— Innovation & Thinking For Business Development

Executive Talent Management: Assets that you can't see.

October 23, 2012

How do you measure executive leadership and talent?

Leadership is an assets that you can't see.

Too many times we think that we have to see something to believe it. This is not only true for products and services this is also true for valuing, measuring and managing the executives at a company.

Startups oftentimes choose executives based on personal relationships and not the actual talent and skill required for the position. Sometimes this works and the business survives. But most often because the people are not in the "right seat on the bus" and the business goes sideways and no one knows why.

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How To Stop Messing Up Your Business (And Yourself) Now…

September 21, 2012

While working with the owners of businesses big and small, I noticed that the same issues come up no matter the size of the business, the offer or the management team mix. Whether just starting or looking to expand in market reach and revenue. This is the list of criteria that I have compiled so that I know what I am looking at when engaging a new business as a client, and can quickly identify the root causes of stagnation and, many times, of failure.

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Creating The Perfect Offer : You Are The Secret Sauce

September 12, 2012

You are looking for the perfect sales pitch. Bad news: You will not find it in the company brochure or while role playing with your fellow salespeople. Let's start at the beginning…

Instead of having another "me too" offer for your marketplace, why not take some time and really sharpen your axe and create an offer that is so good that you KNOW that it is the best in the marketplace? That means your offer is:

Unique
Timely
Relevant
Valuable

Marketing 101 wisdom tells you: Have a product or service offer that is unique.

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Beware The "bers" This Year : 4th Quarter Planning

September 5, 2012

Beware the "bers"….They are coming in less than 30 days. Are you ready?

Only 120 more days left in the year. That's right, we are winding down again. Unless you are in the retail consumer space, November and December are slow months. People are thinking about the holidays and gift-giving and essentially shut down. And since, the markets shut down here in the United States, business owners shut down too.

Let's reverse that trend this year.

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Are Big Marketing Budgets Making Companies Lazy?

August 30, 2012

Is it this laziness that the PR and Advertising segment feeds on?

In a nutshell, the media channel gets paid whether the campaign is successful or not: If you put an advertisement in the paper, you have to pay the newspaper for the ad space whether the ad brings you business or not. If you hire a PR or advertising agency to do these media buys for you, you not only have to pay the newspaper, not only do you have to pay the PR agency, but also the newspaper pays the advertising agency a kickback percentage for bringing them your dollars.

Sometime up to 15% of the total spend. Not the result but the AMOUNT SPENT ON ADVERTISING. Whether it works or not. Whether it makes your brand look good or not. Whether it brings you business or not. Wait… you didn't know that was the way it worked?

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Hobby, Income Opportunity, Practice or Business

August 26, 2012

Pop Quiz: What are you really doing? If you get really honest with yourself, is your business a hobby? Are you constantly seeking an income opportunity? Running a practice where you are the solopreneur? Or are you running and growing a real business?

Disclaimer: I did not re-read this or check it. Consider the mis-spellings my gift. This is in the moment. It is easier this way. Onward…

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who was making $360K a month as an affiliate marketer. And you know the story. The "Big G" wiped out his business overnight. Now, don't get me wrong. It was good while it lasted – but what does he do now? Over $4M in yearly revenue wiped out. I suppose he could just wait it out, modify the site and hope that it comes back.

That was an income stream, not a business. Why do I say that? It was built on someone else's platform (Google), its exposure and traffic depending solely on Google.

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An Important Reminder to "Make The Call!" AKA: Are you selling hard enough?

October 9, 2011

The "Call to Action" is, unfortunately, often the bane of existence for most marketers, especially most content creators.

You create good content. You take the time, you know who your market is. You ask great questions. But you fall a little bit shy on closing the deal, for lack of a better term–getting the close. Your content shouldn't end with "Thanks for reading/watching/listening". It needs to instead always end with "Hey, I really want you to not just consume my information. I want you to love it. I want you to come back over and over again. In fact, I want you to pay me for it, so that I make revenue for this thing I love to do!"

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Is Your Best Business Tool…Your Phone? The Art of the Cold Call in a Web-Obsessed World

October 7, 2011

This may sounds strange coming from an online marketing expert like myself, but sometimes…you really should forgo the online stuff and just pick up the phone.

Why? Because everyone else is using social media and blogs and trying to capture e-mail addresses and putting white papers out there. And very few are actually picking up the phone and communicating with another human, especially a high-level decision maker.

Now, THAT? Is a competitive advantage.
Read more on Is Your Best Business Tool…Your Phone? The Art of the Cold Call in a Web-Obsessed World…

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Online profits are NOT all about Traffic & Conversion! What many business owners overlook…

October 5, 2011

For years, we have all heard the formula that states:

Traffic + Conversions = Income

But without first having a profitable and valuable offer, a business owner doesn't have anything to drive traffic towards. What's more, if you first focus on creating a valuable offer you will automatically know who the offer is valuable to…and who will actually want to listen to the offer. Only then will be able to best determine where and how to market.
Read more on Online profits are NOT all about Traffic & Conversion! What many business owners overlook……

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What Trends Up, Must Come Down

September 1, 2011

If you are in the consumer market, you may find yourself looking to satisfy a current fad, desire or trend.

And we all know how fads go: in one day and out the next. Fortunes are made and lost on following and investing in trends.

Trends affect companies large and small. Look at the SUV market in the United States. There was actually once a time where you had to wait for months to get your hands on an SUV! Now with fuel prices rising and the “green movement” becoming mainstream, hybrid cars have become the new hot thing and the auto industry is trying to adapt to the marketplace shift. If your business is built around the SUV, you should be thinking about diversifying your product and service line. (Heck, you should already have done so!)

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