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Oct

Evolution of Best practice

Posted by: business901 | Comments (0)

Craig Crook was Joe Dager’s guest on my show Connecting Your Passion. Craig’s company is a Learning Center and as Craig calls it -Learning faster than your competitors is the only sustainable advantage. What is the evolution of a best practice?

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Who has been thru tough times to lead?

Posted by: business901 | Comments (0)

In the last few weeks I’ve been just blasted with e-mails, blog posts and other types of advertising. The headlines have been saying things like:

10 ideas for marketing in a tight economy.
Recession proof your business.
How to successfully market, your small business in tough times
Recession-Buster

That was an afternoon check of my e-mails. Ok, aside from the dot.com era which was largely regionalized, when was the last recession that all these people have gained their experience from? The last recession that I really remember is in the Jimmy Carter era. When we had, double-digit inflation, interest rates skyrocketing, and long lead times or scarcity. Does anybody remember?

We have been blessed for the last 25 years, with relatively low interest rates, practically zero inflation, and next day availability. With that in mind, I think it will be extremely interesting the path people will choose to counteract these turbulent times. Just ignoring it will not make it go away. Have we decided been there, done that – doesn’t count anymore. Have the recession – busters decided to "Just say No."

I think it’s a great time to re-evaluate your strategies for moving forward. To be completely transparent, I am a gray hair myself but I would recommend adding a little age to my circle of advisors. Most importantly in the strategic side of your planning. I just don’t think it is going to hurt to have some been there, done there talent surrounding you. Just like the IRS will tell you, ignorance of a tax law is not an excuse. Ignorance of recession, if it happens, is not one either.

Important tip: Make 3 budgets out for next year. Best, Worst and what you think scenarios. Watch the accounts that deviate the most.

Technorati Tags: Recession ,Depression ,Budgets ,Forecast ,Manufacture ,Marketing Plan ,Business Planning ,One Page Business Plan ,Marketing Plan Pro

Lean Six Sigma – Implement

Posted by: business901 | Comments (1)

In my previous post on Lean Six Sigma marketing , I had stated Implement, the new process under a control plan, was the 5th step in building a Lean Six Sigma marketing process. I also stated that in the Duct Tape Marketing planning system that the Service Experience coincided with the definition of Implement.

How is that possible? At first glance, I saw little synergy between these items but when you accept the fact that you are still in the strategic stages of the development of the marketing plan, the relationship starts coming together. The data to identify a cause and effect relationship between to variables can be simply put as Customer Needs and Your Solution. So, your product/service innovation must directly relate to solving the customers needs. Nothing more and nothing less. Spending time in understanding this market opportunity and more specifically as they apply to customer requirements is imperative. We must not forget to explore and evaluate these opportunities against our competitor’s offerings.

After that, we would translate the product offering into a Remarkable Story that must be customer centric and fit the organizations processes and culture. In telling that story, we must commit to something that would differentiate ourselves from our competition. It needs to be powerful and with the ability to quickly communicate that message. We must also devise and offering at each stage of our sales funnel. Specifically describing the offering in detail so that the conversion process can be flawless.

Can everyone in your organization tell your story? Does each and every person that is part of your sales funnel know what the specific offerings are throughout the entire process? Do they all know the next step?