You're not illiterate, are you?

Monday, February 7, 2011.

Einstein said, "What is the point of reading the world's greatest books? If you don't put their lessons to use, you are no different than the illiterate person who has not read them." I ask questions every week that I know some people won't take the time to answer, especially on paper.  I know knowledge is important but I realize it is only a ticket to the game of business.  You still have to play. In January, I have been asking you to consider the big picture.  What is it you aspire to create? What is important to you?  Why do you do what you do?  What do your customers want/need?  How do you change your customer's lives, etc?  Why?  You can't apply a micro solution to a macro problem.  If your business or career is poorly designed, it won't matter how you tinker with your present methods.  You won't succeed at the game.  The most important part of a good business design is having an offering that matches your clients' wants/needs and the operations component of your business is organized to support it.  In other words, you have everything in place to make it work and you are able to access the market with compelling stories, launches and marketing.  If you don't design these three things, nothing else will matter much. Recently a young 'want to be' entrepreneur asked me to look at his idea.  I asked why he thought he could take his idea and turn it into a commercial success.  He said "My passion."  I remember when I was 20, I tried to buy a confectionary store because it was close to the University, a beautiful riverfront park, and a big church -all good reasons for a broke, 20 year old.  Then there was the building of a fishing lodge at the mouth of a river that housed the world's largest speckled trout.  The only small issue was that the Natives of Hudson Bay would automatically be my 50% partners.  I could go on and on with ideas that I created by passion alone. Passion may be the source of some creativity but, until you have stared at the ceiling at 3:00 a.m. and wondered out loud, "How are we going to get through this financial mess?" you won't realize how important the design and execution of a well conceived business plan that attacks those three elements is.  If your business is growing and making profits, you probably have an adequate design and are able to pull it off with your customers and your people.  If you aren't growing, then you can't kid yourself.  You are what you are.  Success once is not ultimate success and even if you are winning right now, don't hold your breath.  Whether you are a budding entrepreneur or a 45 year veteran, you need to constantly take stock of what you do for the market.  Do you deliver the value your customer's demand and can you access the market to leverage, market, and sell like heck to grow your business? There has never been a better or more important time for a business of any size to get back to common sense and no nonsense, aggressive building approaches. Laziness and ego not allowed.  You can't expect old business-as-usual approaches to work.  We all know the world has changed, but you can't expect financial gimmicks or technological innovations to substitute for solid principles and the work it takes to implement them.  If you are willing to truthfully answer the necessary questions and take the necessary steps to improve no matter how different, drastic or difficult they are, you will succeed.  Competitors are growing up in your space.  Opportunities are born from other's wants and needs- and that is a fact.  You can match up with them and convince your market to buy from you.  I just attended a launch session for Microsoft's New Dynamic 2011 CRM.  We are in the middle of installing, training, etc. of this system.  What struck me is the detail given to the product so it helps organizations (its' customers) provide better client experiences, know their customers better, interact and engage clients, integrate with all electronic tools for better presentations, etc.  They designed the product this way because they really got to know what organizations, large and small, need.  I was impressed.  It just wasn't a technical improvement.  It was an improvement based on what could change their customer's lives.   Today, I read that the CEO of General Motors of Canada said, "Our arrogance is over.  We didn't listen and everyone knows what happened.  We were too concerned about our goals (staying #1) and not about our customers."  Wow!  How about us?  Don't leave January behind without examining how you can do the same.  In February we will begin to work on tactics to execute and boost performance. ACTIONS - Part 1 - January   What actions do you need to take to examine whether or not your offering adequately matches what your market is motivated to buy ?  What new offering could you begin to explore? What could be a possible story to the market?  Is it compelling? Now I realize that this is a macro action; but show Einstein that you aren't illiterate.  Take some time knowing the impact of your offering and begin to describe it.  Next week we will work on the story. Have a great week! Kevin D. Crone Your Monday Morning Mentor