Creating a Champion Business - Pt. 1 Webcast Scheduled

Did you know that 80% of small-to-medium sized businesses struggle with the three primary causes of business failure? Do you know what they are and if your company is being impacted by them?

Whether you are familiar with them or not, and whether they are affecting your company or not, you are going to want to join me as I launch my new Champion Business webcast channel at BrightTalk.com .

If you want to learn how to transform your company into a Champion Business join me for my first ever webcast to unveil my 5-Step C.H.A.M.P. Business process. By applying this powerful 5-Step process any company can double or triple its profits in 18-24 months.

The webcast will be Monday, September 8th at 2pm Eastern Time…to register click this link

Your Business Builds Your Brand, Your Brand Does Not Build Your Business

Most marketing experts get this wrong. Most marketing experts and advertising agencies spend small business owners’ hard earned dollars on advertising messages that do little if nothing to attract potential customers. These marketing messages usually take a branding or image building approach.

I sold branding and image advertising for 20-years in professional baseball and always tried to steer businesses that needed to see a real return on their marketing dollar away from most of the advertising and marketing opportunities we offered. Few, if any, small businesses should be wasting their time spending their limited marketing/advertising dollars on messages that just get the name out and tell how great their company is.

But, who wouldn’t love to have a business where the logo/image of the company takes over for the name and the product. Imagine if your company’s logo was all that was needed to sell your product/services, like the Nike swoosh or the McDonald’s Golden Arches. Wouldn’t that be great?

The challenge is, as we in the world of small business try to emulate the biggest global brands in the world, we are slowly going broke. Few small business operators understand how marketing and advertising actually works to attract paying customers to their business. We’re all trying to become a brand like Nike and McDonald’s on a corner candy store budget. It doesn’t work that way and in reality it didn’t work that way for Nike, McDonald’s and the other world reknown brands we all are familiar with.

No, branding of that magnitude always starts out at the grass roots and operational level. Walt Disney has a quote that gives the best example of how to build a powerful brand,

“Do what you do so well, that when others see you do it, they want to see you do it again, and will bring others to see you do it.”

Did Nike start its brand of athletic shoes just by putting their swoosh logo everywhere first. No, they created a product, put it in the market place and began receiving outstanding feedback on the quality of their product from its end users. It then gave their product to athletes to use and then built endorsements from those athletes to build their tremendous brand today. Without the quality of their product being tested overtime by heavy users the swoosh logo would be in the scrap heap today.

Likewise, McDonald’s golden arches didn’t start out as being the thing that reminds us to stop by their store when we are in a hurry for sustainance. No, it put its product in the marketplace built a following over time through a carefully developed, tested and refined business and marketing model, and overtime the brand began to take its place in the marketplace.

Small business owners must do the same. Build a successful business with a solid following and raving fans and you will create a brand. Spending gobs of money on advertising telling the world how great you are and how flashy your logo and colors are will put you out of business.

Stay tuned for my next post when I will provide you a strategy with how to create what Walt Disney suggested.

Can Paper Quality Kill a Business Deal Outside of the Paper/Office Supply Industry?

A few weeks ago I delivered a proposal to a business prospect and as we were sitting in his office reviewing its details he exclaimed, “We have to talk about the paper you use, I can save you a lot of money and you wouldn’t have to charge so much.”

It was at that moment I knew the proposal would not be accepted and I would not be working with this firm. But, I believe his comment speaks more  about the state of his business than mine.

I’ve always try to project a certain level of quality and professionalism when presenting myself and my business. One of the ways I do that is with the paper I use in my proposals, letterhead and workshop handouts. To me, it communicates the level of quality a prospect can expect from me and my company once we begin working together.

This business owner, however, saw it another way. It communicated waste, extravagance, fear and intimidation. It also communicated a low level of self-esteem and self-confidence and more than likely was one of the key reasons why he was considering bringing me on to help turn his company around.

This proposal was only about 6 pages and I made three copies. That’s a total of 18 pages. The difference between the quality of paper used for the proposal and standard photo copy paper was 1.5 cents per sheet. Investing a total of 27 cents to project a quality image for my business is a very inexpensive way to make a quality impression. If a business can not afford that it will not exist in short order.

A Champion athletic team does small things that add up to winning the big game. A Champion Business does small things that add up to a hugely successful business. Paper is one small, inexpensive way to do that, what are some others?
Where in your business can you identify small places with minimal investment could exponentially add to the image your company projects to the world? What do you think, am I doing the right thing by using quality paper?

Corporate Incongruity Is Killing Motivation

Just came back from a meeting with someone whom I thought going in was a business prospect, unfortunately, after a brief meeting we learned he probably is not a qualified prospect as their is no budget to work with.

However, a big issue came up that was a huge red flag for me, and him. His big issue is “time management.” After having a discussion on my philosophy that there is no such thing as “time management” we got down to the real issue.

This person’s real issue was trying to find some life balance as he felt he was working too much and not spending enough quality time with his family. When he broached the subject with his superior, he was told that making life-balance decisions was up to him and he could make whatever life-balance decisions he needed to make to be happy.

On the surface this sounds like a great boss and company to work for. However, beneath the surface this philosophy is being sabotaged as tasks, reports and other expectations are continually being raised.

Basically what my prospect is being told is this, “feel free to make whatever life-balance decisions you need, I support you totally in that as that is one of our company’s core values. But, you better make sure that your production level continues to meet the expectations we have for your role with us.”

It’s a no win situation and is very demoralizing and I believe this approach is rampant in corporate America, and its getting worse as firms cut back in the slowing economy.

There is one solution and this is a tough one but one that I recommend to my clients and that is they must respectfully push back on priorities and negotiate to decide what realistic expectations should be.

If employees are not able to stand up in this way, they will never get out off the gerbil wheel and will burn out. For company leaders, managers, supervisors they must be open to negotiating a reasonable job performance expectation and work with their people to help them set priorities everyone can live with and achieve their goals together. If they can’t do this companies are going to losing some of their best employees.

Championship teams know how to manage and motivate their personnel and one key area is maintaining congruency between professed values and actual values.

It’s easy to learn the difference as professed values are written on the walls and spoken verbally by company leaders, actual values are the communications and behaviors manifest by personnel throughout the company.

Watch the Olympics for Tips on Becoming a Champion Business

For the next two weeks Olympic athletes from across the world have a lot to teach business professionals on how to become a champion in their field. As you watch the Olympic competition pay attention to how the athletes prepare for their events, listen to them talk about their stories and use it all as inspiration.

In my 48 years of following professional, amateur and Olympic sports I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to become a champion. I believe there are four ingredients to the Champion’s recipe. Each sport has 3 unique ingredients or skills that must be mastered in order to rise to the top, and there is one common ingredient between them all. The one common theme is Attitude & Focus and you will see tremendous example of that ingredient the next two weeks in Beijing.

How about your business. How can you re-commit to greater attitude, focus and commitment to your profession? Work on that over the next two weeks in honor of the Olympic athletes that have committed their life to being the best in their field, don’t you deserve the same?

No More Free Drinks on Airlines, Give Me a Break!

I read the other day that US Airways is starting to charge for a glass of water on their flights in coach. When will the craziness stop?

I understand the airlines being squeezed due to high oil prices and that for years they have been losing billions of dollars as costs have skyrocketed and airfares have remained flat or dropped. But now charging for soft drinks on top of charging for checking luggage is going too far.

The last thing a business should do is nickel and dime their customers. But I believe that the airline industry has created their own monster by refusing to raise airfares due to stiff competition among US air carriers forcing prices to stay low despite costs going through the atmosphere.

I use air travel for business and personal trips. Not as much as many business owners but more than others. In the last twelve months I have traveled on business from my home in Poughkeepsie, NY to Southern California twice, Huntsville, Alabama, and Phoenix, Arizona. That’s four business trips in twelve months or about one each quarter, plus I traveled to Europe for a 2 1/2 week personal family vacation.

Although it would put a crimp in my budget I would prefer that airlines just raise their fares to address their financial needs and maintain the traditional perks. This would be much more customer friendly and much more above board and honest.

There is nothing worse than being nickel and dimed at every step along the way when traveling. Paying at the counter for baggage and paying on the flight for drinks on top of now needing to schedule paying for meals in the airport terminal before getting on the plane. Too much. Just raise the fares, I’ll pay once and not have to worry about it during a trip that is already going to be stressful for many other reasons these days!