Separate Yourself From Your Competition

What a surprise . . . another great post today by Seth Godin, Taking The Leap. His blog this morning is about how market leaders tend to be head and shoulders above their competition with insulation that provides a considerable safety net.

In his words, Godin speaks of large market domination, siting examples that dominate the national / world scene. But the points he makes don't just apply to Big Conglomerates, but also to small "Mom and Pop" businesses in what ever market they define to be their market.

- If you are small Hair Salon in a small suburban town, it is possible to dominate YOUR geographic, demographic market.

- If you are small growing coffee shop chain in the Midwest, find out what separates you from your competition and build on it to grow and eventually dominate your market.

- Or if you are a Industrial Thread distribution company, it's possible to develop your systems in such a way that you grow and surpass your competition in such a powerful way that you build a chasm between you and them in your market.

Specifically, Godin offers three ways to separate yourself and build insulation:

- Spend your way to the top (Nike pulled this one off)
- Build an empire quietly, so that by the time any one notices you, they can't catch up (Build-a-Bear is a model for this).
- "Network Effect" (as he calls it), some markets are ready for one intermediary company to show up and be the default winner. (Twitter is an example of this).

Of the three ways to separate yourself from your competition, the one that you have the most control over is the second - build slowly and smartly under the radar (that is unless you are independently wealthy and / or just want to take the risk of being in the right place at the right time). And therefor the one that you should be focused on from a strategic perspective.

Unfortunately, building slowly under the radar requires consistency, discipline and focus - three things I find most small businesses lack.

The good news is that you don't have to be an MBA to pull this off. In fact, if you have formal training, you often tend to do what everyone else is already doing - which never leads to an enormous market advantage. Instead all you need to understand is three key points.

The essence to domination comes down:

• Focus on and grow towards your vision - not just trying to beat the competition
• Innovation and the development of a culture of constant improvement - where you examine your systems and how they work and improving them to better serve your needs and the needs of your customers.
  
• Long term relationships with all your stakeholders built on mutual benefit: employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, and local communities.

If you work on these three elements and do so diligently, before your competition even realizes what you are doing, you will have so much momentum that they can't even come close to catching you - for a long, long time.

Take Advantage of Opportunities but Maintain Discipline

The most successful businesses maintain focus on their core mission and how it serves their clients. Your core business should be a combination of what you do best, what you are most passionate about and what pays the bills and makes you lots of profit. When opportunity comes knocking, and it will, you must have the discipline to make sure that it is aligned with your core mission and your strategic vision before you jump on it - always think carefully before you commit your company resources to what may turn out to be a costly endeavor that takes your time, money and assets from what you do best.

Unbelievably sage advice that is easier said than done.

Everyday, business owners are bombarded with "opportunities" that will make them "more money". And since owning a business is about making money, most small business owners jump at the opportunities.

Although these opportunities may appear to benefit the company in the near-term, they often distract us and stretch us so thin that we begin to deviate from the path that we set out on - the path to our vision.

This is why we should always work hard at the beginning stages of creating a business to build a strong foundation. And it's why in my coaching practice, I spend the entire first month working with my clients to help them understand the importance of Mission, Vision, Commitments and long-term Goals.

As it turns out, at least once a week, I have a client, either in a coaching session or over the phone, ask me if an opportunity that has "popped-up" is worth pursuing. They ask me, as if I have the answers for them. And much to their dismay, I often answer their question with more questions - the same questions every time.

How does that fit into your Mission, Vision and Commitments?

How will it help you reach your Goals?

How does that fit into your Business Plan?

And it's funny, even though they knew that's what I was going to say and they knew my answer before the words come out of my lips, they had to ask. They just needed to be reminded of what the are really trying to do - they needed to be reminded of what their Goals are and what their current plan is to reach those goals.

It's not that they don't or shouldn't pursue new opportunities, it's just that by staying focused on their long-term goals and vision and not being distracted by every "short-term" opportunity that comes up, they will actually always be working towards reaching the goals that they set out on - whether the journey started yesterday, six months ago or ten years ago.

And it's not to say that you can't redefine what you are about and take on opportunities that come up. I would never advise a client to turn down an opportunity. But they need to look at the decision - not within the context of what it will bring into the company today, but instead what it will do to help and cost the company in the long term.

Discipline and focus are very difficult for most of us. They don't come easy, because they are usually lost in everyday life. Simply stated, we forget about the future and focus only on the present (or near-term future). But, it is those that are able to keep the long term in the fore front of their mind that seem most equipped to actually make it happen.

So stop and look around at those that are most successful in every walk of life - sports, business, music, art, and school. They are nearly always the ones who seem to stay more focused on the outcome, even the in face of every day distractions. They don't compromise their vision to accomplish their long term goals for short term gain - no matter how inviting it is.

So ask yourself the following questions:

- How disciplined are you?

- How focused on your goals are you?

- If you are easily distracted from what you want in the long term, what are you
going to do different tomorrow?
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The Secrets to Building a Business Plan That Works For You

Building a business plan is as important as anything that a small business owner will do to ensure his survival. And unfortunately, most small business owners will usually fight tooth and nail to avoid doing it. They think that it's pointless and irrelevant in the conduct of their business. They see it as something that only big businesses need to do.

But like so many other things that small business owners tend to ignore, it's not the business plan itself that is the key to helping a business grow properly, it is in the act of building the plan that is most beneficial.

The Business Plan, itself, is just the product you build - something that usually just ends up on a shelf collecting dust. What really makes the plan so important to the long term success of your business is going through the process of writing it and finding the answers to the questions that you must answer in doing so. Because the process includes analyzing and deciding how you are going to conduct every aspect of your business: from operations to marketing and from human resources to training.

You see, most perspective small business owners don't stop and look at everything that must be done each and every day for their business, before they start their business. They don't understand that running a small business is more than just doing what they do best. Sure, it is following your passion at first, but very quickly you learn that it's also creating a marketing plan, building a sales strategy, devising a training program, creating a human resource plan, and financial system, just to start.

Instead, most business owners build their business only as the needs arise - as opportunities (or problems) present themselves - instead of on purpose, intentionally.

Business Plans, on the other hand, are built to give you a tool to work from - both on good days and bad. Plans are a road map to success. And although most people would know to "use a map" when trying to navigate in an unfamiliar city, they seem to think they can navigate the difficult elements of starting a small business without any form of plan or guide to help them.

So how do you do it? How do you build a business plan? How do you write a plan that works for you - instead of one that is nothing more than a document on a shelf?

There are two answers that I have for that - depending on your current situation.

First, if you don't already have a business that you are currently running, then I would recommend you write the entire plan before taking your first step. Take the time necessary to learn what it is going to take to run YOUR business (not just any old business) by building the plan. Figure out how you want to do everything - including what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how you want to do it. Decide on your operations procedures, as well as your marketing strategy. Plan it all - as if you were already doing it. Because more than anything, what you want your Business Plan to be is a reflection of what you do first and then how you are going to do it better second.

Or, in the case that you already have a business, then it's easy (or it least it sounds easier). In this case, you start writing your business plan by writing down everything that you are already doing. Write down you Mission, your Vision, and your Commitments. Write down your operations processes and systems. Write down everything you can about how you are currently marketing as well as your sales strategy. Write down how you hire people and fire them. I don't care which part of your business it is, write down how you do it. And that will be the first step to creating your business plan.

Yeah, there's more to a business plan - but if you simply got this far, you would be years ahead of where you are today.

The next step is deciding how you are going to actually create the goals that you want - defining how you plan is going to evolve over time, what's going to happen when and what all of your contingencies are giving possible market conditions. But that doesn't matter now. We can work on that, after we first get things started.

In the end, a business plan is first and foremost a tool for you - a tool that is meant to help you run your business better, not something that you have to do to make your Banker or Business Coach happy. It is both a reflection of what you are doing today and where you want to go in the coming years. And with everything that I talk about in my blog - it's not a matter of knowing all of this, it's a matter of acting on it.

Just Write It!

Seven Steps to Small Business Success

According to the Small Business Administration, given the current rate of failure, nearly 85% of all small businesses started this year will fail by the end of 2014. That means that more than 8 out of every 10 entrepreneurs will have their hopes and dreams crushed and their financial accounts drained. But it doesn't have to be that way.

There are steps that every small business owner can follow that will help them reach their goals and do so, relatively easy. The following Seven Steps to Small Business Success are a cursory look at the simple steps that are often overlooked, but are so critical to survival.

1. Build A Solid Foundation. Every business (like your home) needs to be built on a strong foundation. Whether you are just starting out or you are struggling with the growth of your company, start by building or shoring up the foundation first. In business, your foundation is clearly defining "what you do", "where you are going" and "what is most important to you on that journey" - the answers to these three questions make up your Mission, your Vision and your Commitments, respectively.

2. Define How You Measure Success and Make Decisions Based on Those Metrics. Now that you built your foundation, its time to start figuring out how we are going to go from a foundation to the beautiful dream that is the vision. It's time to begin focusing on how we define, more concretely, what we will measure to decide if we are on the path to our dream. Its time to focus on your Metrics and Goals.

3. Create a Cohesive Team - Built on the Foundation of Your Dream. No one person has all the answers and can do it all - not in any industry. Build a team and define the culture of your organization.

Your team may include your family, your friends, your employees, a Business Coach, a CPA, an attorney, or anyone else that commits to help you reach your goals. Each member of your team, including you, needs to clearly know what they do, what they don't do and what is expected of them and that they will be held accountable - not to you, but to the team.

4. Write Guidelines, Build Systems, Share Everything and Empower Your Team. Don't keep everything in your head and try to do things "off the cuff". Clearly define jobs descriptions, expectations and processes within your business - the principals, boundaries and guidelines that represent the company, its employees and its practices. Without these explicit words, a company can be easily taken advantage of, be distracted from its goals or simply get caught chasing its own tail all day.

Additionally, the real competitive edge in the next decade is knowledge and learning. Your team can only help when they know and understand what the problems are - so share. . . everything. You'd be surprised where some of the best ideas come from.

5. Make the Sale. When it comes right down to it, you have to generate sales. If you are lucky, you will have a product that sells itself - but in the long term, that too shall pass. So you ask, how do I sell my product / service? Like every other stage of business - Start with a plan and then move to action. You need other people selling for you - employees help, but you want "raving fans" of your product and cheerleaders of your services. Get out and talk to as many people as you can - potential clients, business owners, friends and family. Join groups and organizations that are have potential clients or relationships with potential clients. Become a visible part of your market. Start with people that you know and that know you. It's not only okay, but highly encouraged, to start with friends and family as your first customers, and then broaden from there. People buy from those that they know and / or trust. So sales is about creating relationships and helping others see value in what you have to offer. And relationships take time. Most people don't want to be sold, but they love to buy - so listen and learn what they want, what they need, and what they value. But don't forget in the end to Ask for the Sale!

6. Take Advantage of Opportunities and Maintain Discipline. The most successful businesses maintain focus on their core mission and how it serves clients. Your core business should be a combination of what you do best, what you are most passionate about and what is what pays the bills. When opportunity comes knocking, and it will, you must have the discipline to make sure that it is aligned with your core mission and your strategic, vision before you jump on it - always think carefully before you commit your company resources to what may turn out to be a costly endeavor that takes you time, money and assets from what you do best.

7. Find an Accountability Partner. The "great" people and companies in the world find a way to do what the need to do, but don't want to do, to become who they want to be. Nearly every one of those that truly become great have an accountability partner to help them focus on the goal - the future they are trying to achieve. In sports, we call them coaches. In school, we call them teachers. Some of us have family (parents or maybe a spouse) and friends that hold us accountable to become who we want to be without becoming subjectively attached to the outcome. In recent years, the advent of the personal, executive, and business coaching industry has given us even more options. Whatever it takes - find someone who will stand in your future and believe in you even when you lose faith in yourself - someone who can make you do the things you know you should do, but don't want to do, don't know how to do or are afraid to do, so you can become the person who you dream of becoming.

For more about any or all of these steps, please contact email coach.jj@impossiblefutures.com for more information.