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With today’s technology at your fingertips, it’s almost impossible to be lost.  “Hey Seri, where am I?” And there you are!

Google Maps or Waze will instantly tell you the easiest way to get to your destination.  Even those “directionally challenged”.

But what if there was a GPS system for your business?

A Business “Growth Path System” will work similar to your GPS in your car or phone.  Let’s break it down.

• Where am I now? (the starting point). The Global Positioning System uses three different satellites to triangulate and fix your current position.  We can triangulate your current business position to determine “where you are now”.
  1. Strategically define/refine your brand. What problem do you solve and what is the benefit to your customer?   Clearly define the benefit and how it affects your customer’s life? (the emotional response to your benefit)
  2. What is your competitive set? Who is the competition and what are your strategic advantages?  Define strengths, weaknesses.  Find the opportunities to leverage for growth.
  3. Are you reaching your profit potential? Are your gross margins healthy?  How about the bottom line?  Does your P&L match your projections?  What is your debt ratio and what is your appetite for risk?  Can you find ways to strengthen the bottom line (trim expenses, raise prices, etc.)?

Finally, roll up the product offering, competitive set (opportunities) and financial review into a coherent current brand position, the solid starting point to begin your path to greatness.

• What is your destination? Where do you want to go?    (your goals)

  1. This is the biggest challenge you have! And the most critical for success.  Use the “SMART” goal method.  Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely.
  2. Exploit the competitive opportunities. If you aspire for greatness, BE BOLD!  Be specific as possible with your objectives.  Just like your car GPS, if you give a vague then it will get you close, but you may still be miles from where you really need to be.
  3. Create realistic projections, include the cost of the investments to propel your path to success. You should have a best, worst and most likely scenario. Track results and adjust as the year progresses.

 

• Plot a path to your destination. This is the “magic” where creative thinking aligns with strategy.  Your computer GPS gives options for the routing.  Fastest?  Less miles?  Most scenic?  What are your preferences for growth?  Fastest (usually most capital investment needed).  Within a budget (slower but less cash outlay).   Risk factor (comfort level) is also a factor.  Remember the more tightly defined the goal, you more efficient you can be in aligning strategies/tactics to results.
  1. It starts with Strategy. Recognize the difference of Strategies and Tactics.  Strategies are the long term plans that will propel you to your goals.  Tactics are the specific actions taken according to your strategic plans.
  2. Creative tactics are most powerful. Strive for breakthrough ideas!  What will get people to talk about your marketing tactics?  Going viral is not just another way to say “create word-of-mouth”.  Be bold, be different, be relevant, be strategic.  This is where you need to get out of standard thinking to find the rocket fuel ideas that boost your marketing dollars – Supercharge you sales with breakthrough tactics.

 

• Objectives → Strategies → Tactics …. Your business Growth Plan System for Success.

Smart strategy with creative tactics.  That’s what we do.   Boost Business  boost-biz.com

Hey, change is hard! Why do people stick around in jobs they hate, relationships they know are poison and cars they can’t afford?

In business a great example of this is the “sunk cost fallacy”.  Sunk costs are the money we have spent on a company, project or even fun event (think vacation deposits) that can’t be recovered, the check has cleared.  However, there are times when following that path (company initiative, new branch, etc.) is proven to be a mistake and we just can’t quit it.  (insert your bad relationship story here).

Hopefully before embarking on a new initiative you have done the research, weighted the pros and cons and created a budget/plan for success.  Let’s say you are planning to open a coffee shop downtown.  After a couple of months, a Starbucks leases the space across the street- a formidable competitor with good products, brand awareness and big marketing budgets.  The store opens and your nice little shop loses traffic and turns to a negative profit.  What do you do?  Try to outsmart/outspend Starbucks?  How much more money do you want to spend and how will you get the return on that money?

Most entrepreneurs have a healthy ego.  “I can’t be a failure”.  But failing to change is a sure path to failure when the facts have proven that the current model is not working.

Sears is a good example.  The business model has changed, but Sears is locked into leases and an established business model.  Sears simply can’t just evolve to a completely different model.  Sure enough bankruptcy has been declared.  The future is clear, but sad.  Simply stated, don’t buy Sears stock unless you need some cheap wall paper.  Fortunes have been lost by someone who thinks they can change customer’s behavior without having a competent, realistic strategic plan to achieve success.

In poker you’ve got to “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em”.  Analyze the current situation to see if you can find a way out, quickly.  If you can pivot to a winning strategy promptly, do it!

You must be brave to be a successful business owner, but you can’t be stubborn and win.  The customer will solely determine your success.  Even the best generals learned the value of “strategic retreat” to gain an ultimate victory later.

How did David beat Goliath?  With a rock.  And some leverage.

David had a bigger, meaner competitor, we can assume that the big guy had won many fights before, he was probably very confident, who beats a giant?  But David didn’t fight Goliath’s fight, he fought his own way, with a slingshot that multiplied the power of a lowly rock.  David found his leverage and defeated the giant, what were the odds of that?

Finding your Leverage is key for a smaller business.  If you can’t redefine the battleground to maximize your competitive advantages, the task will be much more difficult.   Here are five steps to success.

• What is your identified measurable goal? Clearly defining the mission is key to minimizing both financial and time waste. What is the time period you are allowing to achieve the goal?  (yes, it will probably take longer, but setting milestones will help keep you on task)
• Be honest with yourself. What is your current situation?  Are you growing, stagnant or declining? What are your competitive assets—what do you bring to the marketing battleground?  Assets are not just the financial funds available, but any proprietary processes, intellectual concepts and industry experience that you have acquired.  Next conduct a realistic appraisal of your current (today) business.  Both Strengths and Weaknesses need to be researched and identified
• Where is the opportunity? Review the competitive market, what do you have that you can leverage against the competition.  Be open and creative, sometimes the best leverage is one that you overlook.  What may seem “simple” to you is extremely valuable to the potential customer.  As you explore potential leverage points discuss with current clients to determine what they most value in your relationship.  This is inexpensive and valuable feedback, most likely acquired in a casual setting (lunch, drinks, etc.)
• Listen.  Your clients/potential clients can tell you what their pain point is, but if you are just “transmitting” and not listening you will never know.  Your solution won’t be the right one unless you understand the problem.  Many times the client can’t discover their leverage.  Our job is to listen and help find the competitive leverage.
• Probe. Finding the best leverage point(s) can be discovered through both data analysis and our eyes and ears to find the emotional hooks that can be leveraged as a unique weapon against your larger competition.  By combining the logical data and adding the human element can we find the recipe for a creative leap to a “golden nugget” idea – that leverages the rational advantage with an emotional hook – your “slingshot”.

Don’t expect to discover your brilliant slingshot in a day.  Find and analyze your data, use an outside adviser to help you get past your own bias, find the quiet time to reflect and find that “golden nugget” idea that is your slingshot.  Strategy and creativity, a powerful combination.  Need help getting there?  Let’s talk.

-David Hays   david@boost-biz.com    boost-biz.com

“I’ve got a great idea! We’ll add Fried Chicken to our menu.”  The client was a fast food burger chain who wanted to grow their dinner business.

“Can you cook fried chicken with your current equipment?” we asked.

“No, we’ll have to buy more equipment. It’ll pay off quickly”

“You will add inventory for this, train the staff plus hire additional staff, right?”

“But no one else does it, they don’t have my vision” he said. (Note: he didn’t say ‘focus’)

“Doesn’t fried chicken go stale after an hour? And take over 15 minutes to cook fresh?  What about investing in R&D (creative versions) for our existing burger line, after all we are a burger place.”

“Aw, come on, you need to think outside the box.”

Within a couple of years the fried chicken was abandoned and the chain sold shortly thereafter.  They had lost their strategic vision and a unique competitive position.

This was a perfect example of ‘tactics looking for a strategy’.

We offer free initial meetings to assist new entrepreneurs looking to start/grow a business.  A common pattern seen is a person who has lots of energy, has several ideas and tries to use shear force of will to achieve business success.  While I am in awe of the calories expended by these folks, it pains me to see the impact of such wasted efforts, and funds.

The commonality is having only a vague goal (not refined, targeted, measurable and above all-Consumer relevant).  And most importantly, the lack of a viable strategy to get there.  Usually they have a dream, but definitely not a plan.

This is the classic “Tactics Looking for a Strategy” scenario.  Lots of ideas, lots of action, lots of different directions.  Most often the tactics have some merit, but seem to be in conflict or at least divergent.  Money is spent, time and effort expended with little return toward the business goal.

Our mantra at Boost Business is Work Smarter, Not Harder!  Define your opportunities, set goals that will activate the opportunities identified.  Then determine the strategies that will drive you to achieve your goals.  This way your superfragilistic ideas (tactics) can be checked against your strategic plan to make sure they are driving success to your goal.  Small businesses especially, cannot waste limited funds driving down dead ends.  Smart, focused and creative is the formula for marketing success.

Defining your strategic vision is vital to help you stay focused, certifying that your creative ideas maintain alignment to your business goals.

Want to think out of the box?  Through ideas against the wall, break the paradigm?  Awesome!!!  Then measure against your original goals and strategies.  Some times it’s ok to “chicken – out”.

When all you have is a hodgepodge of actions that don’t all work toward the strategic plan?   “Tactics Looking for a Strategy”.

Is this relevant to you?  Want to talk?  Boost-biz.com/contact

It was a sunny summer day in Austin Texas on the banks of the Colorado River, at Auditorium Shores when I met this redhead with a great blues voice who could shred that slide guitar. Bonnie Raitt was in a slump, professionally and personally. Columbia records had dropped her from the label, she was drinking, etc. too much (it was the 80’s). But Bonnie soon made a fabulous comeback, on her terms.  She “gave ‘em something to talk about”.

This great song from Bonnie Raitt is also a lesson in promotional marketing.
Some tips for creating noise about your brand.

Don’t be normal. Be creative. Media outlets get tons of submissions. You had better be entertaining and give them a reason to follow up. Example: A client in Texas – The Flying Pizza Company. We created an event to launch the world’s largest flying pizza, it would be unmanned, as the initial flight was too risky for a pilot. The 54 inch pizza was launched from a roof across from the UT campus. The event garnered local press and coverage from the top rated TV station, they were looking for quirky stories! The result was thousands of dollars in coverage for minimal costs.

Be Bold. Follow the mantra-‘go big or go home’. Example: Pepsi was a constant underdog in the Atlanta market (Coke’s home town). So …  let’s give away a house! Game pieces were printed inside Pepsi 12 packs, a local realty company put up a house in return for the publicity. We had a television co-sponsor for media coverage. 12 people qualified for the ceremony where each got a key, one of which opened the door to their new home. Pepsi garnered a ten point market share increase, huge!

Leverage a stronger partner. Tie in’s with organizations with larger, loyal followers will create added impact for your brand. Example: Georgia-Pacific’s consumer paper brands were secondary in market share and shelf space to their larger competitors. The Sparkle brand reached out to the Country Music Association for a co-promotion. Consumers were solicited to write four lines of a possible country song, with the word “Sparkle” in the lyrics. The winner got a trip to the CMA awards in Nashville, plus a recording session where their lyrics were turned into a full country song and recorded for them. Again coverage was terrific and we received increased displays in grocers across the South.

Above all, reinforce your brand. Make sure the program fits your brand and reinforces your competitive positioning.

Ready for some Rocket Fuel? We are ready to Boost your Business. Let’s talk.

Please fill out the following for download presented to the Greater Hall County Chamber of Commerce — Small Business Seminar

– For more information contact david@boost-biz.com

 

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click here for the FREE download   Four Step Business Planning

 

Strategic Planning is a key element for profitable growth and maximizing your return on investment.

Boost Business has developed a free guideline to help you down the path to a solid plan for the new year.  Complete with forms and simple instructions to get started.

Please download and use this guide to create your strategic plan.  It starts will a good analysis of your current status, so you have a baseline from which to grow.   For further assistance, please contact us at david@boost-biz.com for a free one hour consultation and help getting your information compiled for the current analysis.  Having completed this type of planning for many large and small businesses, use our experience and processes to plan your path to success.

Finding solutions for business growth is our passion.  How can we help you grow your small business?

 

At this time of year it is customary to reflect on our many blessings, both professional and personally, and give Thanks for the gifts in our lives. This includes showing appreciation to those who have assisted us along the way, our employees, suppliers, family and the Creator who all have provided the path and tools to gain our blessings. It is also time to reflect on how we can improve and set new goals for the new year.

This should start with an assessment of the past year, review the accomplishments and challenges to objectively identify opportunities for growth as well as potential weaknesses to address. Only then can we set objectives for the next year and a strategic plan to reach those goals. Finally, set up or maintain a measurement process so that you can monitor your results along the way and modify your tactics during the year to boost your path to success.

Four steps to Business Planning

1. Review (use objective measurements) your business and performance, hopefully against goals set previously
   1.  Discover strengths and weaknesses to address
   2. Assess your current vision for the business and evolve as necessary
2. Revise/identify your goals for next year (and three years out)
3. Develop the strategies, then tactics to achieve the goals
4. Create business dashboard to monitor results toward the goals
   1. Review quarterly
   2. Revise tactics as needed

Small businesses should not be intimidated by this process. While Fortune 500 companies will spend weeks and thousands to complete this process, even small businesses should conduct a simple review and goal setting. A “simple” process plan is available from Boost Business to help you on the journey.

We wish to give thanks to all our family, friends and clients and encourage you to spend quality time with family during this Holiday season. And if you need help with your planning, please let us know, America’s greatness is built on the success of Small Business.