keep them?  Please share your comments!

Interview with Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com

If you love entrepreneurship and you want to learn from one of the most successful and passionate entrepreneurs on the planet, check out the interview Adam Toren did with Tony Hsieh at YoungEntrepreneur.com.

It’s readily apparent that Tony is doing many things right as an entrepreneur. Just look at the success of Zappos.com and you’ll see that Tony’s vision and passion translates to huge financial success. But success is about much more than the money. It’s about giving back and being an inspiration for other people who have a passion for entrepreneurship. It’s about caring for the employees, customers, and community in a way that makes a difference.

I had the good fortune to meet Tony personally at a conference for entrepreneurs held in Phoenix in December, 2008. Here’s are several other reasons I’m a big fan of Tony.

1. He gives his time to teach and speak. (Giving back.)

2. He’s approachable and completely down to Earth. And he’s accessible. (He asked me email him to follow up the conference which I did. Within minutes he replied directly. (Accessible.)

3. He did what he said he would do and sent me a copy of the Zappos.com Culture Book. (Integrity.)

4. Tony is humble. (Humility.)

All successful people model other successful people. Whether you want to build a billion dollar organization, or simply launch a successful business from your home, learn about Tony Hsieh and model his behavior. And if you ever get the urge to really learn how Zappos.com runs, get in touch with Tony’s team and they’ll give a tour of their operations in Las Vegas. Another way Tony gives back.

Thanks to Adam for a great interview at YoungEntrepreneur.com. Check out the community when you get a chance.

Clifford Jones, Founder
WealthNet Partners, LLC
“Discover The Art of Business Development”
Scottsdale, Arizona
http://twitter.com/WealthNetTeam

Cowboy Ethics Apply to Small Business As Well

A good friend of mine, Joe Cook, just told me about a “must read” book entitled, “Cowboy Ethics.” And because I have several books that I am reading right now, and one that I am working to publish, I searched for a summary online.

When I read this article I couldn’t help but think that everything the writer is sharing applies to small business just as much as big business. It’s certain that the media picks up the big news on what’s wrong with major corporations, executives and politicians. But the small and mid-size business matters a lot in the country. In fact, they matter a lot in every country. And so does Cowboy Ethics.

Ethics, or lack thereof, impacts everyone and every business. So read this article on Cowboy Ethics and share your thoughts here on our blog. What ethics issues impact your small or mid-size business? What are you doing about it? How would you do things differently, if at all?

One more thing. I’ve got a great client right who we’re helping with a number of business development issues. Marcy Maslov is the inventor of a board game called eFactor! Game which is all about getting diverse teams to work better together. Imagine that. Check out her community at Ning and help a fellow entrepreneur make the world a better place.

After all, isn’t that what it’s all about?

Clifford Jones, Founder
WealthNet Partners, LLC
“Discover The Art of Business Development”
Scottsdale, Arizona
http://twitter.com/WealthNetTeam

Grow Your People, Grow Your Business

In order to grow any successful business, entrepreneurs must grasp and implement leverage. Leverage can apply to financial capital and human capital. Robert Kiyosaki, author of the best selling bo0ks, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Cash Flow Quadrant” discusses the concept of getting from “S” to “B”. The “S” is the self employed professional or business owner. In order to get to “B”, meaning big business, entrepreneurs must use leverage of both human and financial capital.

The growing team of consultants, advisors, and coaches at WealthNet Partners, LLC offers an incredible array of tools, insights and experiences to help entrepreneurs attract, retain and motivate the best talent money can buy. Think about human capital for a minute. If you can grow your people you can grow your business.

If you would like more information about how we help entrepreneurs grow people through recruiting, hiring, training and coaching disciplines please contact us today.