Only a relative few have made significant, successful
adjustments to changing conditions from irresistible forces
(such as financial markets, weather, demographics, new
technology, and attitude shifts).    There is perhaps no
more interesting an example than Berkshire Hathaway, which
started as an owner of a failing textile mill that
eventually did go out of business due to adverse conditions.

Since then, Warren Buffett, Berkshire’s founder, has
successfully navigated the changing tides of business and
financial markets over the years to built one of the most
successful companies ever.  Unlike Microsoft, and Intel
which had relatively few important shifts in irresistible
forces, Berkshire Hathaway has weathered many by
redirecting its resources and energies into new, more
promising directions.

After having been primarily a portfolio manager of a
handful of common stocks for many years, the company has
recently shifted again to emphasize purchasing and
operating companies.  You too can learn to catch the full
benefit of today’s volatile and rapidly changing forces and
spur your enterprise on to greater and more rapid growth
than ever before.

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In practice building (and getting clients) it seems to be
that most self-employed people just hope for the best. They
simply keep doing what they’ve been doing and don’t have a
strategy for creating the practice they’d be truly and
deeply happy with. This is a big mistake in my opinion.

I used to write down my goals each year, but it never
really worked for me. I just didn’t feel really excited
about my new goals. They didn’t seem to propel me in motion
and so I kind of viewed them as being useless. I never
really looked at them, probably because they seemed like
“shoulds” rather than “really-meaningful-wants.”

Then I came across the concept of creating 3-year visions
instead of just a list of goals for the upcoming year. This
visioning wasn’t just about business goals, but also
family, financial, spiritual, and relationship goals. It
became a “holistic” way of looking at what you wanted in
your life. All the pieces looked like they would work
together, but only because you were compelled to make it
all work together, which was the first time I’d done that
in such depth.

The coolest thing about visioning 3 years out came to me
after I started doing this regularly. I noticed that ONE
year goals were never too much of a stretch. They seemed
like timid goals, goals that didn’t really get me excited.
But having to create a vision of what 3 years down the line
would look like allowed me to REALLY think BIG.

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The title of today’s article captures the single greatest
small business marketing mistake I encounter - and I
encounter it every single day.

Small business owners often fall prey to the marketing whim
of the week, chasing every new way to do direct mail or
draw web site visitors they encounter, because they have no
real marketing strategy to help them drive marketing
decisions. If I could change anything about the way small
business owners view marketing - that would be it.

Without a strategy firmly in place to use as a filter for
where the business is headed, it’s far to difficult to
really analyze whether any particular tactic or marketing
initiative makes sense for a business or not.

By strategy I mean your marketing reason for being, the
position you want to hold in the mind of your customer and,
no, “I want to exchange money for something with anyone we
can,” is not a strategy, it’s a disaster plan. Far too many
people think “we want to sell lots of stuff to lots of
people” is a strategy.

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Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem.

― Anonymous

A 2,000 percent solution is any method of accomplishing
what your organization does now with zero-to-four percent
of the current time and resources, or accomplishing an
increase of 20 times in results while employing the same or
fewer resources. A combination of those results can also be
a 2,000 percent solution.

When first creating a 2,000 percent solution, many people
report discovering that their solution could have been
implemented at any time during the prior 50 years. But no
one had. Why is that?

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No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

― John F. Kennedy

An emergency room (ER) nurse kept hearing complaints from
patients who had been waiting for hours to see a doctor.
After reading The 2,000 Percent Solution, she began to keep
track of how long it took various kinds of patients to get
the attention they needed. She was shocked to find that
those who were too sick or injured to explain their
problems but who appeared to be okay sometimes waited for
more than 10 hours ― even if they needed immediate
treatment. This nurse shared her concerns with the other ER
nurses and physicians. They discussed possible solutions
and decided to train the guards at the door to spot people
who couldn’t explain about themselves and bring a triage
nurse immediately to check the patient. Waiting time for
these vulnerable, hard-to-diagnose patients dropped to less
than 10 minutes. Although her colleagues didn’t know it,
they had just put in place a 2,000 percent solution.

A 2,000 percent solution is any method of accomplishing
what your organization does now with zero-to-four percent
of the current time and resources, or accomplishing an
increase of 20 times in results while employing the same or
fewer resources. A combination of those results can also be
a 2,000 percent solution.

That much improvement probably sounds pretty extreme to
you. It shouldn’t. We’ve all seen 2,000 percent solutions,
but we don’t usually label them as such. For instance, a
slow reader takes a course in better reading methods.
Reading speed increases from 100 words to 1,100 words a
minute while comprehension of what is read doubles. The
reading speed increase is a 10-fold improvement, [(1,100 –
100)/100 = 10], and the doubling of comprehension allows
twice as much to be comprehended in whatever reading time
is involved. When you multiply reading 10 times faster by
double the comprehension, you have a 2,000 percent solution
― a 2,000 percent increase in reading comprehension
per minute from the same time and effort.

(more…)

Many businesses are using blogging as a tool for communication with their customers and clients.  These blogs create customer loyalty and satisfaction and bring more traffic to their website creating more sales.  Have you started a blog for you business?  If not, here are a couple of reasons for setting up your own blog on your website.

1. New products or services

Blogging allows you to communicate quickly to your client base.  Marketing new products or services can costs thousands of dollars from inception, to printing, to mailing or exectution.  This method has a vital role in any marketing campaign, but what if you could let all of your clients, and potential clients, know the day that begin selling a new product or service.

Having a blog set up on your website would allow you to notify everyone of your new product or service.  You would list your product name, the features, and the benefits it offers.  You can receive instant feedback from people who review your offer from the comments section.  From there, you are able to evaluate, update, or change your offer.

Businesses are using this strategy to move quickly in front of competitors.

2. Attract new clients

Blogging for your business allows you to reach new customers and clients.  In today’s world, potential customers are reviewing products and services online to gather their own research.

They want to make sure they have a comfortable understanding of what your product or services offers.  Blogging is a way for you to highlight your product and differentiate yourself from your competitors.  The more “value” that you are able to demonstrate in your blog, the more likely customers will call you first.

3. Share knowledge and expertise

A business blog allows you to share your own personal and business knowledge and expertise.  This allows potential clients to trust you, and feel confident that you know what you are doing and will be able to solve their problems.

Who doesn’t like to talk about themselves or their business?  Blogging allows you to talk about anything you want to about yourself or your business.  It’s a time where you can share your personal insights and experiences in the industry.  Doing so puts you in the highlight and further exemplifies your expertise and leadership in your business field.

As competition for retaining clients and attracting new ones grow, blogging for you business is a 21st century tool to allow you to keep one step ahead of your competitors.

If you would like help or need more information on setting up your own business blog, please email me at damon@ceoconsultant.com

Copyright (c) 2007 A Marketing Connection

The who, what, where, when, why, and how

Knowing your competition allows you to identify a niche and
develop your own unique selling proposition (USP). Clearly
defining and understanding the core value you offer your
clients can depend on your having a firm grasp of your
competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

Where do you start?

1) Make a list of your competitors. Think big in this step.
Don’t just think about your direct competition; think about
indirect competition in other industries as well. For
example, as a copywriter I could list my competitors as
fellow copywriters that do freelance work. But I don’t want
to stop there. Other potential competitors may include
large ad agencies, small ad agencies (each may play a
different role with clients), technical writers, a
company’s in-house writers, journalists, and even
fill-in-the-blank templates you can purchase on the
Internet.

2) From this broad-based competitive list, list specific
companies you compete with. For example, in the “other
copywriters” category, I may list Sally Field, Shelby Foot,
and Joe Blow. Under the large agency category, I may have
only one or two large agencies I run up against when
bidding on projects. Follow this procedure until you’ve
gone through all the competing industries. Some may have no
direct competitor and that’s OK; acknowledging the
potential is there–and getting the “big picture” of where
competing business may lie–is what’s important.

(more…)

Sick of the whole “new economy” thing? It was a bit
overdone in the 90’s… But there is some relevance to the
“new economy” as we navigate continuing economic shifts.
I’m not an economist, so this isn’t going to be a diatribe
about macro economic theory or some such thing. For me, as
a businessperson, it boils down to “corn, cars and
concepts.”

First, we had the agrarian economy – all about corn. People
related to their families or village. Their lives were
pretty much regulated by Mother Nature. Get up with the
sun, milk the cows, work the soil, go to bed with the sun.
Life and work weren’t “balanced” –they were integrated –
parts of a whole that were shared through stories and
handed-down wisdom. You didn’t need a “take your daughter
to work” day — she worked with you every day.

(more…)

Successful beta testing starts even before your system is
born! Does that idea sound strange? It’s not really that
odd when you think that beta testing is meant to involve a
methodical prove-in of a carefully designed system, such as
an electronic device, Web site, or automated tool. It’s not
meant to be a hit-or-miss,
cross-your-fingers-and-hope-everything’s-OK Band-Aid that
you can apply at the last minute.

We’ve all seen examples of software programs — even from
well-known, respectable software companies — that arrive
on our desktops barely breathing. They seem to be full of
bugs, and thereby cause us more grief than they help us
carry out work. Or we try to use a Web site that looks
great, but we can’t get from the shopping cart to the order
page. Or we buy a new widget, yet even using the
instruction booklet, we can’t jump from the main menu to
the critical functions the way we’re supposed to.

Are you anxious to catapult your business into the ranks of
companies that frustrate their customers this way?

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