Strand-Ridge
  • Home
  • Biz Services
    • Biz Consulting
    • Strategy Workshop
    • Public Speaking
    • Leadership Training
  • StrandRidge Academy
    • Sustaining High Growth For Long Term Success
    • Global Productivity Mindset
    • On-Demand Video Archive
  • Biz Exchange Mall
  • Global Trade Promotion
  • Contact
  • About
  • Motivation To Succeed
    • Motivational Videos Archive
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • North East Business Exchange
    • ARCHIVES 1
    • ARCHIVES 7
    • ARCHIVES 8
  • Leadership Insights
  • Strand-Ridge Cafe
  • Consent To Receive E-mails

August 28th, 2014

8/28/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Finding a Successful Niche
Understand your market well


Getting to know all about your market will help you understand if there are sufficient customers for long term business growth. Niche marketing helps you focus on the profile of customers who will buy your products or services.

For example, a clothing designer who specializes in selling clothing targeting the hip hop community educated himself on the hip hop culture by attending hip hop events. He got a well-known hip hop music group to wear his clothing for their performances. He identified his customer base as teenagers interested in hip hop music.

Through targeted social media postings this clothing designer reached out to his niche market, providing up-dates from the hip hop scene. His social media following became the prime avenue for sales revenue.

Identify your niche market by gaining knowledge of the consumers you serve.

Understand the demographics, income level, cultural practices, and shopping habits of this niche market. A deep understanding of your niche market can lead to more cost effective targeted marketing that converts more prospects into paying customers.

KEY NICHE MARKETING TIPS

Hit the sweet spot
Aim for maximum positive response to your marketing. A Japanese car company decided to create a new line of cars aimed at owners who enjoy European luxury cars.  The new line of cars with a unique brand name was designed using all the features desired by this niche market of luxury car owners.

The cars were launched with a campaign targeting luxury car owners with the message, for a change try this car. The launch was a success because the design incorporated features desired by the targeted niche market.  

Listen to consumers
There is an avalanche of information on the internet. Competitors, research institutions and advocacy groups are all posting onto the internet information and opinions on products and services. To make sense of it all, it is wise to remember the customer knows best.

Collect and analyse feedback and information from customers. This can help you understand if your offerings are creating positive consumer experiences that can go viral within an identifiable niche market. Viral positive consumer feedback can lead to wider market interest in your offerings.

KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

Are you knowledgeable about your offerings?
Become a teacher and an educator. Consumers are looking for information from trusted sources. Sustained business success is all about creating trusting relationships with consumers.

Are you visible in the community or niche market you serve?
The more your business is seen and heard, the more familiar and confident consumers become of your offerings. Familiarity and positive interaction builds business relationships. Make sure your business becomes a part of the community you serve.

Are your resources targeted at prospects who are interested in buying?
Understand the interest and motivations of your targeted niche market. Sporting goods are best promoted to people interested in sports. A company specialising in winter vacations at golf resorts advertises extensively in golf magazines.

Constant reviewing of market intelligence is a key ingredient for long-term high growth.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant
Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth





0 Comments

August 21st, 2014

8/21/2014

3 Comments

 
Picture
The Spirit of Enterprise & Growth
A high standards driven culture

Carpe diem! This expression is often translated to mean, Seize the day! It is part of a longer advice to, seize the day and not trust to wait until the next day to act for we cannot be certain as to what might occur tomorrow. The expression captures the spirit of enterprise that drives individuals to act decisively on an idea or plan based on the best information available. 

The spirit of enterprise is one of seeking opportunities and embracing change.

For ideas to have business value we need customers. To be sustainable a business needs repeated sales over the long term. Developing a sustainable business therefore requires a capacity to delight sufficient numbers of customers over the long term. There has to be a constant seeking out of new opportunities and responses with fresh ideas.      

One of the newer product lines to hit the shelves of Canadian supermarkets is natural tropical drinks like tetra-packed coconut water in competition with sugary pop drinks. Many years ago a classic pop drink company defined its market as one that included all drinks hot and cold. This lead to a strategy of making the drink available to consumers from vending machines to supermarkets, from local diners to franchise chains, and from gas stations to office recreational rooms. It will be interesting to see if the “healthy” natural drinks producers are sufficiently driven to expand beyond existing markets.   

Transforming an idea into a sustainable business requires knowledge and skills that include leadership, management, production, finance and marketing.  This means assembling a team of specialist. The spirit of enterprise should generate excitement within the team to the point where ideas generated lead to innovations that delights a growing market.   

When the spirit of enterprise is transformed into the business culture, it empowers individuals and teams to take the initiative to come up with ideas that can be turned into productive action. 

A high growth business has two tasks:
1. Ignite the spirit of enterprise; and,
2. Sustain the spirit of enterprise.  

The essential elements for these tasks are: 

Questioning The Status Quo
In a small business just starting-up, it is easier to bring everyone into one room to discuss the ‘big picture” of “what” the business is about and “why” it must succeed. Everyone gets to discuss across lines of demarcation of duties. But as a business grows and departmental walls grow between job functions a bureaucratic organizational structure may start to crowd out the big picture of the “what” and “why” of the business.

It is therefore vital to instil a culture of questioning the status quo to encourage creative ideas from everyone. There should be no “taboos” that inhibit discussion, adoption and implementation of ideas. 

Moving from desk top to notebook and now multiple smart devices to access computing functions appears to be natural to many of us. But this was made possible with enterprising technology companies encouraging a culture of thinking differently.

The spirit of enterprise encourages adopting a business system open to change. 

Quality Experience
We have often heard the expression, “a product whose time has come”. The right quality, right price and right market are all essential for business success. To deliver quality of experience consistently is an important objective for all businesses. This comes from the humans involved in the business from production to delivery that leads to customer delight. 

To succeed at delighting the customer requires investment in human resources who feel delighted knowing that they have made the customer happy. Give team members’ responsibility in a manner that empowers and allows them to share in the success of the business.

The spirit of enterprise can spark a sense of achievement that drives individuals to continue delighting customers. 

People Satisfaction

Business organizations and teams are made up of people. Happy people tend to be driven to give their best. Simply making people happy is not enough to improve performance. Team members have to be committed to the vision and objectives of the business.

The spirit of enterprise can promote a culture of inclusiveness that encourages a strong belief in the merits of the business. This stimulates a sense of satisfaction in every team member so he or she constantly strives to serve the interest of the customer. 

A business with a spirit of enterprise tends to sustain high growth.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant
Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth




3 Comments

August 14th, 2014

8/14/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
The Luxury of Teams & Resources
A better perspective for success 


The internet provides a global market out-reach for businesses small, medium and big. The moment a small business has a web presence it becomes a Micro-multinational Enterprise (MME) with the potential to compete with Multi-national Corporations (MMCs).

A small home business specializing in finely crafted Swiss watches can target a clientele of the super-rich worldwide to provide the finest quality and craftsmanship with a personalized touch that creates a loyal customer base in the playgrounds of the rich. 

However, one advantage an individual working in a big organization has, is a team of specialist in finance, operations and marketing to provide resources. This allows for timely implementation of ideas to capture markets. The challenge for small businesses is in creating an external expert team and resources to succeed against the big competitors.

BUILD A RESOURCE NETWORK

Networking should not only focus on developing markets but additionally it should help to build a team of experts amongst related businesses to provide the resources to deliver the quality demanded by the consumers. The three resource networks that need to be created are: 

1. Out-Source Networks
Out-sourcing should be considered for all functions that can be better provided by out-side parties. Does a bakery need to own a commercial kitchen or can it lease space from other commercial kitchens. For example, a perceived established competitor may actually be willing to do the baking for a small bakery with a non-competing range of offerings under a different brand name. This saves on operating cost and frees up resources for marketing. Conversely, a new start-up with the latest technology equipment could offer to produce for an established player in the market at a lower cost. This creates a ready market for the new business in the neighbourhood.      

2. Strategic Business Alliances
A food catering company making money from catering for weddings could provide value-added one-stop services for happy couples through a strategic alliance with wedding planners, photographers, venue providers, tailors, specialty stores, florist, travel agencies and much more. Each business in the strategic alliance could promote the business of the alliance group thereby multiplying the market outreach.  

3. Share Knowledge with Communities
All businesses should have a community out-reach program. Recently a community activist spoke at a Social Club of local business leaders and professionals. Her pressing need was to find someone or an organization that could help provide transport for children to school from a nearby neighbourhood during the winter months. As it turned out, the owner of a local car dealership offered the services of their curtesy vans already doing drop-offs and pick-ups of customers who send their vehicles in for service. This sort of local community initiative will certainly add “mileage” to the marketing out-reach of the car dealership.        

At the end of the day networking should be about building a team you can turn to for advice and support. Spending time at regular business meetings with a focus on building relationships for out-sourcing, strategic alliances and community service makes good business sense. The added bonus is in the human relationships you establish that enriches your personal life.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant
Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth






1 Comment

August 07th, 2014

8/7/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
STAY FOCUSED ON THE BUSINESS
Concentrate on achieving goals


Work takes up a great part of our lives. So the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe to be great work.

To do great work requires a love for what you do. Keep looking until you find what you love in work and in life. That practically sums up the passion that has driven the Information Technology entrepreneurs and engineers to produce life changing products from super light mobile computers to smart phones that give us access to practically all that the cyber-world offers.

The next great leap into E-commerce targeting the social media community has begun.  All this success comes from doing enjoyable work with a deep commitment. Successful Information Technology companies have work cultures driven by a commitment to work until the product is created. In today’s world investors are constantly looking for products that have economic value that they can invest in.

To succeed in business as in life we need to have a worthwhile goal that compels us to sustain our effort day after day until we achieve our goals. It is easy to start a venture or to carry-out task for a few days or weeks. But to keep going until we achieve our fundamental business goals requires a commitment and focus driven by an inner desire to keep working until financial success is achieved.

The challenge then is on how to stay focused on your goals. The following ways have been effective for many successful individuals:

A Strong Commitment.
You must believe it is worthwhile committing your time to the work needed to produce and deliver the product or service. The work involved should be enjoyable and you should feel uplifted by the challenges involved in doing the necessary work. When you are energized by your plan of action you can also energize and motivate your team to be committed and driven to achieve positive results.

Write An Action Plan
When in doubt write it out. Writing out the plan allows you to focus on the important steps. It also helps you to review and improve on ideas. Research the viability of the actions set out and discuss the plan with your team, your consultants and your investors. An action plan is a road map that gives you a direction. But like all good plans it has to be reviewed periodically and adjustments should be made based on changing realities affecting the business.

Set Periodic Measurable Targets
For an effective review of a plan set measurable periodic targets. Each time you reach a milestone of success, celebrate your achievement. However, if you do not meet a target, you must review your plan to understand why targets were not achieved.
Ask these questions:
Were they unrealistic?
Were they not based on factual assumptions?
Were you not sufficiently motivated to carry out the necessary task?

Measure results and analyze why targets were not met in a timely manner. This requires documentation of all actions for evaluation, learning lessons and finding ways to be more productive with your time.

If you do not meet targets and reach goals consistently the question needs to be asked:
Are you interested enough in the business to be driven to succeed?

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant
Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth


1 Comment

    Archives

    September 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    June 2017
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014

    STRAND-RIDGE news provides free business knowledge articles.

    Categories

    All
    High Growth Planning

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.