Growing your small business can be a difficult and frustrating process. No matter how talented, experienced, or proficient you are as a leader, business development may not be one of your core skills.
So, how do you develop the business leadership skills necessary to grow your business and achieve the success you envisioned when you started the business? You need a growth strategy. Here are a few ideas:
Leveraging. Every leader should look for ways to leverage everything they do in multiple ways. If you have a satisfied customer, they are one of your best resources for new business. Simply ask them “who else do you think would benefit by using our product?”
Relationship-building. Relationships are key to growth. Build high-trust, high-integrity relationships with everyone you do business with – clients, vendors, bankers, colleagues, alliances, etc.
Clarity. A key business leadership skill is clarity. Clarify what your company truly is and what you want to accomplish. Clarify job functions, performance metrics, ethics and more. Defining these and a multitude of other factors that will impact performance and growth.
Infrastructure. Many small business leaders overlook this critically important aspect of doing business. They manage by the checkbook method, thinking, “if there is money on the checkbook, I must be doing ok.” But if you don’t plan your growth, and measure against your goals, how will you know where you are headed? Your infrastructure must include goals, budgets and planning at a minimum. Measure everything that you can so you can notice improvements as your small business grows. To help, hire the best people you can afford in key measurement areas such as accounting, finance, sales leadership, manufacturing and all front line personnel
Business Development. Everyone is responsible for business development. Everyone is a salesperson… regardless of their job title. If you know the challenges that keep your clients up at night, all that remains is to provide your clients with solutions that will work for them. That is, after all, what a growth strategy is. Identify the problem; provide the solution that will meet or exceed your client’s expectations and your business will grow.
Ask for expert advice
As a small business owner, you have vast resources available to you to assist in developing and growing your business:
The Small Business Administration (SBA) website has a section that provides proven Strategies for Growth. They also have a vast library of resources for you as a small business owner to learn from and utilize. Let them help you.
You small business lender is also a great resource for you as you develop and grow your small business. They have probably seen it all and can give you great ideas on how to expand and grow with the right financing products for your business.
Always keep in mind your small business lender has a vested interest in your success. There is no need to fear the client/lender relationship as they can be of great help to you and an ally in you realizing your dream.
To your success.
This article was written by Praxis Strategy Groupand originally appeared in Small Business Connect, an online resource for small business from Alerus Financial. For more information, go to Alerus Small Business Connect.
Praxis Strategy Group is a partner with the Flint Group
The Center for the Study of Government and the Individual will be co-sponsoring the Annual School of Public Affairs Leadership Conference at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs on Thursday, April 8, 2010. The Center will be bringing in David Osborne and Delore Zimmerman.
David Osborne is the author of the best seller “Reinventing Government” and co-author of “The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis.” He also served as senior advisor to Vice President Gore.
Delore Zimmerman, Ph.D., President of Praxis Strategy Group, is a strategy consultant with twenty-five years of domestic and international experience working with local and regional economic development groups, businesses and universities. He is the publisher of http://www.newgeography.com/, a website devoted to analyzing and discussing the places where we live and work. As a researcher he has been awarded eight Small Business Innovation Research awards to develop leading-edge practices and tools for use by development professionals and community leaders to work more effectively with entrepreneurs and to build competitive, innovation based economies in the global, networked economy.
The conference will be held on Thursday, April 8, 2010, 8:00am to 5:00pm.
To reserve a spot in the conference, please contact Jane Muller, jmuller@uccs.edu or 719.255.4093.
Last week marked the 13th annual trip to the Capitol for the Duluth Days. The event is an opportunity for citizens and businesses from northeastern Minnesota to join their colleagues, friends and representatives in lobbying on behalf of projects that could have an enormous impact on our region.
Why is this important? Well, if you read the news at all, you are well aware the state is facing challenging times and balancing the budget means many cuts and compromises between legislators. As citizens, showing up to the Capitol to discuss projects that are important to invigorating Duluth’s economy brings a breath of fresh air to legislators who are used to seeing professional lobbyists on a regular basis. It also shows them that we care; we care about their decisions, we care about our state, and we care about our community.
As a local business, this is a great opportunity to show our support for clients, friends and the community. Do you think the business community in Duluth is as involved in efforts like this as they should be? In what other ways should they offer support?
Today Andy and Alissa Pesta sit down to discuss her tenure at Flint Interactive and the Flint Group, staying on top of new trends and advancements on the web and what the future of digital marketing looks like. We also talk about her family, working remotely and coming back to work after her first child.
With the new age of media, companies have the chance to go well beyond traditional print ads, billboards and television commercials to get their message out.
Social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) gives companies the chance to more directly reach their customers and engage them with timely offers and relevant information.
Businesses should be on the lookout for these social media opportunities and understand how they might play a role, along with traditional media.
For example, the University of Minnesota Duluth men’s hockey team will be ushering in a new generation of hockey in Duluth on December 30, 2010. The state-of-the-art Duluth Entertainment Convention Center will be completed and the University of North Dakota will be coming to town for the US Hockey Hall of Fame game against the Bulldogs.
This facility will allow for an additional 1,500 seats, 15 luxury boxes, an NHL regulation sheet of ice, and a four-panel video board to showcase game highlights. This means a plethora of new ways for advertisers to step out of the traditional norms of advertising.
Businesses can go beyond the traditional program ad and interact with Bulldog fans right on their mobile devices, driving traffic to their stores and generating buzz for their business. Well beyond hanging a banner in the arena, businesses can take advantage of the UMD Athletics’ Facebook and Twitter channels to interact with fans online and direct traffic to their websites.
Opportunities like these are growing exponentially. Take time to learn about them and how they could fit with your business.
Whether you’re presenting to 14 or 400, you’re not alone if you feel a butterfly or two. Even the most seasoned, most prepared public speakers will ask themselves: Am I ready for this? Did I rehearse enough? Did I rehearse too much?
Well, I’m not sure how to remedy the butterflies (if you do, clue me in). However, it certainly helps to prepare. Here are five important things to consider as you prepare your presentation:
Think of your audience, not yourself.
They don’t care about you or how much of an expert you are. They have one question: what am I getting out of this? Get to the point quickly and relate your topic to your audience as much as possible
Don’t make the PowerPoint your script.
Avoid bullet points at all costs. People read faster than you talk. So, if your slides are full of bullet points, your audience will always be a step ahead of you… and bored! If there is no visual to demonstrate or support one of your points, let them simply look at you.
Have passion and show it.
Passion is contagious. If you want your audience to believe in what you’re saying, YOU need to believe it. If you don’t have passion for what you’re talking about, find someone else to give the presentation.
Ask rhetorical questions.
Engaging people in a conversation will increase their retention. With lecture presentations, people retain only 5%. Adding audio or visuals brings retention up to 20%. To go a step further, you need to engage in discussion. Since you can’t always open the floor to discussion, ask thought-provoking rhetorical questions throughout your presentation to give your concepts staying power.
End well. – The last thing you say is often the most remembered. Remind them why they are there. Explain the action you want them to take. Make yourself accessible. Ask for the sale. Thank them.
Can you think of examples where a presenter didn’t follow this advice? How did it affect you as a member of the audience?
I’ve been there, about to present our communication audit findings to the client team and truly understanding how an IRS auditor must feel. But unlike the dreaded IRS audit, a communications audit is better compared to a complete physical at a doctor’s office where routine health indicators are reviewed and tested to determine “how you’re doing” or where improvement is needed. That may make you cringe as well. But the opportunity to take the time to examine how well you are communicating with key audiences is an investment in your organization’s future, and just like an annual physical, it is a smart investment.
What is a communications audit?
A communications audit is a method of research, where we focus on the process of communications. We look at the exchange of information between you and your audience (think internal or external, customers or members, potential customers, those who influence your audience, volunteers, employees and more) and examine how well you are achieving your communications goals in reaching each critical audience. We define the audit scope based on the audit objectives; some have included interviews with key audiences or review of media coverage, others focus solely on advertising and communications materials.
The hardest part is getting started
Actually, the most painful part of the audit is the process of pulling together representative samples and lists of all audience touch points, both internal and external. Once you strip away the different silos, department ownership or rationalization that can surround communication and advertising, and review all your communication collectively, you’ll discover consistency or inconsistency, strengths and weaknesses, gaps and opportunities.
This process also helps you analyze how effectively you’re telling “your story” and most importantly, can serve as both a benchmark and a roadmap for your future. Just yesterday, I read a client’s 2010 communication plan that was developed from our 2009 audit findings.
What about your company or organization? Do you cringe at the thought, or are you ready for a communications audit?
Public relations (PR for short) is a familiar phrase. When most people think of PR, they think it means sending a press release to the media. This blog is about setting the record straight.
Sure, PR involves writing news releases and pitching stories to media. It also involves planning press conferences that are newsworthy enough for media to show up and report on. But there’s a whole lot more to it.
“Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.”
Whereas marketing is about selling and focused on potential customers, public relations is about developing mutually beneficial relationships with all of the audiences your organization depends on to be successful. Sure, customers are one of these audiences, but others include your employees, legislators, regulators, and the list goes on.
Developing a public relations plan is a great place to start. It allows you to get on paper your overall goals for public relations, your key audiences, objectives for those audiences (which should be measurable, time specific and attainable), the strategies for achieving those objectives, and then the tactics you’ll need to implement.
A well-done PR plan that’s properly implemented can bring incredible results to your business. If you’ve successfully implemented a PR plan, we’d love to hear about it! If you want to learn more about public relations planning, please contact me.
I went for a walk with WestmorelandFlint’s newest graphic designer and recent UMD School of Fine Arts graduate, Jacob Boie, to get a little insight on why he chose to come to here and some of his favorite things to do.
Ok. (Deep breath). I have a confession to make. I am a bonafide email nerd. Yep, there it is, I said it. I live it, I breathe it, I put ez-cheese on it and eat it. Now I wouldn’t have admitted that a few weeks ago…until I made a discovery. I’m not alone. I had the pleasure of attending the Direct Marketing Association sponsored Email Evolution Conference earlier this month in Miami, FL. So while the Indianapolis Colts were poolside next door, Jordan Sparks was giving a concert in an adjoining conference room, and Lou Ferrigno was having drinks at the lobby bar (I’m not making this up folks) – hundreds of fellow email practitioners gathered behind closed doors to discuss the latest eMarketing trends and best practices. Oh yeah, email nerds unite!
Listening and learning from the brightest minds in email innovation, I took away a few simple gold nuggets of knowledge I’d like to bestow upon my fellow email enthusiasts out there…
Don’t forget the welcome mat. Growing your email list can be difficult and sometimes expensive. My advice, once you get that email address – treat it like your mom on Mother’s Day. The first thing many email marketers do is forget to send an immediate welcome email after a prospect/customer signs up for their email distribution list. A big no-no. Why is this so imperative? Well, like the saying goes, first impressions are everything, besides that here are a few reasons why welcome emails are imperative:
Immediately reminds the subscriber they signed up for your emails (hey, I forget where I put my keys down two minutes earlier). By gently jogging their memory it also helps reinforce their decision to begin a relationship with you and lets them know that you will be attentive to their needs.
Allows the subscriber to put your email send from address in their safe sender list. This way your email will always reach their inbox and images will automatically be displayed in their email browser. If you aren’t asking your subscribers to put you on the white list, start asking now.
Provides you the opportunity to set expectations with your customer. Give them a taste of the content, promotions, or value-add your emails will be bringing to their inbox. Start training your subscriber on what you’d like them to do in your emails, whether it’s as simple as gleaning industry knowledge or directing them to your website to purchase a new widget.
Four seconds to save the world. That’s it, four seconds is all you get. That is how long the average email reader scans (I didn’t say reads, scans) an email to see if it is worth their time. It shouldn’t surprise you – you are guilty of doing it yourself. Heck, sometimes I don’t make it past the send from name and subject line. As email practitioners this should give us some understanding of just what an integral part email design and call-to-action play in your email. When they glance at your email they should know exactly what the purpose of the email is, what the offer and call-to-action is, and what their next step should be. You accomplish this by first and foremost having these items above the fold (before you scroll down to see the rest of the email) as well as having them stand out using both images and text (in the event images are disabled when they preview). Remember, your readers are busy just like you – don’t make them regret signing up for your emails. Give all your emails the four-second-glance test. Tick tock tick tock.
Email isn’t near extinction. Nowadays everyone seems to be enamored with the new shiny object called social media. And well, rightfully so. Its public adoption is unparalleled and has countless ramifications for marketers regarding their brand participation and perception. However, email and social media need each other. Email remains the foundation for social network verification and notification. Furthermore, email ROI continues to be the strongest of any direct marketing medium with numbers that continue to increase each year. Email isn’t going anywhere and in fact it’s getting sexier. Technology advancements now allow email content to be dynamic based on behavior and soon, still in beta testing, these advancements will allow email to be interactive with content that changes and moves (much like a website or rich media banner ad).
The best game plan is to embrace and integrate the three newer digital mediums -call it the “Triangle Offense” – of email, social media, and mobile. You will see all three channels of marketing become stronger when used together.
The professionals at WestmorelandFlint are always hungry for new marketing trends, techniques or hot topics that we can share with friends and clients. Watch for a regular stream of insightful information – or join in the conversation.
Why is this important? Well, if you read the news at all, you are well aware the 
state is facing challenging times and balancing the budget means many cuts and compromises between legislators. As citizens, showing up to the Capitol to discuss projects that are important to invigorating Duluth’s economy brings a breath of fresh air to legislators who are used to seeing professional lobbyists on a regular basis. It also shows them that we care; we care about their decisions, we care about our state, and we care about our community.
Don’t make the PowerPoint your script.
