A good business plan is my no means cast in stone. There is always room for adjustment as you refine your process, find new suppliers or change marketing channels.

Producing product is one step that requires most attention. Not having right staff, process, equipment or suppliers could bring your whole venture to an abrupt end. One of biggest costs in manufacturing business is labor component. But having right personnel who are dependable, experts at what they do and take pride in their work are also one of biggest assets a manufacturing company. So take your time to choose your staff.

In part 2 I will discuss manufacturing process, equipment and suppliers.

Most organizations use some form of sales to drive their product or services. In many of these businesses sales team leader is one who does coaching or mentoring. The majority of these sales leaders are in a position of leadership because they were good at selling. Unfortunately, there is not a direct correlation between being a good salesman and being a good coach or leader. Many leaders have some natural tendencies: they train others how they were trained, they try to motivate other according to how they are motivated, and they tend to miss-focus their energies.

Even best intentioned sales leaders often display a subtle tendency to focus on two groups of people: employees who are top performers and those who are under performing. The average performers are usually left to fend for themselves. If sales leaders are aware of this natural tendency, they can usually self-correct it. With some additional coaching, it is easier to help average performer become a top performer than it is to transform under performer. When you have developed a comprehensive training program you can strategize about where your investment of time will result in best ROI.

An effective mentor or coach can help decrease learning curves. Many businesses have a learning curve in which people at front of curve significantly under perform people at top of curve. For example, if you realize that it takes a new sales associate 12 to 18 months to start really performing, how much would it be worth to your company to dedicate a leader to spending one-on-one time coaching with new sales associates if that coaching could decrease their time to optimal performance from 12-18 months to 6-8 months?

Promote Leadership Development. Once you have refined your program by working with a couple of leaders it's time to start promoting program. •Start by making it known during interview process with potential employees. Many small company's use their leadership development program to draw in high-potential applicants that otherwise would go to larger organizations. •Sell your leadership training program to applicants by telling them (and showing them) how invested you are in helping them develop as a leader. The kind of people who do well in small to medium-sized businesses are keenly aware of importance of self-development. These people will be impressed that you want to make an investment in them. •Start highlighting successful characteristics to your current employees and draw attention to employees that are doing well. Be careful to point out that your goal is for every employee to be their best. •Work hard not to create an atmosphere of cut-throat competition where one person can win only when another loses. Show every employee how they can succeed. •Use your leaders to coach others and consider bringing in an outside coach to help your leaders coach their employees more effectively. Summary Leadership training is absolutely critical to success of business, especially small to medium sized companies. One of mantras of 1990's human potential movement was "people are our most valuable asset." There was a lot of verbal acknowledgement of this truth, but not a lot of companies acted on it. Smart companies are beginning to recognize that leadership development and people training is a process, not an event and this process has bottom line results.

For companies looking to increase their revenues and cut their costs, leadership development is a must. Over long run companies who develop their leaders and train their people significantly outperform companies who do not.