Unleash Your Inner Tiger and Achieve Success

Full Impact: Unleashing the Tiger to Grow Your Independent Business Summary

April 23, 2020 | 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

Content

Featured Speakers

Featured Speaker:

Simmie Adams, Ph.D., Founder of The Consortium of Scientific Practitioners, LLC

00:00  About MBO Partners

01:04  Introduction of speaker

03:40  Opening remarks 

04:02  Introduction of Full Impact

10:10  Expected outcome

11:00  How to grow a successful business 

11:54  Market dominating position of a business 

30:24  Ideal clients/customers and understanding their world

47:20  Action planning: Goal setting 

49:46  Speaker’s offer: One-hour free consultation 

54:53  Q&A

57:59  Closing remarks

Determining the best path to take when deciding to grow a business can be intimidating for many independent consultants. Once you have decided that it is time to grow your business, learning the psychology behind which marketing and client approach works best is key. 

In this exclusive webinar, Dr. Simmie Adams, founder of The Consortium of Scientific Practitioners, discussed the most effective ways to take businesses to the next level in the long run. Dr. Adams also helped independent business owners understand their inner positions of strength, coined as the “tiger,” and how to use them for their business’ benefit. 

This April 2020 webinar's Q&A-style discussion talked about:

  • Discovering what your “tiger” is and how to utilize it for your business’ benefit
  • How to take your company to the next level
  • How to have a higher return on investments (ROI)
  • Tips to manage a financially independent business

The Professional Development webinar series covers:    

  • The recipe for a financially successful business 
  • What is a market-dominating position and why is it important 
  • How to define a business’ ideal customer/client
  • The importance of understanding the ideal customer/client’s world
  • How to create an action plan and set goals for your business

Are you interested in attending the next webinar in the Professional Development series? View our upcoming events.

Narrator: MBOpartners.com or follow us at MBO Partners. Here at MBO Partners, we are a contractor engagement and compliance specialist and are the chosen compliance partner for a third of the Fortune 100. Our mission is to make it easier for large enterprises and top independent talent to work together. For more than 20 years, we have been leading the charge to keep the independent economy moving forward, building a unique, dual-sided ecosystem featuring many of the world's most prominent companies and in-demand professionals. MBO has always been committed to advancing the next way of work, and we are far from done. We will continue to drive change on the ground, delivering innovative solutions that enable organizations and talent to thrive in a consistently evolving workplace. Check out our upcoming events at www.mbopartners.com/events. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce you to today's speaker, Dr. Simmie Adams. Dr. Adams has nearly 30 years of experience within the intelligence community and the Department of Defense environment as an intelligence professional, as well as a leader and mentor of both military and civilian professionals. He spent over twenty-one years in the US Army's regular forces and special operations during peacetime and multiple combat tours. He was a senior intelligence analyst as a contractor supporting combat commands in the Joint Special Operations Command and the domestic and overseas positions for two years. His experience has created a wealth of information to draw upon and the development, implementation, and measurement of performance-oriented business plans derived from strategic guidance. He personifies the one key approach in helping organizations develop strategies, which includes business and communication plans aimed at supporting their workforce and effective transformation. Lastly, he has supported multiple intelligence agencies as an organizational performance-focused consultant for over seven years. He has strong organizational performance and leadership abilities and has extensive experience in coaching, mentoring, and training personnel. Dr. Adams has strong communication skills, as well as the ability to visualize issues, determine solutions and implement decisions. He has led efforts in analyzing communications, conducting executive interviews, researching industry best practices, as well as examining project issues and risk to develop performance-driven strategies. He is the subject matter experts and organizational and leadership change methodology. This methodology has led efforts in analyzing communications, conducting executive interviews, researching industry best practices, as well as examining project issues and risks to develop communication strategies. As a result, he developed and implemented a Strategic Communication Change program focusing on executive briefings, organizational, internal, and external communications initiatives, and organizational intranet informational websites as 360-degree focus on organizational issues, brings his organic knowledge base and operational and human capital environments at all levels. Dr. Adams, at this time I will turn the presentation over to you.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: All right, thank you. Okay, well, I'm awed by the participation that we have today. So thank you, Erica, for taking some time from everyone's schedules to be part of this webinar. So welcome again to Full Impact: Unleashing the Tiger. I am your host, Dr. Simmie A. Adams. And Full Impact works on a purse of three areas. One is you're very successful with what you're doing, but you may be unsatisfied with your career, go back up one please, with your career, business, or life coach and just realize there's some need for change.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: You may also be maybe unsatisfied with where you're at in your career life. And again, realize there's a need for change. The third premise is and unsatisfied, your feelings are becoming lessened with issues, situations, challenges in your purpose in life, and there's a need for change. The concept is the need for change. Well, so but no matter what, the reason is why you're here today. We are here together today. And because time is a commodity that no less given, you can't give it back and as not humorously unless Dr. Brown invents the flux capacitor. I just thank you for choosing to spend some time, of your valuable time more specifically with me today.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So let's get started. Let's get to the next slide. So if you would, we have quite a few people on the call today, and I hope to find to charge three or four people, we don't have time to go through everybody, I would love to do that. Do we have maybe three or four people who would like to introduce yourself so we can get a flavor of the type of businesses and people that we have on the call today and answer these three questions?

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Give us your name, the industry you're working in, what's going really good with your company and what is one of your biggest challenges? Do we have any takers today?

Narrator: I see where Sean Ong has chimed in via chat, he's working in VR and AR.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: OK, and what's going really good with your company and what's one of your biggest challenges, Sean?

Narrator: Sean says that lots of small contracting is coming in, but it's hard to fill all of the contracts. It's also hard finding bigger contracts.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: OK, well, thank you, Sean. The first and most correct for your company and the things items are going local as well as some of the challenges of what we want to do today is to maybe give you some tools, maybe and address those specific questions, but to give you some tools as to how to embellish on the growth and the speed of your company financially.

Narrator: Next, I see Lois Karpinski is chimed in. She's an M&A consultant, some mergers and acquisitions. Ken Schlachter works in finance...

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: And what so does...

Narrator: Oh, wow, we're getting quite a bit coming in Simmie. Martin Nelson is an agile coach and scrum master. We have someone signed in under A.W., who is a script analyst in the entertainment industry. And what's working best would be the professional and the biggest challenge is gaining new customers.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: OK, what we're going to go down into the customers, your clients, if you will, so I'm looking forward to more with you on that one. Maybe one more.

Narrator: Sure. German Ibañez just chimed in. He's an energy consultant and his biggest challenge is finding new contracts. I think we have a common theme, Simmie.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: I think so. Getting contracts and how do you fill them. Now part of the presentation, pretty much giving the secret recipe, it's I mean, it's the secret that I suppose, but the recipe for creating a successful business. And then for those that stick through the webinar, there is a magic sauce that will go through. So hopefully stick in and we'll move forward. So let's go ahead and get started here. I thank you, everybody, for chiming in and giving us a little insight type of companies we have, and looking forward to moving onward. All right, so imagine if you will have a huge guttural roar of a tiger. So let's get started right now. So if we go on to the. So first, let's go into what we're trying to focus on. First, we're going to seek to obtain information. Stephen Covey says to seek first to understand and then from the understanding, let's make some decisions in how we move forward. We want to really have a concept of obtaining knowledge and inspiration, leading to understandable and actionable information. That's the key to everything that I do. And secondly, from this information, what we want to do is unleash the tiger and really create a good, actionable goal that could be the catalyst for creating innovation leading to the great exclusive focus, actually, data-driven, plan. It's all so close together. So we move forward. So here's the outcome, I propose that will be the outcome of this particular webinar, everyone's intelligent. You can read on the key is, is that every meeting in this case, a webinar of some type of outcome to be realized, and this is what it is today. Go ahead, move to the next slide here.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: And to get those outcomes, you've got to have done this, so this is what our agenda is going to be, those we will talk about the recipe for a successful business, we're going to go through that step by step. And then, as I mentioned, just stick around toward the end, we've got the secret ingredient that all that pulls it all together. So with that, let's go ahead and flow right on through and let's get going.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Okay, so I'm now going this is the disclosure of all things of how to grow a successful business. So first, we've got to have that market-dominating position. We're going to go through really what that is. And I charge everybody to start thinking about what might be your market-dominating position. I'm going to go through to a definition. So I review my own market dominated position and I'd like to once more charge maybe three or four other people that we haven't heard from yet to provide their market dominant position based upon the understanding of what that is. And then we're going to go into what the ideal client is. We want to understand with clarity, who is your ideal client and customer? We're going to drill through that. And then what's their world like? What are the challenges they have? And we're going to drill through that. So without further ado, let's go on to the next slide.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So market-dominating position. A lot of people consider market domination is just being out there, you know, you put a shingle up and people will arrive. I suppose that's a technique that usually happens very well. But what is a market-dominated position? So, here are two aspects of the market-dominating position. You want to have some level of depth, you know, so there's a little town close to me wherever that and there is actually one dentist in the little town. And if one were to think about what this business is, business is like, being the only one in there, she could really charge whatever amount that she wants to charge because she has a very unique position as being the only dentist in the neighborhood. But suppose I'm a dentist. And I want to see that there's only one dentist in the town, and I think that this town is large enough to support two dentists. So I set up a shop and now I'm a competitor. I'm a competitor of this one single dentist on this town. So now the dentist has to come up... So why would someone want to come to my dental practice as opposed to medium competitor to this practice? And then you have to think about my market-dominating position, what makes my dentist practice so much better than my competitors than when people think about dentists then. You want to come in this practice, so the concept is then that. You have to have a market-dominated position to say. What does one think about when they're thinking about dentists in this town where they would want to come to me as opposed to my competitor? So I think about my own market unpaid position before we open it up. I'd like to hear from everyone else, three or four people about what they consider their market-dominated position. And hopefully, those people will allow me to ask some clarifying questions of their market-dominating position to help build it up some. But it's also a way of lessons learned for those that are listening. So how might I develop my own work of my own?

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So my own, you know, obviously they introduced me, doctors, to me. So I have a doctoral degree in organizational psychology. I'm certified through the International Coaching Federation. As a coach, I have a security clearance. The majority of my client work is in the agencies that support security clearances. A lot I met a coach one day, she actually has a bachelor's degree in microbiology and she calls herself a I think a life strategist was the term, but she was a life coach and I got things. So how does being microbiologist support being a coach? And I could come to play that answer. So these are some of the my own market-dominating position. Know, that reminds me when someone is thinking about it, they have... They'll think of me as some other coach that's out there or some other organizational psychologist, I mean, throw in the books I've got. There's a lot of other activities that give you some general idea of what I mean by a market-dominated position because it's not a unique one. It's not that you're by yourself because there's a lot of competitors out there. But we want to ensure that when people think of an organizational psychologist or a career business life coach, that they think of me as opposed to one of my competitors. I mean, there's a lot of the coaches and organizational psychologists out there, so thinking about that. I would like to invite, say, a couple of people just to present your market dominated position as you see it, and hopefully will allow me to maybe ask some clarifying questions, not to challenge your market-dominating position, but perhaps by asking the questions, maybe rhetorical, but by asking the questions, you can increase that market-dominant position for you and your company. Who we have out there would like to take that step?

Narrator: Who are chiming in via chat, if you are able, we'd be more than happy to meet you for feedback, simply use the radio hand feature because I see quite a few answers that are coming in. So from Alan Prewett, he knows he is the only qualified independent economic development professional for the western region of his state.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Okay, so speaking about that that goes along with being the business of that dentist example I put on, so being the only one, that's good. You have very limited competition there. So if you were to take that and say, well, there were two or more people that are similar to you, what would make you stand out head and shoulders of your competitors?

Narrator: It looks like we also have a raised hand that will jump to necks after we hear back from Allen, so we will jump over to Shashi Ciani next.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Alright.

Narrator: That's in the interest of time, let's go ahead and open that up to Shashi. Shashi, you are unmuted.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Yes, please go ahead.

Narrator: It looks like Shashi... Yes, we can hear you.

Shashi: Right. So I just typed my question, I think that was earlier when you raised open the forum for people to deduce, and one of the challenges I currently face. So as I said, I have over 30 plus years of experience in I.T. industry and especially an expert in implementing Oracle applications such as financials, projects, procurement, and those kinds of things. And I have a lot of global experience as well. But currently, I'm facing a lot of problems like challenges to acquire some new contracts. So, you know, I don't know whether it's all due to the pandemic situation we are all going through or whatever. I have no work at all, and I'm happy to work on a lot of things like so.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: No, no, you're good. It is obvious you have a lot of experience, so the key to how do you win those contracts. So part of really developing your market-dominant position in the form of your proposals will probably help drive you to, at least for consideration. I mean, there's a lot of other factors when you're looking at contract work, particularly with the government, with all the experience you have, which is good. The key is in how well are you selling it from a market-dominated position within your proposals? So part of my response to that would be to get and that would be to explore the types of wording in your proposals. And how well are those words presenting your knowledge, your skills, your abilities, and your experience so that you can win the contracts out there? So thank you so much for presenting that. Appreciate that.

Shashi: Thank you.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: There's another one.

Narrator: Matt...

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Welcome, sir.

Narrator: We had started with is. Has raised his hand, so let's jump over to our next and from there we'll go to Lauren Nelson.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Alan.

Alan: Alright, Dr. Adams. First, give a shout-out to Emily. She is my first business manager almost 10 years ago at MBO, and I'm glad to see that we're both participating in such an incredible adventure this afternoon. So thanks, Emily, for sticking in there. And I think for me, stick with MBO myself. Hi Dr. Adams, I want to get back to a question about, I guess what is my differentiator? Is that what you're looking for in part B? The question?

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Yeah, the key sir, you know, so there is a key differentiator is more than just me, it's more of when someone thinks of you, your industry, your company or your way, how you what you do for a living, how will they look at you first? I spoke to one of your competitors. The key to my foundation is a lot of people think of it as being just a beauty quality. But what makes you head and shoulders? What causes someone to think of you as opposed to one of your competitors?

Alan: Well, the secret sauce in my situation is the ability to bring together public investment from the US government with private investors in the community so that all critical private-public partnerships, particularly when it comes to hard dollars on infrastructure projects, I know the strengths of both sides. And in my unique mark market-dominating position is, I have the confidence of both sides to be able to bring them together on projects. And these are very large public infrastructure projects that need investment from both sides. But often they can't see each other on the highway because they're going too fast in different directions.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: To do so, I'm sure that there's a lot that you do out there, if we were to line up you and say five others, we got half a dozen people out there. Would they say something similar to what you said, and if so, then everyone sorts of is on an even playing field, as you will. So the key is presented in a way that will expound. Logically, that is the top dog, the people of that half a dozen. So the question would be then how do you differentiate yourself above all the others that do what you do and to so that when people are looking at a group of people like you, that you are the one that will emerge that will shine the brightest. So take a look at what you're presenting today and figure out what might put your head and shoulders over someone.

Alan: Probably, in that case, you just have to be launching activity and understanding how to read a critical document called NOFO, Notice of Funding Opportunities, which is what every government agency puts when they're seeking bids on projects. I can speak no for like like a second language. And I can understand and interpret very quickly.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: If that's a different issue. -- Yeah, go ahead.

Alan: Yeah, I just understand what the documents seeking you're probably familiar with being in government work that can be forty-five pages of gobbledygook. I can get to the three critical paragraphs and interpret that so that the funding, the private, and the public side can see each other through the fog and do that really quickly. But I think the most important thing is as I do it confidentially, I have so many municipal clients that I don't want to trip up one client to get in the way of the other. I'm going to treat each one basically in that cone of silence and make sure that their best interests are being advocated for. So that's my reputation, is that I keep all of those NOFO discussions confidential. And you know that's why they keep asking for me again and again and again to help seek out these opportunities and it's especially critical now with the covid financing. There's billions and billions of note in funding that's going to be drafted in these NOFOs, these mysterious documents. And I just know how to drill my throat. I know how to drill through them and get the salient points upfront and get right to the point, get projects funded.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Okay, so the key is and we're going to get more on the mark dominating position, but the key point I think is figuring out what anyone else in your field also claims confidentiality. So would they also claim they can get to the specifics? Well, of all of that --

Alan: So all of my peers work for municipalities and their careers, and they're going to be looking out for their employer, whatever the municipality is. Whereas I'm more of a free agent and I understand what all the needs are, just not one funnel. So by you know, and that takes that decade now of understanding the customer, which is the taxpayers and all different municipal settings and what the needs are. So that would take it would take a competitor, would take a competitor of mine five years just to understand the character of the area and where I have the advantage of a decade of experience and trust and confidence.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Excellent. So the way to step out of yourself, look at yourself from an outsider's view. And put in there as a results-orientated solution to bolster to even higher your market-dominated position. Let's go on to the next one, who's we have one more time for one more on a market dominated position.

Narrator: We have Lauren Nelson up next.

Lauren Nelson: I am, thank you.

Lauren Nelson: I believe that my differentiators are actually that I am certified as a coach, as a scrum master and a project manager so I can come into a company and drill down into the legacy strategies, if you will, and try to move people forward into the agile framework if indeed that is the direction the company is taking. Industry agnostic, I work well with geographically dispersed teams because I also have cultural sensitivity. I've studied seven languages. Language is very important to me as his culture and that helps me actually also review or revise RFP and contracts. And I've also worked on both the vendor side and the client-side. So I can when working for a client, I can point out areas where the vendor might be potentially pulling the wool over someone's eyes. And I also have, although it's expired, a DOD security clearance. So I have a number of things that I view as differentiators for myself that many people in my field may not have.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: You know, we win it from a BPO market dominated. So there's a lot of scrum masters and coaches, I've got coaches out there. But part of your market-dominated position would you speak multiple languages. You held a security clearance that sort of puts a little validity in your background. And so, all of those specific items are those market-dominating position elements that I'm speaking of. So from again, as I mentioned, I pitch it back to you as we move forward to the next slide is that the concept is to pick those items that the normal agile coach scrum master wouldn't have, multiple languages of former security clearance and any of those other elements that you have that other person may not have. That's your market-dominating position, you know, certifications of an agile coach, grandmaster, all of those. There's a lot of people out there. However, what they're the differentiation is that it's a language. So, again, as I mentioned, Alan, I mentioned that you also take a step outside of yourself and say if someone was to compare me with someone else that does what we do, then why would they want to consider me as opposed to them? What what would put them? Put me above them? That would be. Because the client or the customer to choose me as their coach as opposed to this other person. So thank you so much for pushing that out, because these types of examples really do exude how to take it to the next level, if you will, mainly looking outside of yourself, looking in and determining what is those that you really put to your head and shoulders above others that are in your field. Let's move into the ideal client customer. So a lot of people don't have a clear understanding of who their actual ideal client or customer is. The ideal client, Nirvana, if you will, is your perfect customer. That doesn't mean that one doesn't wouldn't take a different customer. As an example, I take myself as an ideal client, because I am a veteran, so my ideal Nirvana of clients would be a veteran-owned service labeled Small Business, that is somewhere between 15 to 25 to 30 employees that are grossing revenues somewhere between 10 to 20 million dollars. That is undergoing some level of growth, pain, and personal growth and processes. So these are my areas of expertise, although the other areas that I have colleagues that work in are technology and finances, and physical infrastructure. These are the five components that will change. That is, you can change these areas of people, process technology, finances, and physical infrastructure. My area of expertise is in people and processes. So that's my nirvana of clients, but taking it beyond that, you know, I like clients who are startups that are beginning that, just establishing their companies or small businesses that are going along pretty well. But there is some level of growth paid and we're going to get into the pain here in a second. But they are undergoing some level of pain. It could be we'll determine what it might be through assessments of how I work or it could be a more of an established company that has grown to fall into my nirvana of clients didn't necessarily have to be veteran-owned, but that's my perfect person for the company because that's what I am, a sales veteran owning a small business. So if I have an existing company that has some, again, some type of growth pain, then they are good clients and I can identify them very readily by those definitions. So, the more clarity that you have, I have a friend of mine who owns a lawn and garden type landscaping business, he actually has gone so far as to actually name his ideal client. And Susan, I'm not sure how he gets the name Susan, but his ideal client is Susan.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: I worked with a Peruvian lady who owned a hair salon and she wanted to introduce a line of vitamins into that and I was talking to her about her ideal clients. And of course, she's Peruvian so I'm thinking Hispanic, probably. But she surprised me. She actually lives in Florida, but she's Peruvian by culture and birth and raising and stuff like that. But her ideal client was actually a white or black female divorced that is trying to get back into circulation, if you will, the relationship building and they wanted to redefine themselves. And so, that was her nirvana of clients. And so she could-- and they were actually 30 to 45 and 50 years old at that, too, because I remember she was doing this about a year ago. So she actually had a very clear, crisp idea of what her ideal client was, if we were sitting at a cafe, she could say, well, there's a potential really good client of mine. There's another one. There's a lot we don't know is if they're divorced or not. We can go with a good one. But that doesn't necessarily guarantee that someone is single now. So that was her nirvana of ideal clients and customers. So from that perspective, let's open up the gates again to another 3 or 4 people to define or describe who your ideal client is and how clear you can you get to do it. There's a saying that goes with specificity comes success. So the more specific you are in this case of who your ideal client is, the greater you will be successful in actually identifying them. So let's open up the gates and here's some of the about the ideal clients that you describe.

Narrator: Matthew Green says it's companies whose business are being digitally disrupted.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So how do you identify that particular type of customer? How would we know if there have been digitally disrupted, and what size are they? What that type of industries are they?

Narrator: He says he would be happy to come off nude, so let's give them unmuted so you can chime in.

Matthew Green: Can you all hear me?

Narrator: We can hear you just fine.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: We can.

Matthew Green: Okay, so I'm also an agile coach, similar to the lady that spoke in the last round. And so when you talk about that ideal customer for me is somebody that has a commitment to change rather than just following a fad that is getting through. We know their business is getting digitally disrupted, disrupted, and that they have to change to survive. And so what I'm looking for is really more a level of commitment to be willing to change at a leadership level that allows me to make space for the people who are actually doing the work, not the time to learn how to work in a different way where I can then help the people learn like we're not trying to compete with them, changing habits, and delivering our a project on time, that's what I usually thought.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: The question I would have back in this article, that I want to offer an opportunity also is how do you describe-- how would we-- what type of industry are most likely to be disrupted? How would you identify that if we were just walking down a line of business and you'll say that one is, that was that, that one is, that was not? So think about how you can even get a greater level of specificity that if you're walking down the path of businesses, that you could very easily identify who they are. Otherwise, you're just sort of shooting in the dark as to who might and who might not utilize your resources, your expertise, if you will. So again, ask those very specific questions of yourself. Again, looking at being outside, looking in as to how you might identify those specific companies that you could say, hey, this one definitely is being disruptive in these services and you'll go in there and then they might be like, they'll be odd by because you came in there first off and they'll be odd because you knew that they were being disrupted. And you're not really having sales because they already have that pain point. So to the next one, we have one more.

Narrator: As mentioned earlier, she was an M&A consultant. She notes that companies who are serial mergers and acquisitions acquire in middle-market companies or divisions of large-cap companies.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: That actually caught my eye, I saw it pop up on the screen, M&A. I wrote a paper on British acquisitions from a psychotherapy perspective is Daystar's, if you will, that companies go from step to step to step to for potential outcomes, either in the event of a simulation, they've created something together that's better than they could individually, or they say on the other end is that, yeah, you own it, but we're going to keep all of our people, all of our processes, all of our technology, and we're just going to give you your money. So that got my eye on that. But I find that was very intriguing. So thinking about mergers, acquisitions, you know, who might be your ideal point is would be potential, of course, those that are being bought or acquired, but who might be doing that? I like working with the merchant as a lawyer because they're already coming together to do a merger and acquisition legally. In my mind, that sort of the heart. I mean, that's the easy part, because I get is the parties to agree. They shake their hand, sign the paper and it's done. The hard part now is to actually bring to differentiating cultures together so that they create a new organization that is better together than they were separately. So what are some of your ideal attributes for a company?

Narrator: Lois notes that she does integrations and not the legal piece of M&As. Lois, would you like to come off to me?

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So Lois as you are coming off them, yeah, I don't do the legal aspect, I do the integration aspect of it, but the nice thing about teaming with individuals that do the legal aspect is you sort of already have clients ready-made. The concept in is an ideal client in this case would be someone who has come to an M&A lawyer for that type of activity, a merger acquisition activity. And now you are now an enabler that helps the integration aspect of it be more effective and efficient. And by partnering with a legal firm that does and then that's another feather in their cap. So we can not only do the legal, but we have teamed with a company, in this case, you that can help integrate your two cultures together. Post the legal and each other.

Narrator: Lois says she is unable to come up.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Are we having...

Narrator: She says she teams with CIOs and so we will go ahead and move ahead, Simmie.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Well, before so, the key is -- specifically, how would you know the company is in a merger acquisition activity and more specifically related, the more specific to be terrific, I think, is that as the saying goes, but the more specific you can be in identifying the ideal client that you have, the easier it is will to be able to identify them, then the more effective you will be because they'll actually be seeking out your services. And that goes along with being and having that great market position also.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So let's go on to the next slide. As we wind down our time together, the key is to understand the client's will, so the client, your ideal client, has some pain that they don't want. And you have a solution that they want but don't yet have.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So the key is, is when you are developing a market dominated position. And then you're identifying your ideal client is then stepping into their world and having a clear understanding of the pain that they have and they do not want, as Lois was talking about mergers acquisition, they don't -- their goal is usually in a merger acquisition unless it's a hostile one, I suppose, but their goal is to create together a better organization than they could be doing separately. So the pain is they have now two separate cultures that now has to be integrated and blended together. They have to differentiate what type of duplicative positions do we have? We don't necessarily want people to get laid off. That would be a public --. That would not be a good thing. I can't think of the word I'm looking at, but PR channels, yeah public relations, but so they want to work together. They would prefer not to let anyone go, but they say we have to retrain them or repurpose the individuals. What type of processes do we have to help us work together? That's another potential pain point in merger and acquisition. We have technology so computer system servers are we work in the cloud. Not so-- there's a lot of different pain points given in mergers, acquisitions, as well as any other type of like a client. Once you get into the world to understand, I use the word I'm describing the pain points that I have as growth pains. So growth pains can be from a startup, a small business that exists, or even a larger business that are undergoing some level of growth.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: The first is the startup that they're just trying to define what their market position is. The ideal client is what are the pains that their ideal clients have that they don't want, maybe even determining types of products and services. Your solutions, as I call them, that you're going to provide. It could be that someone could be a plumber that is just starting up their company. And then there is a really good plumber, but they have no idea about the business. So that's the thing that can go on with the existing small businesses or the small to medium-sized businesses. There is some level of pain growth going on in my world when I'm working with my ideal client is that the growth pain is because the processes they use to manage their people, meant to do billing and whatnot is just not true anymore. And we find all of that out through assessments. But there are every organization has and the person has some level of pain that they don't want. And they're looking for us as business owners to provide them with a solution that alleviates that. The key to the pain points is that they will not move. They will not hire you if their pain point of staying is less than the pain of where they say they would like to go. That's the thing about management, it's a physics problem. It's the thermal equal thermodynamics concept is that if the pay is really great now and it's less pay for whether you'd like to take them where they like to go, then they will move in that direction. But if the pain of change is so much greater than staying, then they're going to stay with where they're at. Their pain points is not great enough yet.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So, again, when you're in, your ideal client is having an understanding of their pain that they have, they don't want. And when will that pain be at such a great level that they will hire you immediately to help them get to where they want to be? So that's really the key thing is understanding the pain that the ideal client has that they don't want. And you're going to provide a solution that they want but do not have. And you develop that through understanding specifically about who your ideal client is and they, those ideal clients, will hire you. I'd like to go ahead and move forward this time.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: You'll get an offer for a free consultation at the end, but the secret ingredient is action planning, no matter what we're talking about if you do not create an action plan. Next slide, please. If you don't set the action plan and that really goal setting, you're not going to achieve anything that we've been talking about today. If you'd like to develop your market-dominated position, to set a plan, a goal to help instantiate that further the same way with your developing your ideal client. The same thing is understating the pain they have going after contracts. If you don't set a goal to actually work your company day in, day out, you're not going to achieve the results that you want, and that comes into your goal setting. So these are SMART goals and we'll go into the next slide. SMART goals comes into this specific arena. Here's as an acronym, maybe some of you have heard it, but this is really, the secret sauce of achieving results is for your goals are very specific, mentioned earlier about there could be terrific, measurable, definitive performance metrics. How do you know when you have achieved a goal? How do you know when you are deviating from that? You've now moved away from the actual goal that you're trying to achieve and you do want to make it achievable, but you want to write down how do you plan to achieve it and break those down into small objectives and work each of those objectives. There may be some objectives as you move forward. As I personally say, I don't know why you would want to eat an elephant, but as everyone knows, you get an elephant one bite at a time. How do you run a marathon one step at a time? So you have to make sure that what you're doing is achievable and it has to be relevant to what you want to achieve. You set the big goal, all of your objectives, your sub-objectives have to be related to that big goal. And that big goal should be aligned to what you want to achieve as a business or a person. In the time that when do you want to achieve it? If you don't set a time period for that, then it's just going to be an ongoing activity and you're not going to achieve your goals. So make them SMART goals, if you will, please.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So with that, let's move on to the next slide if you will. And this is my offer and this is a help you before the next slide, please. So my contact information is simmie.adams@cpnationalc.org I think it's on the deck, it's on the invitation, or whatnot. You can find me at simmieadams.com. You can find me on my website, which is www.csp-llc.org. I make this offer free. It's absolutely no cost. I'd love to just have an engagement with you, a one-hour consultation just to learn more about you, your business, and some of the items that are going well and how you could achieve them under some of the challenges that you're having. And what did you do to overcome them and why didn't those activities work for you? So reach out to me, MBO has my contact information. You've got my information. I'm pretty easy. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me. It's really easy. And I would really like to hear from everyone that is live as well as those that have registered that for whatever reason, we're not able to join us today, but they'll be getting a recording of this. So those people that are getting the recording, it's the same offer to you also. I just like listening to figure out how might I be able to help you achieve the objectives for which you are in business or you as an employee or trying to achieve. And you can be an entrepreneur both as an employee and as a business. Either way, you can work it as an entrepreneurial shift activity.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So next slide. I think it's going into the close, but we'll just open up the gates again for any questions when we get off the stage here today.

Narrator: Dr. Adams, thank you so much for the informative presentation. This was wonderful and great content for anyone who is an independent business, whether they are just getting started or if they are engaged and actually running the business that they've had for quite some time. We all face challenges and we can all use some updating of that market-dominated position. With that said, before we go into our Q&A, we will launch a couple of quick polls so we can get everyone the information they need post-presentation. So with that said, first and foremost, should be able to see our first poll, but it looks like we are about halfway voted. Would you like more information from Simmie so that you can schedule a consultation? And Simmie, we will get your list of anyone who would like to schedule a consultation right after the webinar, alright.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: And so on that, you have to get up with, even if you didn't vote yes, you say no, not at this time, but later on. Just remember, I'm here and available. I'm easy to be found.

Narrator: Alright, wonderful. Great, so we will go into our next question here. Are you interested in learning more about MBO's advantage? MBO advantage is our premier service offering for independent consultants who are looking to grow scale and optimize their business with a more curated experience. If you would like to learn more, you can request information here. Looks like we are just about fully loaded, so we're going to close this poll down.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: I'll pay to put a pitch in. I've been associated with MBO for quite some time, and as an organization and it in itself is evolving, and changing, and growing. There are a lot of opportunities to learn about how it can be a part of an enabler and to have everybody grow their business.

Narrator: Well, thank you for the kind words, Simmie. We're thrilled to hear the feedback. Alright, for our next poll question. Who would like to learn more about MBO marketplace? This is where our large enterprise clients are able to push projects that they are looking to fill with our independent consultants. It is a matchmaking platform. If you are interested, we will gladly send you an invitation shortly after the webinar. It looks like we are fully voted here, so we are going to close this one out. Alright, we will throw up one more open ended question here so that everyone can chime in and tell us what is their biggest challenge right now with their business that they are looking to overcome so we can continue to produce relative content for you. And well, everyone chimes in, Simmie, we'll go ahead and run through a couple of questions that we have. There are some that we will not have a chance to get to due to time restrictions. And we will connect you via email for those questions after the webinar. So we'll dive right in here. First and foremost, we had one of our users ask, where did you get your coaching certifications?

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: So I'm certified through the operation and I used to call Erickson and it is all like you got to learn today. They're all certified at the perfect level. And so most of them or some of them actually don't teach at the Erickson International, coaching college, I recall. I was very pleased, but that was about a 17, no that was not 17, that is 15-month journey from the time I started to the time I actually was certified and they were actually recognized as a certified provider through the Internet for coaching federation and its five modules and it goes from I'm teaching the basics to being very-- to the expertize level you go through to oral assessments, and then you take the written exam to the International Federation. So very pleased with how it all works.

Narrator: Great, Simmie. We appreciate the feedback on that. And we'll ask one more question before we shut this down. How has your personal market dominating position shifted and evolved over your career as an independent consultant?

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: Oh, how intriguing, I didn't even ask that question for. Sometimes, the hardest person to change is ourselves and all that we do. So I'm a retired military vet for 22 years and I claim of doing this type of work for over 30 years because every time I was given the assignment, my job was to improve the soldiers and the organization that I was in. So I think I definitely have evolved when you're thinking about how you engage. They say that it's different at the lower enlisted level to seniors. When I was young and wanted to talk to senior sectors people to and so that's led to a three-star general in this realm, in the government. So I think that the level of confidence gained over the years of how I engage with people and providing the results that they desire is that results. And so that's how it's affecting me personally.

Narrator: Great, Simmie, thank you so much for the feedback. With that said, it's three o'clock, so we will wind down our presentation. We appreciate all of our participants and registrants for joining us on the webinar today and Simmie, thank you so much for all of the wonderful feedback. This has been a great session and we look forward to it.

Dr. Simmie A. Adams: It was my pleasure.

Narrator: We look forward to seeing everyone online soon. Stay safe and healthy.