Our Holiday Gift to You

It seemed appropriate for this time of year to offer a gift to our loyal readers, customers, workers and friends.  The list below includes those persons and resources that I most frequently recommend to others and use myself.  Among the hundreds or thousands of resources I could have linked, I've endeavored to choose the best, and always ones I use myself.

Experts and Gurus

• Alan Weiss--The King of consultants.  Author of dozens of books ,  the most famous being Million Dollar Consulting.  Most answers to consulting issues can be found somewhere in his extensive writings.  I'm a follower of his tweets of wisdom which are often very insightful. Blog  www.contrarianconsulting.com-                                                Twitter:  /BentleyGTCSpeed
• Jeffery Gitomer-The Ace of Sales is a Charlotte, NC based marketing expert..  Writes a weekly column on Marketing strategy which appears in th Rochester Business Journal and appears publicly in a number of cities. His website www.gitomer.com  contains lots of free ebooks and links to his YouTube video channel with 130 videos.  He is a master of social media marketing.
• Dave Lavinsky - If you want to know how to raise money, Dave Laviinsky will  help you  sort through a hundred different strategies.  His blog www.growthink.com is an archive of fundraising strategies.  His free newsletter offers pithy comments and is always extremely readable.
• Alan Sartain - Alan Sartain is a leading local business coach.  His recent ebook The Business Growth Engine is a free download.  It's a great addition to classic books like "The E Myth" and "Mastering the Rockefeller Habits" http://thebusinessgrowthengine.com/
• Our Blog- www.bizmorph.blogs.com. Source of information to help customers better understand the complexities of owning and managing intellectual property. 

Web Resources-

• The One Page Strategic Plan  www.gazelles.com One of the best free resources for developing a business strategy.  Based on "The Rockafeller Principles"  by Verne Harnish.

Local Resources -

For those of you located in Western NY there are a number of trade associations that provide valuable networking , talks by experts and support to entrepreneurs 

• RPCN--Rochester Professional Consultants Network -                   www.rochesterconsultants.org  . Helping consultants for 20 years. If you are a consultant or are thinking about becoming one, this is the place for you.
• IEC- Independent Entrepreneur's Council www.indentcouncil.org.  Local small business group with focus on improving the visibility and impact of small businesses in Western NY.  Meets monthly and also has breakfast seminar series.  Check website for details.

•  InR-- Innovations Rochester

  Self help group  for persons who are running their own business or thinking about doing it. Meets monthly at Bagel Bin.  Next meeting Jan 12,2011. 
   

  Click to join InnovationsRochester

 Tools

• Google Sites- www.google.com/sites

The easiest way to create websites and share information among dispersed members of organizations in a controlled manner.  And its free.  I've built dozens of google sites.  I think this is a great tool.

• Google Analytics  www.google.com/analytics

Find out  who is visiting your site and from where and how often.  Find out what they are looking at .  Optimize your site for maximum performance.  Another great Google tool which is free.

• LinkedIn  www.linkedin.com

The premier business networking site.  Find the people to connect to in your target companies to get new  business.  Find a new job and more.  Checkout Steve Tylock's book on Amazon  to find out how to do it best.