Posts Tagged ‘business strategy’

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Quit playing catch up

Monday, September 14th, 2009

In football (American, Aussie, soccer, league, rugby, Gaelic ect) there is a saying: “catch-up footy”. It’s what happens when a team is behind on the scoreboard with only a few minutes left on the clock.

Players then have to get results – and fast! Most of the time it doesn’t work. Passes are forced, kicks goes astray, accuracy and quality is sacrificed for speed and stress.

Humans tend to behave the same way in business. We want (always) a result NOW – so we create a game of perpetual catch-up and sacrifice care and thoroughness for speed and stress.

Inevitably we then find ourselves on a treadmill, running hard and staying in the same place year after year.

The quickly scribbled sales letter, the poorly researched product offer, the sloppy brochure copy, the hurriedly put-together web page, the lack of learning about what works and does not work in marketing and so on.

So next time you are in catch-up mode and you find that your days are “all about NOW” and you get sick of not scoring here’s what to do: book a 2 week holiday; chill out for the first week and then spend the second week carefully planning what your business needs to do in order to create serious growth. And do this part slowly. And include blocks of time (at least one day a week) for continual learning and development.

One day of good preparation will save you months of poor and ineffective execution.

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Marketing Development – Part 2

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

I had a conversation with a switched-on business accountant this morning. His partners are worried about the natural attrition of clients and the fact that they are not replacing them fast enough. He said his partners are also sitting behind their desks staring at computer screens all day.

Not surprisingly, the partners do zero Marketing Activity (e.g. gathering referrals, approaching and engaging new clients etc) each week.

The reason that the partners don’t engage in Marketing Activity is two-fold:

1. They still think of themselves as “accountants” rather than “marketers of accountancy services”

2. They have not developed a clear and compelling approach that when executed has their prospects:
a. financially salivating and being very grateful that the accountant made contact
b. eagerly requesting more information
c. wanting to know the price
d. hoping like heck that they can afford it

That’s the work of Marketing Development and once you have created a clear and compelling approach then you can re-purpose it and use it face to face, on the phone, in your brochure, on the back of your business card, in articles, editorials, advertisements, on your web site etc etc etc until you have so many clients you create a problem of supply  – which is a better quality problem than not having enough clients and sitting at your desk worrying about it.

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The riches are in the niches

Friday, July 10th, 2009

I preach this message from dawn to dusk most days: “find a specific unmet need in a small part of a large market and then develop scalable (key word) product features to meet that need”. If you will do that then your marketing efforts will yield fruit and you find that the truism is true: the riches are in the niches.

If you want to see what a tiny, tiny niche can yield ($20 million) then please click here:

http://www.guzer.com/videos/needle-art.php

My thanks to my friend and colleague Graham McGregor of TwoMac Consultling (one of the best sales and marketing guys I know) for taking the time to share this with me…

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Focus

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Successful business owners work hard.

And so do almost all of the unsuccessful ones.

So what’s the difference? Well there are a bunch of things but one of them is that the successful hard workers are focused on executing an effective strategy. The unsuccessful ones may be spending just as much time, energy, money and ability but they are scattering the power of their resource because they don’t have a one clear strategy to focus on.

Once a business owner has a great strategy the next trick is sticking to it without being distracted by the enemy. The enemy of great strategy is the good idea.

In other words it’s easy to be seduced by all of the offers in the market place promising us the world on a plate if only we buy their product/service. Once you have a great strategy, learn how to stay focused by saying yes to everything that is aligned to the execution of that strategy and no to everything – and I do mean “everything” – else.

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What the market cares about

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

The market place doesn’t care that you are passionate about your product.

It doesn’t care what you think your product is worth.

And despite what it says outwardly, provided you are honest, the market doesn’t care about your values or beliefs or principles or mission or vision.

Neither does the market care about your board of directors or your flash shiny building or your newsletter or your pretty logo or your super cool web address.

The market cares about it’s specific unmet needs. And it will listen to you eagerly once your message speaks to the sweet spot of specific unmet needs.

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Make it easier

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

I regularly (almost once per week) conduct a simple survey which consistently reveals that 92% of business owners think they have a truly great product but not enough clients.

The second part of the survey shows that 78% of the same people do less than 2 hours a week of direct marketing activity. Many of these people are stressed from not having enough clients but actually do zero hours of marketing activity per week.

Why is that? Well here’s my take: these people are neither stupid nor are they lazy. They simply lack a proven, effective, step-by-step process for engaging in marketing activity.

I’ve seen previously marketing-paralyzed business owners transform into marketing machines once they gain the confidence that a well thought out value proposition and approach gives them.

Get your product good enough (not perfect: good enough is good enough) and then develop a clear and compelling customer value proposition. Then refuse to be distracted by anything (e.g. developing another product feature or a new web site or an updated brochure) and invest 20 hours a week in marketing – do it right and in less than 4 weeks you will have more clients than you can handle.

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The enemy of great strategy

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

The enemy of great strategy is the good idea.

Strategy is all about focus. That means that once you’ve identified the niche you want to dominate you learn to say no to opportunities that are not aligned to the execution of that strategy.

You stay focused. So when someone calls you or emails you and says “Hey I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t we blah blah blah …” you compare the idea to your strategy and say yes or no accordingly.

It’s the difference between being opportunistic and strategic. You know that you are being purely opportunistic when you feel like a dog chasing it’s own tail on a fast moving treadmill. You know when you are being strategic when things are not moving as fast as you would like but you make consistent forward progress.

People who maintain a strategic focus build earnings and businesses of wealth.

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Thinking the tough stuff

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

We seem to be wired to “do” more than we are wired to “think”.

Nike’s adage of “Just Do It” is great if it follows “Just Think It”. But if “Just Do It” comes before “Just Think It” then all the “Just Doing It” is probably just going to have you spinning your business wheels at a faster and faster rate: working longer, working harder but staying in the same place.

The hard work is not in “doing”, it’s in “not doing”. The hard work is in thinking.

That is … thinking about how you can tap into the specific unmet needs of a small slice of a large market and then expand from there. Thinking about how you can re-engineer your product so that it has features (or pricing, packing, promotions) that are more seductive to your Ideal Client than your competitors’ products. Thinking about your distribution model and how you will motivate and empower re-sellers to wake up every Monday morning thinking of ingenious ways to sell my product – with a passion.

There is a lot to think about and I don’t have all the answers but I do know this: one gram of good business strategy outweighs a tonne of hard work.

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The world will not beat a path to your door

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

When it comes to thinking strategy, most business owners over-invest in product development.

Here’s a step by step guide to what happens…

1. You have an idea for a new product/service that’s going to be a winner – for sure. Let’s call it a “Rupert”…

2. You spend money with graphic design people making your Rupert look sexy, you talk to your ideal customers about what they want/don’t want in a Rupert, you repeatedly work until 3 in the morning, you hire customer service people, you do a budget with your accountant and then you unveil your Rupert to the world…

3. Sales are encouraging but not as strong as you would like…

4. You change accountants, add more features to your Rupert, re-price your Rupert, fire your web developer and hire a new one and put a new fancy stripe on your Rupert…

5. Sales are encouraging but not as strong as you would like

6. You repeat step 4 with some variations…

7. Sales are encouraging but not as strong as you would like…

(and so the endless death-loop spiral continues…)

I’m not saying that a high quality, well-target Rupert is unimportant; I am saying that it’s not enough. Once you have your product well-sorted it’s time to focus (key word!) more of your thoughts, time, money and your team on the harder part of effective strategy: marketing and distribution.

The world will not beat a path to your door if you build a better Rupert. Ask Ray Kroc, Seth Godin or Steve Jobs – it’s marketing and distribution that makes the difference.

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First Base First

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Hopefully you are real clear on:

1. Who your ideal client is
2. What the specific unmet needs are that you are going to fill
3. How you can find them
4. How you communicate your product proposition to them in a clear and compelling manner

If not then invite you to think about it.

If so then there is one more strategic step that will make your business a whole lot easier: instead of asking your clients to hit a home run, get them to first base first.

All too often marketing invites prospects to engage in a product or service at a level that represents a home run e.g. the product proposition is too complicated, too expensive, too intensive, too whatever…

If your ideal client is someone wanting to spend a million or more on a new home then perhaps invite them to “first base” by offering a $499 land appraisal service.

Why? Because it’s five times easier and 80% less expensive to up-sell an existing client than it is to find a new one. So create a “first base” value proposition that is packed with so much value that it’s a no-brainer (“I don’t need to think about this”) for your ideal client.

Then up sell them like a seasoned MacDonalds pro: “would you like a million-dollar house with that sir?”

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