The Best and Highest Business News®
Volume 8, Number 8
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
abirol@andybirol.com

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Your Personalized Growth Quiz is Ready

Dear Business Owners:

As promised last month, and based on over 100 of your responses, here is your new and free BGC Ownership Style Quiz. Please click here and spend twelve confidential minutes gaining free, personalized insight on your ownership style and how it is impacting your firms growth. Earn a free book based on your responses and the confidence in learning what steps you can take to grow. What else can you do so simply that can make such a difference so fast?

Best in Growth,

Andy

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STRATEGY OF THE MONTH: Andy's Interview on WGN's Money Show

Click here to listen to the interview.

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3. CLIENT NEWS: BGC Helps Kevin Ralofsky Create an "Industry of Self"

Challenge: Although it's easy to forget when we're sitting on the exam table, medicine is a business. Without enormous amounts of capital flowing between researchers, suppliers, and deliverers of care, our entire medical system would collapse. Just ask Kevin Ralofsky, CEO of MedCapital, Inc., a medical consulting firm in Sandusky, Ohio. He sees medicine from the "money side".

In 2005 Ralofsky, formerly a corporate banker, was running MedCapital in addition to an urgent care facility he had founded three years earlier. When the care facility faced a looming crisis, he faced a personal one. Did he want to continue in health care, or return to banking?

Situation: Kevin Ralofsky is an MBA, not an MD, and his path into the medical industry has been non-traditional. He helps hospitals; multi-specialty medical groups, medical supply companies, private practitioners, and other companies in the medical industry obtain capital in order to provide the rest of us with quality health care. In addition, Ralofsky provides consulting for start up ventures, growth, cost-control and profit maximization for the medical industry.

As a banker for eight years, Ralofsky saw the challenges his for-profit medical clients faced in an area in which "life or death" isn't just a cliché. When a client asked him to oversee a merger of 2 medical groups and secure some capital for the newly formed company, Ralofsky spent a "working vacation" away from the bank. A consulting firm was born. "It snowballed," he recalled. "Suddenly I had companies and doctors calling, and I didn't have time for everything." Taking the giant leap from banker to business owner, Ralofsky founded MedCapital, Inc. in 2000.

Two years later he opened Twinsburg Urgent Care, an independent facility in an underserved market. In partnership with a physician, Ralofsky designed TUC as a freestanding provider of primary and urgent care services, industrial medicine, and diagnostic services such as X-ray. TUC enjoyed rapid success and caught the attention of an industry superstar-The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. "We had gained market share pretty quickly," he said.

Within two years, both The Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals of Cleveland announced plans to construct medical centers in … Twinsburg. Flattering, yes-but potentially fatal. Could a well-managed independent company survive? If not, what were Ralofsky's options? Having spent time as the lone finance guy in a roomful of medical pros, he knew the importance of expertise. He hired a specialist in business growth-Andy Birol.

Click here to see how Andy helped Kevin Ralofsky.

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· About Andy

Builder of Best & Highest Use

A consultant, coach, author, and speaker, Andy Birol is a nationally recognized leader in the field of business growth. Based on interviewing over 5,000 businesses, Andy Birol, author of The Five Catalysts of Seven Figure Growth (CareerPress, 2006), has advised over 350 business owners and is an expert contributor to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNNs Dollar Signs, Entrepreneur, Business Week, and Inc. Magazine. By averaging a $100,000 impact on each of his clients, Andy has had a $35 million impact on the economy.

By focusing on the role of the owner as the "fuel" that drives a firm, Andy speaks to hundreds of groups of entrepreneurs on six continents, helping thousands to determine how they want to Get There, clarify or discover their Best and Highest Use® and achieve sustained and profitable growth. He coaches and consults with owners in three areas:

1. Accelerating the growth of their companies.

2. Extending growth during ownership and management succession.

3. Refocusing on growth through intervention services.

Andy holds an MBA from Northwesterns Kellogg School and a BSBA summa cum laude from Boston Universitys School of Management. His own company, Birol Growth Consulting, won four Weatherhead 100 Awards as Northeast Ohios fastest growing single-employee business and 34th fastest growing company of any size. He was also recognized by Inside Business Magazine, which awarded him The Team NEO Success Award for 2005 and 2007. The author of five books, Andy lives in Solon, Ohio and is available at (440) 349-1970 or abirol@andybirol.com.

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· About Andy