Entrepreneurs Need to Flip Their Brain Switch: They Need to Get Transmogrified!

Highly Acclaimed Business Strategist Leads Change for Global Workers Who Want to “Reinvent”

By Rhonda J. Smith

Sherese Duncan never would have imagined that watching “Lean on Me” would help revolutionize her business.

“My husband and I were watching the movie and we heard Morgan Freeman say ‘transmogrify,’ and we were like, ‘What is transmogrify?’ When I found out that it meant to transform something into something completely different, I knew that would be the mantra for my business.”

And it has been. Duncan is president and CEO of Efficio’, a Charlotte, N.C. based company she started in 2001 to help small businesses go to a higher level in three main areas: profitability, execution and perpetuity. Her motto to get others to transmogrify their businesses dismisses the old adage “think outside the box” and promotes “there is no box.

“When you’re thinking outside the box you’re putting yourself in the box to start,” Duncan said. “I don’t even put myself in a box. I go wherever I want. People don’t think about what their business looks like without limitations.”

A part of getting clients to see there is no box is her promotion of what she calls a strategic blueprint instead of a business plan. Duncan said a business plan simply gives a shell of what your business should be doing but doesn’t give specifics, but “a strategic blueprint documents what you need to do in your business every single day. It’s your full business, every single piece.” Having no box instead of thinking outside the box and strategic blueprints instead of business plans are two reasons Duncan believes Efficio’ is cutting edge. “We don’t provide cookie-cutter templates. We specify everything according to the particular business.”

The number one cutting edge aspect is giving clients the “street perspective,” Duncan said. “Most businesses give the academic, financial and professional perspectives, but we also give the street perspective, how to play the game called business. You have to understand negotiation skills, be able to sell. You have to understand the politics of the business, all of those things that are outside of your office and what you’re trying to sell. Business owners have a responsibility to the communities they serve. I ask clients, ‘What do you believe? What do you stand for?’ The answers to these questions effect the way they do business.”

Duncan says she is very direct with clients because she believes “they need someone to tell them, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’” This approach is what impacted LaShawn Kelsaw most. Kelsaw, owner of Nyiaka, a commercial cleaning business in Charlotte, N.C., said
Duncan is “not being a friend of mine. She’s strictly business. She’s going to tell you what she thinks is right, what you need.” She told Kelsaw to change her name from Keeping It Kleen to a name that would attract more corporate clients, suggested a different billing system and is helping Kelsaw with marketing.

Kelsaw already has seen benefits to her 1 ½-year-old business. “She took my business to another level because I was not invoicing my clients. She suggested I do so on a monthly basis. That made it easier on me because I was having to go to the bank so often. I can just attach the invoice and email them. My clients liked it so much better because they can just write a check once a month.”

She was also impressed that Duncan knew so much about business, let alone the janitorial business. “She told me some things to do for my business, and when I looked up some information I found that some janitorial businesses were doing what she had advised me to do. Sherese is great to work with. She knows her stuff.”

Latin for effect, Efficio’ intends to live up to the meaning of its name, not just with clients but also with its new major component, the School of Business for Entrepreneurs (SBECE) that began in January 09’. The center of the ESBE is the best in class Certified Strategic Business Credential; a first for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs can choose from one of three CSB credential: Certified Strategic Business Owner is for those just getting started or for those who missed laying the foundation for good business practices; Certified Strategic Business Professional is for those business owners who need consistent growth and cash flows; and Certified Strategic Business Expert helps seasoned entrepreneurs build wealth. After completion of a credential program candidates receive their certification.

Also within the SBECE is the Professional Schools of Entrepreneurship, where established entrepreneurs have the option to just take a few courses, and Get Transmogrified! which is a series of introductory business courses that include Business Ownership, Entrepreneurship, Business Intelligence and Good Business. Each course in the School of Business and the focus of Efficio’s work with clients is based on what Duncan calls the Red Diamond Blueprint Model,™ a systematic process that compares building a profitable business to mining for diamonds, particularly getting to the rare red diamond; the red diamond for business owners is having a strong business that attracts people, not begs them, to buy from them.

Though the SBECE is just a little over a year old, Duncan is confident of its success. Duncan said: “We don’t give theories or methodologies. We have done it.” The knowledge that she is providing in the school is what she has implemented in her own business and has been teaching on a one-on-one basis and through workshops and other trainings for about 10 years. She has a bachelor of science from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, a master’s from Keller Graduate School of Management in Kansas City, Mo., and is a graduate of the prestigious business program that teaches students how to start a business. In this program was when Duncan decided to begin Efficio’.

“The students in the class would come to me to ask me questions, not the teacher,” Duncan said. Because of her insight, the teacher allowed her to teach the class she was in and she has since taught the course at community colleges in Charlotte, N.C. and Atlanta. Being able to guide people on her level had her reflect on what drove her to the business program. “I would always give my bosses solutions to their problems, and they would take my ideas and never give me credit for it. I always knew what people wanted from both sides—the bosses and the clients. It would just come natural to me.”

After working her “dream job” as vice president of marketing for a company, she got laid off, which was the third time in three years. “I could never stay on a job for more than two years, Duncan said. “I would get laid off or leave because I was bored.” She even tried to get mentorship from high-level executives that she sought. And just like the times when she was working, she ended up giving these high-level executives ideas for their companies. “I realized, ‘I have to do this on my own.’ I wanted to have a company that would influence the world.”

And Duncan is well on her way to world influence. In addition to her school of business and trainings throughout the nation, she has several websites (Go to www.efficio.biz) and is a part of various online communities, including Facebook and Twitter and her own Solution Network (www.askefficio.biz) She has Efficio Radio Network, her small business talk radio station (www.wern.fm), and hosts other virtual events for business owners to network and support one another.
World impact is not something that surprises Duncan’s colleague Steve Eanes, who calls Duncan “little Oprah.” “I met Sherese about three years ago. We just clicked because she’s going places and I’m going places,” said Eanes, owner of the corporate training and development business Changing Matters.

Barbara Hall, director of the Small Business Center at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in Concord, N.C. where Duncan has taught business courses, said Charlotte, N.C. “is not an easy market to do business out of, but Sherese is taking her business to a new level, the next level.”

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