Where Are We? Part 2…

… OR, “Who Should I Talk To?”

The questions posted yesterday should be posed to:

- INSIDE THE COMPANY
Key influencers
Decision makers
Beyond the obvious C-level people
VP of Customer Service
Customer Service reps
IT People
R&D People

- SALESPEOPLE
Not just yours… Salespeopole in any business bridge the “inside” and the “outside” every day. They are the closest thing to interviewing real customers and prospects. In fact, they’re sometimes better because people in sales make their livelihood by listening and responding to real customers’ comments and complaints almost every day, and they have firsthand insight into potential solutions.

Salespeople also spend their time trying to outdo the competition which makes them knowledgeable about competitors’ specialties. As a group, salespeople are often the most practical thinkers in the organization because results are the only thing they’re compensated for. And, results come consistently from what works, not from what works in theory.

- OUTSIDE THE COMPANY
Current customers
Past customers (i.e. those who’ve left for greener pastures)
Prospects you’ve pitched to and lost
Your target audience (unpitched)
Competitors (job recruits, ex-employees, current employees)
Industry observers (analysts, press, newsletter writers, bloggers, government regulators, industry attorney, investors, venture capitalists)

Where Are We?

Before your company can go anywhere, you’ve got to know exactly where you are today from both your own perspective, your employees’ perspectives, your customers’ perspectives, AND the general marketplace’s perspective. So, as “A CEO’s GPS,” my first order of business is to encourage you to collect and catalog your company’s reality by listening to the key stakeholders inside and outside the company in their own unscripted words.

You’re listening for patterns, themes, and intelligence that tell an unvarnished truth about your business, its specialty, your competition, the market opportunity, and your unique capacities that can coalesce into a real selling brand.

- How does my company articulate its specialty now?
- Where does it rank in sales, product quality, and leadership status in its specialty?
- What’s most important to customers when they buy? Removal of pain? Improvement of what aspect? What attributes? What end benefit?
- Where’s the SWEET SPOT for the specialty’s attributes… the dividing line between meaningful, measurable differentiation and ungraspable gobbledy-gook in the customer’s mind?
- What sets your company apart? What does it do that nobody else does, and how important is that to the market?
- What are your company’s values?
- What are its most serious weaknesses?
- Who’s the competition? What are they famous for?
- What does the competition do better? Does the market know it?
- What’s the biggest thing customers wish they had more of that they don’t get now from any company?
- What will make your company #1 in its specialty?
- What will the industry look like in three years? Who will dominate and why?
- Where will your company be in three years?
- What should the market know about your company that it doesn’t know today?

Coming tomorrow…. WHO to ask these questions!!!

Pharmer’s Market-ing

On a somewhat related note, if you’re in the Dallas Area and would like to join Scott and me, we’ll be at WordCamp Dallas 2008 the weekend of 3/29. Drop me a note and let me know to look out for you. The founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, will be just one of the great speakers “prescribed.”

Another Product RAVE!!!

FreshBooks — “The fastest way to track time and invoice your clients. Send, track, and collect payments quickly”

FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional… Fortune 500 professional. Easily create, send, and manage invoices; Track time (yours and your staff); Send invoices by snail mail or email; Accept payment with PayPal, Authorize.Net, and more; Automatically send invoices and late payment notices; Create robust reports and import/export your data; Free account or 30-day money back guarantee.

What else could you ask for?!?

Moving Stage NEXT

Resources for startups are all over the place, but small companies need help stabilizing and managing their expansion, too. What should be No. 1 and 2 on their priority list? Make a “stop doing” list and a “process” list.

“CEOs in growing companies have to think about creating innovative systems that allow them to have control, but they don’t have to be the one looking over the shoulder” of employees, says Dino Signore, who runs leadership programs at the Edward Lowe Foundation, a Michigan nonprofit dedicated to helping second-stage entrepreneurs, which it defines as those who head up companies with about $1 million in annual revenue that are beyond startup stage but not fully mature.

Business owners must understand that they have to start working ON their business instead of IN their business. That means both a “stop doing” list (i.e. doing some of their employees’ jobs for them) and a “process” list (ex: repeatable and duplicatable procedures for every aspect of the organization to maximize productivity no matter who is performing the job).

The stakes are high. Companies beyond the startup stage thrive or fail based on their organization, according to Eric Flamholtz, a management consultant and co-author of Growing Pains: Transitioning from an Entrepreneurship to a Professionally Managed Firm.
“You ultimately win with infrastructure,” says Flamholtz. “Most people think you win with markets and products. You’re looking in the wrong place.” He says there are some key signals that should tell companies they need to change: when many workers don’t know what others are doing, for example, or when sales rise but profits stay flat.

Of course, business owners seeking organization can overdose on new systems and lose the agility that made their startup successful. You need the right balance of internal processes. On that note, be watching for new products and systems in the Ideas to Go section here… we have LOTS of tools-you-can-use coming soon!

The core lesson is that CEOs should create entities that don’t depend on them. You want your business to be a legacy… to thrive and grow far past your day-to-day involvement. After all, that’s why you went into business on your own in the first place.

Success = Power + Responsibility

From Indexed…

Why do we have “C-level” executives in companies? Why are we so enamored with the word “Chief?” The Chief has greater work to do, yet the Chief only has two hands just like all of us. Similarly, he/she is limited to 24 hours in the day… as is every human on the planet.

With greater power comes greater responsibility and the key to a successful business is delegation. When employees feel they’re being given an opportunity to learn new skills, they gain more knowledge and feel more connected to the organization. If you manage your people well, your people will manage the rest well and your company will prosper with both financial rewards and productivity increases.

According to John Adams, society’s demand for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. A similar tenet holds that the more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have with others.

You are always responsible for what you do, what you don’t do, what you say, and how you say it. In the end, power is about the ability to make choices, and that reponsibility requires a benevolent “Chief” to consider the impact of decisions on all those involved.

The Glass is Half FULL!!!

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Helen Keller (1880-1968) American humanitarian and advocate for the deaf and blind

The business will grow. Clients will come. Customers will buy. And, if you think I’m wrong, maybe you should think differently.

Optimism’s relationship with entrepreneurship is deep and personal. It’s what goads the initial concept out of your brain and launches it into reality. Now, there’s loads of research proving optimism contributes significantly to business success along with the revelation that such tendencies can be learned… a blessing for those of you whose dreams are threatened by a skeptical nature.

“Optimism is solely a habit,” explains Michael Mercer, a business psychologist and co-author of Spontaneous Optimism. “It’s not genetic and it’s not something you breathe in the air.”

How does optimism play into the life of an entrepreneur and CEO? “If you think something won’t work for your business, you need to automatically focus on the solution,” Mercer says. “Optimistic business owners lay out clear goals for how they want their businesses to succeed, make realistic timetables and spend 50% or more of their time focused on achieving those goals.”

Keep in mind, however, that a touch of REALISM must be tempered with all this OPTIMISM. The true goal? To be realistic… to be optimistic to an extent, but to face the facts about your business and your products/services.

Then again, it’s hard to tell which comes first: the attitude or the reality. If you think you can, you can. And, if you think you can’t, you’re right, too.

Target Practice

Being a Texas girl (Dallas native born and raised), I’ve spent a good share of time around guns and firing ranges. The key to hitting a good clean shot in the “heart” of the silhouette is to get calm and steady and just gently, but firmly squeeze the trigger (in other words, focus then commit).

The process of finding and studying potential customers for your venture doesn’t have to be complex or expensive, but it is extremely important. In a nutshell, it requires you to find out everything you can about the customers whom you intend to pursue. Once you have that information, you’ll have a much better chance of capturing those customers for your business.

The facts you need to know about your target market fall into these three categories:

1. DEMOGRAPHICS:
Begin your research by checking the demographics of the region that you plan to target. You’ll want to know the population’s make-up in terms of age, gender, income level, occupation, education, and family circumstances — married, single, retired, and so on. But to be truly effective, dive deeper.

Yes, I’m a 35-40 year old, single, white female living in Dallas who graduated from UT Austin and works full-time, but so are probably 200,000 other women. Is your messaging REALLY talking to me? I’m allergic to cats; I love music from country to rap to symphony; I’ll gladly pay $1200 for a designer handbag, but won’t spend more than $50 on a belt. I drive a 2008 Lexus IS350, but I cringe when I spend $4.50 at Starbuck’s for a Chai Tea Latte. I love Neiman Marcus… I also love Target. What do these things say about me? Does your company know me?

2. GEOGRAPHIC / LIFESTYLE FACTORS:
Give some thought to where and how your target customers live. Are they Southerners or Yankees; urbanites, suburban soccer moms, or country folk? Are they risk-takers or conservative, athletes or couch potatoes, spenders or savers? The answers will help determine what you can sell to them, how you should sell it, and at what price.

Again, I live in Uptown and rent my apartment. However, I could afford a $400,000 home. Why don’t I choose to own? I spend almost $150 a week on groceries, yet I live alone. Whole Foods organic products all the way, baby. What does this say about me? How do these facts relate to your company?

3. CUSTOMER NEEDS:
Consider all of the reasons why people might purchase your product or service. For example, if you’re opening a string of health clubs, will your customers come to meet other people, to take exercise classes, or to play racquet sports with their friends? Find out by talking to people in the local fitness industry and by quizzing friends or acquaintances who go to health clubs. Then you can design and market your club accordingly.

I work between 30 and 60 hours a week depending on the state of current clients’ projects and how well I’ve scheduled my time and my team’s time. Some weeks, I can take all of Friday off. Some weeks, I’m lucky to get the dishes out of the sink and into the dishwasher. It’s chaotic. I really need a personal assistant / concierge service. I need a maid. I need a personal shopper. I want people who organize interesting lectures and organizations to reach out to me so I’ll get out from behind this stinking computer. Is your company aiming for me?

When the Brand Specialist Can’t Stay "On Brand"

So, I get a phone call yesterday from a woman who has been referred to me by a very close friend, confidante, and advisor. She proceeds to tell me that she’s heard that I have a wonderful personality, that I’m easy to work with, that I have lots of influence in Dallas, etc., and that she has been told that I am the perfect person that she needs to have on her team to expand her company.

“Great!,” I say, “When would you have time to meet next week so that I can learn what your marketing needs are?” “Oh…,” she says. “I have marketing covered… I need a sales executive to close deals on online banner advertising for my firm.” HUH?!?

Okay, I ask you, dear reader, am I not doing my job in correctly communicating EXACTLY what it is that I do and how I can help startup and small companies move to the next level? Even as the years go by, I still find myself having to “fight” to maintain a strict focus on my mission statement and set of solutions… without deviating or wandering over into the sales arena (there’s good money to be made there!)… or the finance arena (I have a degree in Economics, though)… or HR-land (but, I have great people skills!).

No! Stay on task with your core competency. Yes, smart marketers evolve their brands over time to keep them relevant (no more buggy whips!), so if you are determined to make a change, I offer the following 10 all-too-common mistakes to avoid:

1. Navigating without a plan.
2. Not trying on your customer’s shoes.
3. Not planning ahead for implementation and adaptation time.
4. Not calling the call center.
5. Forgetting that people don’t do what they say… they do what they do.
6. Basing a rebrand on advertising.
7. Strategy by committee.
8. Believing you’re too small to rebrand.
9. Not leveraging existing brand equity and goodwill.
10. Refusing to hire a branding consultant without industry experience.

The Business of Blogging

Blogging offers some compelling advantages for business. Every day more and more companies have blogs and here are some of the benefits:

1. Attracts new customers from new demographics. People who read blogs generally spend more money online than people who don’t. Helps you answer the question: “Where are my next generation of customer coming from?”

2. Provides your existing customers with a new window through which to see you… and through which you can see them, via visitor statistics and/or comments.

3. Lets you bypass traditional news media. Alongside more traditional marketing methods, like press releases, you can speak in your own voice directly to your audience.

4. Increases your company’s presence and placement in search results. Blogs constantly churn out new content full of keywords your potential customers will use to search online for products and services related to your company.

5. Puts a human face on an abstract entity such as your company.

6. Your blog is your company’s best crisis communication channel available.

7. It’s less expensive. And it’s more effective than traditional methods of marketing and public relations.

By this time, the benefits of having a website are undeniable. As a supplement to websites, blogs magnify those benefits tremendously and deliver on them better than a non-blog website can.

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