Alternative Heathcare

The emergence of the holistic healthcare movement in the early 1970’s and the increasing popularity of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) have physicians and institutions embracing approaches such as chiropractics and acupuncture.

What is missing is the knowledge and information that patients and health professionals need to know to make good decisions about the use of health care interventions, including CAM.

CAM’s influence is substantial yet much remains unknown about these therapies. Of primary importance is consumer marketing education for patients and physicians as to how these therapies are safe, effective with low cost-benefits, and cost-effective, as this knowledge is vital to surviving in our current recession.

Add to that an exploding wave of baby boomers entering their sixties. Healthcare provider organizations will be ferociously competing and scrambling to provide for their healthcare needs and prepare for the dramatic increase in demand for healthcare services. The advent of these two movements in tandem with the need for increased effectiveness of knowledge management systems is rocking the foundations of our health care system.

Traditional Healthcare

Healthcare service providers face challenges from the expanding explosion of baby boomers to more efficient methods of training medical and healthcare staff to managing their knowledge base. More than ever, healthcare organizational learning must become more efficient.

Coaches

With this economic downturn the words of Charles Dickens in his “Tale of Two Cities” ….It was the best of times, it was the worst of times –

· There will be more coaches/consultants seeking employment than can possibly be trained

· Finding coaching business for the new coaches will get harder and harder

· For Coaches to be successful they will need to:

o Become an expert and get published

o Acquire better marketing tool to leverage their contacts

o Deliver their message – one to many to leverage their time

o Deliver their message – more effectively so everybody gets more bang for their buck

o Create NEW revenue streams for themselves and their client

Consultants

In a recent survey, ProMentor identified the number one challenge of consultants as marketing. The root cause of the marketing challenge is marketing the intangible with little or no brand recognition.

Training

In the article “Striking at the Roots: The Most Common Training Challenges and How to Overcome Them,” Teresa Kirkwood and Ajay Pangarkar recommend that before introducing any training program, make certain that your corporate culture is aligned with the results the training intends to deliver. If it isn't, it doesn't matter what training you attempt to introduce, it won't overcome your organization's cultural barriers.

Actions that can be taken in training:

1. Develop corporate learning cultures - build a learning organization to ensure that the basic cultural issues are addressed such as allowing for risk taking, employee empowerment, a supportive and nurturing environment, and management's complete support.

2. Train managers and executives - the highest priority because they guide the development of rank-and-file employees.

3. Focus training dollars - high-turnover departments such as sales are generally 30 to 40 percent of a company’s training costs.

4. Develop talented sales managers - who can in turn mentor reps -- a good investment.

5. Emphasize learning - where participants both acquire and absorb knowledge, rather than with training, where the participant is provided with information.

6. Improve the content of training programs - for on-the-job, basic skills, customized, and formal training.

7. Strengthen the delivery of training programs – consistent, secure, supported, and scalable.

8. Enhance communications – on training goals and programs, between suppliers and consumers, and between employers and employees.

9. Increase the coordination of training activities - fill gaps and avoid unnecessary duplication.

Corporate Downsizing

In this contracting economy, budgets must be cut back to match the declining revenue. The question is, how we do the job with less people? To address this problem, requires a balancing of the skill level of each of the jobs within the organization. Cross training becomes a must so as various job functions become overloaded, others can easily be brought in to fill the unusually high demand.

In addition, Wayne L. Strom, Professor of Behavioral Science at Pepperdine University states in his article “The Human Realities of Corporate Downsizing, Resolving the past and seizing opportunities for the future” for the Graziadio Business Report that:

“Every corporate downsizing event has certain predictable outcomes such as feelings of betrayal, loss of trust, turf battles, and cynicism about the corporation's future. This typically leads to a widespread lack of commitment throughout the organization. But downsizing can also bring significant opportunities for creating new energy and enthusiasm which often go unrecognized.”

Fear is the first stumbling block an organization will face in the downsizing process. Fear impacts and paralyses everyone with emotions ranging from hurt to anger to blame, guilt, shame and apathy. Fear threatens our core ability to survive.

CPA’s

Results from a national survey conducted by the marketing firm of Prince & Associates, LLC have identified the following five concerns common among established CPA firms.

1. Establishing a competitive edge

2. Attracting and influencing affluent clients

3. Retaining loyalty of top clients

4. Maintaining core competence

5. Creating cash for the value of your business upon retirement

Establishing a competitive edge is all about having a unique value added USP to attract new clients and keep the one’s you have. Knowledge management systems with certification programs are the key to staying focused on your core competencies. So how are you going to do that and create new revenue streams in one integrated system?

Employment Opportunities

There are 16 million people unemployed. When you do a Google search on job placement in the USA, Google comes up with 417,000 hits. Headhunter firms and organizations are scrambling tooth and nail with a flood of resumes arriving daily against a marketplace of extremely limited placement opportunities.

"What it really boils down to is the old saying that people don’t hire paper," said Finlay. "Somebody can look great on paper, but when they come in for an interview, the chemistry just isn’t there. So a headhunter has to know what kind of candidate will work with the person doing the hiring.”

In other words, a successful headhunter isn’t going to send a forceful, aggressive candidate if the person doing the hiring is a quiet person who collects stamps and enjoys barbershop quartet singing. In short: match the candidate with the person who’s doing the hiring.

Another problem facing headhunters, as if the competition is not enough, is that there are no qualifications for entering the field. A group called the National Association of Personnel Services does have a course in which headhunters can receive the certified personnel consultant ranking. Many headhunters don’t have that certification, however, though it may help in some ways, said Finlay.

Headhunter horror stories were common in the research. The worst are candidates that simply don’t show up for interviews, an occurrence that drives headhunters up the wall.

How many recruiter, headhunter firms and executive search firms are there who need a solution to effectively engaging their candidates with dramatic advancements of a competitive edge so they survive in today’s marketplace.

Job Skills

Many states like Washington have created Job Skills Programs to align the state, business and education as equal partners in promoting collaborative, productive economic development. JSP programs are short-term entry-level skills training or retraining and upgrading of employees to help companies keep pace with technological change and other changes in the labor market.

In a recent Forbes article “Preparing America To Succeed,” David Abney explains that effective national workforce training, education and retraining efforts must move up on the U.S.'s priority list--with the public, academic, non-profit and business sectors all working together. Abney speaks of producing benefits in the long term, arguing that education is one such investment.

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities has identified affordability, accountability, escalating cost of delivery, and information technology management due to globalization as challenges facing educational institutions. Education and business are experiencing similar trends.

One of the most important challenges to overcome was identified as resistance to accepting that change is required. Change produces fear in the majority of people. Fear is the first stumbling block an individual will face in training, retraining or advancing to new job skills. Fear impacts and paralyses everyone with emotions ranging from hurt to anger to blame, guilt, shame and apathy. Fear threatens our core ability to survive. Fear also significantly reduces our ability to learn. So how are people going to survive the current storm of change and continue to advance with low cost, effective training and education?

Military Training

The Army has some 500 distance learning facilities around the world and will add about 200 more. Soldiers who are not near one of these sites can bring computers to their headquarters, saving time and money and keeping soldiers in units.

The problem is that online learning is not effective. According to Amit R. Paley, a writer with the Washington Post states in his article “Software Benefits on Tests in Doubt” that online educational software does not work. “A $2 billion-a-year industry that has become the darling of school systems across the country, has no significant impact on student performance, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Education.”

It is the largest study that was measured by student scores on standardized tests. There were no statistically significant differences between students who used online learning and those who did not. So how “cost effective and time saving” is a system that is not improving effectiveness?

Real Estate

A recent survey of the top five challenges real estate agents are facing according to RealSure, publishers of the Swanepoel Trends Report are:

1. Unreasonable Price Expectations by Sellers (84.4%)

2. Too Few Buyers (83.3%)

3. More Informed Consumers (81.4%)

4. Subprime Loan Fallout (72.6%)

5. Too Many Agents (64.6%)

In this contracting economy, pricing of homes must be reduced to match the declining market and revenue. To address these real estate challenges a balancing of education for sellers and consumers is required.

Home Based Business

According to Home Business Online Magazine the results of a US survey released by HP reported that nearly two-thirds (64%) of all small businesses said they lacked full confidence in their marketing decisions. Nearly half (46%) said they did not have general marketing knowledge, and 60% believed their marketing could be more effective.

The desire to reach new customers was cited as the primary reason (61%) are seeking more effective marketing strategies. The top two reasons why they would want to create marketing collateral in-house are to reduce costs (39%) and convenience/speed (33%).

Owners of home-based businesses sometimes view marketing as an unnecessary expense, but the truth is that home-based business need marketing more than any other type of business. Without marketing a business cannot obtain qualified prospects that lead to sales.

According to Qais Amer CEO of Amer Enterprises, "95% of the people starting a home business fail. The top five reasons home based businesses fail is due to:

1. Obtaining sufficient qualified prospects
2. Inability to deliver professional, effective product and opportunity presentations
3. Building multiple streams of income
4. Inability of business owners to professionally speak on the phone
5. Closing the sale

In this contracting economy, more and more unemployed people are going to turn to starting home based businesses as a means of surviving.

Franchising

Marla Rosner in her article, “What To Look For In Franchise Training” emphasizes that training is a critical aspect of franchising from the perspective of both the franchisee and the franchisor.

The integrity of the brand of the franchise hinges on the franchisor making a vested interest in assuring a structured program of training classes and materials, impart the details of its concept and operation to franchisees. Most franchisees choose the franchise form of business ownership in order to improve their chances of success. It is the franchisor's training program that contains the "DNA" of its success formula which represents a substantial portion of the outlay a franchisee invests in the purchase of a franchise.

Training is so important that the Federal Trade Commission mandates franchisors to outline in the Franchise Disclosure Document, formally the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC) details of what their training consists of in terms of topic, number of hours, manuals, and who (title or person) is teaching each subject.

In the article “Striking at the roots: the most common training challenges and how to overcome them,” Teresa Kirkwood and Ajay Pangarkar recommend that before introducing any training program make certain that your corporate culture is aligned with the results the training intends to deliver. If it isn't, it doesn't matter what training you attempt to introduce, it won't overcome your organization's cultural barriers.

MLM

In the “3 Biggest Challenges in the MLM Network Marketing Industry & How to Overcome It” article by Samara Trevino, she identifies a lack of traffic, prospecting and lack of capital for marketing as the greatest challenges for the distributor.

Distributors are primarily home-based businesses who often times view marketing as an unnecessary expense, but the truth is that home-based business needs marketing more than any other type of business. Without marketing a business cannot obtain qualified prospects that lead to sales.

Manufacturing

Today Forbes announced that Toyota Motors lost its “AAA” credit rating. Toyota is the largest auto maker in the world due to the adherence of innovative lean manufacturing processes. The reasons given for the downgrade was the surging yen, bleak sales outlook and high costs of raw materials. With the Detroit counterparts currently looking for a bailout, this is a clear indication of the depth of the auto industry's woes.

Employee job descriptions are not clearly define
Individuals performances are not linked to company strategic goals
Employee incentive plans do not promote their roles and responsibilities
Production issues of scheduling and cycle time persist
Companies cannot rely on schools to train so they need to bring in people and have a ladder training system to advance people and many do not have internal training
There are no incentives to learn more
Ladder positions create a first level and promote within ladders
Many do not recognize improvement and skills development or set goals for advancing that is tied to more responsibility and money
Many do not demonstrate or show how employees can advance within an area of expertise or have professional development to identify passion and purpose career paths
Many do not create performance based not tenure based advancement

So what can be done to turn this madhouse of economic crisis around quickly?

We can build on the Toyota foundation of improved production