Archive for Small Business
Business Turnaround – Do it with Lean
Posted by: | CommentsIs anything working? Are you in trouble yet? Is it you, or is it the economy? In a past blog post, I went over this issue and the fact of the matter is, IT’S YOU! Why? You are the one that has to survive, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. Without change, things will stay the same, so how do you go about initiating change?
On an upcoming Business901 podcast, I discussed with CEO Bob Wiener, how PAS Technologies climber from near the bottom of industry rankings to the top. What significant change did he make to leapfrog the competition? He invested the 1st week of his leadership in Lean training. An old saying that I use repeatedly: How many good ideas get wasted because of a poor plan? I think Bob reinforced that adage once again.
Most professionals today have not been involved in a turnaround. They do not realize that turnarounds require a different set of skills and management techniques. My methods do not work for all and are just one way of doing it. You must decide on your course of action. I have been involved in several and failed at one of them, the results that I had were all different. I broke companies apart, sold some and worked through some. They were all different, with different goals and different results. And bottom line is I lived to write about them.
Now, with my experience what would I do if I was involved with one today? Though PAS did not create the model, they executed it which is a much greater feat. My model may look a little different than how PAS did it, but it is similar in the respect that I would walk in and create a Lean System.
Most people don’t respect the fact that you have to document what you are doing, precisely. It really is like starting on a journey without knowing where you are at. If you would try to get directions from Google and typed Indiana in instead of Indianapolis, you may be only 1-hour or 4-hours away.
Your metrics play such an important part. How are you going to measure success? What in the short term will allow you to survive and in the long term build a business? Measuring simply by results is just not enough in today’s world. Using Lean Metrics measured by drivers are at the heart of making your plan effective.
Lean is a system focused on and driven by customers. Optimizing the value stream from their eyes and in an efficient process takes your processes to a level not experienced before. Review your past sales and processes that are performing well. Determine why and what may be different about them. This may help you identify a value stream much more quickly.
Mapping the Future State is where we start seeing it all come together. This is the step everyone typically wants to jump to immediately. As a result, it can be easily abused and a lot of waste can be left in the process. We make plans and instead of having a sound basis, we use instincts and tools that are not directed and often based on what I call “Tribal Knowledge.”
Kaizan is the Japanese word for continuous improvement. It is all about idea submission, not acceptance. Kaizan has three steps. First, create a standard. Second, follow it. Third, find a better way. Create Kaizan events on a weekly basis to improve on a particular area or metric.
A great learning tool is to start with a task that is working well, has little waste and just walks through the process. After you see how the process works, take one that has what you perceive a lot of low-hanging fruit. Walk through that process. The secret I believe to successfully implementation is trying to do too much at once. It is a journey made up of multiple events or Kaizans.
Related Post: Are an Ideal Customer for a Turnaround
The Duct Tape Marketing Fish Story
Posted by: | CommentsSomeone reminded me that I had never shared the Fish Story video on on my blog before.
It was derived from a Duct Tape Marketing Post but holds very true today. I had originally re-worded it to use it in nonprofit presentation.
4 P-s of Marketing- replaced by 5 B-s
Posted by: | CommentsIn 1960, E. Jerome McCarthy introduced the as a way to describe the mix of factors required to successfully market a product. McCarthy labeled the 4 P’s as Product, Price, Place (distribution), and Promotion. The idea was that if you could identify the right combination of these elements, your marketing would succeed. Since then, many have proposed that there are really 5 P’s, suggesting Positioning, Packaging, or People as additions to the mix.
Maybe it should be replaced by the 5 B’s of Marketing?
1. B E Real Your marketplace is crowded with competitors, and your prospects are
besieged with marketing messages. For your message to find its way through all this noise, it must be exactly on target. In any field, it’s not enough to simply describe what you do. You must be able to tell your prospects exactly how your work helps them solve problems and reach goals, and the benefits and results they can expect to see from it. What this targeted messaging requires is that you become very specific about not only who your offer is for, but what it will help them do, and why your solution is the right one for them.
2. Be Pulling vs. Pushing … In the classic marketing formula, the emphasis was on promotion — pushing your message out to the world at large. You need to pull toward you exactly those clients you want. Push-style marketing includes cold calling, unsolicited mail or email, paid advertising (online and off), promotional events like trade shows, and some forms of PR, like blasting out press releases. Pull marketing, on the other hand, is focused on building affinity and connections. To attract clients in your niche, you might develop referral partnerships, become visible at networking events, get booked as a public speaker, have articles published or build a content-rich website. You’ll find it much easier to make a sale when clients contact you as the result of hearing about you from someone else, or after sampling your expertise for free.
3. Be interesting… You must position your business in the mind of your prospective clients as the best possible choice for exactly what they need. Broadcasting a muddy or generic marketing message won’t be enough. Your clients need to understand “what’s in it for me?” Be the place they go when they need something.
4. Be there.. Clients are wary — and justifiably so — of committing to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on something they haven’t been able to experience in advance. Without tangible evidence to go by, they base their decision on how much they trust you. A significant portion of your marketing activities should be aimed at increasing your credibility. But one of the best ways to build trust is also the simplest. Allow clients to get to know you, be part of their everyday life. Use of your website, services, ideas and advice that you can offer are all important mixes.
5. Be Fast… In today’s world, the most important. The key is hitting the right client at the right time with the right product in the right way – the first time, because you may not get a second time. You have to identify their need or problem, provide the solution, understand the resources needed and the decision process they will use. You have to have a process in place for doing this or the process itself will lead to slow and inaccurate decisions. Effective companies have processes that drive decisions, not delay them.
SBA Interest Rates at Record Low
Posted by: | CommentsSBA Says Interest Rates at Record Low for Small Business Borrowers
The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 504 loan program is currently providing long-term, fixed rate financing for commercial real estate at the lowest interest rate since the program’s inception. This low rate, coupled with the new fee reductions provided by the Congressional stimulus bill, led to an effective interest rate – including servicing fees – of only 5.25% for the month of April.
The SBA’s 504 loan program provides long-term, fixed rate financing for commercial real estate. Since its inception the 504 program has funded nearly $40 billion in loans to growing small businesses. Small business borrowers are taking advantage of these record low interest rates to purchase, build or expand their facilities.
More and more commercial properties are coming onto the market at attractive prices, adding to the advantage of low interest rates and fees. If a small business has been considering investing in a building, now is a great time to act.
