Category Archives: Professional Consulting

Defining Success

As a business owner or key management person, you know your business should have a strategy for constantly adding to the bottom line. That growth strategy outlines goals and identifies the steps to be taken in achieving those objectives. In the end, this defines what you consider and will accept as success for your organization.

Larger companies generally have the resources to set these objectives through annual planning sessions or corporate retreats guided by independent third party professionals, such as Brand Irons. Smaller companies also have the ability to conduct these strategic success meetings and bring in professional guidance. The cost of these planning sessions are more than offset by the focus they bring to your corporate culture and the results they generate through higher productivity and reduced waste.

The richest value comes when your team agrees to and commits to the end result of the planning and is able to successfully implement a majority, if not all, of the objectives.

There are others, but here are five of the objectives your business should define:

Net Profit. What are your earnings projections for 2013? Subtract anticipated costs to come up with your expected net profit numbers for the year. Are those realistic and attainable numbers? Will they satisfy you and/or shareholders?
Annual Sales. Knowing what your bottom line is supposed to be, consider how sales will achieve those projections. Who is responsible for generating sales and what will they have to do to get them? Do you need more sales people?
Production. Evaluate whether the capacity exists to produce what is sold in a timely fashion, or whether there is sufficient inventory to meet demand. Take a close look at ways to streamline costs yet still deliver quality products and service to your customers and prospects.
Customer Service. How loyal are your clients to your brand(s)? Do they enjoy the experience of working with or purchasing from your organization? Do your sales personnel and front line people convey the right sense about your culture? That culture should pervade your entire organization. Does it?
Marketing Results. Whether it’s through sales, advertising, promotions, or public relations, your company’s marketing efforts should generate measurable results. What do you measure? Conversion rates for sales presentations. Client response to advertisements (sales directly tied to an ad, for instance). Increased “Likes” on your Facebook page. Phone calls asking for information or to arrange meetings. New subscribers to your newsletter. You decide what else to measure, based on what is important for generating results.

You define success measurements to better allocate resources. There’s an adage about setting goals that goes something along the lines of “If you set sail without a destination, how will you know when you get there?” sailing ship

If you place an ad in the newspaper and ask viewers to call about a special offer, you can gauge the success of the ad by how many calls you receive. Then you must ask: Were there enough calls to 1) pay for the ad? and, 2) warrant the expense in terms of sales that resulted?

However you define success for your business, make sure you take the time to think through whether that is, realistically, how you want to define your success.

Budgets & Bullet Points

2013 Budget graphic When you are sitting down to develop an annual advertising budget, think about where you’re going to spend your hard-earned dollars. Will each dollar generate a return? How much will it cost you to acquire a new client, or to keep your existing customers?

You must measure these metrics to know if your strategies are working. If you plan on spending $20,000 on television advertising as part of your budget, you should also know what the value of a prospective client is to your business. Why? If your business is building websites and each prospect potentially represents $5,000 in business when they become a new client, that TV campaign would need to result in four new clients to cover the cost of advertising. More than four and you’ve generated a positive return on your investment (ROI).

Is it a negative ROI if you fail to land any new clients? From the bottom line perspective, probably so. From the viewpoint of the exposure you’ve generated for your business with TV spots, hardly. The bullet point becomes how effective was the message in your commercial.

And that is another bullet point. If your advertising fails to generate a positive impact on your bottom line, that should not result in the wide-ranging opinion and a deep-seated conviction that “advertising doesn’t work.” It only means it was somehow flawed.

More bullet points that impact your marketing budget when it comes to advertising:

Make sure you know your target audience for any advertising;
Verify that the delivery vehicle (TV, radio, newspaper, Internet) is effective in reaching that target market;
Find the market research that gives you reasonable assurance the audience will respond favorably to that message delivery vehicle;
Know what you’re offering but, more importantly, what the consumer is buying;
Craft a message that focuses on what’s in it for the consumer, not you;
Deliver the message by getting the audience’s attention first; and,
Finish with a strong call to action so the consumer has little doubt.

Back to my point about the effectiveness of your commercial. If you threw out a campaign or message that was missing some of the bulleted items above, chances are your results were less than what you anticipated. Add in that the commercial may have run at the wrong time for your audience or been buried on a seldom seen page of the magazine, and your results deteriorate.

We once worked with a jeweler who insisted on having the largest ad in the phone directory. We roughed out the concept and had the directory’s graphics department design an effective and attractive ad. We were good to go. When the directory hit the streets, we opened a copy to the “Jewelers” spread of pages and the ad wasn’t there! Phone directories place ads alphabetically. Our client’s ad was there, but it was on the page before the spread with all the other jewelers in town. Good effort wasted and beyond our control. Subsequent ads were mere bold-faced listings under Jewelers.

Rather than succumb to a sales representative suggesting your business belongs in their publication or on their station, take the time to think things through. Can they answer the bullet points you’ve established for your products and services to your satisfaction? If not, simply let them know that what they’re offering fails to meet the demographic profile of your target audience. They’ll understand, but not give up easily.

Another option is to use the professional consulting services of a business such as Brand Irons to help you come up with a solid profile for your customers and help you make those marketing decisions so they have a positive impact on your bottom line.

What is a Brand?

A brand is an illusion; a perception in the mind of a consumer.

Every consumer is different, so a brand can mean one thing to one person and something totally different to another.

Consider some examples:

If you drink red wine, and maybe have a glass every day, do you buy the same brand every time or do you try different reds? Do you drink a red because you heard it was good for you? Some of you may enjoy how you feel after a glass or two. All red wines are perceived to – in a branding sense – have medicinal purposes or go good with certain foods. If you, as the consumer, lock in and buy cases from a certain winery, you have bought the illusion it’s the best red wine … in your mind.

What convinced you it’s the brand to buy? Was it a commercial or advertising message? Was it an influential bartender? A good friend who also loves it? The perception that you should at least try the brand, followed by a bottle you really enjoyed, are the steps that would have created your brand loyalty.

My grandfather drove a Ford automobile. My uncle managed a fleet of vehicles for a multi-national company; all Fords. My dad drove Fords, although he was the trading sort and brought home a variety of makes and models over the years. This family history created the impression with me that Ford was the vehicle to own, so I’ve been loyal to the brand because of that perception. Three of the vehicles I’ve purchased new have been Mercury products; a former, now defunct, division of the Ford Motor Company. The kicker is that the illusion has stuck, largely because of history.

Yes, a brand is an association with a corporate product or service. Business owners will pay exorbitant fees to a big name accounting firm because of a perception, which might be that “they must be good because they charge so much.” In reality, accounting is about debits and credits so any certified public accountant (CPA) should be able to service your account as well, if not better, than the higher priced firm.

Is one brand of milk any better than the next one in the cooler? Only in perception … and probably price. Think about it. Where does the milk come from? A cow. What the cow eats may change the content of the milk, but it comes out the same way and is processed and bottled according to federal standards. And here’s a secret that applies to other products as well: Some milk processing plants bottle milk for a private label as well as for their own label.

From a business marketing perspective, the more people you can convince that your illusion – your brand – is what they should believe in, purchase, and remain loyal to as long at they need or want it, the greater will be the profits on your bottom line.

Illusions can work like magic if you create the right ones. That’s where professional help such as Brand Irons comes in, to strategize and help you create the most effective marketing for your product and services.

The Consumer Mindset

This is a topic that has always been fascinating to me as a professional business and marketing consultant. Marketing is about perception, so the mindset of consumers begs a whole series of questions.

What do consumers buy?
Why do they buy?
Why should they buy from a certain seller vs. a different one?
How do you reach the consumer when they’re ready to buy?
How do you convince or encourage them to buy when you want them to?

These questions seem simple, but the answers are rather complicated. Keep in mind that the average consumer wants to avoid being sold; they prefer to make purchases on their own terms. My hair stylist told me she finished her Christmas shopping early in 2012; she bought everything online. Her terms.

There are several factors that influence the consumer’s mindset, such as the budget (is the product or service affordable), the level of need (is it a necessity or a luxury purchase), and the deal (is it a bargain at the price offered or is it better to wait), among other variables.

Let’s start with the level of need. Remember the heirarchy of needs? It starts with basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter. If your business offers products to meet these necessities, the theory holds that your business should survive and succeed. The consumer, in most cases, wants toilet paper so you should have little competition … except there are different levels of softness, sheets per roll, and other variables. What determines the consumer’s decision to buy in this scenario?

Here’s where other factors come in. Is the consumer looking to stock up because the supply is running low? Is there a good price on their favorite brand? Are they totally out and need whatever they can find at whatever the price?

With other necessities, such as electrical power and a water supply, the consumer has little choice since the market is dominated by monopolies. Utilities provide cost savings through the control of grid systems which enable individual users to share the cost of a major development. Going “off the grid” for your energy needs is an expensive project for the same reason it is costly to develop your own water capture and filtration system.

Another aspect of the level of need is whether the purchase is vital or merely a luxury.

This can be where the budget factors come in. If a woman needs a pair of pants for work and the same slacks are available at a discount store for 30% less than at a name brand department store, where does she buy the pants? She may buy them at the department store for the “prestige factor” or save the money buying them at the discount store and saying she bought them at the other place.

As the retailer, your advertising is going to depend on which store you own or represent. The discount outlet can be effective marketing the pants as “department store quality at 1/3rd the cost” whereas the department store is likely to focus on the quality of the name brand with a message along the lines of “available exclusively at.”

Another influencers in the consumer’s mind is brand loyalty. If the woman needing pants has always purchased her work slacks at the discount store, she will most likely purchase the next pair from that store. And if she’s loyal to the department store, she will buy there despite the price difference. The deal is less a factor when the power of the brand trumps the perceived value.

So what have we learned about the consumer’s mindset?

While advertising tends to lump consumers together, the individual makes his or her own buying decisions based on their psyche, budget, personal preferences, and perceived value. As a business owner, it is essential to understand your customers as much as you possibly can so that you and your products or services, remain relevant to them and their desires.

If you’d like some assistance with some market research on your consumer’s mindsets, please contact Brand Irons.

Instant Gratification – Pros and Cons

If you’re “in to” instant gratification, you’ll need to scan down to get the pros and cons. If you’re a bit more patient, read the whole piece.

Business owners, especially those with significant advertising budgets, are scratching their heads in frustration over the generations that seem so intent on instant gratification. How do you reach someone who wants information, answers, and product “NOW”?

We’ll get to the answer, but let’s look at the pros and cons of this instant gratification mindset. It’s certainly a concept spawned by technology, so any answer has to incorporate a technological aspect. We live in an age where a person with a smart phone can look up a business online, get a phone number, and call that number right from their phone in a matter of seconds.

During the Christmas holidays, we were away from home and wanted to have dinner at a chain restaurant. I looked up the chain online, entered the city, and up popped the restaurant’s phone number. I tapped on it, called it, and learned they were not accepting reservations, which was fine. I had relatively quickly ascertained what we wanted to know. Instant gratification. I had an answer in less time than it would have taken to look up the restaurant in a phone directory.

Two points here: One is that phone directories have a limited life span due to these advances in technology, and the other is that if you have a service business such as a restaurant, it is critical that your business be smart-phone enabled, especially if you are on your own and operating independently.

Instant gratification pros:

Quicker decisions can be made;
Choices are focused on using the right key words;
Speed is easily rationalized by fast results;
Demonstrated skill in using electronics and technology; and,
Masses of information digested rapidly.

Instant gratification cons:

Quick decisions can often be rash choices;
Wrong use of key words can cause longer delays in searches;
Deliberation of potential consequences is given short shrift;
Loss of important, personal human communication skills; and,
Too much information can trivialize all of it.

Now let’s look at instant gratification from the perspective of business.

While there are still companies that make calculators, they must realize their future is finite. Smart phones have calculator applications and so do laptops and other computers. The stand-alone calculator has become a nuisance because it takes up space somewhere and you have to find it to use it when there’s one on your phone.

In order to reach the consumer market dominated by the need and desire for instant gratification, business advertising must have a technological base including a web site that has relevant content. It should also be smart phone enabled and embrace any new, emerging techology within a reasonable time frame.

Using social media effectively should also be given serious consideration. Users may search for your social media sites before deciding to use your services. Keep in mind that Facebook is less about selling your products than it is about showing your business has a social conscience. LinkedIn is more business oriented but still has social aspects that involve reciprocity. If a user endorses you, consider returning the endorsement. With Google’s other search engine, YouTube, being #2 behind Google, put some videos on a YouTube channel, including testimonials and endorsements. You also need to use Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines optimally. Klout, Hulu, and a myriad of other social outlets come online regularly, so you need to be aware of social options and determine their viability for your business.

Understand that one of the most relevant methods to reach those infatuated with instant gratification remains to be word-of-mouth marketing. Flash mobs are a good example of how a message can go viral quickly. Word-of-mouth can help you reach a global market for your business, provided you’re ready to handle the potential rapid growth.

It comes back to having strategies for reaching your target audience effectively, so if you need help thinking this through and developing strategies, Brand Irons has people and resources to help.

5 Signs of Business Passion

One of the first elements I consider when meeting with a prospective new client is whether they have passion for their project or business venture. Without it, the process of creating successful business and market strategies becomes an uphill struggle that often winds up in the ditch, especially with existing companies.

Think of it this way: If your car is stuck on a hill in a foot of snow and you have to get over that hill, passion and determination must be necessary to get the job done. If you give up and tell yourself it’s futile and not worth the effort, your car (and you) will stay stuck in the snow or slide off into the ditch and stay there for days. You will be frustrated, stranded, and discouraged because you never got to your destination.

You would be amazed at how many entrepreneurs wind up that way. They have a great idea but get stuck and lack the determination and the passion to go any further, to get beyond that hurdle and achieve potential success.

The driver with passion takes the time to think through the solution to the dilemma, then acts with determination. The snow is removed from under the tires and the car may be backed up a little, but eventually a slow, steady climb gets the vehicle over the hill – maybe with a little help – and then it’s on to the next challenge.

Are you passionate about your business?

Here are symptoms that will identify the level of your passion:

You don’t consider that you have to go to “work” every day because you enjoy it;
You enjoy solving your customer’s problems and helping them in the process;
You value your employees because they seem to share your passion;
Your employees enjoy coming to work and take good care of your customers; and
You spend less time working in your business and more on how to make it better.

One of the five C’s of credit that banks consider in loaning money to business owners is Character. The major element of that character they evaluate is passion. The bank, or any investor, wants to know how passionate you are about the business, your customers, and the products and/or services you offer.

We recently counselled a client who was passionate about opening a franchise restaurant as a family-owned business. The passion was dampened when the franchise allowed another franchisee to open within the territory being considered. We opted for an independent yet similar business and the family-owned aspects of creating their own concept drove the owner’s passion to new heights. And the banker was impressed with that determination to succeed.

Keep in mind that passion is important in business, but should also be instrumental in everything else we do in life.

Creating Relevant Content

Too many business owners believe that more copy on their website is better than just a little. A few years ago that may have been the case. Today, in this age of instant gratification, it is far more critical that the content – the copy and images – on your website is relevant. Relevant to your business and relevant to your potential consumers, the web users searching for your content.

Key Words. Let’s assume a potential customer is online because they had a party and their carpet needs to be professionally cleaned. What are they likely to key into the search engine, whether it’s Google, YouTube, Yahoo, or Bing? Probably the key words “carpet cleaning” or “professional carpet cleaning” and possibly their city, but the search engines are intuitive enough to automatically search for those services in the general vicinity of that computer’s location.

Relevant content on your website needs to include “carpet cleaning” in a title page, and “professional carpet cleaning” in the hidden page description as well as among the key words coded into the html language. The actual page seen by the potential consumer also has to have relevant content about the fact you provide carpet cleaning services and that you provide professional carpet cleaning services.

Keep in mind that users are unlikely to spend a lot of time on your site looking for the information. Some recent research suggested that time is in the nano-seconds. The more prominent and easy it is for users to access, and the more relevant it is to their search criteria, the greater likelihood you will get the call to provide the services.

Call to Action. This is content that is often overlooked. Do you want a visitor to your web site to do something once they find you? Do you want them to call? Send you an E-mail? Click for more information? Stop in at your store?

What you want them to do is the call to action that should be a relevant portion of your website’s content. If you are a hair stylist or massage therapist, you probably want your online viewers to call for an appointment, so make that a headline on your site: Call (123) 456-7890 for an appointment today!

Users may ignore the call to action. The point is to make it was easy as possible for potential customers to choose you.

Format. How the content is presented on your website is also relevant to increasing and driving traffic. It’s less about numbers of visitors than it is about visitors who become customers because of what they’ve found and how long they look at the information you provide to them. Think about the last time you went to a website and found a massive block of copy for its content. Did you read it all? Or were you gone in seven seconds? How you format your content can be critical to the success of your web presence. Make it easy to find information that is relevant to their search.

Users love bullet points and numbered lists, such as the top 10 reasons to use your services (maybe it’s the top 7). Headlines, clickable graphics, pictures, and other eye appealing elements – as long as they’re relevant to your business – can increase the amount of time visitors spend exploring your site, learning about you and your business, and considering using your services.

Create room on your site for a Facebook reader so the content changes every time you post to Facebook, or make a video that links to YouTube from your site. The more activity that gets noticed on your site by the spiders, the higher your search engine ranking will be. Keep in mind that the search engines are becoming more and more sophisticated, so you and your web developer need to stay on top of the factors that can elevate your site in the rankings, or demote you.

Theme. Along with formatting, having a consistent theme between all the pages on your website adds to the relevancy of your content. Adding copy or graphics to fill space can create confusion to viewers. Often, less is more attractive, especially if it pertains to the message you’re trying to convey.

That brings up another point. Do you know what your message, or brand, is? Are you conveying it correctly in your web content? It should be part of the overall look and feel, or theme, for your business and its website.

Spelling & Grammar. How your business appears to the online consumer is critical. Misspelled words, such as spelling a key word hidden in code as “capret cleaning” instead of “carpet cleaning” can mean the difference between your site being found in the search engines. Extra care must be taken to avoid spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Abbreviations may be fine for txting, but are inappropriate for reflecting the image you wish to portray of your company.

Your potential consumers want reliable, trustworthy information for them to feel comfortable using your company and its products or services. Be careful in using spell checkers, too, since it is difficult for them to discern where “their,” “they’re,” or “there” is the appropriate terminology.

Last thought, if you’re unsure about how relevant your web content is, consider using the services of a professional. If they can help you move from page five of the search engine responses to page one, it will be worth the investment.

Stay Focused

In this age of ever-changing technology, it is more easy than ever for a business owner to lose focus. Yet it is even more important that you stay focused on your business to avoid being side-tracked.

The new insurance mandates from the federal government are a good example. Most business owners know that changes are coming, but have little comprehension of what those changes mean to them. There will be workshops and seminars and E-mails about the changes, including the implications once a more clear picture is developed. Either way, this mandated change will require time away from your business and your customers.

So how do you stay focused?

If there is someone on your team you can dedicate to learning the ropes about the insurance laws, get them on it now so they have time to gather the information and assimilate it. Their challenge is to ascertain how it will impact your business and employees, if at all.

Another option is to rely on professionals you trust who are up on the changes, such as your CPA, legal counsel, tax preparer, financial planner, or insurance agent.

The 3rd option is to spend the time to understand it yourself. Certainly the first two are better choices.

Another distraction facing business owners are employee issues. It would be a perfect world if every employee showed up on time, knew what they were supposed to do, exceeded those expectations, and spoke highly of the company all the time. If it were a perfect world.

So how do you stay focused?

It is improbable to think that employee issues won’t arise in your company, so the key is to be prepared for every eventuality. Have a professional such as legal counsel prepare an employee handbook that stipulates employment conditions, expectations, and consequences. Relegate that responsibility to your human resources department if you have one, and make sure they take time to keep you apprised of their actions. You’re the one with ultimate legal responsibility – along with your Board of Directors and others with liability.

What is critically important when it comes to these types of issues as well is how clearly you convey the company’s mission to employees and share your vision with them. The more closely they are aligned with your line of thinking, the more productive they are likely to be.

Your business plan and market strategies are also methods that enable you to remain focused on your objectives.

Cats, for example, are hunters. When they have identified potential prey, they are focused on getting that prey over everything else. They will stalk, crawl, sneak, pounce, or chase that object of desire until it’s caught. They are focused. When the prey is caught or becomes unattainable, the cats move on to other tasks.

Your business and marketing strategies identify your target consumers, what you will deliver to them, how and why. Your company should be focused on accomplishing that objective. If you lose sight or interest in that goal, it’s easy to move on to other tasks and later wonder why the business failed … or you went hungry in cat language.

Professional consultants are there to help you stay focused.

Why Are You In Business?

As business owners, one of the tasks we often overlook is to stop and think about why we’re in business. Sure, we know we have to market, sell, produce, and deliver our product. That’s a given. Why we do what we do gets short shrift in the process. That can have an impact on the entire operation of our enterprise.

Perhaps the most critical element in our business is the reason we are in business to begin with. Some of us started our venture in the hopes our children would have an interest and want to take over some day. Some got lucky and found a niche that hadn’t been filled yet and are now the cat’s meow in that industry. Quite a few Baby Boomers want to enjoy their retirement doing something they’ve always wanted to do. Why did you get into the business you’re in?

Here’s why the answer to that question is so important, and worth revisiting every six months or so: The reason you are in business becomes your mission, and your mission is conveyed to your employees, customers, and the public as the vision and public persona (if you will) of your company.

That vision becomes the engine that drives your business. As you will find in the Small Business Owner’s Guide to Marketing, your mission defines the products and services you offer and to whom you offer them. It clarifies your position in the market and identifies strategies for marketing what you do to the consuming public. And, as you look at it in terms of your life’s contributions, it also outlines an exit strategy for eventually getting out of the business to enjoy retirement.

You may think retirement would drive you crazy, but your spouse may want you to reconsider that option. That’s another reason to think about why you’re in business today.

Take the time to think things through.

Will Your Great Idea Fly?

If you have a fabulous idea for a new business or an expanded product line for your existing venture, take some time to think things through before you invest a lot of time, money, and emotion in moving forward. Why? Research has shown that roughly one out of every 50 business ideas is commercially viable.

How can you find out if your idea will generate revenue, be accepted by the consumer, and be profitable?

The best method is a feasibility study.

Although there are many types of feasibility studies, and some you can be do by yourself, it is best to employ a professional consultant to assist you. The person conducting your feasibility study should be an independent, third party consultant without a vested interest in your project or concept. That enables them to retain impartiality and look at your idea from two main perspectives: 1) Will the product or service be accepted by the consumer, and to what extent?; and, 2) Will the product or service be profitable and generate a positive return on your investment, and when?

Having someone doing the business and market research independently removes the emotional aspect of your project or idea. You have come up with the concept, sketched out ideas, thought about names, and become emotionally attached to the idea. This is good, but should be reserved for after you’ve determined whether the concept is commercially viable.

What does a feasibility study consist of?

1) A major aspect of your feasibility study is determining if there is a viable market for your product or service. You need to know more than who is likely to purchase the product. You need to understand where those consumers are in terms of their buying power, repeating purchases, personal preferences, and the media that will influence their buying decisions in a positive fashion, among other information.

2) A second major aspect of a feasibility study is the financial viability of your idea. What will be the costs associated with producing the product or delivering the service, including manufacturing, staffing, packaging, selling, administration, and marketing, among others? What will the market bear in terms of pricing? At what point, if any, will the business break even and start generating profits.

The key to the financial perspective is being realistic in determining the projections. Similar to thinking “everyone” needs your product or service is the thought that you can sell 20,000 widgets for $25 apiece when the industry has been successful selling them at $15 each. You may stick with that projection, but will have to justify the $10 per unit difference to someone, including the consumer.

3) Other aspects of your feasibility study look at the overall economic conditions, how many jobs will be created or needed, the management structure of your venture and whether you have the experience required to manage the operation.

In short, a feasibility does cost you some money but in the long run it can save you money, time, and the heartache of failure. It becomes a matter of knowing how much you are willing to invest to determine if your idea is commercially viable.

Consider this: Would you rather spend $10,000 and two months to learn the idea isn’t commercially viable, or invest $200,000 and two years of sweat equity to discover the same outcome?

The role of the consultant in the process is to present every aspect of your idea in a fair, impartial and unbiased report so that you can make an intelligent decision. Whether you elect to move forward with your concept or send it to the trash bin is solely your decision.

That decision is best made from a business perspective, leaving emotions aside. Once you have made a decision to move forward, emotions must come back strong as you will need to invest your heart and soul in your exciting new venture.

Ask Brand Irons about their experience conducting feasibility studies.