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Alpharetta Business Radio

Government

Al Mishkoff, Jo Ann Tuttle, Jeff Sheehan and Brittni Ping Guests

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Our show today covers topics from garage floor coatings to increase your home’s appeal and utility, construction consulting services for companies and governments to take the pain out of accounting and reporting, using sophisticated psychometric testing to help your college student make the right choices, to expert advice on how to use social media to promote your business so you don’t do more damage than good.

Al Mishkoff is president of Granite Garage Floors, a residential services company that upgrades garage floors with a durable, functional and decorative epoxy coating system that will give your garage a look worthy of Jay Leno’s garage. With businesses opened in four cities besides Atlanta and expansion plans afoot, other areas will soon be able to turn their dirty, stained old garages into showcases.

Using diamond grinders and a lot of preparation of the floor makes sure the foundation of the home comes up before Al’s durable coating ever comes up. Well almost anyway, he says that his floor is guaranteed to stay down and not peel like acid prepped surfaces with epoxy paint usually do.  With an infinite range of looks you can turn an old dusty garage into a stain proof and easy to clean one.

You can contact Al Mishkoff and find out more at www.granitegaragefloors.com email him at alan@granitegaragefloors.com or call 770-329-1751.

Jo Ann Tuttle started her consulting firm JAT Consulting Services, Inc., 19 years ago and it now helps governmental agencies such as Hartsfield Jackson Airport manage the financial complexities of its $6.2 billion capital improvement program working for International Aviation Consultants LLC. Taking the complex payments, compliance reporting and contracting details for cities and municipalities are another service her firm provides.

The city of Dunwoody is an example where her company handles all finance, budget and purchasing activities for the newly incorporated city. This model of outsourcing services to private parties to keep government overhead low and results responsive to the citizens is a popular trend here and other governments could well improve services and cut costs with JAT.

A person who gives back, Ms. Tuttle is a member of the Airport Minority Advisory Council, Consulting engineering of Georgia and the Women’s Transportation Seminar. She coaches and helps contractors working in places like Hartsfied-Jackson (there are over 700 contractors, many small) learn business skills and gain the knowledge that simply can’t be learned anywhere else through seminars and mentoring.

Saying she believes that giving back to help these companies not just gives you sense of personal satisfaction that’s hard to duplicate, it also builds a stronger Atlanta.

You can contact Ms. Tuttle at 770-975-7359 email her at joanntuttle@jatconsulting.net or on the web at www.jatconsulting.net.

Brittini Ping is President of Students & College, an information services company for parents and their children who are in the process of selecting a college and thinking of how to cut the costs of a higher education given today’s massive costs for college.

We’re all different and understanding those differences can help you and your college bound children pick the right major and school the first time and save frustration and money later on. That’s what Brittini and her team do for families grappling with college choices and costs.

A division of BestWork DATA, a psychometric testing firm used by companies to help understand how to best place employees in positions and the best strategies for helping their employees maximize their potential, Students & College uses the same powerful testing tools to help you and your son or daughter understand the areas where they will do their best and be happy in their major. By picking the right major up front, you avoid the high cost of having to swap majors later and spend an added year to get a degree, an obvious benefit to the cost conscious.

As important, you and your son or daughter will gain valuable insights as to the college that is likely to be the best fit be that a small liberal arts school or a school with tens of thousands of students. We’re all different and understanding those differences can help you and your college bound children pick the right major and school the first time and save frustration and money later on.

You can reach Brittni Ping at 770-274-0518 x 8300, via email at brittni.ping@celebratestrengths.com or on the web at www.studentsandcollege.com

Jeff Sheehan is President of Sheehan Marketing Strategies, a firm that helps companies use the right mix of social media to drive business and avoid the many pitfalls of “do it yourself” social media approaches can harbor.  Explaining it is not something that will work for every company nor will the same social media channels work with every situation, Jeff says that you really must understand the problems and characteristics of your marketing goals and match that to the right media for the job. That media might be social media or not and if it is, then it might be LinkedIn but not twitter.

Knowing takes a professional and Jeff brings his major ad agency background with him when discussing and advising companies on how best to use this “new media.”

An active speaker in the Atlanta community, Jeff is well known for his volunteer work with career ministries helping others to learn how to think about and use social media in their job search and to develop a personal brand.

You can put his years of experience marketing products to and for major companies like Cisco, Apple, HP, Dow Chemical, and IBM to work in your firm helping you makes sense of and get real business out of today’s new media.

Jeff Sheehan can be reached at 770-366-1047 by email at jeffsheehan2010@gmail.com or on the web at http://sheehanmarketingstrategies.com

Mayor Mike Bodker of Johns Creek and Mike Caines & David Shavzin ISO Certification

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The Johns Creek Story – What makes a city great

The Mayor of Johns Creek, Mike Bodker, was our first guest discussing Why Johns Creek was formed in 2006, what lead up to the decision and his pivotal role in the process.  He did such a terrific job that he was elected the city’s firs mayor and is now serving a second term.

Many cities are now incorporating because of the many advantages they have as chartered entities. Keeping tax money at home, gaining control over police, fire, planning and 911 service are just a few of the advantages Johns Creek has discovered.

Calling the city “the Beverly Hills” of Georgia is no exaggeration. It is one of the wealthiest cities in the US with most of the best schools in Atlanta. It is respected for its well-managed, planned and sensible approach to growth, citizen service, governmental efficiency, community outreach, a spirit of volunteerism, and a reputation as a community that contributes generously to worthy causes.

Anyone interested in learning how a city can really serve the goals of a community through sensible guided growth and effective, cost conscious government will want to listen in.  To find out more about the process of city formation or reforms that can save tax dollars, contact the Mayor. For companies looking for a great city to headquarter in, you’ll want to have a look at the City of Johns Creek.

You can reach Mayor Bodker  at 678-512-3313. You can also contact him and other departments and the other organizations through the city’s website at www.johnscreekga.gov.

Process Improvement and ISO Certification to Grow Profit and Sales

Mike Caines and David Shavzin and team are process improvement and ISO certification consultants. They help companies streamline their operations and improve financial results by examining every aspect of their business processes. Starting from customer to vendor and every department in between, they work with their clients with the objective of making the flow smooth where interactions and customer experience are exceptional.

Explaining that process improvement isn’t about seeking to eliminate people but rather examining the processes that have grown up in a company and, in conjunction with the people involved using a proven process to look for ways to streamline, simplify and focus the way things are done.

That process produces savings but also sales. It cuts friction costs out such as too much or too little inventory, wasted effort in flows, documentation, lost or misplaced equipment, confusion, etc.

In fact, the process will, the delight the CEO, the CFO as well as the people who were formerly wasting time and emotional effort struggling with the old ways of doing things.

ISO is what could be described as a holistic process that a company adheres to in order to systematically improve their customer’s experience, streamline their operations and turn problems into opportunities to grow and stay focused on results.

Surprisingly, ISO certification is available for almost any company and may or may not be part of a process improvement project. But, as it is often the key to the door for a company wishing to do business with large companies, it can be a key differentiator between you and your competition.

David works with teams as does Mike, helping deal with the human emotional dimensions of change. Change often fails to implant itself if that is not handled well and they are experts at dealing with the issues involved.

One thing that can help businesses in Georgia is generous tax breaks for instituting a process improvement program. One client received a six figure refund as a result. Now that’s real stimulus!

You can find out about process improvement and ISO Certification by contacting Mike and David as follows:

Mike Caines can be reached www.mariettabusinesscoach.com, mcaines@mariettabusinesscoach.com or 770-826-2559 and David Shavzin at dshavsin@shavzinassociates.com, www.shavzinassociates.com dshavzin@shavzinassociates.com or call 678-795-1750.