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How should we view and analyse a Market Sector?

by Rick Baker
On Jun 5, 2009

A few decades ago, Michael Porter presented a way to analyse an industry sector…ie, a marketplace.  

He recommended Five Forces Industry Analysis”...see Michael Porter, ‘Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors’, [1980].

 

Porter’s Five Forces are:

  1. threat of new entrants
  2. bargaining power of suppliers
  3. bargaining power of buyers
  4. threat of substitute products or services
  5. degree of rivalry among existing competitors

It is wise to consider the Five Forces described by Procter…[perhaps after almost 30 years that’s now considered common sense]. 

It also makes sense to look at your choice of business sector from different perspectives.

This note is about a different way to think about your market niche…the sector where you are doing or will do business. 

Last year, Fernando Trías de Bes presented some different thinking in his book ‘The Little Black Book of Entrepreneurship – A Contrarian’s Guide To Succeeding Where Others Have Failed’ [2008].  

The book focuses on why businesses fail. Rather than talking about only KSFs [Key Success Factors] it recommends we consider KFFs [Key Failure Factors]. The author answers the question – “Why?”…”Because in order to apply the success factors, you need to clear the terrain of failure factors.” 

Is that contrarian?  [What about the W and the T of SWOT?] 

According to the author, one reason entrepreneurs fail is poor choices of market sectors. The author believes the root of the problem is many entrepreneurs do not consider the market sector to be a decision. Rather, they consider it to be a consequence of a random idea.  

The chapter on market sector is titled ‘ROUND NINE - No Novice Ever Won a Nobel Prize’ 

An example is given: a vacationer sees a new type of shoe while visiting a foreign land. The vacationer – the entrepreneur – knows that shoe is not available at home. The entrepreneur’s random idea is: we could sell that shoe at home. And the consequence of that random idea is: we will go into business in the shoe sector.   

Another example is given: a fellow became enthralled with a particular fast-food outlet. He spent six months studying the business of that fast-food outlet but failed to ask himself if he had a real interest in being in the fast-food sector. 

The author believes entrepreneurs often fail because they ‘back into’ the market sector because they are convinced they have a good idea for a product or have a good idea for a specific business.  

The way I’m looking at it, Fernando Trías de Bes tells us what we better think about before we follow the ‘process-analytics’ advice provided by folks like Michael Porter.  

Fernando Trías de Bes provides the following advice:

“The choice of the market sector for your business venture must be the result of a considered decision.

Choose your sector or product because it appeals to you.Go into a sector you know.

If you don’t know the sector, either take time to learn it or surround yourself with people who do know it.

You must bring something new into the market sector you choose to do business in.

Innovate by knowing the rules so you can break them.” 

 

***

Some Additional Thoughts: 

Fernando Trías de Bes at the cover of his book describes himself as a contrarian. It is sometimes difficult to tell the traditional from the contrarian.

One section of the Introduction of The Little Black Book of Entrepreneurship – A Contrarian’s Guide To Succeeding Where Others Have Failed’ caught my attention. At page 3 of the Introduction the author describes an on-line exercise he did using the words ‘key success factors’ and ‘key failure factors’. The author states,”Out of curiosity, I typed ”key success factors” into a search engine and found 636,000 pages; a search engine for “key failure factors” yielded only 119 pages.”

Last December, I performed an exercise using a few combinations of words like “Why Businesses Fail” and “Why Businesses Succeed”. My results, at least , my views about my results, are certainly contrary to those of the author. I feel I obtained the opposite result. For my search, I was not interested in the number of pages search engines found. I was interested in what the first 10 pages [using Google] contained for each search [see www.google.com]. My goal was to find 10 lists where writers provided their views about “Why Businesses Fail” and 10 lists where writers provided their views about “Why Businesses Succeed”. I was astonished to find a huge amount of free on-line articles and summaries covering the topic of  “Why Businesses Fail”…it was easy to find free-information and compile numerous lists of  “Why Businesses Fail”. Going from memory, I believe the first 12 websites contained 10 lists…so, my task of generating the 10 ‘failure lists’ was done quickly. Conversely, I had to read through almost 100 websites to find 10 ‘success lists’…and, I had to cheat a bit to get that done. I had to cull the ‘success’ verbiage to create lists while the ‘success’ writers volunteered simple lists…some numbered, some with bullet points.

After performing the above free-information-search exercise, I reached two conclusions:

  1. People who write about “Why Businesses Succeed” want to be paid for their opinions…so, they don’t write them out the way others write about “Why Businesses Fail”. Rather, when you search those business-success words you end up at sites that sell books…and 
  2. People who do express free advice about “Why Businesses Succeed” make far more subjective claims than do people who write about “Why Businesses Fail”. For example, they state things like business success is linked to long-distance running, meditiation, etc whereas the people who write about failure focus almost entirely on business reasons such as poor marketing, inadequate finance, etc. 

My December 2008 exercise coupled with the author’s differing view about on-line searches cause me to think two things:

  1. Many people think other people will pay for business-success education, so business-success information is not offered as freely as is business-failure information. There’s a good argument to be made this is all about packaging… and 
  2. I’m not sure Fernando Trías de Bes is a contrarian. His search-engine test...I struggle with that.

Injecting Value - Systemizing Your Business

by Rick Baker
On May 31, 2009

Over the past month, not by sheer coincidence, I have participated in many discussions about ‘business systems’.

 

People have differing views, ranging from ‘the need’ for systems to ‘the design’ of systems.

 

I am not writing about my personal views at this time. However, I’d summarize them this way: with respect to ‘the need’ I am of the view business systems are essential and with respect to ‘the design’ I am of the view business systems should be comprehensive yet user-friendly and containing user input, automated within reason, simple to follow yet sufficiently detailed, and crystal clear.

 

Business systems must be taught and they must be learned. They must be embraced.

 

Here is one way to look at business systems…it is an introduction to the good work Brad Sugars is doing with his business-consulting company ActionCOACH…for more information visit www.actioncoach.com.

 

As part of his ‘INSTANT SUCCESS’ series, in his 2006 book titled ‘Instant Systems’, Brad Sugars wrote about “The  Nine Steps to Systemizing Your Business”. While one needs to read the book to understand the strength of Brad Sugars’ 9 points, the following summary illustrates his approach to business systems.

 

1.      Step 1: VISION – this is a long-term [Brad says a 100-year view] of the grand picture of what your business will be like when it is finished. The Vision should be clearly understood by everyone at your business. Brad provides his company’s Vision, which is captured in 5 words.

2.      Step 2: MISSION STATEMENT – this states how you are going to accomplish your business Vision. It should clearly explain: who you are, what business you are in, who your customers are, and what makes you different than your competition. Brad provides his company’s Mission Statement, which is described in one page.

3.      Step 3: CULTURE STATEMENT – Brad says this is usually a 14-point statement covering: the company leader’s 4 most-important values, the team’s 4 most-important values, and the customers’ 4 most-important values. At his company, Brad covers these using the following 14 points: Commitment, Ownership, Integrity, Excellence, Communication, Success, Education, Teamwork, Balance, Fun, Systems, Consistency, Gratitude, & Abundance.

4.      Step 4: GOALS – your Goals help you achieve your Vision. Your Goals should be SMART, consider the end point, ie, your exit from the business, and provide direction and focus.

5.      Step 5: ORGANIZATIONAL CHART – again, consideration must be given to the end point.

6.      Step 6: POSITIONAL CONTRACTS – using Brad’s words, ‘It’s very important to tell your people what they’re supposed to be doing.’ And, ‘Spell it out in clear, unambiguous terms.’

7.      Step 7: KPIs – Key Performance Indicators for every position. Brad recommends 5 to 10 KPIs. He ties pay-for-performance bonuses to each person’s KPIs.

8.      Step 8: HOW-TO MANUALS – written down, video- or audio-taped…whatever works.

9.      Step 9: MILESTONES – you must consider the main stages your business will go through from infancy to maturity.

 

That’s a summary of a concise set of instructions for setting up Business Systems. Perhaps, the most striking piece is the step called Culture Statement. Many businesses have given little thought to culture. Based on our discussions with many businesses, the first three steps – Vision, Mission Statement, & Culture Statement – appear to be the most difficult.

Tags:

Business Contains Only 3 Things | Entrepreneur Thinking | Marketing

An excerpt from a note sent to a business associate

by Rick Baker
On May 7, 2009

Spirited Investors helps businesses tackle their problems and opportunities. We do this by investing money, know-how, effort, and time. 

Spirited’s key investment focus, at this time, is smaller businesses. Smaller businesses: think in terms of private companies ranging from early-stage revenue to $10,000,000 in sales.  

Smaller-business success is influenced in a profound way by the presence or absence of good Marketing & Sales performance.

 

Unfortunately, the absence is more common than the presence Together, we can fix this.  

Marketing: Most small businesses do little marketing, aside from a very-limited set of things such as attending trade shows and having a printer do up some brochures to support sales. Websites exist but often they are neither compelling nor updated. When marketing activity does happen it is rarely measured or tested. Marketing work receives perhaps sporadic attention. There is little commitment to doing marketing. Some say it is not required. They are wrong. Many think they do it right or state ‘these things are under control’. Yet, most businesses struggle at identifying: [1] target markets, [2] value propositions, and [3] unique selling propositions. Meanwhile, the whole marketing & sales process, from strategic to tactical, must start with those 3 things.  

Sales: Often, small-business owners personally handle much of the sales activity at their company. They regularly choose to do sales work rather than delegate it. They have problems when they do try to delegate it. The recruiting of sales people is another real challenge. And, about 7 out of 10 sales people shouldn’t even be in sales jobs. The 80/20 Rule is confirmed, that is, if sales success is happening at all then ‘the few’ generate the lion’s share of the sales revenue. Within an industry, most competitors do sales work more or less the same way. Not much innovation, not much creativity. So, sales attitudes can be quite lackluster and even when sales performance is happening the work isn’t much fun.  

Most small businesses do not have a written Plan for their Marketing & Sales.  

Almost all smaller businesses need help with marketing & sales [not just sales work on its own]. Even those that are earning profit are leaving money on the table and leaving clients less than fully satisfied. They would do better if they had a Marketing & Sales Plan. Marketing & sales must start with Plan the Work [ie, Napoleon Hill – Plan the Work and Work the Plan].  

Planning offers at least 2 major benefits: (1) it forces folks to think through the issues and that ‘thinking through’ alone adds value and (2) the Plan serves as a guide and a reference…it is a map. Maps help. 

We will do the smaller businesses of our community a tremendous service if we can create together an education and training ‘tool’ for marketing & sales.

 

The marketing & sales training tool we create should have 3 overall components: [1] marketing, [2] sales management, and [3] sales.

 

The existing sales training programs can provide a good starting point for the work in the sales area. Most of the sales training I have purchased is too complicated…it needs to be simplified. We must make our marketing & sales training tool ingenious and simple - that is...we must make our marketing & sales training tool elegant. Many good books and tapes exist to help us create all 3 of the parts. These 3 parts must be integrated because sales work can only be excellent and resilient if it is meshed with the results of good sales management and marketing work. And, there will be no excellence [or peace of mind] if marketing & sales work is not handled in a Plan the Work and Work the Plan way…much strategic thought, much tactical thought, alignment, measuring and testing, training, etc. 

We can create a special ‘tool’ for Marketing & Sales education and training. 

And then, we can share it. 

Tags:

80/20 Rule | Entrepreneur Thinking | Investor Funding | Marketing | Sales

An Excerpt from a Message Sent to a Friend Today

by Rick Baker
On Apr 30, 2009

Commerce is changing.

Communication is changing. The 'old ways' do not work as well as they used to. We have seen rapid sales-marketing-and-purchasing changes creeping up and around us during the last 10 years. Now, things seem to have reached a new commercial zone.

[The pace of change is hastening: mail, fax, email, Web 2.0, etc.]

To grow business we need to know how to succeed in a new commercial zone.

 

The current economic climate presents an ideal time for growth. Many businesses are struggling to some degree and many are seeking better ways and solutions. This opens the doors for new forward-looking alliances.

Some competitors will fail and many will be distracted and doors will be opened to upbeat and strong businesses. Clients will be taken from the weak and the distracted businesses. And, these clients will be better served.

 

People have not changed.

But, the things that catch their attention and interest have…

 

The keys to marketing & sales success are still the 'old' basics:

Accurate identification and understanding of Market Niches/Target Markets/Clients

Real Value Propositions, confirmed and proven by the Clients who receive the Value

Real Differential Advantages (Unique Selling Propositions or whatever the currently-accepted descriptor is)… differences that ensure attractiveness to Clients vis-à-vis their choices to either do nothing or do business with one of our competitors

Quality Relationships

Effective Referrals and Other Routes to connect us to our Target Market Clients

 

The last bullet point contains most of the new stuff (ie, the stuff of the new commercial zone). Businesses can no longer rely on one or two routes to commerce. Old sales approaches are stale and yield lacklustre results. Sales training on its own does little to generate improvement of results.

So - how do we construct a multi-prong Marketing Plan that contains new & effective routes to commercial success?

That’s the interesting challenge testing our brainpower.

How do we construct a multi-prong Marketing Plan that contains new & effective routes to success?

But, let’s make sure we do not rush into this backwards.

Every day we see people ignore this crucial point: that last question is and must not be the first question.

The bullet points for the thinking process and the questions are presented above. The first question is at the 1st bullet point. The next question is at the 2nd bullet point...and so on. Yet, we see business people violate these steps. They assume or presume or conclude they have an accurate understanding of their Target Markets when they do not. Then they assume presume and conclude they understand the Value Proposition as seen from their Clients’ perspectives when they do not. Almost everything they do after that is a waste of time, effort, and money.

We must start by putting ourselves in our Clients’ shoes…and we must not free our feet from those shoes until we have finished the strategic-thinking process…and, of course, all of the implementation and tactics, the testing and measuring, and the feedback.

 

Tags:

Communication: Improving Communication | Marketing | Sales

The Eighth Step Toward Riches - or - The First Mental Trap?

by Rick Baker
On Feb 3, 2009

In 1937, in his classic book 'Think and Grow Rich', Napoleon Hill stated Persistence as the 8th of 13 steps toward riches.

If I'm not mistaken, Bob Proctor stated he forced himself to read the Persistence chapter of Think and Grow Rich every night for a month. Proctor did that to impress upon himself the merit of Hill's words about Persistence...ie, an exercise of leading the mind by example.  

An excerpt of Napoleon Hill thought... 

'There may be no heroic connotation to the word "persistence", but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel.' 

Another quote... 

'Lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure.' 

Another... 

'Those who have cultivated the habit of persistence seem to enjoy insurance against failure.' 

And one more... 

'One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.' 

***

I recently purchased a copy of André Kukla's 2007 (Anchor Canada) publication of 'Mental Traps - Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life'. Now, the book title caught my attention. The back cover explains André Kukla is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto...that expanded my interest. (Why not support the efforts of local writers.) And, the table of contents secured my purchase: Kukla’s first mental trap was - Persistence.  

Immediately, having a good memory of the details of the Hill classic and being pretty sure Bob Proctor read the chapter on persistence every day for a month, I was intrigued to see persistence holding the #1 mental-trap position. 

The opening paragraph of Kukla's chapter on persistence is: 

'The first trap, persistence, is to continue to work on projects that have lost their value. The activity had meaning for us once - or we would never have begun. But the meaning has evaporated before we reach the end. Yet we go on, either because we don't notice the change or out of sheer inertia.' 

Another quote... 

'Incredibly, our culture teaches us to regard persistence as a virtue'.  

And another... 

'A useful distinction may be drawn between persistence and perseverance. We persevere when we steadfastly pursue our aims despite the obstacles that are encountered along the way. But we merely persist if we doggedly carry on in directions that are known to lead to a dead end.' 

And one more... 

'The moral imperative to finish everything we start is deeply ingrained. We find it difficult to abandon even the most transparently vapid enterprises in midstream. The mere act of beginning already binds us to continue to the end, whether or not the original reasons for the activity remain valid.' 

***

Now, here's how one of my dictionaries defines perseverance and persistence... 

Perseverance: a sticking to a purpose or an aim; never giving up what one has set out to do; persistence 

Persistence: the quality or state of being persistent or the act of persisting....where, in the same dictionary, persistent is defined as: persisting; having lasting qualities, especially in the face of dislike, disapproval, or difficulties 

***

As mentioned above, I was intrigued to see a table of contents citing Persistence as the first mental trap in an 'Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life' 

To at least some degree, I grew up with Napoleon Hill's philosophies...including his view that Persistence is a necessary step toward riches.  

To put this into perspective, I've read the Napoleon Hill chapter dozens of times while I've read the Kukla chapter a handful of times. So, I believe I fully understand the gory details of Napoleon Hill's thinking and message while I'm much less comfortable with my understanding of Kukla's thinking and message. 

At first-reading of Kukla's differentiation between persistence and perseverance, I thought I was gaining some ground on his views. However, my dictionary removed that.  

My dictionary seems to consider the words persistence and perseverance as more or less interchangeable...note, perseverance is defined as persistence.  

***

So, what is persistence? 

Is it the 8th step to riches?  

Or, is it the first mental trap?   

An attempt at an answer: 

...going back to my dictionary's definition of persistent: persisting; having lasting qualities, especially in the face of dislike, disapproval, or difficulties. 

Specifically, consider the words 'in the face of dislike, disapproval, or difficulties'. 

This may be a good place to begin to sort out the similarities and differences between what these authors are trying to tell us.  

There's no question Napoleon Hill wanted his readers to be persistent in the face of disapproval from others. That's a very major part of the Hill philosophy. He wrote words like, 'never mind what they say' 

And, be persistent in the face of difficulty is another major Hill message....he wrote, 'If you give up before your goal has been reached, you are a "quitter". A quitter never wins - and a winner never quits. Lift that sentence out, write it on a piece of paper in letters an inch high, and place it where you will see it every night before you go to sleep, and every morning before you go to work.' 

What about 'in the face of dislike'? Napoleon Hill had a strong view on what type of work people should do...that is, he felt people should do work that is a labour of love. That doesn't mean Napoleon Hill expected all aspects of one's work would always be enjoyable/liked.  

Napoleon Hill felt people should think, set goals, create detailed plans, and take persistent action to complete those plans.  

Conversely, André Kukla begins his explanation of the mental trap, persistence, with the following example... 

'We start a Monopoly game with great enthusiasm and - inevitably - get bored before we reach the end. But instead of quitting, we toil on without pleasure "just to get it over with". There can be no clearer waste of time.' 

Kukla presents a number of similar examples. Taken on there own, I expect these examples do not do justice to the substance of Kukla's views. He goes on to say... 

'We may perpetually persist at relationships that have turned irretrievably sour, jobs that hold no present satisfaction for us and no hope for the future, old hobbies that no longer bring us pleasure, daily routines that only burden and restrict our lives.' 

Obviously, this last excerpt covers matters of much more significance than monopoly games. 

Napoleon Hill comments on all of these matters too, except the old hobbies. Hill cautioned against carrying on with things like irretrievably sour relationships and jobs that are not satisfying. He had strong views that most people continued with these sorts of things because of fear of criticism.  

So, there is common ground covered by both Kukla and Hill.  

However, there are fundamental differences and they are not explained away by writer’s style or the fact some common ground exists. 

As mentioned above, Kukla states, 'But we merely persist if we doggedly carry on in directions that are known to lead to a dead end.' 

On the other hand, Hill tells the story of how Henry Ford reacted to his engineers after '...the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder engine-block in one piece'.   

Here is part of the Henry Ford story, as told by Napoleon Hill: 

'...the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder engine-block in one piece.  

Ford said, "Produce it anyway." 

"But," they replied, "it's impossible!" 

"Go ahead," Ford commanded, "and stay on the job until you succeed, no matter how much time is required." 

The engineers went ahead. There was nothing else for them to do, if they were to remain on the Ford staff. Six months went by, nothing happened. Another six months passed, and still nothing happened. The engineers tried every conceivable plan to carry out the orders, but the thing seemed out of the question; "impossible!" 

At the end of the year Ford checked with his engineers, and again they informed him they had found no way to carry out his orders. 

"Go right ahead," said Ford. "I want it, and I'll have it." 

They went ahead, and then, as if by a stroke of magic, the secret was discovered. 

The Ford determination had won once more!'  

Consider Kukla's definitions...'We persevere when we steadfastly pursue our aims despite the obstacles that are encountered along the way. But we merely persist if we doggedly carry on in directions that are known to lead to a dead end.' 

Under Kukla’s definitions, Napoleon Hill's story about Henry Ford and his engineers contains one man persevering and many men merely persisting.  

Clearly, knowing the single-cast engine block could be done, Henry Ford persevered and that is something Kukla would not describe as falling into a mental trap.  

However, all of Henry Ford's engineers agreed to a man it was simply impossible to single-cast the engine block yet they doggedly carried on with work they ‘knew’ would lead to a dead end. So, the engineers merely persisted. And, Kukla would describe that as activity done in a mental trap.  

Some could argue that example is not a fair-game way of trying to sort out whether persistence is a necessary step towards riches or a destructive mental trap.  

After all…Henry Ford – why that’s just an exceptional example.   

Exactly.

Tags:

Attitude: Creating Positive Attitude | Hero Worship | Influencing

Leading With Revenue

by Rick Baker
On Aug 4, 2008

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction of Ford Harding's book, 'Rain Making - Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field': 

"Historically, training of professionals to win new clients has been haphazard. Law, accounting, engineering, medical, and architectural schools teach nothing about selling. This is also true of most business schools, surprisingly so, given that a sale is what defines the existence of a business." 

The Introduction goes on to explain how the author, while doing consulting work, experienced good times then bad and due to particularly bad times was called upon to 'sell'.   

About 'selling', the author reminisces: 

"Slowly, with a little mentoring and coaching and after my share of mistakes, I learned what to do. Knowing how to bring in business, and so build a practice, has helped ensure a good income and more control over my own destiny than many people have in this turbulent world. It has ensured a flow of interesting work with interesting people. It has allowed me to develop and maintain a team of professionals. It has earned me respect among my peers." 

(That excerpt contains a summary of many of the reasons why one might want to succeed in business.) 

  ***  

The Introduction to the book contains the following major headings: 

Sales mean survival. 

Lack of time is no excuse. 

You must take responsibility for your own development. 

You have to get over the hump before it starts to be fun.  

You must adopt new measures of productivity and success.  

Marketing is an emotional roller coaster.  

You can gain a sense of control in business development.  

It is always better to be doing some marketing than none.  

You need to get face-to-face with a prospect to make a sale.  

Everyone can make a contribution.  

When you win, celebrate.  

Now is the time to start.   

(Many good points)

***  

A couple of sentences in the Introduction also stood out and impressed me. 

 "Clients almost always return phone calls; prospects often don't." 

"Marketers market."  

***  

Harding says, "Most professionals who succeed as marketers begin by doing." and "Such people are doers first and planners second."

Harding doesn't just talk the talk on this, he also walks the walk. This is confirmed by the structure of his book, which begins with three parts action/tactics and ends with one part planning/strategy.  

To explain his belief he states, near the end of the Introduction, "Part IV shows how to build a marketing strategy that is appropriate for you and your firm. It comes last because you must understand something of the tactics at your disposal before you select a strategy." 

(This caused me to think about plans and action…and about Leading With Revenue.)  

***  

"Leading With Revenue" is a philosophy I coined in an effort to describe how successful entrepreneurs go about being successful.  

Leading With Revenue has particular impact during an entrepreneurial start-up.   

***  

I feel Napoleon Hill's advice "Plan your work and work your plan" is the essential framework for sustained success.   

***  

When asked to state the key ingredients of success, from start-up success to sustained success, I always include Napoleon Hill's "Plan your work and work your plan".  I also always include Leading With Revenue. 

Leading With Revenue is a philosophy containing about as much emotion as logical argument. Being that way, it is hard to learn it if you don't 'get it'.

I suppose, like the 'secret' Napoleon Hill embedded in and talked about throughout his 1937 classic ‘Think and Grow Rich’...if you are ready to receive it then you will 'get it' 

The 3 words - Leading With Revenue - can and should be taken literally. But, that's where the understanding of the philosophy begins, not where it ends.  

Regardless, Ford Harding's words offer help....perhaps a good way to present some of the thinking behind the philosophy. 

Ford Harding said, "....you must understand something of the tactics at your disposal before you select a strategy."   

This aligns with the 'how' of Leading With Revenue  

***  

Here is a simplistic, theoretical and hypothetical example - an effort to explain Leading With Revenue: 

Assume you come up with an action-tactic for selling something to someone. Assume you do the selling action. Assume the someone buys your something. Assume you find a similar someone and repeat the process. Assume the second someone also buys your something. Assume this process is repeated at least one more time. After three successful actions proven by three sales, you have generated some revenue and you have reason to conclude you have come up with a successful something to sell and a successful way to sell it. Assume you decide to feed this result back to your plans/strategies and make adjustments to reduce all the other somethings you sell and reduce all the other somethings you do in sales while expanding the one combination of somethings that has proven to be successful in generating revenue. After that strategic change is made, assume your fourth sales effort succeeds, your fifth sales efforts succeeds, etc. Then, assume you feed that additional success back to your plan and assume, because you feel you are definitely on the track to success, you remove everything but the combination of somethings that has worked and you etch your plan in stone...at that point, your plan only contains instructions/guidance about the successful product/service and the action that leads to the successful sale of it and the generation of maximum (or at least optimum) revenue.  

Assume all that... 

The business-develoment stars have aligned. 

Not only have the stars aligned but they have aligned in about as efficient and simple a way as one could ever expect.  

That would be an ideal example of Leading With Revenue.  

·         Have at least one product or service

·         Have a plan, which contains at least one good sales tactic for action

·         Do that selling action

·         Succeed every time you sell (sales success means revenue)

·         Feed the results (successful product/service, sales tactic, and resulting generation of revenue) back to your plan

·         Revise your plan to remove things that don't work, leaving only the things that do work

·         With your revised and fully-precise (perfect) plan, do more selling

·         Grow your business rapidly and without any challenges whatsoever  

***

That's a picture of the ideal Leading With Revenue. 

That incorporates Ford Harding's points and Napoleon Hill's philosophy. The only problem is, being 'ideal' it is purely hypothetical and theoretical and it will never happen in the real world of business development.  But, the fact the example is 'impossible theory', does not reduce the need to understand Leading With Revenue 

The impossible example illustrates the iterative, back-and-forth relationship between plans and action, the foundation of Leading With Revenue.

While Ford Harding quite intentionally teaches tactics before planning, we must agree plans come first. We must agree with Napoleon Hill: one must Plan the Work before one Works the Plan. However, one must not expect to plan with perfection or completeness at the first try. (Actually, I would argue plans are never close to perfect, but that's another topic.) One must not underestimate the value of one good idea, backed by action. (Napoleon Hill repeated that message frequently.) And, one must not underestimate the danger of excessive planning, at the expense of action. 

The initial plan may be just an uncomplicated combination of an idea about a product and a process for selling it to a buyer. In fact, isn't that what's near or at the heart where invention meets entrepreneurship?

Or, the plan could be 50+ pages of verbiage, tables, graphs, and pictures. That's not an unusual thing at mature businesses and larger corporations.  

***

Regardless, whether it is applied to nascent plans or to mature plans, Leading With Revenue is the driver for initiating, expanding, and sustaining business.  

Have a plan... whether large or small, whether deeply personal or widespread corporate doctrine 

Take action in the field... whether in strict compliance with your marketing plan or due to leading-edge entrepreneurial spirit 

Monitor the results of your business-development actions....both the absolutely-essential failures and the to-be-celebrated successes   

Feedback those failure results and success results to your planning process 

Adjust your plans, to organize, guide, and optimize your action 

With optimized action, expand your sales…expand your revenue…grow and sustain your business  

***   

While that is not how I have done it in the past, that is another way to begin to describe the iterative, success-oriented processes around plans-action-results-plans....which I call Leading With Revenue.  

Tags:

Entrepreneur Thinking | Marketing | Sales

Copyright © 2012. W.F.C (Rick) Baker. All Rights Reserved.