Category: Business

How many times have you heard someone talk about successful business strategies or ‘taking a strategic approach’? What do you think they actually mean by the use of the word strategy? Most often the people using it are trying to convey the fact that they have given the subject a bit more thought than usual, that they have looked a little further ahead than normal. If a consultant uses it be very wary. Strategy costs more than mere ideas or tactics. How much would you pay for consultants who have’ kicked around a few ideas’ or ‘come up with some tactics they think might work’. Depends how good they are. But if they come back with ‘strategic business advice’ you expect it to be very good and of course very expensive.

Why expensive? Because you would hope that a consultant or colleague would have used some kind of intellectually robust framework, that they would have tested their assumptions and developed more than one solution which they evaluate rigorously before making their strategic recommendation. This takes time and expertise and both are expensive. Let’s assume they have done all of this – does that make it strategic business advice rather than tactical advice?

Not according the dictionary. The dictionary definition of strategy is very clear and military. It defines strategy as “the art of war – disposing troops etc in such a way as to impose upon the enemy the conditions for fighting (time and place) preferred by oneself”. If we accept business is in effect a war – you develop successful business strategies because you define success as beating the competition – there is no reason why this definition of the overused word, strategy, is not appropriate for business strategy. It requires all that planning and testing of assumptions discussed already. Some kind of robust intellectual and very honest framework will certainly help to develop and evaluate options. Even the lazy use of the word strategy – giving it a bit more thought and thinking ahead – would be implied by the military, dictionary definition. But there is an extra dimension to real strategy. It requires you to do all this and come up with something that changes the rules in your favour – in other words it requires creativity.

And there is one other aspect to this more demanding kind of strategic thinking. It is about people and their behaviour. In order to ‘deploy the troops’ and change the rules you have to understand how people tick. If being creative involves changing behaviours then you have understand how those behaviours were formed in the first place and how they might be changed if you want a successful business strategy.

Before putting the dictionary away (the definition of strategy above was taken from the Oxford English Dictionary) just go forward to tactics. You will discover that the definition is exactly the same as for strategy with one addition. Tactics involves the all-important stage of implementation, putting the strategy into practice. So it turns out that far from tactics being less weighty and valuable than strategy they are actually the most valuable thing of all. A sound strategic plan that is successfully implemented includes, indeed demands, tactics.

The use, and overuse, of strategy in business is more often than not pretentious over-claim by people who do not really understand what they are talking about. It certainly does not mean giving something a bit more thought or thinking a bit more long term. It absolutely demands a thorough and honest assessment of your assumptions and your options. At the risk of being melodramatic, sloppy thinking in military strategy costs people their lives. In business it just wastes time and money. Strategic thinkers will of course use frameworks based on their experience. They will break a problem down so they can think about each component of it but they will look to change the rules not just apply them. And the true strategist understands that strategies are aimed at people and changing their behaviour. Their strategic business advice will be based on an understanding of human behaviour. Just as in war, a strategy does not just get the job done, it enables you to beat the competition, to deliver higher returns than ever before, to win and win big for the least expenditure of resources.

So whether you are undertaking a brand planning strategy, a new business launch strategy or any other kind of strategy remember what this really means and remember to include the tactics which are just if not more important. Then you can charge accordingly.

Integrating USP to your existing business process is critical to your business success. Given that you have a state of the art, invaluable USP in your business, if it is inside your brain only, it is completely useless. Your customers should know the reason why they should buy from you but not other people, therefore it is required to expose to your target prospects that reason to buy from you. And this is the process of integrating USP to your business. In other words, if you want to make money without spending additional advertising cost, you are strongly suggested to integrate your USP to your business process.

In order to do that, it is assumed that you have already had the USP ready. And here is the steps of promoting your USP.

1. Get more prospects using USP: In your existing advertisement channel like Yellow pages, PPC, banner ads or facebook ads, put your USP in the advertisment. Rather than doing “putting your name out there” advertisment, give a reason to customer on why should they buy from you. You can say something like: “Providing the most variety of jewelry collection in town”, “Guarantee satisfied hair cut in 15 mins for only $7.”.

2. Train your sales people: you can ask your sales people what is your company’s USP and listen to their answer. Their answers may surprise you! Usually the top sales in the company got the USP right (it is also the reason why he/she is top sales!). Therefore you can optimize your sales force by telling them to sell your company products and service with your USP. Given the USP is in every sales pitch presented from your sales, you may easily get 5% – 10% increase in sales by converting more prospects to customer.

By the way, to make sure that your sales are doing the work, setting up tracking and rewarding program to see improvements before and after applying USP.

3. Get your existing customer to buy more from you: Packaging your existing products and services to make it unique across the industry is another way to generate more sales. While you create that packages, it is another USP of you and you simply up-sell them to this package. Provided that your offer is valuable enough according to your customer’s perspective, you will get more sales from existing customers.

4. Referral: If you are doing a good job in integrating USP, you can go one step further by providing another bonus or value added service to your existing customers if they get 3 people to join your list. Since you are providing value to your customer, they will be happy to promote you in return, and you will get viral effect for your business, simply by creating and integrating your USP!

To conclude, you need to put your USP out of your brain and have it in everywhere of your business. Both your advertisment and your sales people should know your USP is and presenting them clearly. Integrating USP can increase your conversion rate of your business and hence get more sales and make more money from it.

What Are the Financial Benefits of Starting an Online Business?

It is all over the news and if you have missed it, the rock you have been under is larger than Texas. The economic downturn has affected all of us, some more than others through. In today’s tough economy people are looking for more financial benefits by starting an online business. Many people start looking for two reasons; they lost their job and are looking for a way to make a living or they are working on a Plan B. Plan B is your back up plan when Plan A does not deliver or is no longer a viable option. In this article we are going to go into a few benefits of starting an online business.

Cost Factor

The first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when starting a business is the start up costs. What is great about an online home business is saving the time and money looking for a place to run your business. Many people may already have a spare bedroom or an office area that they could do a lot of this work. You will want to consider though that you will also need a domain name and website to get started.

How Much Will You Need?

That is a very good question that I get asked a lot by people starting out. This cannot be answered with a certain number because there are many different opportunities and business ventures. There are opportunities that you could sell products or services, or be more of a consultant. Products just like consulting packages could not only keep you very busy but could bring tremendous profits. Although you could do a little of both, remember many times with a product you have to make an investment in inventory. I have seen initial investments from $50 to tens of thousands of dollars; it is really up to you.

What Else is Needed?

I am going to let you in on a little secret that many people want you to think otherwise about; when you start an online business it really takes more time than money. One great example of this is article marketing, although one of the most popular strategies it takes a good amount of time. Article marketing is when you write an article on a specific subject to submit it to many different article directories. As other people read your article there are links you can add which drive people back to your site.

Are There Other Ways?

Article marketing is just one of the many ways you can market your business online. You may not be a very good writer, but there are ways to promote videos or do some paid advertising that has quicker results. As with any online business venture I can only strongly recommend you have your won blog. Not real sure what a blog is? Then you need to read my article called “Can a Blog Make You Money Online?” This will help you understand a little bit more about blogging. A blog will attract an endless amount of followers in which you can market to as long as you provide valuable content on a consistent basis.

Once Was a Pipe Dream

Before the internet came to be building your own business could be what some call a “pipe dream.” With the power of the internet and you being able to leverage it, it is no longer a pipe dream. If you are willing to invest more time than money, have the mindset that you can learn something new, you too can have a prosperous online business.

I have found many financial benefits from my online business. From tax write-offs, lower clothing allowances, and lower fuel costs for my car. Besides the financial benefits, I also feel healthier because I no longer have the stress I once had working 70+ hours a week.