allies4me

Principal Ally

Vistage Worldwide, Inc.

Vistage

Javelin Semiconductor, Inc.

V.P. of Marketing / V.P. of Applications

NXP Semiconductor

Managing wireless GPRS products including transceivers and power amplifier.
Doing new business proposals.

Marketing Manager

Silicon Laboratories

Manage GPRS tranceivers and power amplifiers.

Applications Manager

RF Micro Devices

Ericsson

Staff Engineer

United States Marine Corps

Member of Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 2 (VMAQ-2).

We painted strange and confusing images on enemy radars. 

I maintained and repaired the receivers and exciters that made the magic possible.

Sergeant

Close MORE deals FASTER at HIGHER PRICES.

No sales pitch can overcome a bad offer. But even the worst sales pitch is rescued by an irresistible offer.

I suck at sales, so I learned to create an environment where people want to buy. It transformed my business. Sales are now easy. And I work with better clients.

Now I help high-ticket service businesses do the same. That’s folks like consultants, coaches, and agencies. 
The biggest hurdle I see is the offer is bad. It looks like:

“Hi, I’m Craig. Pleased to meet you. Would you like to sign-up for my 5-figure or 6-figure program?”

That is not a good offer. It’s akin to walking up to a complete stranger in a bar and asking them to marry you. It’s missing at least a coffee date.

We help businesses design finely crafted “coffee dates” that we call irresistible First-Time Offers. The hallmarks of such offers are:
✅ Impulse purchase – nobody has to ask permission to spend the money.
✅ Disproportionate value-to-price – like 10X.
✅ Actually solves a problem – so, NOT an audit or assessment.
✅ Has 3-5 deliverables that represent 3-5 milestones in the direction of the customer’s goal.
✅ Designed to repel non-ideal clients.
✅ Irresistible to ideal clients. 

We also craft broader inbound marketing strategies. They are focused on rapid trust building and delivering value in advance. Properly executed, they generate the ideal sales conversation where the prospect “closes” themselves. The cornerstone of every strategy is an irresistible First-Time Offer which accelerates trust-building and shortens sales cycles. 

Here's a guide to building First-Time Offers:
https://hub.allies4me.com/lp/how-to-build-fto/

Sometimes life throws us curveballs. That’s when we learn the most important lessons in life. 

On August 22nd, 2021 I went into a 6-week coma. The doctors repeatedly told my wife that I would certainly die. On August 24th I went into kidney failure. A few days later, my right lung collapsed. 

A couple weeks after I woke up my wife started telling me how my team ran the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and offered to do whatever was necessary as long as I was in the hospital. I consider this my greatest accomplishment in business.

So, I started the Leaders & Legacies Podcast to highlight leaders that are making an impact beyond themselves. Do you know a leader that deserves to be celebrated?

https://podcast.allies4me.com/podcast-guest

Craig Andrews

Andrea Jones, MBA, PMP

The Executagility Company

Executagility® is an organization’s ability to execute its most important projects consistently over time. 
The Executagility Company provides products and services within our Executagility Model® that are designed for SMBs (small medium businesses) to understand and accelerate their own capabilities to realize their growth goals.

Founder & CEO

AJC® helps companies increase profitability through Execution, without pushing excess billable hours.

ERP Selection and Implementation Project & Change Management
Organizational Change Management Coaching 
Executagility Model™ Coaching - realize your vision through Easier Execution*

*Andrea is a Vistage Speaker on this topic

AJC is proud to be a certified Oregon WBE/MBE business #9414 since 2014.

Principal, CEO

Vistage Speaker: Execute Easier - Don’t outsource in a crisis. Insource important execution work easier - NOW. 
When companies want to grow and scale, they inevitably launch projects or initiatives they undertake to get there. These projects need to get done on top of the team's day-to-day responsibilities, and there is often no one whose job it is to make sure it gets done. 
In this presentation, participants learn what project work is and why it is so hard to execute it well. It provides an immediate-feedback tool to reveal where their companies are likely to experience challenges in project execution. And finally, it offers practical tools and a straightforward process to insource strong execution to individual companies.
A MUST EXPERIENCE for any CEO and everyone on the Leadership Team.

Vistage Speaker

Hustle Fund

Leveraging the expertise of long-time VC Hustle Fund through an amazing community of investors in the Angel Squad.

Angel Squad Member

Jones and Jones Acquisitions

Jones and Jones Acquisitions LLC aims to acquire 100% of a small- to medium-size business to own and manage ourselves.

While we are interested in all good businesses, we are particularly focused on manufacturing and outsourced (B2B) services businesses with growth potential.  We are not interested in retail, restaurants, or franchises at this time.

In addition, we are looking for opportunities that fit as many of the following characteristics as possible:

Annual EBIDTA of at least $500,000 and EBIDTA margin of at least 15%
Consistent profitability
Recurring revenue / repeat customers
Diverse customer base
High barriers to entry
Location in Oregon or SW Washington state

Executive Principal

Crosby Hop Farm

This role is effectively that of an Integrator as per the EOS book Traction.  Responsible for Accounting, Inside Sales, Inventory, Quality, Operations, HR, IT.  Leadership and loving the team, industry, learning opportunities that every day presents!

VP Business Operations at Crosby Hop Farm

Performed the outsourced role of "Integrator" in the style of the Entrepreneur's Operating System as per Traction by Gino Wickman.  This role transitioned into a full time VP role that I currently occupy.  Loving to learn about hops and the craft brewery industry while doing it!

Integrator

Genentech

Assisting in Class A Charter implementation plan creation, guidance, execution for various projects including production and master data review and continuous improvement.

Consultant - Project Management Supporting Class A Initiatives

NNE Pharmaplan

Managing all aspects of new pharmaceutical line utilities (clean/plant) basic design.

Consultant - Utilities Lead

Several projects completed during this timeframe: DMAIC on an operational process, quality review liaison for an internal debottlenecking project, creating a technical training for another business process, and organizing a global workshop on the same technical process.  Details available upon request.

Consultant - Business Processes, Quality Review, Technical Training & Workshops

McKinstry

Reviewing, creating, and improving business processes for a new satellite office in Hillsboro supporting Majors Construction.

Business Process Consultant

AJC® helps companies grow through effective project execution, without pushing excess billable hours.

We developed the Executagility Model® so that Small & Medium Businesses can execute their most important work consistently over time, without the costly burden of a Large & Enterprise Business Project Management Office. 

Want to learn from us? Get The Executagility Model® Field Guide today and share this How-To Guide with your team so they can execute your growth projects effectively! 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5667GWF 

When you OUTSOURCE Project Management to us, we run your current projects AND train your team to INSOURCE your own part-time Project Management Office (PMO) to manage your future projects.

Specialties include:
ERP Selection and Implementation Project & Change Management
Change Management for full organizational adoption of any process, system, or change
Process Improvement and Documentation
Outsourced "Fractional" Project Management Office - prioritize, execute, and sustain project management to realize your vision using Executagility®

Executagility® is your organization's ability to execute your most important projects consistently over time.*
*Andrea is a Vistage Speaker on this topic

Principal

Andrea Jones, MBA, PMP, Speaker

Yesterday I asked Claude (thank you Anthropic) to write a white paper on "Women Who Left Corporate to Own Their Careers: A Research Report on Lifestyle-Driven Female Entrepreneurs in the U.S."

I cited my own "What's AJC's Why?" blog post for it to learn what kind of woman I was talking about. Full Link to Published Report in the comments.

This was my prompt - straight up copy/paste:
 
please go to deep research mode and tell me how many women-founded companies there are in the US started by women who left corporate jobs to own their own careers due to lifestyle reasons. You can look for people like ME, and here is a blog I wrote on this exact topic. https://lnkd.in/eG4XhCbj How many other women are there like me? What businesses have we started (industries like consulting, accounting, law, healthcare, coaching, etc), how many of us are solo-preneurs, and how many have teams? What are the business models (i.e. how do we make money and pay expenses)? How do we find and retain customers? How fast do we tend to grow? How do we find employees or contractors? I'd like this pulled into a downloadable white paper report.

Full report on our website:
https://lnkd.in/envbWNHH

Just when I didn’t think it was possible to get any better, Buc-ee's, Ltd. has up their game in the bathrooms! 

They’ve added lights, so you no longer have to walk around to look for the vacant stalls.

To say that my family loves this place would be an understatement.

No alternative text description for this image

Thank you Erik Larson for pushing your Vistage groups to think about democratizing project management so they can realize their growth plans next year.

Beautiful setting in northern Michigan!
Pond Hill Farm

The Wall Street Journal published an article about Jeff Bezos over the weekend, which I found to be extremely relatable.

Bezos talks about how he, as a Visionary, comes up with hundreds of ideas on a daily basis.

He learned, however, that transitioning all of those ideas to his team simultaneously would have sunk Amazon. 

What's the take-away?! 

Ideas can come a mile a minute for Visionaries. I also come up with dozens on the daily - every conversation I have sparks new ideas and ways to grow and improve my businesses.

❓ ➡️ How many of those can be absorbed by the business at any given time? 
❓ ➡️Which ones to prioritize first, second, and so on for maximum benefit? 
❓ ➡️Who can I trust to implement them for me? 
❓ ➡️What structure will they use for execution that allows me to participate and steer without getting bogged down in details (and derailing them with the even more ideas I come up with when faced with the stimulation of struggle)?

One thing SMBs do not hire for is PROJECT MANAGEMENT. 
The ability to effectively cultivate, prioritize, activate, initiate, execute, and absorb great ideas/growth projects into the business is a SKILL, and a capability which can be taught. 
If you don't recognize this ability as a discipline, however, you'll keep muscling through and derailing the company.

That's what The Executagility Company does - we help your team run the projects so YOU can run the business.

Here is the quote from Bezos in the WSJ article - enjoy!
“Literally put me in front of a whiteboard, and I can come up with 100 ideas in an hour,” he recalled in a talk last month with tech entrepreneurs in Italy.

But a deputy early on warned him his ideas were stacking up and becoming a distraction for his team, saying: You have enough ideas per minute, per day to destroy Amazon. 

“This sounds so obvious, but it was not obvious at the time to me,” Bezos said. “I started prioritizing the ideas better, keeping lists of them, keeping them to myself until the organization was ready for the ideas.”

Open article: AI Ignites the Return of Bezos the Inventor by wsj.com

AI Ignites the Return of Bezos the Inventor

Planning season is here, and nothing accelerates 2026 success faster than a crystal-clear Definition of Done paired with a realistic Milestone Plan for your most important initiatives!

💡This is the first thing Leaders do in the Executagility Model®.💡

Many of you have heard my Vistage presentation on this topic, and I'm thrilled to help you kick-start 2026 in this way.

For the most effective workshop - bring in one BIG project or initiative you want to achieve in 2026.

https://lnkd.in/e9FyKW2R

We will workshop how to develop a clear "Definition of Done" for this project (and in general).

Then we will talk about how to consider the team executing this project and the time/competence they have so you can chunk the project up into reasonable Milestones.

We will share the questions we ask to help guide the process, and workshop as many specific projects for participants as possible.

Join Us on December 5 at 1 pm ET / 10 am PT for the Executagility®-based Definition of Done and Milestone Planning Workshop

See you there!
Andrea

Time will be allocated based on volume of participants; not all projects will get personalized workshopping in the session, though everyone should get a feel for how to do this on your own afterwards.

Registration link in the comments.

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Andrea Jones, MBA, PMP, Speaker

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Andrea Jones, MBA, PMP, Speaker

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