How to prepare for 2012-2014

The final pieces are being put into place for a period of major change in Europe that will have a knock-on effect throughout the world.

Our politicians for the most part have more than enough personal wealth and dangerous amounts of self interest to make what they say and do on our behalf extremely counterproductive, and the so called experts and commentators have to keep a keen eye on their profiles and standing in the media and sell the news, rather than give us useful information.

In short – we are in a bit of a pickle.

So what am I doing and what do I recommend you do over the next few months?

I can provide all sorts of checklist and models to help you, I can point you in the direction of useful reference material, but what I’m  going to ask you to consider is what I’ve been working towards over the last month or so – and which has started to bear fruit.

It’s a change of mindset – I challenge you to the 20 20 20 plan.

That’s a 20% reduction in your operating costs, a 20% increase in the value you provide whether it be products or service, and a 20% increase in turnover. So I’m reducing my cost base by 20% – for me it’s cutting back on certain planned expenditure and reducing my interim dividends. I’m then giving clients more work for the same fee, and making a targeted effort to find new clients.

I will be able to check on my progress as I have a base point from which I’ve started this approach – and it really works, so far I have made 2 decisions that have reduced costs, found a new client, who was happy to pay my fee as he felt he was getting great value.

Yes I know this plan might not grow my business as fast as in the past – but business is going to be very very thin over the next 24 months, and I intend to have a proposition and solid structure that can exceed expectations.

What are you going to do?

You have to have an all embracing set of protocols from which your activity derives its focus. I ask myself does an activity I’m doing fit into the 20-20-20 plan- if it does great, if it doesn’t then I have a choice to stop and change or just carry on deluding myself.

Education is the only way to sell

When I started selling I was trained that control and managing the communication process was the key to success. Do a good fact find, identify needs, pick the right features and make the benefits crystal clear, summarise and close – simple.

And that sadly is still what many sales processes look and feel like today – except the world has changed.

Now prospects and clients have all the options and can find out all they need to before making a purchase – and n0 salesperson has to get in the way. So how can you “sell” in a world where the cunning customer has the audacity to find out all they need to know before placing an order.

Educate – Educate – Educate

Provide prospects with free high quality information – help them to find out all they need to know and more besides and then they will call you to find out more. It does mean that you need to know what you’re doing and that your product or service offers real value – the days of conning your way to regular income have long gone.

Education Marketing is the way forward, so start today and let your prospects and customers find out what they don’t know.

What’s your real U in your USP

I met with a new client this week.

Great business, top of their market, always exceeding customer expectations, and a strategic plan for the future that included  well thought out vertical and horizontal integration over the next decade.

And it gets better – a set of brand values and a USP that is well understood both internally and externally.

But now it gets even better because the real “unique” was not in the service and product proposition, but in the atmosphere and culture that was coming out of the walls. Calm, professional, customer focused, team orientated and being  immensely proud to come to work are everywhere you look in this busnesss – it cannot fail and will only get better and better.

So how about your business, what’s really unique about you and your team, or are you once again blowing the ashes of deceit off your best set of smoke and mirrors – I know a few that are, and thankfully this protracted recession will finally finish them off for good.

Be happy if you know that every job you do offers great value and exceeds client expectations, be happy if you know that you offer a product or service that is truly excellent, and be happy because you know that even if the economy gets a little more complicated, you and your business will survive.

Austerity planning

My business is changing and I suspect quite a number of other businesses are having to adjust to a rapidly changing economic landscape. So what’s the best way to approach the problem?

I have always started by reviewing what generated income in the past and identify them as individual income streams.

So at SGC I have identified 4

• Copywriting
• Strategic and Tactical Marketing Planning and Implementation
• Training and Workshops
• Publishing

Now it’s your turn.

Get a pen and paper of fire up your tablet and work out what brings in the money. This might not be as easy as it sounds,especially if you sell products, but work at it and in the next post I’ll tell you what to do next.

A busy year has been and gone and the SGC Blog rides agaain

One year almost to the day I stopped Blogging.

Did it make a difference to my business? – No

Could it have made a difference to my business? – Yes

Not because it I think a blog is a primary revenue generator, but it does give clients and prospects an insight to what’s going on in my head, and how I feel about the world around me.

So I will be changing the appearance of the SGC blog and sharing a view or two.

Over the past year I’ve been working on  a new “model” that enables individuals, businesses and organisations to manage their perceptions, and I will be developing some of those ideas in this blog.

The concern that I have is that if we are not managing the way others perceive us than others will. In personal terms the degree to which you manage the way you are perceived has much to do with your own identity and self understanding, but being able to create and manage the way your business or organisation is perceived is not an option.

The challenge is being confident that you can influence and manage what is said and felt about your business or organisation when you’re not in the room!

What’s your take on networking groups?

Well I spent a jolly day talking with about 10 people about their experiences of networking and much to my surprise there was 5 aspects of networking that were raised in every discussion.

Here they are in an order of priority that is as close as I can get based on the above conversations

1. You can’t build your business by going to networking meetings
2. You get more business if you offer a low price easily understood product that has little risk attached and that can be perceived as a “bargain”
3. B2B services can struggle in the short-term as the buying cycle for these type of services tends to be long and in many cases these services rely on the individual credibility of the service provider
4. It only takes one or two “strong” personalities to make or ruin a group
5. Regimented, referral driven groups tend to be more successful in generated business, but less successful in terms of creating a supportive environment,especially for those who have just started a business.

I would be interested in what views others have.

For my part, my next bit of research is going to focus on B2B service providers, and how networking fits into an integrated marketing comms plan.

Networking

Well yes I know I’ve made my views known on networking before – and they were not very positive, but I thought I would give 4networking a try.

Yes it’s different, yes it’s more fun, yes it’s worth the time to go and  at no point did I want to punch anyone!

Compared to the SAS of networkers the BNI crowd the 4networkers were great fun.

But does this type of networking create new business – well time will tell, so far I have some calls to make and one person to visit, so it looks positive. But looking at the crowd of networkers today, I did feel that there was very little serious money in the room, and that the average value of order will be in the sub £300 bracket. Still I will keep you all informed over the weeks ahead.

If anyone can let me know what they think the current average order value is from networking I would be very interested, as I plan to start a review of networking ROI next year – will post results every quarter.

Planning for failure

” we plan for failure” was a comment  I heard last week and which summed up the lack of confidence that some companies and individuals are experiencing.

The problem is that it can be very easy to make a decision that limits exposure to risk to such a degree that it is pointless in making the decision to change in the first place. The solution is to stop planning for failure and decide what you believe in and are very good at and then having the confidence to promote over all relevent media.

I see on a regular basis, the inability to grasp that now we live in an online and offline world, and the importance of getting the marketing communications balance right. Combine that with a weak and ill thought through proposition and no wonder companies see little of no results.

If you are good at something, and you know it, then have the confidence to tell prospects about it – if not then find something you really are good at, and stop trying to bullshit your way into new business.

This economy will only favour those who know they have a good offer and have the confidence to promote it and back it up.

Anything else is just planning for failure.

Chicken or the egg which comes 1st

Every day I get asked if I do SEO and SMO copy.

Yes I say, I can talk about key word density until the cows come home and there’s nothing I like more than the heady delights of an integrated comms plan that utilises all the tactical elements that offline and online media offer.

However I do have one very important message for all those who have or are about to invest in this popular cocktail. And it’s this:-

You can invest in the most sophisticated SEO and SMO, you can spend hours and thousands of pounds on utilising all the tactical media available to you, but if you have a shit product or service – you will still have a shit product or service, except now punters will find out at the speed of light, whereas a decade ago they might have taken a year or two.

Fact is, if you can’t deliver what you say or what people expect – then you are finished. And it’s not just your local marketplace you have to worry about.

20% of my clients I have never met in person. 15% I’ve never seen. Skype and other VOIP services, FTP sites and the like mean that I work across continents.

So wake up – find out what you are good at, and then start having some fun.

On message please

A new person to see today. Well actually the senior team at a small privately owned business.

Their question was ” we’re always in the frame. but seldom win the deal” can you help?

Half  an hour later and the truth was clear for all to see. Every question I asked got 3 different answers, and an occasional argument.

Please if you are managing a business, make sure that all of the owners know what ****ing business you are in. I get very pissed off having to teach adults how to communicate and dump the internal politics. Your clients will get mixed messages, your staff will worry about direction and your competitors will look so much more stable and reliable.

As the economy changes, those companies which look right, sound right will win every time even if they are more expensive. If you look shite, sound odd and are cheap then give up now.

Did I get the business – not a chance. This lot will be still at each others throats all the way to the insolvency court – nothing I can do to change that.