September 7, 2009

BE DiFFERENT Tips for Start-ups

So, you have created a great idea that you believe will capture the hearts and minds and, hopefully the pocket books of people. You have laboured for months and maybe years making sure your product or service concept works; the technology is sound and consistently stable.

You have now arrived at the point where you need to morph your idea into a business. More specifically your challenge is to turn your innovative idea into a thriving economic engine. So how do you do it?

The BE DiFFERENT mantra: If you’re not different you’re dead (or soon will be) should be your guide. If you can’t provide unique reasons to attract business then your startup idea will never get off the ground.

The number one consideration for anyone looking to start a business is that your idea has to be unique in some way or it can be morphed into a unique state. As I said above, you can have a great technology idea, but unless a BE DiFFERENT mindset is applied, you may never have a great business.

The starting point: develop your Strategic Game Plan based on answering three questions:
- HOW BIG do you want to be?
- WHO do you want to SERVE?
- HOW will you compete and WIN?

Declare your financial or market goals first. Second, select target customers that have the potential to deliver to your financial expectations. Third, create a differentiated market approach that will beat your competitors. The Game Plan can be created in 3 days; you can start executing it on the fourth!

The essential component of the HOW to WIN part of the strategy is the need to create the only statement for your business; this is the essence of your strategy to beat your competitors in the trenches. The challenge is simple to explain but challenging to complete:
‘We are the only ones that…..’

This is the ultimate manifestation of a real differentiation strategy and you should look in every nook and cranny in your business for this edge. Figure it out with your team and then test it with prospective customers. Make sure it is real, compelling and believable and that you are not mesmerized by your own thoughts of grandeur.

Your Strategic Game Plan must be set in place first; all action plans, tactics and activities are driven from it.

The bottom line for you entrepreneurs out there is that if you cannot define your business in relevant terms to your target customers (i.e. you will deliver something that is a high priority to them) and if you cannot explain in clear concise terms how your offering is DiFFERENT from the other alternatives available then STOP. Continue to work on your idea until you meet the BE DiFFERENT criteria. You will reap the rewards later.

If you want a guide to your efforts, work with my BE DiFFERENT Quiz. Use the 40 Practises in the Quiz to build your business in a BE DiFFERENT way.

Cheers, Roy Osing

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Build a BE DiFFERENT Strategy
The Only Statement
Strategic Renewal
Makeover for your Organization

Posted 9.7.09 at 07:41 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 3, 2009

Sales - Brand Your Warriors

Sales is a critical component of your overall business strategy and it needs to be branded to distinguish it in the competitive masses.

The branding process starts with clarifying the strategic context for Sales. Sales must ‘look up’ to your overall strategy and define its specific role from it. Sales should never be allowed to create its own destiny. In an earlier blog, I discussed the importance of establishing Sales as Relationship Builders NOT product floggers to create long term success rather than ‘one-sale wonders’. Your Sales brand, then, needs to be created in the image of relationship building.

As with your overall business strategy, develop the only Statement for Sales. ‘Our Sales team is the only one that ...’ is a claim that will set the foundation for their brand. Remember Roy’s Rule of Three - focus on the critical few relationship building attributes that are the most compelling to the customers your have chosen to SERVE and that address your sales competencies . Here are some possibilities: consultation expertise, trusted advice, problem solving skills and more (see Chapter Fifty - One of my book).

Once you have nailed down your only claim - ‘Our Sales team is the only one that will lose a sale to do what is right for the customer in the long term’ - you have your brand. And, you must break it down into specific behaviors salespeople need to exhibit on a daily basis. I call it the Sales Behavior Charter which is a list of the critical behaviors you want demonstrated by every salesperson everyday.

Behaviors are necessary in order to see if the only claim is being lived and gives a salesperson specific direction in terms of what they have to do. If this level of behavioral granularity is not defined every salesperson will interpret the only claim in their own way and will lead to inconsistent customer treatment and dysfunction in executing the overall strategy.

Who is the judge of whether or not the Sales Behavior Charter is being adhered to? THE CUSTOMER of course. Once you have defined the behaviors to support the only claim, ask the customer on a regular basis to rate each salesperson (simple 1 to 5 scale) how the extent to which they are consistently demonstrating each behavior. A ‘1’ suggests they aren’t doing anything; a ‘5’ says they are consistently doing it. Simple.

And, build the Customer Report Card into the Sales compensation plan to ensure it matters. If a salesperson has 50% of their bonus on the line for only claim behaviors they will pay attention!

Cheers, Roy Osing

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs:
Relationship Builders
The only Statement
Only claim Queen’s

Posted 9.3.09 at 05:48 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 1, 2009

Flogging Bonuses

Interesting article recently indicated that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair was concerned that recruitment bonuses paid by brokerage houses might encourage the wrong behavior. The wrong behavior referenced is selling securities at all cost irrespective of whether or not they are appropriate for the customer.

Absolutely something to be concerned about! Imagine salespeople that would ‘make excessive trades to generate fees’ or would ‘recommend products that don’t suit their client’s objectives and generate fees with transactions that aren’t in their costumer’s interests.’

Well, that’s exactly what will happen. Remember the real estate meltdown in the US? In my book BE DiFFERENT or be dead I put forward the notion that the driver behind the toxic asset syndrome was a sales plan that motivated the flogging of mortgages at any cost without any responsible consideration of the buyer’s ability to repay the loan.

Instead of getting ‘good’ clients that could afford to own a home, the real estate companies created lending products that assumed real estate would continue to climb in value, and compensated their sales people to go flog them.

And, flog them they did. To the point of almost destroying the banking industry not just in the US but the world over.

So when the Chair of the Securities Commission worries out loud that big bonuses could motivate the salespeople (brokers in this case) to do something that is in their best interests and not their customers, listen up!

It will happen. Not because the brokers are dishonest but because they are hungry to earn their bonus. Sales will always do what the compensation plan wants them to do.

This is great news if the bonus plan is right; its a disaster if it is wrong and motivates the wrong behavior.

Cheers, Roy Osing

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Posted 9.1.09 at 06:33 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)