Nov 25, 2009 | Management, Marketing, Small business
How do you engage with hundreds of people as “friends”?
On a personal level, you may engage deeply with a few, maybe a few dozen, electronically, there may be a group with a specific interest, and you engage with them in a club-type situation, 100 perhaps,150?, but any more and it is not engagement, just some sort of casual interaction, in no way engagement.
The depth of personal relationships simply do not scale.
Our social networking tools have opened new avenues of connection, they are wide, but the width is not a substitute for the depth that can only evolve through a personal connection.
This is one situation where numbers simply do not count, where less is often more, so do not confuse the numbers of contacts with quality of interaction.
Nov 2, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing, Small business
We talk about vision, mission, and all the rest, but at a more fundamental level, evolving a point of view, shared throughout the firm, about the “shape” and trends of the industries we are in, and those of the industries we intersect with, is a really basic thing to do.
Having a point of view about the “green” economy enabled GE to start their “Ecomagination” program before climate change was on the general agenda, it enabled them to disrupt their own light bulb business with the compact flouro, and it drives their current efforts to rebuild their huge medical devices business by developing small, cheap, mobile devices that fulfill a more basic need in developing countries .
All this because Jeff Immelt developed a point of view, and drove it through the business as a catalyst for massive and disruptive innovation.
Have you developed a “point of view” about your industry, and the role your business will take? Few are as influential as GE, able to change the “shape” of their industries by their actions, but it is no less important for small firms to have a point of view, and a plan to deal with the “shaping” influences as they emerge.
Oct 23, 2009 | Demand chains, Management, Operations, Sales, Small business
Demand chains are a representation of the drivers of “flow” through a supply chain, a concept familiar to those engaged in “lean” initiatives, when the motivator to the flow is demand rather than an ability to produce for inventory or against a forecast of sales.
Category management is a process of welding the drivers of demand, the consumer preferences and behavior to the supply of their preferred products, whilst maximizing the returns to the retailer, and others in the chain, as well as delighting the customer.
Few who claim to engage in category management would see the explicit link, as they are typically engrossed in the numbers, but it is there nevertheless, and the successful exponents recognise the link, and leverage the numbers for the sake of the outcome of the entire chain, not just for one link who happens to hold the power.
Oct 21, 2009 | Management, Sales, Small business
It is pretty obvious, although not always acted on that you should define the problem before you spend time trying to sell a solution.
There are many techniques to getting to the point where the sale can be made, libraries have been written, but in my experience, 3 simple questions will get you there. They are not easy to answer, but once you have, a sale is the easy bit.
- How can you help your prospect build sales?
- How can you help your prospect to decrease costs?
- How can you help your prospect to increase productivity?
Answer these, and you have the problem your product can solve defined, and the sell is easy, after all, who can say no to any of these being delivered. One of the rules I use, never go into a sales situation (as distinct from an information gathering situation) without at least 2 of these answered in some form.
Oct 20, 2009 | Leadership, Management, OE, Operations, Small business
Yesterday, I wrote about the process jig-saw that supports an implemented ERP system as it works to drive efficiency, but deliberately left out the hardest bit.
The most challenging changes necessary to make an ERP implementation deliver the value promised are the behavioural ones.
You can buy all the software in the world, but junk-in still generates junk-out.
Most ERP systems I have seen, if you take a wide view of what constitutes “ERP” is done on Excel. I have developed simple routines for SME clients using Excel, that whilst not fancy, automate parts of the operations planning processes, and generate substantial benefits.
Most sophisticated systems from the well known SAP to less fancied packages all have large chunks of data delivered by to them by a range of means, mostly spreadsheets, and the temptation for the individual is to leave well enough alone, and resist the dropping of their routines in favor of the expensive ERP package. Allowing this parallel system to survive beyond a short validation phase is always a mistake, as people revert to what they know as soon as there is an issue. When you jump in, you need to go all the way.
Oct 11, 2009 | Innovation, Management, Marketing, Small business
It is easy to see opportunities outside the “home base” often easier than seeing them close to home. However, success comes with exploiting potential in existing markets before you “export” resources to chasing new ones. Chase market penetration, cost reduction, value and innovation in your home and adjacent markets before you bet the farm on a new one.
These closer to home opportunities are rarely as sexy as building a business in a new area, but often they come with less risk, and investment, and usually a greater payoff.
Innovation is front and centre in this process of leveraging the existing base, but it is the grunt work of implementation, continuous innovation in small ways, and focus that will win.
My definition of marketing, not found in any textbook I have read is:
“Marketing is the identification, development, protection and leveraging of competitive advantage”
I have found if you apply this definition to all the activities of an enterprise, looking at each for its contribution to at least one of these parameters, your marketing focus will be crystal clear, and the process of sorting out strategy, and the supporting allocation of resources will be considerably eased.
