Business Mentor Weekly #22 – Complete a Market Analysis

No great marketing decisions have ever been made on qualitative data
~ John Scully 1939-, former president of Pepsi and CEO of Apple

Implement This Principle: The more you know about your target market,
the better you can position your company to be successful in that
market.

To Get These Results: Your Company will be positioned to win
increased market share.

Thoughts to Ponder: In our quote John Scully is speaking of
qualitative data. Market analysis consists of quantitative data, the
real numbers, not perceived realities but realities of your market.
The more you know about your market the better decisions you will
make. Our preference is to go with what we believe to be true, our
beliefs reflect our realities, not market realities.

Take Action: Contemplate the differences between qualitative and
quantitative data; the differences between these two terms define the
quality of marketing initiatives. Assure your marketing people
familiarize themselves with market research resources, have devised a
plan as to how the research will be completed and confirm the plan is
targeting reality.

Next Week’s Topic: Competitive Analysis

Business Mentor Weekly #23 – Competitive Analysis

The analysis begins with a list of your company’s competitors. Most
of the time, such a list is comprised of what your company considers
to be its chief competitors. However, there may be other companies
that indirectly compete with yours, ones that offer products or
services that are aiming for the same customer capital. ~ Michael
Knowles (emphasis mine)

Implement This Principle: Knowing your competitions strengths and
weaknesses will allow you to position your offerings in a preferential
posture.

To Get These Results: Your marketing efforts will be more positive,
you will gain more market share and your efforts will be more focused.

Thoughts to Ponder: Knowing your competitor’s strengths and
weaknesses will help position you to effectively compete against them.
Use what you learn to position your company in a niche your
competitors do not compete in.

Take Action: Visit each competitor at their location or their
website. Collect all the public data you can, if you are in a location
sensitive business, note the issues with their location. Collect any
literature available and search for strengths and weaknesses. Visit
them at tradeshows; be sure to identify yourself as a competitor,
check vendors or suppliers, newspapers, magazines, and online
publications and talk to employees. Check out Michael Porters Five
Forces, A MODEL FOR INDUSTRY ANALYSIS at

http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml.

Next Week’s Topic: Competitor Market Position

Business Mentor Weekly #24 - Business Mechanisms

Implement This Principle: Business Mechanisms’ operating as a part
of a company’s business marketing model assure resources are applied
across organic, gravity and outreach styles of marketing.

To Get These Results: Understanding and acting upon your Business
Mechanisms will help you develop a 360 degree marketing campaign to
grow market share and increase sales at the lowest possible cost of
marketing.

Thoughts to Ponder: The costs of marketing are insignificant compared
to no marketing at all. The ratio of “cost of marketing” to
“sales” decreases as a company moves from one style to the
implementation of all three. Regardless of the methods used, marketing
is essential and by definition takes time to develop, implement and
get a return on marketing dollars invested. The amount of time it
takes is different by industry, size of company and the quality of the
campaigns employed. Think in terms of six months at an absolute
minimum for some campaigns and three to four years for others.

Take Action: Define your company Business Mechanisms using the
worksheet below.

Business Mechanisms

1. Attraction Mechanisms

How will your business attract customers, employees and stakeholders?

2. Capture Mechanisms

How are customer’s employees and stakeholders captured once they
have been attracted?

3. Holding Mechanisms

Once captured, how are customers, employees and stakeholders held
long term.

4. Gathering Mechanisms

How are clients gathered, this is a matter of proactive gathering as
opposed to the gravity activity of attraction mechanisms.

5. Driving Mechanisms

What mechanisms will drive customers to your company?

Next Week’s Topic: Business Mental Models

Business Mentor Weekly #25 – Business Mental Models

“Mental models are deeply held internal images of how the world
works, images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting.
Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the
effects they have on our behavior1” ~ Peter Senge

Implement This Principle: The understanding of real and perceived
mental models affecting you from both an industry and national
perspective is critical in the development of strategy and tactics.

To Get These Results: Better strategy, tactics and decision making,
for better results.

Thoughts to Ponder: Every week I am giving you more to ponder. It is
not any one principle that will drive you to the pinnacle of success.
Each principle helps along the way, the more you employ, the better
your chances of success. As with the others, mental models do not
stand on their own as a break through strategy, however thinking
through the mental models of your industry, client and the nation at
large will prepare you to make better decisions relative to where you
spend your time and resources.

Take Action: Define your industry mental models using the worksheet
below.

Mental Models

Current Mental models that affect our industry

Current Mental models of the nation

Next Week’s Topic: Competitor Weaknesses