Business owners should not be running day-to-day activities within their companies. In order to bring small and medium size companies to newer and stronger levels, systems should be running companies. Owners must be in a position to step back and focus on working on business rather than in business. The results can be powerful.

Through mentoring and advice, coaches help business owners succeed more and work less. Coaches serve a variety of businesses and professionals from florists and printers to chiropractors and manufacturing companies. Most entrepreneurs have few resources and few places to turn to get advice on sales, marketing and team building. That’s where coaches step in, not with answers, but with right questions.

Having an extra set of eyes and ears to look at performance and goals of your business makes a world of difference. Working with a coach means you don’t have to go it alone. It also holds entrepreneurs accountable to someone outside of their business.

In addition, a new and less expensive coaching trend for entrepreneurs is belonging to an affinity group. Affinity groups can help business owners accelerate their company’s growth. The next time you are lying awake in bed at 2 a.m. wondering how to deal with your entrepreneurial crisis du jour, consider following: find, join, and participate in affinity groups.

One of most powerful steps an entrepreneur can take at any stage in his or her development is to find a group of peers. Creating an enterprise can be a lonely task. If an entrepreneur is alone in creating a business (and having a partner or partners doesn't mean you're not alone), opportunities for learning and teaching are lost. With an affinity group, you can accelerate your growth and eventually give back your wisdom and experience to those coming after you.

Who Are They and What Do They Do

Affinity groups are gatherings of peers attracted to each other by a common set of experiences and capabilities, or "affinities." Normally group is a maximum of 10 people. They have opportunity to share knowledge and different perspectives as well as providing accountability and developing their own network. Affinity group coaching is normally less costly option too.

Public Relations: Toast?

Could be, when unit managers in businesses, non-profits and associations don’t get really important external audience behaviors they need to achieve their department, division or subsidiary objectives.

They’re entitled to wonder where their money went when they don’t see behaviors like membership applications or capital contributions on rise; growing numbers of engineering firms specifying their components, prospects newly interested in their products and services, or simply more repeat purchases.

Those behaviors don’t just happen. They result from a public relations effort based solidly on a fundamental premise that works. Like this one: People act on their own perception of facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action very people whose behaviors affect organization most, public relations mission is accomplished.

And then, aggressive implementation.

For example, a comprehensive, workable effort that persuades stakeholders who make up your target external audience, to your way of thinking, thus moving them to take actions that lead to your success.

Where to start? First, promise yourself that you will stay involved in your public relations program every step of way.

Working with PR staff or agency assigned to your unit, prepare a list of those outside audiences who behave in ways that help or hinder you in achieving your objectives. Then decide among yourselves which behaviors are most severe, and place that target audience at head of your list.

So now, you’ve identified your number one target and you’re ready to go to work. But chances are you and your public relations team don’t really know how most members of that target audience actually perceive your organization.