Have you had your Business 24 Hour Checkup? Book now for 2011

Call Elkhart Bell International to arrange your 2011 Business 24 Hour Checkup: 403.979.1962. We will fix your most pressing business problems in 24 hours and then continue to provide valued consulting advice for the rest of the year. Ask about our great new consulting rates for continuing customers.

What is your Business Problem? We can provide an experienced consultant that will:
Reorganize your company with improved project management,
Develop annual and monthly budgets along with regular reporting,
Delegate responsibilities to managers and show them how to manage their teams,
Develop profitable incentive programs for you and your team,
Set monthly sales and production goals with incentives,
Negotiate with bank or credit union for line of credit, and
Help you search for new staff.

Our relationship with Bob Phillips has become a great asset to our business. The one on one coaching has revitalized our confidence. Seeing Bob create tools from the jumble of numbers and processes that were in the business, but not being used and refined, has been the greatest assistance that I have personally received. The most valuable lesson we have learned is that we can learn to manage the business to the highest degree and that help is just a phone call away. Our relationship with Bob Phillips has become a great asset to our business. He has shown us how to organize our business so that it can grow successfully and personally trained us on each procedure so we have a working understanding of how to manage the business day to day. The one on one coaching has revitalized our confidence to run the business and put us on track to become a successful business.

Construction Industry runs in the Family

W H Phillips & Sons - Regina Contractor
Clients often ask how we got into the business of advising companies on how to manage their teams. I always say that the building and construction business must be in our blood. My grandfather, Whitman (1886 - 1969) was a general contractor in Regina and met his future wife while building the Blue Bird Cafe in Regina Beach. He ran W H Phillips and Sons and even had my Dad, and two uncles working with him for a while. One of those uncles was Wilson C Phillips who became a civil engineer and built many grain elevators, schools and homes throughout Western Canada.

William & Son - Builders in London, England
Going even farther back in our family history, my great grandmother's family were builders in England. The Liddiard builders included her father Joseph (1814-93) who was an architect and surveyer in Kent, his father William (1775 - 1862) who was a bricklayer and builder with his company of William & Son in London, England, and his father and grandfather, both named Jonathon born in 1721 and 1752, were masons and bricklayers in Wiltshire.

Habitat For Humanity Calgary

We enjoyed working with the volunteer crew that is building new homes in Calgary. Habitat for Humanity Calgary

Green Flash on the Big Island

Back for another two weeks with the turtles and the green flashes. Believe it or not you can actually get some excellent work done over in paradise. And twice I saw green flashes as the sun dipped into the ocean.

Bob Phillips photos - The Big Island, Hawai'i

Bootstrapping Your New Company

Have you ever wanted to know what you need to be able to start your own company? Over the years many of our clients have asked us how to duplicate what they already have. They are usually trying to put into place procedures and systems that will give their managers the ability to run their companies. But sometimes we meet someone that has the ability to really start something from an idea. This summary of Seth Godin's book is a great start.
The Bootstrapper's Bible

Elkhart Bell in Hawai'i

With two new clients in Hawai'i, Bob Phillips spent a month in Honolulu, and Kona on the Big Island. Elkhart Bell is now able to offer the same consulting services throughout Hawai'i and the Pacific Islands.

If you are travelling to Hawai'i ask us about our "Friends and Clients Resort Rates" available at several resorts. We have special rates at Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore of Oahu, at the Ilikai Hotel on Waikiki and at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort on the Big Island. You can swim with the turtles at two of these choice locations.

Starbucks Customer Service

What would you change at Starbucks? John Moore, a former long-time marketer at Starbucks, has some great ideas that you might be able to use at your company. What Must Starbucks Do?

2007 - A great New Year

Reclaim Your Life - The Two Week Challenge

January 1st comes around and we’ve all made a resolution or two. By February 1st, we’ve failed more than we’ve succeeded and are back on last year’s track. Stuart Levine has the antidote. Here are 11 of his 100 rules for changing your life and making more of your work/life balance. If you want to regain time, check out his rules:
Reclaim Your Life.

Elegant Solutions and Innovation

In Elegant Solutions Matthew E. May talks about the one million ideas implemented by Toyota every year. He starts by defining Innovation for the Everyman. Two of the quotes he uses are:

"Innovation is trying to figure out a way to do something better than it's ever been done before." David Neeleman, Founder and CEO of JetBlue, and

Thomas Edison said, "There's a way to do it better - find it."

Going for the Go Point

We all want to make the best possible decisions... Ultimately, every decision comes down to a go-point - that decisive moment when the essential information has been gathered, the pros and cons are weighed, and the time has come to get off the fence.
Michael Useem, professor and director of the leadership center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has written about this in his new book, Going for the Go Point.

Call Bob Phillips at 403.680.5960 for help in reaching your go points, and remember Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win

Winning Companies don't just sell competitive products. They stand for important ideas - ideas that shape the future of their industry, ideas that reshape the sense of what's possible among customers, employees and investors.
Behind every maverick company we've come to know is a distinctive and disruptive sense of purpose - and the companies with the clearest sense of purpose win.
William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre have written A Manifesto for Mavericks and they have these principles:
1. Being different makes all the difference.
2. Sharing your values beats selling value.
3. Nobody is as smart as everybody.
4. The people are the company.

Another Winning Client

Anger Managment (yes that is the correct spelling), sponsored by Elkhart Bell International, won the Fastest Reaction Time at Race City in Calgary. If you look through the burning rubber you might be able to see our logo on the fuel tanks.

A Positive Attitude

We can all use a little sunshine. Dan Auito has caught a few rays and written them down so you can take with you wherever you go. He hopes it makes you smile. My favourites are his comments about business.

In business, we could try to:
1) Be professional, follow procedures, don't be lazy.
2) Improve communications skills. Keep people informed.
3) Avoid procrastinating. Maintain control and be effective. Plan and carry out tasks.
4) Improve delegating skills. Give authority and responsibility to others.
5) Maintain orderly forms, applications, desks and files.
6) Have a sense of humor - but not too much.
7) Emphasize long-range relationships.
8) Have wide ranges of conversation topics: don't be narrow-minded.
9) Be able to absorb criticism objectively and constructively.
10) Be on time for all appointments; give honest reasons for being late.
11) Always express appreciation for the time of the people you deal with.
12) Improve reasoning abilities.
13) Increase self-reliance, enthusiasm, initiative, self-control, charm, thinking, and concentration of effort.
14) Master persistence, will power, ambition,and memory.
15) Always act with a definiteness of purpose.
16) Think positive on your jobs. This determines how your subordinates think toward their jobs. Set the example.

For more of these rays of sunshine check out: A Positive Attitude

Team Building with Elkhart Bell

True team building is more than a recreational retreat. Read what Kevin Eikenberry has to say about how to make sure your team building exercise brings you real value. Kevin talks about gaining high levels of commitment which includes people believing in each other, agreements by the team, trust in team members and leaders, and support for your team. True Team Building

RHD (Bob) Phillips - my Dad 1921-2006

Robert Howard Daniel PHILLIPS, C.M., B.A., LL.D., F.A.I.C., P.Ag.

Editor and Publisher of The Western Producer, Second World War Soldier, Journalist,
Research Economist, Social Historian, Community Volunteer and Writer.



"And as I pondered, my mind raced back to other springs in other places across this broad country to recall for a moment the rejoicing of their sights and sounds. The first to mind was boyhood on the Prairies with a springtime trip to the farm behind the barn on an uncle's place near Boharm, Sask. I heard the first call of the meadow lark....it was there I learned to mimic the lark's call which I still remember sounds something like,
I was here a year ago."

Bob Phillips - Canadian Press 1957

Pride, McGregor, Wilson, Halpenny
A good life well lived -
Son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle.

Scottish Highlands Tour in 2007

Our exploratory trip to the Scottish Highlands went off without a hitch. Join us next March for our Annual Scotch and Business Tour of the Scottish Highlands. Business owners will be joining Bob Phillips and an experienced Whisky Trail tour leader, and in between learning about how to create a profitable incentive program for your team we will be sampling some of the best. We will be staying in great accommodations, seeing some incredible castles, and driving Morgan sports cars. You will also have the option of purchasing part or all of an aging cask of Scotch.

Bob Phillips contemplates a building problem in Italy

Maybe if they had the right management consultant at the start...

We had a great Italian tour. Pisa, Florence, Venice and Rome; wine, pasta, olives and pizza. This was a good exploratory trip for our Italian Business Tour of Tuscany, Florence and Venice.

Join us and learn how to include business travel as an incentive for your team and your clients. From your villa in Tuscany we have planned several day trips to explore the Italian countryside and history. Call us for more information and to get on the trip.

Resort Development in Baja California

Bob Phillips has been involved in several resort developments in North America and the Caribbean, and just returned from meeting with a developer in Baja California. They are looking for partners to develop a large marina.