Know-How Exchange : Just for Fun

Palak,

I'm a businessologist. A kind of business doctor. If you tell me where it hurts in your business, I can diagnose the cause and offer you a prescription to make it better. So right now, you are in my exam room. You say something's missing. Where does it hurt? Sales? Profit? Need cash? Need more time? Are you just not having fun? Having too much fun? Give me a little more to go on and I can begin by taking your temperature, look into your eyes, prod here, poke there, and figure out what's going on.

Dr. Wayde

You are doing a lot of things, but are they just tasks?

Is the void more personal in nature or is it more revenue?

By the way-- great website!! Eye catching design!

Carol
Sell Well and Prosper tm

thanks for the feedback.

When people say the price is too high, they don't see the value. You have to build a strong value statement. While your design fee maybe high the blended price of all you do, probably makes you a deal.

I remember a meeting where the client, I wasn't even in my chair, pushed, price price price. I calmly told him "if all we are looking for here is lowest price, I am probably not your girl. But if you give me a few moments, I will tell you why paying more (on one portion) is the better deal". And I got the contract. You don't say no on price-- you negotiate- -that doesn't mean dropping your price, but there are ways you both win.

If you need more staff but physically can't handle them, how about telecommuting? Or outsourcing?

Now global, that would be fun. And can see your frustration. You're ready to go, know you have the right stuff, and are tied to today, clients, and the reality of small business.

Carol
Sell Well and Prosper tm

Palak,

I'm not a real doctor, but I play one in business.

Well, now we're gettng somewhere! I know where it hurts and I can diagnose: You have a monetary blockage. No worries this is common in many businesses and I assure you it's 100% curable. After a few tests to determine the cause, I can prescribe an analgesic to take the pain away and then some longer term therapy. You'll be fine.

Well, enough fun. Let's get down to business and get serious - which is why you came here.

Cash flow issues come about because of two issues. You descibe that you have had complaints from customers because your prices are two high. And I see from your website that you do very impressive work - some of the best I've seen and the kind that takes lots of creative effort up front and much time. That's a great start because you have a definite core competency and that's marketable.

In marketing and business, however, we need to start with the customers. We look at their needs. You have identified their needs as "communications of all types to their customers, investors, community - anyone they are trying to reach." Lets segment that a bit. Within that population of need, you have customers who have just one need - say, postcards for a direct mail campaign. They have a logo, they just need some clever tagline, perhaps, and a graphic - away they go. You know as well as I that an intern with photoshop and access to clipart can satisfy this need. Some customers need websites. Again, there's a range of website needs. Some people need high sophistication and uniqueness like you do, others can get by with template driven sites. And then there are those customers who really need all of your communications services and can benefit by the maximum creativity that you provide.

When you look at customers, you also look at the emotional influencers - the words and images that motivate them to buy - and I suspect that this is an area in which you excel. Use it with your customers to the fullest so you can motivate them to crave your services. You also have to look at where to find these clients - or more precisely, where they look for communications services - what media by segment: Magazines, journals, word-of-mouth, etc. This helps you get the right message out to the right customers.

After looking at the customers, look at your competition. Look at everyone from the intern who has photoshop to WPP, Publicis, Interpublic Group, etc. Look at these competitors by customer segment identified above and examine strengths and weaknesses - against your own. Look at strengths versus customer needs. In particular, look at where the competitors fail to meet needs.

After competition, take a look at you Brandi. What is your core competencies? How can you translate them into unique selling points with a value propositon to the various customer segments? How can you leverage the core competencies to meet the needs of customer segments left unmet by your competitors?

With this analysis in hand, you can now start to set strategy. First, set your positioning strategy. Given the customer base by segment, where your competition is, and your core competencies, where in the market do you want to play? Keep in mind that the higher end customers have longer selling cycles so you starve a little – but once you develop relationships, you have longevity with those customers. Given your targets, how do you position yourself versus the competition? What is your product/service placement versus competitive products/services? Are you city-wide, regional, national, or global?

Next in the strategy setting, look at your products/services. Any adds because of your placement? Look at this versus the customer segments you selected in your position statement.

Take a look at pricing strategy – are you a high-end, high priced differentiator? Or are you going to be a low price leader and make it up on volume and production efficiency?

Then develop an integrated marketing plan to tie it call together. Set goals (revenue, number of customer contacts, share, etc). Establish a set of activities with metrics and measurements defined. Establish actions for each activity and track them in a project management style. Monitor their effectiveness – actuals versus goals – on a monthly basis and take corrective actions if some of the activities are missing the mark. Monitor your strategy quarterly to make sure things don’t change in your environment.

That’s the input side to cash. Now lets look at the output side. Are there costs you can cut? What are the biggest cost drains? Probably salaries. But what about telecom costs? Banking costs? Take a good look at all your costs and shop around for improvement for the highest ones you see. Every little bit helps. Do you have some cash reserves for emergencies? Business expansions require a bunch of cash. Having a line of credit available helps.

Finally, look at your processes for creation. I have been an engineering manager for semiconductors, software, and hardware electronics. One thing I learned is that “reuse” is a key component in speed and cost of development. We packaged small bits of circuitry and software so that we could use that bit again, combined with other bits, and viola! We came up with another creative solution to solve a problem. So, as you look at your creative work, spend another 5% of your creative time deciding how to package the components for reuse. Make templates that are generic – where you can change colors or positions of elements quickly for quick-turn, low labor work. Your competitors at the low end use templates – that’s how they can charge low rates. Not as creative – and you risk having things “look just like everyone else’s” – but if you are clever, you can find ways to develop libraries for reuse versus create from the ground up. Take a look at your business processes too. A proposal takes a lot of time. Make templates for proposals and make them compatible so that you can quickly have invoices built from proposals. I bet you can save 25% of your time in business processes and creative if you take a look at the reuse issue.

I hope this helps generate some “cures” for your pain!

Wayde

What is missing...?

Give Peas a chance.. those little green veggies must be a wonder drug. I keep hearing celebrities and others exponding the use.