Hunters and Gatherers - Are You Serving Both Their Needs?
January 31, 2010
The University of Exeter in the United Kingdom recently published research financed by Barclays Bank, which has implications for everyone who is serving the general population.
This research shows that consumers shop establishments based on one of the two personal profiles.
Approximately 50% of the population is defined as hunters when they go out into the public arena. They know what they want, they are focused on the task in front of them and they do not want anyone or anything to stand in their way. If you make the ’shopping’ experience too complicated for them, they will abort the mission and go somewhere else that addresses their needs more easily. As you would expect, a larger proportion of men than women fall into this category of consumers.
The other half of the population are defined as gatherers; they enjoy the experience of shopping and like to enjoy browsing around and discovering new items. They enjoy a conversation with your team members and look on the ’shopping’ experience as one of the joys of life. Approximately 60% of female consumers fit into this category.
Becoming Wise - Wild & Free - Writing A Successful Business Plan - Part 2 - Do It In Steps
December 20, 2009
So you’ve decided to write your own business plan because you know the value that the experience will give you. With the books and software that are out there today you can probably sit down and complete the plan in a day or so, right? Plug in the numbers, add the notes, write the whole narrative (story), print it and get it out to the banks or investors.
If you can complete a plan in a day or so you are either an expert, that has already done all of the research, or you are heading for big trouble, because you have not done enough research. If you are like most people you have a job, a family and commitments that take up a lot of time. It would be impossible to write a business plan that quickly, even if you know your stuff. You have probably heard the old adage, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ well, neither was a good business plan.
To create a top quality business plan you need to research each and every aspect as diligently as possible. Take your time and think of everything, don’t leave anything to chance.
Is Your Company Growing Fast Enough for You?
November 5, 2009
Are you frustrated by the lack of growth in your firm, or the effort required to squeeze any up-tick in performance? Are inadequate policies and procedures a root cause? To find out, take this simple self assessment to see if this may be inhibiting real growth at your company.
Q. Can you take an extended vacation without the company falling apart?
A. If you answered "no" then you have a job and not a business. A business must have a system of standard operating procedures to ensure the work gets done correctly, even in your absence.
Q. Can your company handle a ramp-up in sales and production?
A. Hidden inefficiencies are often revealed when sales and production increase. If low turns on accounts receivable and inventory, long sales or production cycles starve your cash flow, then something is wrong. Your policies and procedures should document cycle times for your critical operating metrics.
Q. Can you effectively add more people to your organization?
A. Hiring people is simple compared to ensuring they know what to do and have the resources to accomplish their job. Policies and procedures provide the framework for a management system to oversee new employees and communicate who does what by when.
6 Steps To Laying Out Your Competitive Strategy
September 25, 2009
Why do so many companies languish and watch as their business turns into a zero profit zone, while others seem to thrive?
When you look at your business, whether it’s a new venture or a company with a long history, can you answer the following questions?
- What does my company do better than anyone else?
- What unique value do I provide to my customers?
- How will I increase that value next year?
Companies that fail to answer these questions, and don’t believe they are of paramount importance, relegate themselves to marginal profitability at best and failure at worst. But companies that can answer these questions are able to raise the value bar for their customers and reap the benefits of success.
Of course, being able to answer 3 simple questions does not ensure success, but it is an important step in creating a strategic and focused operation which leads to a successful business. With today’s business environment being so competitive, businesses need to re-invent the rules on which they compete in order to be successful. Companies like Wal-Mart have figured this out and have redefined competition in their market by delivering a unique value to a selected customer group. By maintaining a focus and discipline, they make it difficult for other companies to compete under old competitive terms.
More Uses for Your Business Plan
August 14, 2009
You have invested a lot of time and energy on writing a business plan just to get a loan or to attract an investor. What do you do when you get the money or, worse, should you be turned down?
Do you just file it away? That’s like investing in a boat that remains parked in your driveway after its inaugural voyage.
Instead of filing it away or leaving it on a shelf to gather dust, why not capture more return on your investment? To gain a clearer perspective, convert your investment of time and energy into a dollar amount. Then, you’ll think twice before filing your business plan away.
Ways to capitalize on your investment
Business Strategy Planning Made Easy
July 3, 2009
Ask Yourself three simple questions that affect your strategy planning…
- What direction is my business going in?
- How do I create my business strategy so that I can position myself as a leader in my industry?
- Where do I go to find out information about business strategy planning?
Have you found yourself asking these questions about your business? Well this article is written just for you. Learning what drives your industry will help you understand how to create a successful business strategy plan. The plan will help you stay on target with your yearly goals.
For the New Year, I wanted to share a few business strategy tips with you that will help you understand more about “Strategy Planning Made Easy”.
Business Ideas: 3 Smart Ways To Generate Profitable Business Ideas Anytime
May 21, 2009
Creativity is one of the greatest tools for success in business.
All businesses are created first by ideas.
Then once you’re in business you need ideas for marketing, advertising, solving problems, product development etc.
The difference between success or failure could be one just one idea. That’s all!
Below are three ways to generate profitable business ideas.
1. Communicating regularly with other business people can generate many ideas. There are many resources online and offline to meet new business people lie; seminars, chat rooms, discussion boards, trade shows etc. Sharing your knowledge, asking questions, and taking in new information will stimulate your mind. Your brain will begin to put all this information together to create profitable business ideas.
2. If you’re not much of a communicator, try reading. Reading can also stimulate your mind. Read business books, magazines, e-books, websites, journals, e-zines, newspapers etc. Your brain will generate profitable ideas by absorbing and rearranging this information on a regular basis.
3. Don’t have a lot of time to read? You could listen to business audio books, seminars and courses. Listen to them in the car, while your doing house work, working in the yard, or exercising. Also, tune in business related radio stations. This will help you save time and generate profitable business ideas at the same time.
Thinking Like A Farmer
April 9, 2009
One of the difficulties we face in our industrialized age is the fact we’ve lost our sense of seasons. Unlike the farmer whose priorities change with the seasons, we have become impervious to the natural rhythm of life. As a result, we have our priorities out of balance.
Let me illustrate what I mean:
For a farmer, springtime is his most active time. It’s then when he must work around the clock, up before the sun and still toiling at the stroke of midnight. He must keep his equipment running at full capacity because he has but a small window of time for the planting of his crop.
Eventually winter comes when there is less for him to do to keep him busy.
There is a lesson here.
Learn to use the seasons of life.
Decide when to pour it on and when to ease back, when to take advantage and when to let things ride.
It’s easy to keep going from nine to five year in and year out and lose a natural sense of priorities and cycles. Don’t let one year blend into another in a seemingly endless parade of tasks and responsibilities. Keep your eye on your own seasons, lest you lose sight of value and substance.
Business Planning and the ?Bozo? Factor
February 25, 2009
"Bozo" ? A clown with a forlorn look, always finding negative implications in every activity or event. A person who tries to find a way to prevent you from moving ahead, giving excuses such as "we’ve always done it this way, or this is not our culture" when presented a new opportunity or challenge. Normally associated with people who are uncomfortable with learning new techniques, processes, or relationships.
Guy Kawasaki from Garage.Com ? a venture capital company, used to have a segment in his presentations called "Don’t Let the Bozos Grind You Down." This segment discussed how every organization will have a corps of people who simply try everything in their power to stop innovation, new product and service development, and introduction of anything new into the daily job function. These people are "bozos." If you want to avoid the pain of dealing with bozos in your business planning, you need to develop techniques in identifying and preventing bozos from interfering with potential future activities of your organization or company.
Will and Vision
January 14, 2009
Remember Chux? The disposable diaper that took the market by storm in 1932?
Of course you don’t. Chux saw its product as a luxury item, and happily kept its little throwaway business to itself for almost forty years. Then Pampers came along in the 1960s, supported by a huge, mass-consumer vision with persistence to match, and blew Chux out of the market-transforming baby rearing forever.
And everyone knows the legend of the two Steves-Jobs and Wozniak-who invented the personal computer in someone’s garage. Only they didn’t. The Altair MITS came to market long before in 1975. It’s just that Steve Jobs had the mammoth vision of a computer on every desk; and Apple II became the first PC hit.
I just finished reading a brilliant book titled Will and Vision-How Latecomers Grow to Dominate Markets, by Grard J. Tellis and Peter N. Golder.
This book takes the concept of vision and makes it concrete, demonstrating sixty-six cases where a huge vision of value for a market combined with persistence and indomitable will, made the ingredients for blockbuster success. Along the way the authors bury the concept of first mover advantage. They offer numerous examples of companies that arrived second, third or later, and went on to dominate their markets.
So what does Will and Vision say are the key elements of success?
The authors-academics grounded in research-not than starry-eyed growth consultants like yours truly-carefully reviewed the historical record: vision was the number one element.
That’s right. Big fat vision backed by persistence, will, and relentless innovation.
Today’s world offers many choices. People who lack vision are apt to drift to the next appealing project as soon as things don’t go the way they planned. They lack persistence to achieve anything important.
Will and Vision offers us a different kind of world. (Of course I’m biased. I’ve been shouting about vision and commitment for years.) We aren’t talking about a “vision” that’s sloganized and prettified and pasted on a plaque. We mean the kind of vision that highlights the importance and value of a product or service to many people and ultimately points the way to a new future. And, of course, requires a 100% commitment to bring into reality.
More mass-value vision examples, from high tech and low: Dell computers, not IBM or IMSAI; Sony video recorders, not Ampex-who gave up a ten year lead; Microsoft Internet Explorer-not Netscape, or its predecessor, Links; McDonalds’ Ray Kroc-not the McDonald Brothers; Gillette-not Wilkenson Sword.
Mass market + high utility = big vision.
Seeing what no one else can see. Having a new world view.
Leaders in each of these companies owned a view that extended further than any of their predecessors.
And that expansive vision enabled these people to gain access and leverage the resources (Key #4), maintain the persistence to bring the vision into reality (Key #2), and sustain relentless creativity and innovations (Key #3), over a period of years.
Here are a few points about a successful vision taken from the research:
- The vision must be unique. Not uniqueness of product per se, but unique in the way your product serves the world;
- The vision must be simple and easy to grasp;
- Seeds of the vision typically exist in some form in other products or services; (Thank goodness we don’t all have to be inventors or originals-only visionaries!)
The new vision may be of a thing for which there no market-yet. (This last bit is illuminating for any of us stuck in market research.)
And some important points regarding will:
