Marketing 101

Decisions and Direction 03.08.2009

Once you have determined what your weaknesses are, where your strengths lie and where you fit into the whole equation of going out on your own, then there are some decisions to be made. And most of them are not of the easy variety.

Gather earnestly the information you need about the type of business you want to have. “Having one that makes a lot of money” is not going to cut it, you must be able to smell, taste, and breath that business backwards and forwards.

Questions that must be asked are the ones that will shape the direction you will be taking with the business you create. What am I actually going to create? How will it be a value add to my future clientele? Who will be my future clientele? What will they look like? What will they be driving? How will they identify with what I offer and be willing to pay money for it? How am I going to structure the company? If I need manufacturing how will I get that done? What finances do I have or need to get to accomplish that? If I am a service oriented business, what is my Marketing Plan?

Now there are some viens of thought out there that a business owner needs a fully fledged out Business Plan to be in business. I know numerous business owners who started out without it and added it to their business when they went for outside funding. Frankly, the only time you will need a Business Plan except for your personal benefit, will be when you go to the lending institutions, the Venture Capitalists, the Angel Investors who you will give ownership of your company to for an exchange and infusion of money.

A Marketing Plan is a wholly different bag. You cannot get off the ground and maintain any amount of success without a Marketing Plan, a road map on how you are going to get what you have to those who want to have it. It truly is the way it is, if you fail to plan you plan to fail… and no more is that vital to business than a Marketing Plan ( Click Here to Get Yours Off the Ground Today)

No better time to start than today is there? What are you waiting for? You can do it, you can step up and move your dream of your own business forward with a lot of elbow grease and some insight from the Average Joe!

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Action Plans that Work 12.08.2008

So there you are sitting, in your office wondering what the next move is for your company. Perhaps you are like others, who has a fantastic idea, but no way of getting it to the market. Perhaps yet you are another who stumbled into a way of making money, but is now faced with the question of growing the same or retooling for other profit centers.

No matter what your business question is; no matter what your circumstance may be; no matter the obstacles you face, you can gain the next step for you and your business.

How is that you may ask? Simply with the right Action Plan you can overcome anything that gets you bogged down.

Action Plans can have many facets. However for business there are some distinct features that are a must. The following are things to include in your next planning session.

• ***Differentiation from others in your industry. Positioning of Company with a Unique Competitive Advantage One of a kind, revolutionary product or service
• Difficult to replicate, services, patents, and design
• Superior to competition version
• Long-lasting use to the customer
• Multiple Applications of the product or service

• ***Customer Value and Brand Recognition Satisfies an innate need
• Adoptable by a greater number of the public
• Impressions of life events on the product or service
• Heritage factor for the customer
• Products imagery a part of the experience
• Colors, fonts, and packaging illicits emotion

When you are able to create for your product the connection to a target market’s time of life, type of lifestyle, and emotional state you are able to ingratiate what you offer into a new level of loyalty.

When you are sitting there wondering what your “next” is keep these few things in mind and it will bring it all a bite more clear which step to take next.

This is just one piece of an overall Global Business Puzzle. However, you bring your business to the-ready, it must be done to find success on a national and international level.

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For the Beginner Assessing Your Strengths 12.08.2008

Successful small business owners must know their own strengths and weaknesses. They build their businesses around their strengths and they compensate for their weaknesses. Most businesses are started solely because of the strength of the owner in their chosen field or specialty. If you are to succeed, you’ll have to be able to identify what you can do, and what you need help doing.

Be honest with yourself when you make your list. You’ll only cause yourself wasted time and alot of wasted money if you’re not. Finding that you have some weaknesses? Don’t worry every small business owner has them. What’s vital to success is not so much in having every skill (although that would help) as it is in finding ways to compensate for the weaknesses.

You’re in effect making a list of what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. Generally, we like doing things we’re good at and we don’t like doing things we’re not good at. It’s a simple approach, but it should help you start to focus.

Go over the list a few times, there are no right or wrong answers just make it sure it’s complete. Next week we will cover deciding what to do and how to do it.

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Things Learned From Bill Murray 12.05.2008

Success and value is achieved one “baby step” at a time!

One of the most amazing movies Bill Murray has starred in (and there have been quite a few) that helped me out in my business is the classic “What About Bob?” directed by Frank Oz.

The story is set about a man who even fears his own shadow. Paralyzed by fears and phobias that make him (and the people around him) miserable. Despite Bob’s fear of bodily parts exploding (bladder, pancreas etc.) and numerous fictitious “allergies” and nosebleeds he sets out in finding help for what he perceives as his problems.

He hooks into the Marvin Family, and his desired psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) to find the relief he so desparately wants. Through dogged determination, and huge obstacles Bob finds his “mentor” by baby stepping from the bus, to the Marvin cabin on the lake and throughout the movie.

Some may think that besides being fantastically humorous, what would a movie of a hypochodriac with signs of OCD do to help me help me with selling hammers or drywall services?

Well let me tell you how… although he had this overwhelming fear, that kept Bob from realizing his full potential, despite what was in his way (distance, water and dynamite strapped to him) he overcame and kept moving forward to the solution to his problems. He kept moving forward!

Are there times when, as a small business owner we are hit with the fear button that says we can’t reach this goal, or gain that market share? Are there times when we see that we need to add a new product or service and are paralyzed with fear that if we do we risk even our business itself?

Are there times when we need to make a contact for our business, or a presentation to a potential client, or even walking into the doors of the company we wish to do business with and we are stopped in our tracks due to the fear of something exploding or imploding?

No matter if it’s your bladder or pancreas, we need to be willing to take those baby steps, that lead to those leaps that will build and sustain our business. We need to take the rejection we feel from ourselves and from others and peservere with our vision.

Fear is a paralyzer of business, but it can also be used as a great motivator! Just like Bob (Bill Murray) may we move beyond the fear with the help of small steps, ropes to the mast and diligent work to the goals we desire.

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Getting It All Into Shape 12.05.2008

There you are, sitting at your desk reading this and wondering what does he mean by getting it all into shape? I’ll tell you.

Odds are that you have been in business a while for yourself, you had this great idea, or this urge to launch out on your own, or you have the expertise that is/was needed in the marketplace.

Whether it is out of sheer luck, the luck of the Irish, or the luck of the Blarney stone being St. Patrick’s Day) you have survived and even thrived here and there with doing the business you chose but now you are seeing a change on your horizon and for the business,. Perhaps its a refocusing of your product line, or a retooling of your sales process, or a brand new direction that your industry is taking and you need to be ahead of the curve.

This is the time you can take to get ready for the change. How can you do that? Here’s how:

• Financials – getting your “ducks in order” both on the debts and income side of things, but the records as well. You need to know where you currently stand financially before you can make any educated decision where to go next and how the money would be distributed for the refocusing of your efforts.

• Inventory – If your company is one that carries inventory or stores your product, you may have to get lean on your storage to be ready for a retooling of your offerings. Additionally, knowing what you have in inventory will also allow you to be better informed on what resources you have to put towards the potential new direction,

• Current Base – In the same vien as the first two, go through your customer list, your reoccurring accounts, and your repeat business. This is designed to two things. a) become familiarized more intimately with who is your current client make-up and b) how better you could optimize your clientele base for the most profits. If maxed out in profitability, then it may be the time to target additional/other market segments

If not, then you know the room in which you can and need to work

By doing this, by getting all you can into shape you will be able to better answer and plan where your business needs to go. Being nimble is an asset in small business and that will assist you in creating new income streams.