After 20 years of corporate sales and marketing leadership and his MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School, Andy Birol founded Birol Growth Consulting in 1997 to help driven business owners create profitable growth by focusing on their Best and Highest Use^�. He has helped more than 430 business owners increase their sales by more than $400 million and presents workshops worldwide on profitable growth for small business owners.  Andy has traveled and worked in 65 countries and all seven continents.

The media have turned to Andy for his expertise in small business growth.  He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN's Dollar Signs, Entrepreneur, Business Week, and Inc. Magazine. Andy is a prolific writer of over 400 articles which are republished internationally and is the author of the following five books, The Five Catalysts of Seven Figure Growth (CareerPress, 2006), Accelerating Your Growth; Growing Your Business During Succession or Transition; Returning Your Business to Growth; and Focus. Accomplish. Grow. Active on his blog profitablegrowth.com and website, www.andybirol.com, Andy's Profitable Growth newsletter is read by thousands of business owners and is in its 168^th monthly edition.

Birol Growth Consulting won four Weatherhead 100 Awards as Northeast Ohio's fastest growing single-employee business and 34th fastest growing company of any size and won MSN/StartupNation's Top Ten Home-Based Businesses Award.  In 2009, the Cleveland Council of Small Enterprises (America's second largest Chamber of Commerce) awarded Andy its 10 Under 10 Award as one of Cleveland's most successful small businesses. 

This past July 2010, Andy and his family moved to Pittsburgh, PA. Since moving here Andy has appeared locally on the Our Region's Business Show, American Entrepreneur, and he is regularly published in The Pittsburgh Business Times, Dynamic Business and TEQ Magazine. In June of 2011, Andy graduated from Leadership Pittsburgh. He lives with his wife Joan, Brand Manager with PNC Bank, and his daughter Margo in Pittsburgh's cultural district. Andy's interest in the Marcellus Shale has been driven by his clients' hiring him to help enter this market. 

1. Sustain and nurture your professional passion. Constantly learn about your clients' challenges and help them succeed on their terms. Live to learn, but advise with detached passion. Stay devoted to your clients' success and your market's evolving needs and challenges. Develop a contagious curiosity for what could be and the unwillingness to accept the status quo. Your clients need this the most from you
2. Focus on Your Best and Highest Use.  Refine what you're good at, like doing and what the market has paid you most for doing.  Repackage, repurpose and reinvent how you provide your Best and Highest Use. Constantly check what's selling, how content is being is being adapted and what new problems and opportunities are confronting your buyers.
3. Embace the ups and downs.  No client, methodology, problem or market will sustain you forever.  Change is constant in the consulting business. What was once scarce becomes abundant. Clients change and problems ebb and flow. Recognize the differences between business fads and timeless principles.
4. Learn from the best, but do it your way.  Surround yourself with the best practitioners as teachers and as peers. Consulting is a business where clients repeatedly paying and referring you is your best measure of success. Beware of those who spend more time teaching than consulting. Longevity in this unforgiving business is the best measure of success
5. Above all, do no harm Your clients are in your hands. Consulting is unregulated, unlicensed and requires no education or certification. You are your only judge of what's ethical. Always take the high road.

 Read more about the Five Keys on Andy's Blog or attend the next PCC event on January 31.