• Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - 5:00 to 6:00 pm 
• Guest:  Alan Morell, Chairman & CEO CMG Holdings Inc., Creative Management Group Inc. Agency
• Listen to show. 

Today’s guest is Super Agent, Alan Morell, Chairman & CEO of CMG Holdings and a good friend.  Alan has a vast career in the talent industry, including executive producer and will share with us how an Agent does his magic for individuals, for companies and for events and groups.  Before we join our guest, we’ll cover our other two segments, our Business Tip of the Week and The Good – The Bad – The Ugly 

Business Tip of the Week: Ways to expand your presence and influence both in your industry and in the business community. 

1.  Know what industry you are in:  May be obvious, but drill down
   1.  Products and services offered by you and others
   2. Major competitors to you and your market
   3. Local vs. regional vs. national vs. international (your industry, your clients, your potential clients)
   4. Associations, product or service aggregators, training associations, providers to your space.
   5. Technical, product or supply innovators – who and where? 
2. Assess your competitiveness
   1.  Product quality or status vs. others available in market
   2. Price and features available to customers – meet or beat competition
   3. Customer service support – strength and weakness
   4. Customer satisfaction level – ok (satisfied, dissatisfied) – loyal
   5. Business processes
      1.  Effective – zero mistakes?
      2. Efficient – people processes vs. automated processes
      3. How real time or virtual are you?
         1. Real Time – performance and financial into available real time
         2. Virtual – digital storage and retrieval, accessible by browser, usable on desktop, laptop, remote, smart phone/iPad
3.  Examine your systems of communications and outreach.  Access, responsiveness, support, training and education 
   1.  Access – can your employees and customers reach decision makers, superiors, or customer service?
      1. Web based access – available with reasonable responsiveness
      2. Phone & follow me – direct lines and secondary lines to get answers
      3. Email – responded to in timely manner.
   2. Responsiveness
      1. Timely
      2. With Empathy – how can I help?
   3. Support
      1. When problems arise, are they handled?
      2. Are problems solvers (direct customer service) knowledgeable and trained?
      3. Do the support people own the problem until solved?  
   4. Training – skills needed to improve, knowledge increased, errors reduced and/or eliminated. 
   5. Education – both customers and employees need to be kept current on changes in product, industry, competitive landscape, and new ways to do job better. 
4. Look at the toolsets in use to tell your story and stand out in the marketplace.
   1. Traditional Tools – Direct Marketing – advertising in print media, direct mail, TV & radio
   2. Electronic Tools – eCommerce, eMail, web marketing (Google, Facebook and others), web presence – web site, SEO, placement blogs.
   3. Social media tools – facebook, twitter, business wall, google and LinkedIn – groups and business pages.
   4. Agents to network, create strategy and open doors – public relations, ad agencies, “super agents” (we will discuss later with our guest), and business development groups. 
5.  Become a visible leader in your industry 
   1. Define groups you want to excell in front of:
      1. Competitor (industry) trade groups
      2. Customer (users) trade groups
      3. Chamber of Commerce or other business leader groups
      4. In the trade pres as a leader
      5. As a speaker to these groups
      6. As an educator/author in your space 

Implementing strategies to support the above activities will lift you above your competition!

The Good 

• Congress is in recess
• Both sides are hearing the anger of their districts
• Cannot do mischief while away 

The Bad 

• Did not deal with deficit in “debt limit increase”
• Authorized $2.4 Trillion in new debt
• Only cuts before 2012 election - $28 Billion in reduced increases
• No real cuts yet 

The Ugly 

Financial advisors have described our current situation as moving out of the “eye of the hurricane” into a new storm. 

• Initial Storm – private financial services system melt down.  Solution – massive transfer of debt/risk to government. 
• Eye of the Hurricane – settling down and rebuilding, sorting out the debris and deleveraging. 
• Follow up Storm – debt transferred to government along with deficit spending - is causing a storm with sovereign governments.
  •  Euro Zone – in trouble (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland).  Problems bigger than guarantees available.
  • U.S. Debt downgrade - S&P to AA
  • All other IB countries with AAA in danger on their ratings
  •  Waterfall of debt downgrades possible – around the world
  • Result – inflation/interest rate rise
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I’m pleased to get to the guest segment of the show and introduce our guest expert today,  Alan Morell, Super Agent! - To view Alan’s entire bio, click here. 

1. Tell us about CMG Holdings Inc. and its offerings;
2. How does Creative Management Group Inc. Agency help clients manage their careers and how does your process accelerate business growth;
3. How do you combine strategic thinking and networking for better results?
4. How does your expertise in talent management translate to business and career management?
5. What type of business person should consider using you as a resource?
6. What are some of the signs that your expertise is needed?
7. What are some of the consistent factors you see from your clients that allows them to successfully accelerate their business with your guidance?