As 2010 is winding to a close it’s time to reflect on what was, what could have been and what will be in the year ahead.
We’ve dealt with a sluggish economy, clients who opted not to initiate projects, governmental regulation changes, team members who had family members laid off, perhaps you faced the need to downsize your staff as well. All in all, not one of the better years for business owners. Read More→
As a business owner, do you find yourself getting frustrated when all around you seem to think differently from you? Angry when the simplest of tasks or requests seem to be an imposition to others? When the common sense approach (i.e. Yours) turns into an all out brawl when trying to get cooperation? If this sounds familiar it’s because most of the people you are trying to enlist to help you are listening to different stations, they’re all on a completely separate channel.
Now this channel isn’t on Sirius, not on XM, not on cable and not even on those funny in-between HD bands. They are all listening, with you canceling headphones, to WII-FM.
The What’s-In-It-For-Me channel.
The only way that you can get and keep their attention is with really good incentive based advertising on their favorite station. As entrepreneurs and small business owners we have to craft our messages in ways that create mutual agenda items. Read More→
I was reading the Wall Street Journal the other day and was astounded, well actually these days nothing surprises me anymore, that two toothpaste manufacturers are going to war over a graphic picture of a squirt of toothpaste.
Now I’m all about protecting intellectual property, I have plenty of copyrights and trademarks of my own, but this seems insane even to me, a professional marketer.
For the uninitiated, a NURDLE is the apparently correct name for the tiny little perfectly shaped glob of toothpaste shown on the box. In this picture the red, white and blue thingy.
n. a grain, pellet, granule, or other small piece of a material, especially as part of a large quantity (such as foam kernels used as packing material); (in pronunciation-based spellings) a nodule; a quantity of a gel or semi-solid; a thing of unknown name (doodad, thingamajig, etc.). Also nerdle. Read More→
I am regularly amazed at how quickly the most ‘corporate’ of companies, never mind us free wheeling, unstructured entrepreneurial companies, can get sucked off track and into the black hole vortex of wasting time by a simple 5 word phrase uttered in a meeting “I’ve got a great idea!”
As entrepreneurs, we are genetically programmed to develop and test new ideas and to keep looking for the latest bright shiny object. It’s actually a disease and we can’t help it.
However, over the years, I’ve found that some of my best ‘hot’ new ideas were better, even great, if I left them alone for a while and let them marinate.
I’m not suggesting in any way that you stifle the creativity and idea generation of you or your team members, in fact that’s how most small businesses discover new markets or create spin off businesses. An idea put before a work group, idea team or mastermind group grows and innovations are born.
However, to keep your production meetings on track as well as your own productivity, I would suggest that you institute a four step funnel or channel for the submission of new ideas. Read More→
If you’ve got a great product or service, you’re going to be copied, challenged, reversed engineered or outright pirated, it’s a fact of business life.
When I first entered the medical billing business back in 1989, there were no other companies in my niche (ambulance billing) in my state. Fast forward 23 years and there are now ten companies that are directly competing with my firm for some part of the ambulance billing business in my home state.
Now the interesting thing is that only one competitor has opted to match service levels and they are the latest entry into the game. They have only 5 clients, none of them of substantial size or volume.
This poaching of clients, ideas or advertising offers and methods is simply part of business and it took me a while to both realize and to not to get angry about it. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but not when the flattery costs me money to get. Now all of this said, it doesn’t mean you should simply accept this as a fact of life and take it lying down. Read More→
Opportunity's Knocking
My in box is full…again. Affiliate offers, joint venture deals, ‘greatest ever’ product reseller programs, credit card affiliate programs and of course everybody, including me, has products to sell. Do you ever feel overwhelmed?
I find myself deleting, turning down, opting out of lots of these offers every day. Many are from people I’ve never heard of and can’t find on the internet or Google. If I can’t find you, research you and determine what people are saying about you, you probably have a little chance of making it through my well-tuned hype detector.
The other critical reason to turn down these offers is that they are not complimentary to your core business. Don’t confuse your clients with offers that don’t make sense. Read More→
