The Power of Business Consulting Marketing
In my opinion a purely tactical executive doesn’t grasp strategy easily. Here is an excellent example. I have an existing client who has just started a brand new magazine. The salespeople find it almost impossible to connect with the advertisers that they want in the magazine. This is a market with more than 80 competing advertising vehicles. So to arise to this challenge, I have changed the names of the salespeople so that their titles are less threatening. We assigned them titles like “Director of Corporate Communications.” This allows the salesperson to call a potential prospect and say something like: “Hi. I’m Jennifer, the Director of Corporate Communications here at ABC Magazine. As part of our tireless efforts to continually serve the market, we like to gain knowledge about similar companies in our market. I also interact with the editorial staff here, and I’m always keeping my eyes open for potential stories for our magazine. Tell me, how long has your company been established?” This approach allows the sales staff to gain a strategic accomplishment of gaining solid relationships within the market and getting into conversation that establishes a little rapport. After they build rapport, the salesperson has the ability to softly transition into talking about advertising. ” One of the many things I do for the magazine is check out products or services that our readers enjoy and/or have interest in.” This allows the salesperson to roll into dialogue about advertising and ease their way into what you’re about to gain knowledge of called “educational based marketing,” which is allowing an opportunity to educate candidates. This is an extended, strategic close to the sales process.
We gave them titles like “Director of Corporate Communications.” This enabled the salesperson to call a prospect and say something like: “Hi. I’m Jennifer the Director of Corporate Communications here at XYZ Magazine. As part of our ongoing effort to continually serve the market we like to learn more about other companies in our market. I also interface with the editorial staff here, and I’m always on the look out for potential stories for our magazine. Tell me how long has your company been in business?” This approach enables the sales staff to achieve a strategic objective of establishing solid relationships within the market and getting into discussions that build a little rapport. After they build rapport the salesperson is able to softly segue into talking about advertising. “One of the other things I do for the magazine is look for products or services that our readers be interested in.” This enabled the salesperson to then get into dialogue about advertising and work their way into what you’re about to learn called “educational based marketing,” which is creating an opportunity to educate prospects. This is a long term, strategic approach to the sales process. But here’s the point: A tactical salesperson would say: Why do I want to do all that when all I really want to do is sell them advertising? The strategic executive would understand that this approach would get you into an actual conversation which can build some rapport and interest before trying to immediately sell the prospect an ad. The strategist looks at every challenge as an opportunity to out-think competitive approaches. This will be demonstrated 10 more ways during the upcoming pages. Let’s go deeper. When you or your salespeople get in front of a client, what do you want them to accomplish? What are your strategic objectives? When I ask executives that question, most of them reply tactically, “I want to make a sale.” And then I ask them to think strategically, “What else do you want to achieve?” And they say, “What else is there?” And the conversation goes like this:
Me: Would you like to be respected? Them: Well, of course I’d like to be respected.
Me: Would you like to be trusted? Them: Well, of course I’d like to be trusted.
Me: Would you like recommendations? Them: Well, of course I’d like recommendations.
Me: Would you like a preemptive strategy for when your competitors try to undercut your pricing? Them: Well, yeah, that’s a great objective.
Me: Would you like to be perceived as an expert? Them: That could be valuable, yes.
Me: How about influence, would you like to have influence in that meeting? Them (the tacticians): What does that mean?
Me: Hang with me here a second. How about brand dedication? Is that important? Them: Heck yes.
Me: What about some urgency to buy now, would that be a logical thing? Them: Yes. That would be sensible.
If you even think about these objectives, doesn’t it automatically change how that meeting might go? So much of this is left up to the individual salesperson-every time. What if you, as the leader of your company, could devise a way to accomplish all those strategic objectives, and do them every time anyone in your company is in front of a buyer? How much more powerful would you be over your competition?
Strategic Planning: Making Business Happen
Strategic planning is vital if you want it to succeed in business. By planning ahead, typically one to five years ahead, you can steer your business decisions accordingly. This type of planning can also be utilized in your personal life, helping you manage your time and finances. While there are various plans to abide by, the elements of strategic planning remain the same.
The first step is to prioritize your mission and objectives. This is your starting point for determining a plan to make money. You have to know what you hope to gain and how you will obtain the goals. This is where environmental scanning may be important. This technique requires you to research your competition and the fluctuations of the market place.
Taking the process one step further is strategy formulation. This is where you will address the goals you have based on your business weaknesses ands strengths. Budgets, costs, contracts must all pass the muster. Your building sight may factor in considerably. If the land you want to develop has a specific zoning or restriction it may be rejected. Are all the construction costs accounted for as well? This is a critical step.
The next series of steps often blend into one another. The actual implementation of your revamped business strategy will be measured by a careful process of evaluation and control. Adjustments will indeed have to be made as the plan is corrected to address the demands and short-falls of the market. This is a sensitive process and many would-be business barons are made or broken during this phase.
Strategic planning, as a methodology, allows a company to make money based on a number of metrics. The variations of the market, how well your competitors are performing, the cost of raw materials, the cot of production, and new innovations are all essential to understanding the growth of and challenges to your business. It is not only the strategic planning that is critical. Successful implementation and monitoring will ultimately make or break your business model.
Strategic Planning Gives Executives an Edge
Successful businesses do not just come along out of nowhere. Obviously there is such a thing as being in the right place at the right time, but in general, there is someone with vision and drive at the wheel. Think about the companies that have around a very long time. What sets them apart from all the others that start with the same hope of success, last a few years, and then fade away like a tumbleweed on the Nevada desert? For a company to prosper, there must be flexible and insightful individuals at the helm in order to weather the storms of the market and changing financial climates.
The crucial difference is strategic planning. Managers and executives must have the capacity to focus all aspects of their company on well-defined goals and challenges, be it the direction of research and development or taking advantage of state of the art technological advances.
Making a profit, looking for growth opportunities, and providing direction should always be at the forefront. In today’s saturated market, the successful executive has to be able to correctly calculate company strengths and weaknesses, actively growing the areas where the company excels and eliminating weaknesses.
Knowing your niche in the market is necessary for placing the highest value to your customers on what your company has to offer. Having that insight aids in innovative strategic planning. Tactically focusing on your company’s place in the marketplace helps you to better analyze the competition, to efficiently develop new products and to get them to market in a well-timed manner while pruning products that are no longer successful.
Any manager or executive would do well to study strategic planning. No matter what company or industry you represent, big or little, putting innovative strategies to work in planning and executing your business will give you a competitive edge. This is not the economic climate to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. If you want to survive and grow, you have to have clear direction.
Strategic Planning is Necessary to be Competitive
Most people would agree that the most excellent leaders are those with a certain amount of prescience and the skills to see things through to the completion of a goal. While some people are born with those tools, others could use a little help, and everyone can use some tools for putting the newest business practices into play.
Caltech Industrial Relations Center excels at educating leaders in technology-related companies. From classes on leadership development to growing product markets in China or outsourcing work to India, their impressive catalogue of courses is aimed to help businesses of any size stay in step with innovative trends, reduce costs, and maximize resources in a time of economic doubt.
Part of keeping down expenditures is increasing efficiency by making sure all of the departments in your company are integrated and striving toward the same goals. Courses in strategic planning help executives learn to make goals, draw up plans for reaching those end results, and following through to make it happen.
While this may sound like common sense, there is far more than meets the eye when it comes to deliberately implementing innovative ideas and moving a company in a direction that is sometimes shockingly new. It requires a keen eye for identifying strengths and weaknesses and a decisive hand at excising processes that do not work well and ineffective products that no longer meet customers’ desires. (Also important is keeping a current knowledge of the customers at whom your products and services are aimed!) Following the market and current trends is a must, as is following technology developments and, if profitable, building alliances to foster cost-effective research and development.
Competition is hot and today’s executives must be willing to arm themselves with the most effective knowledge available for keeping their companies healthy and successful. Strategic planning techniques can offer clear vision and smart goals for the future. Taking advantage of a professional course is a proven way to acquire these skills and learn how to implement them.
Strategic Planning: Preparation is Key
What is the old saying about Boy Scouts? They are always prepared. Forethought, goal setting, and thorough planning are part of everything they do. That is a lesson that should carry over into most parts of a person’s adult life. Flying by the seat of your pants is no way to succeed in life, and it is definitely no way to manage a business. Successful managers and executives need a heavy toolbox full of skills to juggle all the responsibilities that come with the position.
Strategic planning tools can translate into accomplishment in the business arena. The same things scoutmasters preach to their boys figure significantly in the courses taught at the Caltech Integrated Relations Center. Their exhaustive course list includes such topics as negotiating, forming strategic alliances, pricing, marketing in other nations, new product development, and using technology, to name a few. Training executives to take these tools back to their companies is their passion.
Today’s managers, executives, and CEOs work in a rapidly changing world. Success means having a grasp on everything from the implications of the emergence of China as a growing market presence to the promise of modern technology, not only in research and development but in communications, marketing, and integrating fresh ideas.
Learning to set strategic goals and make plans for implementing them that involve all the divisions within your company vastly improves function and streamlines operations. When research and development, marketing, engineering, and manufacturing work together effectively, the results are evident in growing sales, expanded market shares, and well-served customers.
Employing strategic planning skills as a routine part of your businesses regimen makes sense. The vision to successfully manage a company will only take you so far without the tools to outline strategies for reaching your goals and getting everyone on board with you. The largest part of every business success story rests in someone’s brilliance at driving creative and savvy planning.
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