Posts Tagged ‘customer voice’

“Colonel Custer had a plan “…What To Do When Your Plan Is Not Driven by Market or Internal Truths and You Lack a Market Driven Motivation

“I read your last post and I can’t agree more with gathering market truths, assessing internal truths ( particularly after recent lay offs) and having a motivation to make a difference in the lives of those in your marketplace….

But what do you do when you work for an organization that built a plan based on old market data, an inflated view of internal capabilities ( that assumes we work 18-20 hour days) and a motivation that is singularly focused on making our owner wealthier and not changing the lives of those in the market we serve?”

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Third Part of truth …Motivation; Are You willing to go the extra mile like Chick-fil-A?

A third key consideration for leaders and owners of businesses when building upon a foundation of truth is your Motivation. Specifically what are your real objectives and motivation for your business? I often find when helping clients about six months into an engagement the leader’s true motivation is shared. It is often not the stated goal and the teams, like me were executing strategies and tactics that are not in alignment with the real objective.

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Top 20 Entrepreneurial Best Practices to Make Sure 2010 is a Profitable Year

When I wrote my EBook: 50 Ugly Truths About Owning and Running Your Own Business…and 5 reasons why you should do it anyway I was responding to a number of misperceptions I was hearing from entrepreneurs.

Historically, at any given time six out of ten US adults is thinking about starting their own business. A number of new entrepreneurs are emerging that I refer to as “necessity-preneurs “who were downsized and can not find new employment, are deciding to launch their own businesses as they want a much more active role in the security of their careers. The last group are cashing in their 401k and or borrowing from friends or family to buy an existing business and in a short amount of time realize they really just bought a job and they are quickly running out of cash.

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Entrepreneur Best Practices: #18 You will Receive Your Best Tips To Grow Your Company From Prospects Who Do Not Buy From You…

For as long as I can remember I have heard “your customer is always right”. The spirit behind this statement was to make sure market leading organizations do not try to “overcome customer objections” and listen…as failing to listen is the #1 reason buyers do not buy from a salesperson.

However you will receive the best tips to grow your business from prospects who do not buy.

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Entrepreneur Best Practice: # 8 When Sales Get Rough…Look for Diamonds

Entrepreneurs often spend so much time in their businesses they fail to look closely at their business. Market leaders understand the value of analyzing their customer and sales pipeline to find diamonds in the rough.

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When Bootstrapping, Leverage What you Have….

So you want to be an entrepreneur? You sure? I am just finishing an eBook that will be titled; 50 “UGLY TRUTHS” about owning your own business …and 5 reasons to do it anyway. I have served entrepreneurs in a variety of industries for 25 years. Some of my clients today are people passionately setting out to launch their new service or product. Some have owned their business for years and want to take it to the next level in revenues and profit.

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12 Lessons All Leaders Can Learn About Launching New Products and Services …From the 2009 Health Care Reform

Watching the current 2009 Health Care Reform Initiative has valuable lessons for all leaders throughout the world if we take time to pay attention. I think it was Einstein who said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. The current 2009 Health Care Reform Initiative has strong emotional attachments regardless of which side of the debate you reside.

It is often the life lessons with emotional attachments we remember most.

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2009 Health Care Reform Initiative Lessons #10, #11,#12; Make Sure Your Marketing Has All the “Rights” Covered…right time, right customer, right offer

A basic marketing tenant says make sure you have all the “rights” covered in your New Product launch, New Service Launch. I discussed solving the right problem in my last post and that leaves the following “rights”; Right Time, Right Customer(s), and Right Offer(s).

Failure to nail all the rights puts your new product and or service launch results in jeopardy of missing ROI targets.

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2009 Health Care Reform Initiative Lesson #8; Buyers Become Tone Deaf to Lazy Marketing Messaging

Marketers who build their message from within the perceived safety of their office walls create lazy marketing messages that are perceived as safe, but do not resonate in the marketplace. When marketing and their creative teams build messaging from an inside out approach, versus the market needs and problems in, they create noise and buyers learn to tune out to the noise.

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2009 Health Care Reform Initiative Lesson #7: Asking…and not listening to your market, is worst than not asking at all…

A number of organizations are so focused to achieving their objectives that they stop listening to their market. Oh, they ask the right questions, (like they are supposed to) but they only hear the answers that are in alignment with their internal goals, understanding, and historical data. The market (your market) has changed as I discussed in my post interviewing salespeople.

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