Barry Moltz

Barry Moltz gets business owners growing again by unlocking their long forgotten potential.  With decades of entrepreneurial experience in his own business ventures as well as consulting countless other entrepreneurs, Barry has discovered the formula to get stuck business owners unstuck and marching forward.  Barry applies simple, strategic steps to facilitate change.

Barry has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 20 years.

After successfully selling his last operating business, Barry has branched out into a number of entrepreneurship-related activities.  He founded an angel investor group, an angel fund, and is a former advisory member of the board of the Angel Capital Education Foundation.  His first book, “You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business” describes the ups and downs and emotional trials of running a business.  It is in its fifth reprint and has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Korean and Thai.

His second book, “Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success”, shows what it takes to come back and develop true business confidence.  It has been translated into Korean and German.  His third book, “BAM! Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World” shows how customer service is the new marketing. His fourth book, Small Town Rules: How Small Business and Big Brands can Profit in a Connected Economy shows how when every customer can talk to every other customer, it’s like living in a small town: Your reputation is everything!

Barry is a nationally recognized expert on small business who has given hundreds of presentations to audiences ranging in size from 20 to 20,000.  As a member of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, he has also taught entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology.  He has appeared on many TV and radio programs such as The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, MSNBC’s Your Business and NPR’s The Tavis Smiley Show.  He hosts his own radio show, Business Insanity Talk Radio, and writes regularly for the American Express Open Forum, Forbes.com and Crain’s Chicago Busness.

Getting Your Small Business Unstuck

What you did to get your business to where it is today, is NOT what you need to do to get your business where it needs to be now. Businesses growth requires different actions as the market changes. Barry has identified 6 ways that businesses get stuck, causing their growth to slow. By simply making changes to these ineffective patterns, your business can start to flourish again. Areas discussed are sales, marketing, social media, finance, personal productivity, managing employees and customer service.

You will learn:

How to boost revenue without ever having to sell again.

How to never run out of cash in your business again.

How to increase your personal productivity (and your staff’s) by 100%.

How to use your employees to build a profitable business.

How targeted social media can change your business.

How customer service is now the new marketing in a reputation based economy.

Escape the Double Helix Trap and Boost Your Sales

The business owner’s biggest trap is continually flip-flopping their time between selling things and doing things. While the owner is busy trying to make sales, they aren’t getting the work done…the exact work that makes money. Conversely, when they are doing the work, the sales and marketing activity slows to a crawl. This Double Helix Trap keeps businesses struggling for years.

You will learn:

The Relationship Ratings Methods: Forget about getting sales, have a system to create systematic relationships. We actually can’t sell anything to anyone, we just need to be there when people are ready to buy!

The Rapid Release Strategy: The exact method to avoid long, fruitless sales cycles, and how to get prospects to a buying decision in one-tenth of the time.

The Cringe Factor: The simple but highly effective method to identify employees, customers and vendors who are costing you too much time and money.

The Amplifier Effect: The most powerful technique for growing sales and marketing awareness without taking up any additional effort.

Small Town Rules: How Small Businesses Can Prosper in a Connected Economy

With the internet, every  customer can now talk to every other customer. Right now, they are talking about your business and your reputation. It’s like living in a small town. Customers trust this earned media (reviews and references) from other customers over any company directed advertisement in their buying decisions. This is how small town owners have been operating for years. Every business now wants to get small and build a community.

What you will learn from Small Town Business Owners:

Rule 1. Plan for zero. There will be tough years ahead. Guaranteed!

Rule 2. Spend creative brainpower before spending dollars. Too much money makes you stupid.

Rule 3. Multiply lines of income to diversify your risk. Don’t have all your eggs in a single basket.

Rule 4. Work anywhere, anywhen through technology. Geographic location is a thing of the past.

Rule 5. Treat customers like community. Get off the balcony and have real conversations.

Rule 6. Be proud of being small. Every large corporation finally wants to be you!

Rule 7. Build your local connections. Your customers now want to buy local!

How Your Business Can Thrive in Any Economy!

Economic cycles come and go. We have been here before and survived. Cheer the good times with parties, awards and trophies. Mourn the bad times but then let go. Barry demonstrates that developing the resiliency to “bounce” through these cycles of good and bad times determines who will ultimately succeed. Using real life business examples, he shows that with true business confidence, what actions we can take to face our fears, let go of shame and failures, be better risk-takers and define our own brand of success.

You will learn:

1. Matching revenue with expenses.
2. Challenging all your business assumptions.
3. Marketing, sales and substitutions.
4. Finding the people you need.
5. Build customer service as your sustainable competitive advantage

You Need to Be A Little Crazy To Start and Run Your Own Business

The best way to debunk myths about start-up business is to tell the truth: You have to be crazy to start a business. Entrepreneurs live at the complex intersection of business, financial health, physical well-being, spiritual wholeness and family life. Tidbits of insight will vaporize isolation, encourage self-reflection and refresh the spirit of anyone running their own business.

Delivering Customer Service in A Social Media World

For a long time, a company’s commitment to outstanding customer service began and ended in its mission statement. The goal of the customer being number one in most companies is not translated into tactics for training the staff. This is all changing in a 24/7 connected world.

The world is your competition. With no geographic boundaries, almost every product or service has become a commodity. Your only sustainable competitive advantage is customer loyalty through great service. If I can get what you sell anywhere, why should I put up with bad service?

With self service kiosks and websites, companies can now personalize the customer experience. Every company can now call you by name, remember what you purchased and recommend what you like. This expectation does not get lower anywhere we surf on the internet, each time we call your company or walk into your brick and mortar locations.

Reputation is forever. Your company’s biggest fear was that a disgruntled customer would tell seven people. A dissatisfied customer can now tell 7 million people on social media. Companies can no longer control the conversation about their brands through advertising.

You will learn:

Why customer service is your only sustainable competitive advantage.

Why you need to personalize the customer experience or get left behind.

With social media, why customer service is the new marketing.

How to bust the 20 myths of customer service that hold your company back right now.

How to develop a formula to determine the economic value each customer contributes.

How to develop a two-way customizable customer service manifesto.

How to develop action plans for CEOs, line managers, and customer service reps.

How to get your best customers to stay and fire the harmful ones.