Trash to Treasure: Step 1 – The Design

In order to execute a renovation that will deliver pleasure and usefulness for years to come, you must first create a plan, or blueprint, for achieving your goal.  The design of that blueprint can differ immensely depending upon what industry or channel you are involved in.   Are you executing direct or indirect (channel) sales.  Is it a tangible or intangible product that you are selling?  But no matter how unique you believe your area of the market is compared to other industries, all of these differences are just nuances of your Biz-Dev plan, like unique paint colors create a different look on a wall.  

Regardless of the paint hues you choose, underneath it all walls are built from the same materials – frame, studs, drywall, plaster, brinks and spackle.  In that same way, any successful Biz-Dev plan contains same the basic bone structure.  In this session we are going to touch on the basic, but utterly necessary, structural elements of your Biz-Dev blueprint.

Business Development plans will map out the way you connect to existing customers and how you effectively attract new clients and prospects.  It should also define the types of customers that you need to target, how to connect with them, how to articulate your value proposition, and most certainly, how to close and track your results.

Sidebar:  Is a Biz-Dev plan really just a marketing plan?  The answer to that question is emphatically NO.  A Biz-Dev plan drills into the Sales/Marketing strategy and provides tactical plans on execution.   If your sales & marketing strategy contains a lot of ‘how-to’ tactical steps, you probably need to relook at it to determine if you have established a marketing plan, or if you have designed a sales process.  But I digress….

The first step is to understand your organization’s marketing plan.   A marketing plan is your Biz-Dev tool belt and is contains the nails, hammers, saws and other items necessary for your renovation.  A well-formulated plan includes a marketing summary, competitive landscape, product/service comparison and positions, communication strategies, launch plans  (if a new product), and marketing schedules.  You need to understand how you will apply these utensils before you even pick up a saw (make your first call).

Once you understand these critical components of your reno, you are now be ready to engineer your Biz Dev strategy.   

As we continue to move thought this process together, we will deconstruct and rebuild your renovation plan around some of these key areas:

·      Competitive landscape

·      Product analysis

·      Evaluate sales staff

·      Sales budget/Projections

·      Sales strategy

·      Territories/channels

·      Sales Operations

·      Customers/Prospects

·      Use of Social Media, PR, Event Marketing (tradeshows, conferences)

Question:  Do you think your marketing plan is really a sales process?  Why?

Trash to Treasure:  A Biz-Dev Renovation is an occasional series.

Guest Blogger: Kenneth Leow - The Pursuit of Career Actualization

This is an often quoted study by authors Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler. They did a research of 1500 people over a 20 years span. Their objective is test how following one’s passion in our career choice & the degree of difference it makes in one’s life. 

At the beginning of the study, the group was divided into 2. One group will be starting their career for the prospect of making more money now... in order to attain what they wanted in life later. The other group chose their career for the opposite reason – to pursue what they wanted to do now and worry about the money later. 83% chose the first group and 17% chose the latter group. 

20 years later, the authors discovered some startling results: There were a total of 101 millionaires from the entire sample size of 1500. But what was startling was that 100 of those 101 millionaires came from the second group – those who went to pursue what they loved! 

Of course not everyone is so lucky to choose what they like while starting their careers. Folks of my generation remember the hard work & toil our parents put in to raise us so for the majority of us we chose our starting careers to put food on the table & to pay our rent. However the generation after mine is definitely more fortunate. Many have economically viable parents and have chosen schools & careers to pursue their dreams and passion.

Question:  What path did you choose for yourself? If applicable, what paths are your children choosing?   OR, what path will you encourage your children to choose?

Trash to Treasure: A Biz-Dev Renovation.

The business development (Biz Dev) process is also one of transformation.  Successfully executed, a Biz Dev plan contains this renovation element:  to drive growth for your company and to help your clients execute their own growth or optimization blueprint.

Renovation is a complex and sometimes arduous process.   A project which at face value appears to be a simple demo and rebuild process may actual contain a multitude of unknown obstacles and setbacks hidden beneath the ‘drywall’.  Even the most carefully thought out blueprint cannot possibly take into account all of the unknown factors, many of which can bog down your progress and exponentially increase your costs and timeline to completion.

The process of a Biz Dev renovation can be mind-bending.   So, what are some critical steps?

• The Design:  Your Strategic Blueprint
• Demolition:  Moving Walls
• Rock Solid Foundation:  Sales People
• Call the Plumber:  Laying the Pipeline
• Basic Carpentry:  Your Value Proposition
• Proper Insulation:  Preventing Leaks
• Finish Work:  Close the Deal
• Inspection:  Level Set
• Maintenance:  Ongoing KPIs

Any seasoned trade professional will tell you, “Measure twice, cut once!”  In this occasional series, I'll touch on some of the basic block and tackle strategies for a successful Biz Dev renovation.

Question for my Readers:  What business renovation topics would you like to see addressed in this series?  In other words, “What’s keeping you up at night?”

Photo Courtesy of  Rebecca Thienes, CountryLiving.com

For Today....

An awesome way to start the day - shouting AMEN at the top of my voice!



Note: This is a band out of Canada called The City Harmonic, with a host of songs that are worth downloading to your iTunes or mp3 library.

~Enjoy~

The 10 Deadly Sins of Leadership: Harvard Business experts chime in on the top worst leadership mistakes

Harvard Business recently held a symposium where they discussed what are the worst mistakes that leaders can make. I am calling these the 10 deadly sins of leadership. Thought leaders from Harvard, Google, Medtronic and Morgan Stanley all weigh in on what they believe are the greatest mistakes (or attributes) a true great leader needs to avoid (or pursue).

1. Self Promotion
2. Trust
3. Being Certain
4. Hypocrisy
5. Vision
6. Personal Arrogance
7. Speed
8. Something Bigger
9. Authenticity
10. Self Reflection

Do you consider yourself a leader? What attributes do you believe you posses that make you a ‘leader’? What do you see in others that you recognize as great leadership….or not? Are leaders that make mistakes and get bad press about it be considered any less, or more, of a great leader than others? What advice or key insight on being great leader would you provide to our trailblazers of today?

On a personal note, individual reflection is a good habit to put into practice. I encourage you to carve out time regularly to reflect on your recent activities, both personal and professional, and measure our actions against your own internal compass. Whether during quiet meditation, prayer time, a nature walk without plugging into your mp3 player , your blog or perhaps yoga, whatever medium or method you choose to recharge your batteries is a good time to complete this exercise. When you true up your actions to your compass, it will help you to stay on the path of ongoing excellence and authenticity.

FRIDAY TIDBIT - Avoid stupid voicemail delays

I posted a very open-ended business question on some of my linked in forums today - mostly to see what interesting topical threads might be on folks minds this Friday.  I think, so far, my favorite comment was posted by 

Michael A Brown, President at BtoBEngage, about the cumulative waste of time standard voice mail messages and prompts are for all of us.

Press 1 for heartburn,
Press 2 for headaches,
Press 3 for wasted time....

Michael says, "...let's delete the "Your call is very important" and "I'm away from my desk or on the phone." We know that, dude! That's why we reached your phone mail!  Imagine the time savings and aggravation avoidance we would enjoy!"

I completely agree with Michael regarding voice mail messages and the series of prompts we have to navigate through just to leave a short message to request our friend/family/colleague calls us back.  Each individual wastes a cumulative average of 3-hours per year being held hostage by these messages*.  

So in the interest of every person that gets heartburn from the barrage of voice mail prompts and messages, this NYTimes article from today provides helpful tips on how to bypass messages and thus reclaim a portion of the lost hours ripped from our lives by the carriers.

* http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/how-to-bypass-stupid-voicemail-instructions/

Encouraged or Discouraged - you choose

The new Beast on Capital Hill

After tonight’s Presidential address, I am encouraged by what I heard on the surface of our elected leader’s wishes and plans. However I felt the posted quote made a lot of sense, because even as a staunch Republican, I am not sure that either side can give up it’s agenda and chosen roles to work uniformly to help the people they serve. Jaded, perhaps. Realistic, most assuredly. Let’s all pray for clarity for our leaders and politics not-as-usual to happen on the Hill in the upcoming days.

Point of View

"No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times."

~ Michel Montaigne

Synchronicity - continued

Today’s quote by Jung on synchronicity was apropos given the random nature of events occurring in my life at the moment. 

    Last.  Child.  First.  Day.  High.  School.  Now grown up, am I.

    New.  Job.  Pulling a loose thread on an old sweater.  Unraveling.   

    Smaller.  Size.  Back to the future - in a really good way.

    Boyfriend.  Hubby. Deliciously the same guy.

    Corner, Turning the.  Uncomfortable.  New.   A grand adventure.

    E-ticket ride.  White knuckles.  Cathartic scream.  FUN.

Webster defines crisis as a “challenging opportunity”.

I’ll go with that.

Synchronicity

“Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, but are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner.”

—	Carl Gustav Jung