When you think of marketing, what comes to mind?

For most businesses, it’s the idea of bringing in leads. It is that, of course, but it’s much more.

Marketing is educating your customers and prospects on why it's in their best interests to do business with your company. If you’re doing it successfully, your revenue is growing. Not exactly rocket surgery.

Did you notice I mentioned both customers and prospects? Since revenue is the only real success indicator for marketing, obviously it is easier to grow your revenue if you can keep your customers and keep them buying.

Let’s not forget about the value of your business, either. Predictable, repeat customers drive predictable future cash flows. The more you have of that, the more valuable your business is to acquirers or your heirs. Yes, even if you plan on living forever, never getting sick, never having family members get sick, and therefore never selling, a business with great value gives you options.

Here are some things to keep in mind regarding your number one marketing priority: read the rest at The Business Journals

Have you ever spent hours putting together a proposal, only to lose the deal?

Have you ever sent a proposal and then wound up chasing it for weeks — or even months?

It’s not fun. It drives down your sales yield, increases your working hours, and gets you to waste a great deal of time.

A proposal isn’t necessary for most of the work The Growth Coach does. However, some of our services (e.g. strategic consulting, interim executive work, etc.) have a number of details that need to be ironed out, so a written proposal makes a great starting point for discussions.

If you put your proposals together like we do, it will also become your statement of work once the deal is closed.

Important steps: Read them and the rest of the article in The Business Journals

Have you heard this one before?

“Because we are a small business, we’re more nimble than a large company!”

Those of us who have been around the block a few times know that being a small business does not always lead to nimbleness as a valuable differentiator.

Think about it — how many times has a small business let you down?

The fact that it happens more than we care to admit raises some concerns for potential clients:

- Can we depend on them to deliver on time?
- Will they meet our quality requirements?
- Can they scale?
- Can they deliver if the owner gets hit by a bus?

Difficult differentiator

The nimbleness of small businesses should be a valuable differentiator. This is one of their competitive advantages over large businesses. Let’s face it, large companies have processes that generally require a good amount of bureaucratic muscle to modify — for good reason. The lack of this heavy bureaucracy is supposed to make small businesses nimble and allow them to provide customers with an unmatched experience.

Unfortunately....read the rest at The Business Journals

A friend, let's call him Joe, was recently really let down by his CEO.

He had negotiated a new role in his firm that would allow him to move from a mostly overhead role to a mostly direct-labor role. A few days ago, the CEO told him that the deal was off, and he never gave Joe a reason.

Joe’s morale is down, and — since he’s a leader — the morale of his group is also down
 
Leading a business is a sacred calling.

What I mean is that once you begin hiring employees, the business is bigger than you and no longer about you. It’s through your inspiration and leadership that:
 
    The economy grows and jobs are created
    Taxes are paid
    Educations and medical care are paid for
    Charities are funded (by you and by your employees)
    Elderly parents are cared for

A big part of that sacred calling is providing the right environment for your employees. Poor environments lead to disgruntled employees, and can lead to negative comments over social media and reduced productivity.
 
Key strategies
 
Read some tips for providing the right environment and more in The Business Journals.

A big client recently made an investment into building a new product that goes significantly outside the bounds of what they normally sell.

Given their extraordinary competency in the new space, and the need for the solution in the marketplace, they wanted to determine the best way to go about developing this new business area.

Although every business is different, there are some common steps that maximize your chances of a successful launch:

Read the rest at The Business Journals.

Published in the Business Journals August 12, 2013

A few months ago, a close friend’s mother died. Her funeral was going to be on a Saturday in Cincinnati, which is an eight-hour drive for me. When I found out about it on Tuesday of that week, I decided that my schedule wasn’t going to allow me to attend, so I decided to send a gift of some kind (flowers, memorial donation, etc.). However, right when I was thinking about what to send, I remembered the time that I met Nick Saban, currently the head coach of the University of Alabama’s football team and winner of four national championships (one at Louisiana State University in 2003 and three in the last four years at Alabama).

Missed one of our updates in The Business Journals or from our blog? No worries! You can access almost all of them at the Strategic Business Blog.