This is the second installment of a series on marketing. The first installment set the groundwork by defining what marketing is . . . and what it is not. Now we’ll dig a little deeper into some of the major components of marketing. The foundational question for marketing is, “What product or service do we
Marketing 101a
This begins a series on marketing. I’ll dispense with the quotes I usually use because I couldn’t find any that I thought were appropriate for this discussion. If you consider yourself to be a pretty savvy marketer, this may be too elementary for you, but for everyone else, please read on. Many small business people
“Give up trying to grow the bottom line. Grow your people and your people will grow the bottom line.”
I was in a conversation recently with a guy who works for a technology company, and during the course of the conversation, the subject of “training” came up. He said that his company has a training budget for their technicians, but not for their managers. He said he knows this because he wanted to attend
Now, Discover Your Strengths
In his excellent book, “Now Discover Your Strengths,” author Marcus Buckingham and co-author Donald Clifton discuss the work they did for The Gallup Organization to find out what makes successful people successful. What do those successful people have in common that makes them high achievers? So they sifted through over two million interviews that Gallup
“Increased productivity comes from continually identifying areas where you can achieve 80 percent of your results from 20 percent of your efforts.”
Vilfredo Pareto was an early twentieth century Italian economist who gave us the 80/20 rule. We hear it most commonly used in reference to sales . . . 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your customers. But the mistake we often make is to spend too much time trying to get
“Communication is to leadership as the swing is to golf; everyone can do it, but few do it well.”
Consistently, “being in the know” ranks near the top of employee satisfaction surveys. People want to know what’s going on around here. They want to know what their part is. They want to know how events, both good and bad, are impacting the company. And why shouldn’t they? After all, it’s their company and their
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
I normally begin with a “Quote of the Week,” but I wanted to talk about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and didn’t really have an appropriate quote for that topic. So I guess this is a “Tip of the Week.” While monthly financial statements provide vital information to the management of a business, they have a
“Cash is king.”
Is it king in your organization? It should be. You should be forecasting your cash for the next thirty days, reviewing it daily, updating it weekly. Some small business owners are unclear on the difference between “cash” and “profit.” They are totally different. You can be very profitable and still run out of cash. Likewise,
“Most companies grow themselves out of business. They either can’t finance (the growth), or they can’t manage it.”
Sadly, when a business fails, it is often not because it was founded on a bad idea. It’s because it simply runs out of money. Even if the business is profitable, it can still be cash-starved out of business. How does that happen? Several ways. If the business is a brand new startup, the entrepreneur
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”
For most small business owners, the business is their single largest asset and the one they are counting upon to fund their retirement. So wouldn’t it make sense for them to plan when and how they expect to exit the business? You would think so, but many don’t . . . at least not in
