Category Archives: Functional Skills

Your Business Plan, Business Goals, & Tactics – Where Are Yours?

Posted on by

For most business plans the document is the end itself. It is such a commonplace of my practice to ask a business owner, or manager, “Do you have a business plan?”, only to have them look around in a bookcase, or in a pile of papers in the corner, in response.

A good business plan is the result of a process in which the management team comes to a common understanding of:

  • the business situation
  • the value the business provides to customers
  • strategies to achieve new business goals
  • obstacles to be overcome or avoided along the way,
  • tactics to bring the business goals to life – this includes who is responsible, resources assigned, timeline of tasks, and results expected
  • schedule of review meetings to measure results and take corrective actions

The plan also provides a common language about the business and a platform to communicate  business goals and values to everyone involved, employees, vendors, and customers.

So here we are at the key question:

If your business plan authentically identifies the business goals of your company, how can you put your management team into action to achieve that future as opposed to the future that will come willy-nilly and that almost inevitably is not the one you desire?

As Peter Drucker said about planning, “a plan is only deployed to the extent that it has devolved to day-to-day work” ((paraphrase from Drucker’s The Effective Executive: a definitive guide to getting the right things done (Harper Collins: New York, 2006) ))

Making a  Business Plan Become Day-to-Day Work

This is where you the Owner, the CEO must take the lead. Otherwise the plan is just a plan and is not converted into action. If you have done a good job of establishing the tactics, the step by step actions required, you will know:

  1. who is responsible
  2. resources assigned
  3. desired results
  4. success metrics
  5. timetable for action
These five items characterize every tactical action. Good project management practices demand them. Without these five elements, the tactics are just a plan, a bit of wishful thinking, they are not in fact in action. You cannot achieve your business goals without taking these practical steps.

By tying your business plan to your existing financial reporting system and project management tools, you will be able to measure results directly. The review sessions are not designed to be dull reports, but opportunities to understand where the difficulties lie and where new opportunities pop up. A review session brings together the management team to work on the most important strategic activities of the firm.

Let’s wrap up.  

Your business plan is converted into action through the tactics identified in the plan. These are supported by active supervision and follow up by the Owner, the CEO. Only you can provide the impetus to sustain the management team over the long haul. Without your involvement the management team will fall back to day-to-day busyness and not spend the time required to drive the tactics to reach your business goals.

FABing Is Still Important in Sales and Marketing – a revisit

Posted on by

FABing, variously Features and Benefits, Features, Attributes, & Benefits, has always been a great tool for getting people to focus more self-consciously, more analytically on what they are doing in their sales and marketing work.

Here is an article by Michael Fortin that develops and extends the traditional concept of FABing: “The Oft-Confused Features and Benefits“

Is Your Company Visible on Smartphones?

Posted on by

The adoption of smartphones by your customers and prospects is not to be ignored. A recent New York Times article points out that in the US age group below 44 years old 43% are now smartphone users. Other research shows that for an increasing portion of the population the main device for accessing the Web is a smartphone.

Whether you are simply maintaining your website as a flag on the Web or have much more extensive functionalities,  a website that responds to mobile devices is critical to your success. If your company’s website is not readily accessible and easily read on a smartphone you are fast coming to have no presence on the Web.

Continue reading →

Old Customers: The People-You-Know Marketing Campaign – part three

Posted on by

Read the earlier posts in this series: Part One or Part Two 

POLISH UP YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH

You might think, “What is he talking about? I’m not pitching to venture capitalists!” Doesn’t matter. Every time you meet a person you need to be able to answer the question, “So what do you do?” in a way that is compelling, memorable, and gets your value across. This is where your elevator pitch comes in.  To illustrate how the elevator pitch works here is an audio program on the elevator pitch from This American Life. At the least listen to the first ten or so minutes about the MIT contest. 

I know the value of a good elevator pitch. I used to introduce myself as, “I am a management consultant.” Think about how many eyes have glazed over at that line! You can imagine in contrast what happens when I say, “I help small business owners get more sleep (and I don’t sell mattresses).” This always invites the question, “How do you do that?” Now I am ready with a brief story that illustrates what happens when business owners work with me.

Use this new marketing campaign elevator pitch as a prompt to revisit the value you are delivering to customers. Keep in mind the principles of FABing: Customers buy Benefits not Features. And, look at how you might add the lessons of your new elevator pitch to your marketing campaign overall and especially to internet business models.

 

A BACKGROUND IDEA: THE INVOLVEMENT FUNNEL

Sales - Involvement FunnelThe sales funnel model of marketing is pretty familiar territory. It captures the idea that a marketing campaign attracts leads and the sales process converts these leads into prospects and ultimately customers. The People-You-Know approach is quite different. In this world there is an ongoing engagement with customers about the ideas and values shared between the business and customers. Parallel to the traditional sales funnel model your overall marketing campaign creates awareness of your business. This can be as simple as a sign on your business. But, once people move beyond the “tire kicker” phase and become “browsers”, the engagement becomes more intense and varied. Browsers display a repeated but low level engagement with the product or service sphere of your business. For instance if your business is a store front dog care provider, “Pooch Haven”, a browser might be the person who stops by on the occasional Saturday.

As your engagement deepens interactions become more detailed, more frequent, and, well, more engaged. This requires you to share more information and exchange real thinking about the topics at hand. In  internet business models, this involves interactions via user groups, wikis, and other social tools like Twitter and Facebook. In this way the traditional marketing campaign becomes a Web marketing campaign. This plays a very important role in re-engaging old customers.

NEXT STEPS – CARRYING OUT THE MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Now comes the tough part. You have to actually do the work of renewing contacts with old customers consistently while you are doing all of the other tasks required to keep your business moving ahead. This is where your spreadsheet with all of those names in it comes in handy. Pick out a number of old customers, friends, and vendors you can really handle each week and get to work. Some can be contacted by email. This means crafting a brief email with a focused sample story that will be of interest and nothing more. No calls to action. This is a message in which you are adding some information that may be of interest or real value to them. If it does nothing else it will just remind them that you are alive.

Other old customers may benefit from a telephone call. These are likely to be the people with whom you had a closer relationship in the past. Just remember to be polite about the timing of the call. Always ask early on whether this is a good time to chat for a few minutes. If not, ask when you can call back. For customers and friends with whom you were really close, a breakfast (this is the easiest since it is before the work day begins) or lunch. As you work through your list and renew contacts keep a few practices in mind.

First, no selling or pitching for business. Never, never, ever.

Second, share information and stories that will be of interest and add value to your counterpart. New developments, new applications, new trends, anything that you have observed about the shared spaces between you is great stuff. They will reciprocate.

Third, ask for referrals. Ask your friend whether there is someone else they know who might be of interest for you to meet. Someone who can add and extend your knowledge of the field, markets, trends, etc. It is not uncommon for people to spontaneously offer to connect you with a new person. But, if they don’t, ask.

Fourth, ask them what is going on at their company or in their work life. They will share this easily. Who doesn’t like to talk about their world?

Fifth, if something comes up in the course of your conversation that requires follow up, write it down as a note in front of them. This sends the signals that you are taking the information seriously. Of course this also means that you MUST follow up as required.

Over and over in my work with all types of companies, I am reminded of how valuable the people you already know are to your sales. Repeatedly clients have increased their sales by focusing a significant portion of their marketing efforts on rekindling old customer relationships and maintaining the active ones they have. Following the steps discussed here can move you forward in capturing this army of customers hidden in your past.

Old Customers: The People-You-Know Sales Strategy

Posted on by

Old Customers, Friends, Vendors

Old customers, friends, and vendors are a potential gold mine for your business sales. Traditional marketing strategy focuses almost entirely on finding new customers. This is based on reasoning that when you are starting out new customers are the only kind you have and, if you want to sustain a high growth strategy, new customers are required. In many businesses, customer retention, the care and feeding of old customers, is an operational afterthought. Nevertheless, over and over in my work with all types of companies, I am reminded of how valuable the people you already know are to your sales. Repeatedly clients have increased their sales by focusing their marketing strategy and a significant portion of their marketing efforts on maintaining current customers and rekindling old customer relationships.  Continue reading →