tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15749520371960624612024-03-25T09:06:57.552-05:00Business Partner blueprintEducating small businesses on doing business with big businesses.Randall Dobbinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01612385812189739478noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-38770138124981424692022-12-02T14:48:00.001-06:002022-12-02T14:48:56.989-06:0010 CORE BUSINESS PROCESSES – NUMBER 5: MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITY<p> <span style="font-size: 14pt;">I want to
welcome you back to our 10-part series on core business processes. So far,
we've covered customer strategy and relationships. We've covered employee
development and satisfaction; quality process improvement and change management;
financial analysis; reporting and capital management.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This blog is
on core business process number five: management responsibility. <br />
I want you to think through what we're going after here. What we are talking
about is under the category of “why are these important”? Why do you need to be
core competent in these things -- at least in seven, if not all of them. Why is
it critical to the success of your business and the success of how you interact
with large companies? I'm going to spend a little bit more time on this one
because this one not only sets you up for success with big companies, it sets
you up for success in general. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let's talk
about management responsibility. And in this case, really and truly, we're
talking about the stewardship of the company -- who is responsible, who is
accountable. It's not necessarily who gets the work done -- it's who's
overseeing that the work is done per expectation that it is done to meet the
objectives of the business. That gets you into the conversation of was the work
done on time. Was it done properly? Was it the right work? Did you have the
right people? Did you properly define who's responsible for overseeing the work?
Does the work support the stated objectives of the company? All of that is
encompassed in management responsibility. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We're going
to discuss the work of a manager, and then we're going to discuss the essential
skills of a manager. The work of a manager is hiring and staffing -- making
sure you have the right people. One of my mentors, Michael Gerber, makes a very
interesting argument. He talks about the retail or fast food industries. and he
makes the argument that retail or fast food hires the absolute best people. He
doesn't mean that to be denigrating or disrespectful to anyone. What he was getting
at was if you're a business owner and you have well defined processes, then you
should be able to bring competent and capable people in to execute against
those processes. You clearly are going to have some great people, but not every
single person has to be “great”. They do have to be capable and competent however,
and there's a fantastic business model that surrounds having well-defined
processes so that you can bring capable and competent people in.<br />
<br />
If, after hiring, they should choose to go off and do other things, then you
can easily bring in other people. That's not to say that you won't have some
great people and folks you won't miss, but you have a process designed so that
losing a person is not critical to the business. That's his only point. And if
you design your business around having mostly capable and competent people and
you have a few stars in other positions, then you've set up a fantastic
business model -- highly repeatable and highly scalable -- because you have
documented processes in place that allow you to bring people in that can
perform and execute against that. Manager training; onboarding new employees;
coaching and developing existing employees; dealing with performance problems
and terminations; supporting problem resolution and decision-making; conducting
timely performance evaluations; translating corporate goals into functional and
individual goals; and monitoring performance all become easier when you have
documented processes in place.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
That one's pretty substantial, especially if you bring on a new contract, a big
corporate client, you have to understand what the goals are for your business
and then have to understand how you translate your goals through the company to
make sure you can support a big corporate client by monitoring performance and
initiating action to strengthen results. We talked a lot about continuous
improvement, monitoring and controlling expenses and budgets, tracking and
reporting scorecard results to senior management, planning and goal setting for
future projects. That's just to name a few. I'm hoping you aren't overwhelmed
by that list and I'm hoping you're not overwhelmed primarily because when you talk
to corporations, at some point you're going to come across a manager very
quickly and this is their day to day reality.<br />
<br />
So if this is your day to day reality or if you know something about these
things, you will be a kindred spirit. You will understand what they're
confronted with. You'll be able to quickly, easily and readily translate for
them how what your company is offering addresses a pain point in their
business. Then when you go out to lay out the project plan around what you're
going to do and how you’re going to do it, they know that you understand how a
project has to actually perform well within a team structure. You understand what
management's role and responsibilities are; what resources you need to bring on;
what the budget needs to look like; and what the timing looks like because
these are things that they deal with. So just your general familiarity with
that becomes huge.<br />
<br />
You don't have to have a team of hundreds and thousands of people in order to know
this, but you do have to have some sense within your company that this is the
actual work of a manager. And as you begin to grow your business, these are
things that should be natural for your management team under your actual
management responsibility. This becomes very differentiated for you as a small
business owner because you are perhaps doing a lot of things yourself. What
you're now doing is beginning to provide the roadmap to how your business
expands; how you bring additional people on; what you have them doing; what their functional responsibility is. What roles
are you going to have them assigned to within the company? That then allows you
to communicate how your company is going to perform against a contract, and why
your company is best suited to do it. It also gives the customer confidence
that you can handle the business. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now let's delve
into the essential skills of a manager. There must be leadership skills even
though there are differences between leaders and managers. Not all leaders are good managers. Not all
managers are leaders, but there has to be leadership capability because you have
to motivate the troops. I think the best way I can talk about leadership is I
was listening to an army general - Joel Schwarzkopf - who commanded the forces
in the desert storm war when the U S went into liberate Kuwait from Iraq. I was
listening to him talk and he was talking about what is leadership and he made a
fascinating argument. He says, look, if I told you there was $1 million in the
back of the room, that's not leadership because most people would get up and go
and check it out and try and grab it. All right? He said, that's not
leadership. He said leadership is inspiring people to do what they otherwise
would not choose to do on their own. That one's always struck with me because
now we're talking about having a cause for your business, a vision. When you
start talking about goals, objectives, when you start talking about culture,
when you start talking about why people want to get up in the morning and come
work for you -- what is it that motivates them?<br />
<br />
And then as you begin to add management, how do they then begin to demonstrate
leadership? They may not be responsible for the vision of the company, but managers
are responsible for buying into the vision of the company, the strategies, the
goals, the objectives, and even at their level providing leadership so that they
keep the troops engaged. That's a huge skill set. I had a friend of mine tell
me people don't leave companies, they leave bosses. Employees don't feel like their
boss has their back - typically due to some breakdown in communication which
should be a strong skill set of any manager. I'm just stating things that you
probably already know, but we're repeating them in case it's something that you
need to work on and get some additional support in training and collaboration. Collaboration
doesn't necessarily mean consensus. There's a lot of debate about that.
Collaboration oftentimes means that you talk to other people in different
departments. You try and make sure that you bring many perspectives into a
process. Obviously sometimes not everybody's going to be on board, but if they
felt like they were at least communicated with, that their opinion was heard or
at least taken into consideration, you've advanced the cause. So, collaboration
is a huge skill set. This isn't one of those things where you close the door to
your office and you come up with all these great ideas on your own and then
become frustrated because nobody understands how smart and how brilliant and
how great a plan it is. You have to have a good deal of collaboration as a
manager, and you have to collaborate with customers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then there
is critical thinking. I think that one goes without saying because you want to
design everything so that in a normal course of business, things work the way
they're supposed to work. Therefore, you're dealing with issues based on
exceptions - things that are popping up out of the ordinary, things that you
haven't considered. When something comes up that you have not encountered
before, you need to have critical thinking to help think through what is the
most effective way to integrate it into our process? Even if you have to
rethink the process now that you know this is something you're going to have to
deal with -- assuming it's not a one off. How do you handle it? Who do you need
to get involved? What is the impact of making a change? All of those things
need to be addressed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Clearly, as
a manager, finance is critical. You have to know your numbers. It is the number
one skill set for any management. You have to know your numbers and be able to effectively
manage projects. So, we have leadership, communication, collaboration, critical
thinking, finance and project management. Obviously the main thing that comes
into being a manager is you have the day-to-day business that needs to get
done, but there are always projects coming along - different things that need
to be handled. Call them opportunities, call them whatever you want to call
them. But invariably you have projects that come through, in which case you
have to look at what new activity can you accomplish with your existing
resources? Even if your resources are 100% utilized, how do you redo the work?
Now we're back to critical thinking and project management -- just knowing how
to staff a project, how to get the right people on, what's the budget that you
need to set aside for it, what's the timeline, how to keep everybody on task
and make sure that you've identified the critical success factors and you've
identified any major milestones so that if a problem does come up you have
plenty of time to deal with it -- hopefully before going over budget or going
beyond the due date – is extremely important.<br />
<br />
So project management skills are huge. Once again, just to repeat the essential
skills of a manager: leadership, communication, collaboration, critical
thinking, finance, project management. And the work of a manager: hiring and
staffing, training new employees, coaching and developing existing employees,
dealing with performance problems and terminations, supporting problem
resolution and decision making, conducting timely performance evaluations,
translating goals into functionally individual goals for the employees,
monitoring performance and initiating action to strengthen results, monitoring
and controlling expenses and budgets. Tracking and reporting scorecard results
to senior management, planning and goal setting for future periods. Even large
corporations go through reorganizations to get their management structure down
on this -- in some cases, every two or three years. This is always something
that you're going to be working on.<br />
<br />
Your big corporate clients are always looking to be more productive and to be
more efficient and to be more effective in their management as well as the
entire company. So, do you need effective management responsibility to make
money? Yes, you do. You absolutely need it to make money. This alone is one of
the major transition points from a lifestyle business to a highly scalable
legacy business. It really, truly is just one of those differentiators. So, it
has to become core to your business. Once again, when you have these 10 core
business processes you will have finally moved yourself from a primadonna
business to a scalable business and become more of a business scientist. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In our next blog
we're going to talk about business process number six: customer acquisition --
the sales process. You've got to love that one. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Go to www.blueprint pros.com and get on our
email list to stay up to date on new episodes and other exciting news.</span>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-18296264903781438152022-10-23T22:32:00.004-05:002022-10-23T22:32:54.797-05:00CORE BUSINESS PRACTICE # 4: FINANCIAL ANALYSIS; REPORTING; AND CAPITAL MANAGEMENT<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This blog is
covering number four of the Ten Core Business Practices. There are three in one
here: Financial Analysis is one, Reporting is two and Capital Management is
number three. I’ll start this with a story. The first time I went into an
executive position, it was for a dot.com and I had been promoted from a sales
position. I was an officer in the company. If you don't know exactly what an
officer of the company means, it's pretty much what you're doing as a small
business owner. It means that you primarily have responsibility for a huge
portion of the business; that you are the one that's being held accountable.
And if you own the company, then you, by definition, are an officer of or
principal as evidenced by your name on all of the legal documents according to
your articles of incorporation. My boss at the time had a lot of confidence in
me. But one of the things that he was always a stickler about was “did I know
my numbers”? And you know, being a person that had always prided myself on
being able to figure out how to get it done, my operating premise was that if
we did all the right things, the numbers were going to be what they were going
to be. Boy was I wrong. I had to learn the hard way. If you are going to run
your business, you need to know your numbers. You can pick and choose which
numbers you need to know, but you need to primarily know what your current
profitability is; what the current costs to operate your business are; what you
expect as the revenue to come in on a given day, on a given week, on a given
month. <br />
<br />Clearly, as a business owner, you need to know how much money you have in the bank. These are things that you need to commit to memory. And the simple
thinking behind this is - if you don't know your numbers - how can you possibly
know what you're managing? If you have a business and you say, “okay, I have a
modest goal, I want to hit 100,000 in sales, 500,000 in sales, a million, 10
million” -- doesn't really matter what it is -- how do you know that you're going
to hit that number if you aren't keeping track of what's going on daily or
weekly or monthly? How do you know what type of investments you need to make?
How do you know when you need to change your strategy? How do you know if your
people are doing what they need to do or if there's any one particular person
that you need to provide some assistance or coaching or guidance to or
potentially remove if you're not looking at your numbers? How do you have any
indicators as to whether or not things are trending in the right or wrong
direction?<br />
<br />
It was a tough lesson for me to learn because I got caught in a meeting and
everybody was going around the room talking about what their numbers were and I
couldn't recall mine. I looked over at the CFO. He was not going to throw me a
lifeline, and the CEO of the company was like, don't let that ever happen again
and I didn't. I didn't.<br />
<br />
If it's a business that you are dead serious about, if it’s a business you are
building your future on, then it's worth knowing your numbers. Now, that gets
you into the whole notion of financial analysis because what you're going to
quickly discover is which numbers matter for your business. If you're going to
ramp up and stock up for inventory, how do you know how much working capital you
need? Do you need a 25% increase in working capital to get you through the
holidays based on anticipated demand? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I saw
something interesting in the newspaper. One of the major retailers in the US - a
huge department store - said they are going to hire 100,000 new employees just
to get them through the year. So, what do you think would be the additional
amount of money that they need to put aside in order just to hire and onboard
that many people? What do you think they are projecting as the potential sales in
order to cover that cost and get them a profit margin that makes sense? If they
have a working capital line of credit at the bank that they can draw down on
they have to be able to go in and demonstrate that they understand their
business. They know their numbers. They have some financial analysis that shows
what the costs are for the expected amount of money that they need to draw
down, use or borrow, what the revenue is going to be and what kind of
profitability is going to happen. When you talk to someone and they can tell
you in detail with confidence what it is that's going on with their business,
you have a good sense that they know what they're doing. And so financial
analysis is a core business process. You can't run your business without it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you have
a service-based business, how aware are you of your actual operating costs?
Your people costs? Any equipment that those people need and any additional
service that you need to support them? How much time they are spending on site?
How productive are they on a per person or per unit basis? What's your
profitability for each hour billed or for each project served? This speaks to your
ability to understand whether or not you're going to make target for what you
thought the business could accomplish within a given period. If you look at
simple accounting packages, you start getting into cash flow analysis. You get
into profit and loss detail, and you get into profitability by customer,
profitability by contract, profitability by operations or business unit or a
task or activity.<br />
<br />
You start getting into just a whole host of costs. And, under reporting, you
have a whole host of key performance indexes or KPIs that also tell you what's
going on in the business. This is an area where, once someone sees that you
know what's going on in your business, they feel they can trust you to handle
their business and reporting becomes a huge differentiator. It's extremely
important for services, but even more so for products. The big issue with
products comes along the line that most customers do not have measurements in
place that measure your company's activity more precisely than how you measure
it. For most of them, it's not their core business. So, what that translates to
is that you probably have better measurement and better metrics on what you
sell than your customer does. Now I'm going to walk you through how that was
beneficial for me as a buyer. Anytime I was getting ready to go out for bid,
anytime I was getting ready to develop a request for proposal, request for
information or to develop a market basket, I would always go to my top
suppliers. And I would ask them if they had usage reports for what I purchased.
Now you might go, “well, gosh, you worked for a big company, you guys had that”.
We did, and it was garbage.<br />
<br />
And invariably client data is garbage. You need to know that, better than 50%
of the time, client data is garbage. Businesses ask vendors for information
because their data is more accurate. A lot of times what happens with big
companies is they have legacy computer systems, legacy data systems, and
oftentimes manufacturers refer to products with slightly different names or
they'll have different part numbers for identical products. Take something like
a AAA battery for one company. They may have a part number that could be one-two-three-
four-five-six-seven. Another company may call it Al Apple-one-two-three-seven.
Another company might go by a uniform product code which is an altogether
different number. So, in the customer's data, that AAA battery can have three
different numbers tied to it. It could have been coded in a whole host of
different ways in your system, in your inventory management system, in your
purchasing system, in whatever database. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As a
supplier, if you have good information about your inventory, good information
about your people, you are in a fantastic position to give better information
to your customer about what it's really costing them to use your product or
service. You can provide them with more accurate information on what their true
usage is: which are their fast-moving items; which are their slow moving items;
which are their almost nonexistent moving items because you need to know that
in order to sell, to put the right profit margin on your items. Something
that's fast moving, you might not take as much profit on because you've got
volume going in your favor; you might take a slightly higher profit margin on something
that's a medium moving item because of staying in your inventory longer. You
most certainly are going to have a higher price on slow moving items because
you have inventory carrying costs for them to sit on your shelf. You have data
that supports how quickly it's moving through your inventory and that allows
you to maintain competitive pricing. The information that you have about that
makes you an expert in your field when you talk to your customers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The reason
that a good reporting system becomes a core business process is, along with
financial analysis, it speaks to your knowledge around your industry, your
business, your product, your service, so that when you talk to someone, you speak
with expertise and with confidence and with knowledge backed by data and by
metrics. Your customers then surmise that they can trust you to be a part of their
process.<br />
<br />
Capital management is the third piece of this core business practice. You have
to be able to understand how much working capital you need in order to make
sure that you have business continuity, that your business actually stays in
business and that you have enough capital to plan for increases in production, for
instance if the holiday season is coming up. There are a lot of industries that
support the holiday season. Pick any industry and what you start seeing is
there are going to be certain times of the year where there are huge demands on
your business and you have to make sure that you have sufficient capital in
order to fund that. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The best
time to talk to a bank about money is when you don't need it. If your company
is doing extremely well right now, go talk to a banker about funding your small
business. In the previous blog on funding your business, I listed some 15 or 20
different sources of funding that you can use. If you have already prearranged
with a bank to provide for your working capital requirements, then when some of
those crunch times come, but you still have to make some investments, you will have
a line to draw on. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When you
have that in place beforehand, your ability to make all of this transparent and
seamless to your customer is huge. If they suddenly have a huge capital project
and they need to buy 20, 30, 50% or two times more from you than they've had to
previously, it's one thing if you just say to them, “Hey, not a problem. We
anticipated this; we have it covered. Let's sit down and talk through how we're
going to do it”, versus your saying, “uh, I think we can do that, but it's
going to be tight. It's going to be a little tough”. That does not inspire
confidence at all, none whatsoever. So, to the extent that you have done the
work and you have a good idea of what your capital requirements are -- whether
you need to build a new facility, expand a plant, or any other expenditure --
your knowledge of working capital and capital management is a huge advantage.<br />
<br />
Are these things important? Yes, they are. They tell a customer that you know
what you're doing; that they can trust you. Do you have to have them to make
money? Absolutely. This one is not optional. You cannot make money without
doing this one. There are a lot of resources on how to manage these three areas
available to you. You can talk to your accountant; you can touch base with the
small business association; you can come on our campus and we can get you some
more information. If you don't have an accountant or a CFO or somebody on staff
just yet, a good working relationship with your banker is an excellent
alternative. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Please go to www.blueprintpros.com and get on
our email list to stay up to date on new blogs and other exciting news. </span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-47053156492684180962022-09-12T13:05:00.000-05:002022-09-12T13:05:32.663-05:00PART 3 OF 10 CORE BUSINESS PRACTICES: QUALITY, PROCESS IMPROVEMENT, AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is Part
3 of my 10-part series on the 10 core business processes. I’m going to cover
number three which is quality, process improvement and change management. If
you recall, number one was customer strategy and relationships or otherwise known
as marketing. Number two was employee development and satisfaction, and now
we're getting to number three: quality; process improvement; and change
management.<br />
<br />
You may be asking what do I mean by quality, process improvement, and change
management and how does it apply to my business? Well, first and foremost,
quality in the context of corporate supply chain work is the ability of a product
or service to meet demand or spec above and beyond average. Can it be
consistently delivered above and beyond average? If an average failure rate for
a specific item is five out of every 100, and your product fails only one in
100, you would have a quality product. And typically, when you start talking
about quality, you look at how well designed it is. How well does it perform? How
long does it last? What was the ability for it to meet or exceed the
recommended need? It doesn't really matter whether it's a product or a service.
For example, you can have a quality presentation, a quality report, a quality employee,
a quality widget (a manufactured piece of equipment) or a quality
implementation. As a small business owner, you should strive for quality in
everything that you do because that's going to be one of your primary
differentiators. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Process
improvement is your desire to continually improve, to get better, to find a way
to deliver something that has more capabilities, more form, more functionality.
You're able to make something or provide a service at a lower cost than you
were previously as a result of something that you changed -- some new something
that you implemented which potentially eliminated a step or potentially
eliminated a handoff, or something that allowed it to improve upon what you
were doing previously.<br />
<br />
One of the things that we see, especially if you have a cell phone, is that
mobile phones are becoming more and more capable - and in some cases for the
same or even less cost than what we paid for a phone five years ago, 10 years
ago, relative to what they do. It's just amazing. There was a whole host of
innovation and process improvement utilized to do that. In some cases, some of
the phones are more expensive, but they call those flagship phones and they do
even more, but your plain jane basic phone you can get for next to nothing.
Another good one is those thumb drives that you plug into your computer. If you
remember when they first came out, they were asking two and 300 bucks for the
big ones. And now you can go into the store and get the really big ones -- one
gigabyte, two gigabytes, five gigabytes -- for $15 or $18 US, and that's a huge
example of a process improvement. What happened that enabled these products to
offer more storage for even less money than when they started out?<br />
<br />
We all go through change management. If you have a streaming service, you're
going through change management. You had to learn how to get your television
capable of supporting streaming. If your TV isn't capable of streaming, then
you had to figure out how to cast the screen of your laptop or your phone to
your TV. And so you learned how to change. You learned what you needed to do to
implement that. Getting a laptop or getting a desktop computer is change
management. Getting a new car is change management -- just figuring out where
the radio is and how to operate the knobs and antilock brakes and all those
other kinds of things.<br />
<br />
So we as humans deal with change management on a regular basis and in this case
as a core business process. You have to make sure that there is something that
differentiates the way that you offer your product, and that your customer gets
sustained value from it. Very few businesses out there can sell the exact same
thing the way they originally sold it, the day they first opened. They are very
few. There are some, and even in their case, everything that they wrap around
that product, they've had to change with automation and back-office systems and
complex invoicing requirements evolving over time.<br />
<br />
They aren't just writing down on a little sheet of paper, “Hey, here's your
invoice” and going from there. Even that doesn't work that way anymore. So, you
will be confronted with making sure that you're keeping up with all the changes
in your customer's organization and you'll have to have process improvement in
order to have those changes flow through your company. Change management is as
much about how you go about implementing change in your company as it is when
you come up with an innovation. How do you actually work with the customer to
affect that change within their organization? How do you talk about it? How do
you describe the value of it? How do you describe the changes that are going to
happen in their organization that make what you're offering them worthwhile and
exciting?<br />
<br />
I think you can now see how quality, process improvement, and change management
are significant to your company, and you can also see that it has an impact on
the product and service that you're offering to a customer. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What does
your having this core business process tell a large company about you? It's yet
another item that says you're ready to do business with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have a defined quality, process
improvement, and change management process. If you're smart, this is in your
procedures manual so you have it documented. And one of the big things,
especially within your quality process, is your ability to do root cause
analysis. You want to have an error free system if you can possibly have one.
It's a great goal, but it's unrealistic. The thing that you must have in place
is a process that allows you to figure out where in your procedures something
went wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I can't tell
you how many times my company and the companies that I work with were saved when
someone made a mistake and we were able to go through and pinpoint exactly
which procedure was an issue because we had the procedures written down. Then
we were able to decide whether or not we needed to modify that procedure for
the given situation, or if there was additional coaching or training required
for the employee in order to make sure that that didn't happen again. That was
great on our end because that meant we didn't spend a lot of unnecessary time
trying to reengineer the whole thing. We were able to precisely figure out what
happened, where the breakdown was, and what the root cause was. But more
importantly, within less than 24 hours, sometimes the same day, we were able to
respond to the customer that we have identified the issue and here's the
corrective action that we have put in place. That gave the customer confidence
that they were working with a competent supplier, and because that kind of
control, that kind of rigor was in place, we were able to actually go after a
bigger book of business where the customer decided they were going to
transition an entire book of work to us to manage.<br />
<br />
Once again, you don’t have to have it to make money but you're going to make a
lot more money with it. Yes, there will be an investment to do this, but you're
going to find that one of the best things you can do, especially to save you
some headaches and give you peace of mind, is have documented processes and
procedures in place. Then when you hire people, they know what they are
supposed to do or what they're accountable for doing, so when something
happens, first you can go to the procedures manual and see where a breakdown
occurred. Second, you will know who was accountable and responsible for it. And
then third, you can now start running the business with what I call management
by exception -- meaning that you have a good expectation that the procedure
manual is being followed. Everything's working fine. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then if
something does happen, and people are doing everything right, it's something
that you haven't come across yet in the business. That's exactly what you want
your measurement and your metrics to tell you. If everything's working fine,
then you can go off and do higher value things, but if you get an alert that
something's wrong, then it's “well, what happened”? Did we follow procedure? If
so, then this is something new and you can modify the procedure to adjust for
it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I'll give
you a perfect example of this. When I was a buyer, one of the worst things for
me was to have people who could not submit a quality invoice. Every single
invoice they sent was just wrong. It didn't matter whether it was monthly,
daily, weekly, quarterly -- every time we got one it was wrong. How could that
be? How could someone keep sending wrong invoices? That's just a core thing in
business. As a business owner, if you don't get anything else right, at least be
able to generate a correct quality invoice that meets the customer's demands, because
if you can't get that right, that speaks volumes about you as a business owner
and your business in general. Think about this for a second. If all of a sudden
you start getting invoices kicked back and they've been running for a while,
then you might ask “well, why are we getting invoices kicked back”?<br />
<br />
And you discover that somehow or another there was a breakdown in your
procedure when your customer added a requirement that you had to put another
piece of information on the invoice. The point being -- rather than your
invoices sitting there forever and not getting paid because the customer's
requirements changed as to what they needed on the invoice -- an alert telling
you that one of your invoices didn't get paid would greatly improve the time it
took to get them paid. You would be amazed at how often people don't have that alert.
Imagine how much time you would spend if every single invoice you sent in got
kicked back because it was just never correct. It never had the project number,
the business unit, or the person who requisitioned the service. It didn't line
up with the PO number nor the line number on the purchase order. In order to
prevent this problem, you can dedicate someone to invoicing or you can put a
good quality process improvement and change management process in place
specifically for invoicing. You'll invest a little bit of time upfront, but it
will save you a whole host of time as you continue to work with a particular
customer and a particular client. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So, there
you have it. Process number three of the 10 Core Business Practices -- Quality,
Process Improvement, and Change Management – is a vital one of your 10 core
business processes in order for you to successfully do business with the big
boys. Having this as a core part of your business tells a customer that you're
ready to play.<br />
<br />
Please go to www.blueprintpros.com and get on our email list to stay up-to-date
on new episodes and other exciting news. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-923869293487375542022-08-18T18:04:00.000-05:002022-08-18T18:04:04.668-05:00CORE BUSINESS PROCESS SERIES - PROCESS #2: EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT AND SATISFACTION<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is the
second part in my series on the 10-core business processes every business must
have. In order to move from a lifestyle business to a legacy business, you need
to be competent in all 10 core business processes. These are must-do things. You
don't have to have them to make money, but if you're building a legacy
business, these are the 10 that you really and truly need to focus on. They
will position your business where you have the most in common with the 500
largest companies in the world. If you get these 10 processes right, it's going
to be obvious to anybody with whom you speak that you're ready to do business,
that you're ready to play, you're ready to get in and win the game. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Today I’m
going to focus on process number two -- which is employee development and
satisfaction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might be sitting there thinking, “What?
Look, I just don't have the revenue coming in right now. You know, I just don't
have a large enough team. I don't need all of that”. But in saying that, you're
also saying “I'm not ready for anything other than a consulting gig”. It's
difficult for a large company to trust that a one-person, two-person or three-person
company can deliver upon all of their needs. If you're under 10 million in
revenue, if you're under 20 million in revenue, then employee development and
satisfaction is an area on which you should probably focus. Even if you're
under a million in revenue and you are just building your team with about
three, four, or five people, employee development and satisfaction is critical.
If you are at the beginning point of building your team, it is easier to
implement. It's easy to get it right when the team is small -- then when the team
is large a good portion of this process really and truly speaks to how well you
have thought out roles and responsibilities. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is common
in small businesses that you have one or two or three people that are cross
trained on everything. And somehow or another, instinctively, there are these
informal or unwritten rules amongst the three of you about what all needs to
get done. You know that someone is there for you when they do things without
you having to tell them. Now that feels great as a small business owner because
your partner just stepped in and made it happen. You didn't have to tell them
what to do. You didn't have to walk them through the details of whatnot. They
just saw something that needed to be done and they just did it. That works well
to an extent. But you throw in person number four, person number eight, person
number 40, and you'll eventually get to the point where you bring somebody on
and they're sitting around and somebody's like, “well, what, what, why are you
sitting around? We've got so much work to do”. And the person answers, ”because
nobody told me what to do”. The problem that is revealed in that scenario is
simply this: large organizations revolve around having defined roles and
responsibilities and tasks for every single resource they bring in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you're
going to spend $75,000 or $100,000 a person for salary and benefits -- including
the overhead costs, management systems, computer technology, additional
electricity, and everything else that a person brings on a desk, an employee
costs you <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>much more than just their pay.
When you start considering all of that, then you want to make sure that you
have enough work for that person to do -- you have a defined task that they are
skilled and competent and capable of completing and that they're the best
candidate for that position. If you don't have any definition around what it is
they're supposed to do, how do you know that you have the right person for the
job? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As you go
through building out your team, understand what the development process is,
because very few companies at this point hire somebody in and have them doing
that exact same job for their entire time with their company. What you really
want is to bring somebody in but know that that person can be promoted to
increasing levels of responsibility - whether it's two years down the road or
10 years down the road. You want to see some growth potential. What you really
want to see, not only for career development, is that the person has the
ability to learn as your business needs change, so that you have some type of
employee development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a lot of
literature written about employee satisfaction because employees that are not
motivated, employees that are not on board with your vision, employees that have
other ideas about the business other than what you're trying to do can destroy
your business faster than most anything you can imagine. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can now
begin to see why employee development and employee satisfaction is number two
in the 10 core business processes. The way you really go about doing this is --
as soon as possible when you're going from employee number one and number two,
employee number two to number three, employee number 10 to number 11 -- think
through precisely what it is you need that person to do. You want to have a
defined role; then you want to have defined responsibilities. You can call it a
job description. You can go out to any of the job sites -- Indeed.com; Glassdoor,
etc. -- and you can get samples of job descriptions and you can start thinking
through what it is you precisely need for someone to do. Then you can start
hiring for that purpose. The big advantage that you have going on in this case
is someone's not sitting around looking at what it is they need to do. You can
say, “Hey, here's the job description. Here's what you are asked to do. And at
the end of the period -- whether it's a workday, a work month, a work quarter, or
an employee review period -- you can objectively say these were the items that
you were assigned and did you actually complete them? It's really just that
simple. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then when
times get really busy in your company, you now have given yourself the ability
to have some type of baseline around what it is that people were responsible
for doing. You can see what came into your business and whether you actually
have everything that comes into your business properly identified and someone
responsible for taking care of it. So now you've built in some accountability.
Now you've built in an ability to measure whether you are functioning at an
appropriate level regarding how a particular activity is handled - whether it's
maximizing profitability on a customer; whether it's getting the productivity
out of the warehouse or the production line; whether somebody's meeting
deadlines based on commitments that have been made for projects that are
rolling out the door. You have now built in a process by which you can have
accountability and measurement to make sure that A) nothing falls through the cracks
and B) you can determine whether you have the right metrics or key performance
indicators to make sure it was done the way you want it done. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you have these
processes in place, what does it tell your customer about your business? It
means you're ready to do business. This is one of the more important processes
that you can get implemented and go from there. It's not that difficult. When
you're a small business owner, you've got so many things going on that it's
easy for this one to fall in between the cracks because you're more focused on “I
just need to get the work done -- and he'd get the work done. I don't have time
for all that other stuff”. This is not “all that other stuff”. This is one of
those things that, with a little bit of effort on the front end, is going to
make your life so much easier on the back end.<br />
<br />
The next blog will cover core business process number three: Quality Process Improvement
and Change Management. Go to www.blueprintpros.com and get on our email list to
stay up to date on new episodes and other exciting news.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-61389287966985603962022-08-02T13:41:00.001-05:002022-08-02T13:41:24.625-05:00THE 10 CORE BUSINESS PRACTICES EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS TO IMPLEMENT<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Due to the comments and interest generated by the
previous blog “Do You Have a Primadonna Business?”, I'm starting a new series discussing
the 10 core business processes that you need to have in place -- and walking
through them individually.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">First, why are the 10 core business processes
important? They're important because they speak volumes about the
sophistication and maturity that you've implemented in your business: not
necessarily maturity in terms of the number of years, but maturity with regard
to your fundamental understanding of what it takes to have sustained
performance, sustained growth, and sustained ability to deliver a consistent
product and service. The issue that you run into without these 10 core business
processes is that you are clearly operating at a high degree of risk for your
business, which means that for any corporation looking to do business with you,
you are also transferring that risk to them. And the first thing you have to
understand about large corporations is that their business model is a risk
averse model. To put that in perspective, what I mean by risk averse model is
that clearly being in business comes with risk, but when you observe
corporations with a lot of employees, one of the things they pride themselves
on is their ability to identify, mitigate and (to the extent that they cannot
mitigate it) manage the risk so that it becomes prudent risk taking. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">When corporations pick suppliers, they try to
pick suppliers that fit into their systems and minimize the risk to operations
- the risk of loss. They see that you have actually implemented these processes,
which means you're more like them and less like people who haven't done the
work and are just hoping for the best. Big companies are well past hoping for
the best. They have a high degree of planning that ensures they can deliver at
a superior level on a consistent basis. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Now you might be saying, “do I have to have all
of these processes in place to make money”? No, you don't. You may not make as
much money; your contracts may not be in place for long, you may not get the
really big contracts, but you do not have to have the 10 core processes to make
money. I strongly advise, however, that you get them in place, and you get them
in place sooner than later. I understand you might actually be operating on a
shoestring budget and you just don't have a way to do this right now, and I
would challenge you on that thinking. I talked about financing your small
business a couple of episodes ago. You may be able to bring more resources into
your business if you find people that will work with you until you <a name="_Int_gXHApp8y">actually get</a> the revenue in place. You may be able to
work with other partners who have resources you don't have and have processes
that you need already in place. There is a whole host of opportunities
available to you if you don't currently have these processes in place right
this minute, but implementing these processes is going to be imperative to your
business sooner rather than later to play in this game with the large
corporations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The first of the 10 core business processes is
customer strategy and your marketing approach. A number of us take a broad view
of our business. We start out believing that we can sell to anybody. We just
really need a chance to get our foot in the door. That may be true, but it's a
terrible strategy from a marketing perspective. You really and truly want to be
extremely specific on whom your target customer is. You want to start with the
customer that is either going to be the most receptive to what you're selling
because that gets you speed to cash; or the customer that is going to benefit
the most from your service, i.e. which customer is currently having the most
pain around what it is you offer?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The issue is not does <u>every</u> customer have
pain around what you're offering -- but which <u>specific</u> customer
segments. I’ll give you an example. Tech is heavily male dominated and, in the
past, high tech had a host of issues with the “me-too” movement and men being
insensitive to how to really treat women in the workplace. So, if you're doing
any type of diversity and inclusion work and you have a program in place, then
tech would be your target demographic. There are other industries that are in
pain regarding diversity, but the tech industry <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>primarily because the market has been calling
them out. That's an example of what it means to have a customer strategy and
what your marketing looks like. If you were to target the tech industry, you'd
probably approach them differently just because of what you know about their
workforce. With the automotive industry, oil and gas, or banking and finance or
any other industry you would have different conversations, so your customer
strategy and relationships become huge. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">As this is a core process, what we begin to get
into is something that's referred to as your sales strategy or your pipeline
management. What I mean by that is you always want to have X number of
customers in the pipeline.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">You might say, “look, I always have 10 to 15 to
20 deals in the pipeline and if I can get a 10% 20%, 30%, 50%, 80%, a hundred
percent conversion, then I have a good idea of how much product I need to make
to satisfy that need over whatever time period. I have a good idea how many
people I need to have employed in order to satisfy this kind of workload. I
have a good idea of what kind of capital financing and money I need to keep the
business going. I have a good idea of what my cashflow requirements are for
travel and equipment and everything else. Now you're looking like a big
business because that's exactly what they manage.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">AT&T, for example, has an idea of how many
new customers they're going to get per month. They have an idea of what new
products, and how many customers they're going to get on each product. They
have an idea of how much money they're going to generate. Each week they have
daily sales goals and they have detailed processes and instructions around how
they manage their customer flow, their profitability, their new products, their
sales and everything else. And they probably, in some cases, will project out
certain portions of their business anywhere from six to 18 months because they
understand how long it takes to close a deal. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">In your business, so that you don't get into
feast or famine situations (feasting is when you get more business than you can
handle, and famine is when no business is coming in), you want to have a robust
pipeline management system. Some people will say you also need a customer
relationship management system -- something like a salesforce.com or some other
things that are out there. At some point you are going to need that because
you're going to need your sales efforts coordinated and you're going to need to
be able to see at a glance what's going on and what you need to be doing, and
see if you have any drop-offs -- but you don't need that right off the bat. A
lot of this you can do with what we used to call a “Big Chief tablet” which is
nothing more than an eight-and-a-half-by-11 tablet of paper where you just ask,
“who are my customers? What's going on? What do I need to know about them?
Who's calling on them? And what opportunities do I see in their organization
where I think I can help or where it looks like they need our help?” As long as
you stay ahead of that, even if it's manual, that will work wonders for you.
But what I want you to take away from this is that the reason this is a core
business process is it speaks to your ability to make it rain. It’s your
ability to keep cash coming in the door; your ability to keep the doors open
because you have customers coming in, you've got opportunities coming in, you
have a process that just keeps going for you. And that's why the number one
capability is you must have continuous revenue coming in to fund the business, and
also be able to generate new customers or new revenue, which is deemed a
customer strategy -- or a sales and marketing program.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">There are nine more core requirements after this
one, so stay tuned for the next one which is Employee Development Satisfaction.
Please go to <span class="MsoHyperlink">www.blueprintpros.com</span> and get on
our email list to stay up to date on new episodes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-42171643559615002442022-07-06T17:48:00.000-05:002022-07-06T17:48:38.112-05:00Signs You Are Running A Prima Donna Business<p><span style="font-size: medium;">My topic for this blog is “The Signs That You Have a Prima Donna Business”. Now you might be thinking, “what do you mean -- a prima donna business? I'm not running a prima donna business. As a matter of fact, that word is offensive to me”. Well, I want you to think about this for a second. How many of you got into business with a strong subject matter expertise. I mean you were in accounting -- you knew accounting like there's no tomorrow; you were in healthcare -- you knew healthcare, dentistry, doctors, massage therapists; you were highly trained in what you do. You went to school, you learned a vocation, you learned a trade, you learned a business function and you are really and truly a master of all of that. And you can do that like there's no tomorrow. How many of you started your businesses with nothing but just confidence that you could go out and make it successful? You put a business plan together. You went out there, you started talking to customers and you had nothing but confidence that, given an opportunity, you could do a great job.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That describes a lot of small businesses that I have encountered, and I'm willing to bet I just described you. In which case you are running a prima donna business. Let me scratch the surface on this a little bit more. How many of you have gotten out there and didn't really have a clear customer strategy or didn't quite know how you were going to develop customer relationships? How many of you hadn't really even thought about an employee development program and measuring employee satisfaction? I remember when I first started out, I was just happy to be able to have enough money coming in to hire employees, not even thinking about what the development program was going to be for them or how I was going to measure satisfaction. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">How many of you really and truly had gone through and thought about what it meant to be able to consistently deliver a program for tens and hundreds of customers so that you knew you had the desired level of quality process improvement and change management in place? And you kept saying, “well when I have the business going and I have enough customers and I have enough revenue, I'll do all of that. And then how many of you had the financial analysis in place where you could pinpoint through your numbers exactly what was going on in the business? You know, the simple basic knowledge of whether revenue was exceeding costs, and did you have enough money left over to pay yourself? Or even once you get to the point where you're making five, 10 or 100 million where everything is actually now steady state and you are making enough cash for you as well as everything you want to do, is there room for expansion, improvement and understanding the market and making capital investments? How many of you have clear definition around management responsibility, customer acquisition, new product development, crystallization of your product or service delivery, accounting management and your technology management? The 10 things I just described right there are the 10 core business processes that every small business should have if you're going to be serious. And so, my question is, do you currently have that in place?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Let me give you the definition of a prima donna: a very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance. Now here's the rub. You may be very talented and you may be very important and knowledgeable about what you went into business to do. However, is your business mature -- not is your knowledge or your expertise mature -- is your business mature? Can you do those 10 things that I just described? The vast majority of us can't. I know I couldn't. I'm going to be honest. I have been down this road. The only thing I had was a belief and a confidence that I could be successful. And that by definition is what I just described to you as a prima donna. Those are the signs that you have a primadonna business and you are running the risk that it will never grow beyond that because you're looking for that opportunity that you can get in, sink your teeth into and do what you know how to do best. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I was relying on my inflated view of my own talent or importance, and I was basing it on the knowledge that I had around the business that I was engaged in, but not my knowledge of doing business. Did you catch that? I based my business on my knowledge of the specific activity that I wanted to sell, but I wasn’t basing it on my ability to run a business. Therefore, the skill that I lacked was how to run a business. That is the skill I was lacking. That's the one most small business owners lack. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">You want to stay true to your core business, but because you own the business, because you run the business, you actually have to know how to be a businessperson. You have to know how to do customer strategy, employee development, quality and process improvement, financial analysis, reporting, management responsibility, customer acquisition, product development, service and delivery, accounting, management and technology management. You have to know how to do all of those -- and then you have to have an organization that can successfully operate around that. If it turns out that that isn't precisely what you want to do, then you have to hire someone who can do those things so that you can just work on product delivery and not customer service.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The 10 core business processes that I just described are the things that you have to have in place. Therefore, the issue for you is not do you have a prima donna business, which you may have. You probably want to move to becoming a business scientist: a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more specific areas around business. If you are the person that is putting together everything that needs to happen around those 10 core business processes you must become a "business scientist". You may not know about this whole scientist thing I’m talking about, so let me tell you why I use the term “business scientist” and its simplest concept. A scientist is always looking to understand new problems and come up with the solutions to those so that they can advance a cause. They can advance business, they can advance technology, they can advance social issues, etc. They're always looking for the next something. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now think through what I’ve covered in several past blogs. I just finished the Pathway to Success series. If you haven't read it, go back and read the entire nine-part series. The big issue there surrounds innovation. If you know how to identify and deliver innovation to your clients, you will never go hungry. Never, ever. Now you as the business owner have to know how to put everything together in order for that innovation to be delivered. You may be the creator of the innovation, but you have to know those 10 core business processes that we just talked about to deliver it. Think about innovation. By definition it is what worked yesterday but probably won't work tomorrow. Imagine at this point, reinventing the fax machine and you might go, “huh? What? What's a fax machine? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now imagine if you're trying to innovate that is like, well, no, that's taking us backwards. Now that I can scan something, upload and email it, why would I reinvent the fax machine? I wouldn't. So, innovation is looking forward to what's next. When I started talking about being a business scientist, I was actually talking about how you approach your business to figure out what's going to work next. Because what worked yesterday may not work today -- and what works today most likely won't work tomorrow. So you as a business scientist have to consistently say, okay, I'm going to continue to improve my business, because if I'm standing still, I'm going to be left behind.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">People are going to catch me, leapfrog me, leave me behind, and I'm going to lose my customers. So, I have to quickly understand how to go from being a business prima donna relying on my inflated view of my own talent or importance, and switch to a business scientist's view. That means that I will be consistently testing what's going to be the next thing that is going to work -- that's going to deliver fantastic results and benefits to my customers -- and end up in return generating great profit and margins and revenue and sales for me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Being a business scientist means figuring out what's going to work better tomorrow, testing it and getting it out there in the marketplace. When you have all the infrastructure in place to run your business so that you don't lose your current business in the process, and can bring new business in and still deliver on the 10 core business processes, you will have become a “business scientist”. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Please go to www.blueprintpros.com and get on our email list to stay up to date on new blogs and get other exciting news.</span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-19106342260496570852022-06-13T17:02:00.000-05:002022-06-13T17:02:15.285-05:00Pathway to Your Success - Part 9 The Corporate Opportunity: How to Get Into The Game<p> <span style="font-size: 14pt;">Congratulations!
You have made it to the last installment of my nine-part series on the Pathway to
Your Success. This series has talked about a number of different things. It's
been about helping you to discover the small business growth opportunity with
the biggest companies in the world. I have discussed corporate contracts
versus government contracts; how to use corporate contracts for legacy business
growth; what large companies buy; why the time is now for small business owners
to get into this game; and financing your business so that you can really play
to win. I have also covered the mindset for success.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Today's
topic and the final part of this series is “<a name="_Hlk105950128">The Corporate Opportunity: How to Get Into
The Game</a>”.<br />
<br />
I was talking to someone with whom I'm working closely and we were thinking
back about our childhood. Do you remember when you were a teenager how you just
knew everything -- you were on top of the world? Sometimes it was difficult
listening to your parents because you felt like, “Oh, mom, Oh dad, you're so
out of touch. You're so old school”. It was difficult to listen to them because
you just had a full head of steam, you knew what you wanted to do, and you were
just ready to get out there and go. As you've now gotten older, you're kind of
realizing maybe your parents weren’t quite as dumb as you thought they were.<br />
Maybe they knew some things. Now you understand what they were telling you. Now
it makes a lot of sense. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Well,
getting into this game is very similar. You've heard me say on a number of
occasions, “create what you haven't yet imagined by discovering what you don't
know”, especially through the supply chain organization. There's a specific set
of rules. There are things you have to do; there are specific qualities that
big companies are looking for. There are things that they expect you to have. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I'm going to
tell you right now that, in spite of these requirements, corporate contracting
is easy. Let me say it again. Corporate contracting is easy. It really is. It
is harder to sell to individuals than it is to corporations. If you're trying
to sell to a B-to-C (business to consumer), or business-to-small-business,
that's perhaps one of the most difficult sales you're ever going to make. But
selling to corporate is not difficult. You just have to be able to check all
the boxes.<br />
<br />
You may not know what all the boxes are, and you may not know exactly what it means
to check a specific box. And then of course, once you have all the boxes
checked and you get in, you think “Oh my goodness, I had no idea what I was
signing up for. I'm not even sure I can make money at this”. Those three things have been issues where
people before you got in, stumbled, and made it difficult for everyone that has
come after them. So yes, you are battling a preconceived notion that A) you may
not be able to succeed and B) that the odds are stacked against you. However,
the good news is if you actually discover what you don't know, you can create
what you haven't yet imagined and you can successfully navigate into this space
and do extremely well. So with that as a backdrop, with regard to how to get
into this game, I'm going to give you three simple things. (Think of me as
someone who knows the game, knows what it takes and is sharing some wise advice.
I’m dropping dimes, giving you wisdom, sharing information and news you can use.)
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first
thing is you have to offer value that your client says is valuable to them.
Now, this one's a little tricky because typically what happens is we go in and
we say we have the world's greatest this, that and the other. We have a
proprietary this, that and the other which has this kind of impact, offers this
type of savings.<br />
But that's just you talking to the client. That is not you listening to what
they have to say. Let me say that again. That is not you listening, or you gaining
an understanding of how the client determines value. The way you determine it
may not be the way they determine it. So, you don't have value until the client
says you have value. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I apologize
for sports analogies, but here in the US we have this game called basketball.
And like most sports, there is a referee or an umpire - somebody that makes
sure that the rules are equally applied against and for the opposing teams. Anytime
that one of the rules is violated, there is such a thing as a foul, and a foul
is usually based on a referee or an umpire seeing something that didn't look
right or that was against the rules. One of the best players, named Bill Russell, coined a great phrase. He said,
“if the ref didn't see it, you didn't get fouled”. What I want you to take away
from that is if the customer doesn't say it has value, then it doesn't have
value. It doesn't matter what you think about it. The customer has to say it
has value. That's the number one thing you have to get right to get into this
game.<br />
<br />
Number two, you have to offer products and services the way your customer buys
them. Now that one's a pretty substantial challenge because oftentimes you may
not know how your customer buys them, which means you're going to have to ask, “Hey,
look, how do you actually go about procuring this particular product”? “Do you buy a standalone or do you buy it as
a bundle? Do you buy it aggregate with other different products or services? You
have to ask these questions, then you will know what you need to do in order to
pitch it to them and create minimum disruption to their current system.<br />
<br />
I tried to sell something to a large company once and I hadn't done my homework
to understand how they purchased it. The person to whom I was talking was
honest enough to say, “Hey, I can't buy it the way you're selling it because we
don't buy like that. We buy what you're offering as part of a total solution
that has five, six, seven, eight or more components tied to it. So, if you can
figure out how to put all of that together, then we can resume this
conversation”. I learned quite a bit from that experience, but it was evident that
I hadn't done my homework, so I more or less wasted someone's time. <br />
<br />
The third thing is you have to be what they call “contract ready”. You have to
be ready to do business. The fortune 500 or the global 500 largest companies in
the world really aren't looking to do supplier development like they did five
years ago, 15 years ago, 25 years ago. At that time they really didn't have as
many sophisticated buyers. Innovation came in different waves and they were
able to ride innovation for a good long time before competitors caught up. In
today's business climate, those luxuries do not exist any longer. Innovation is
coming so quickly that corporations constantly have to look for the next source
and they really don't have time to do supplier development. So, they need for
you to be ready to do business on day one.<br />
<br />
They're really not mentoring, they're not guiding, they're not taking on
development projects. That minimizes opportunities for you to work with them
directly. They may want you to work with what they call a prime contractor or a
first-tier supplier. Those are companies that can probably take on that
development work. This may be a fantastic business model for you: to actually
go not after the fortune 500 or the global 500, but their tier-one or their
prime suppliers, their prime contractors. That might be faster for you to get
in and get the support you need, the book of revenue you're looking for, and help
you build sufficient capacity so that you can move forward. Depending on what
you're offering, that may be the best place for you to build because you can
grow a pretty substantial business selling to the prime or to the sub or to the
tier-one or tier-two suppliers to the big boys.<br />
<br />
Do not take it as defeat that you couldn't sell to the fortune 500 directly. Take
it as an accomplishment that you got into the supply chain and you actually
found a better home for your product. You may be able to offer it at much lower
cost because the prime and the tier-one already have the procedures in place that are necessary to manage the
detailed requirements of working with a large company. So, all you have to do
is provide your product or service. You don't have to deal with all of the requirements
of working with the big companies directly. Part of that is being handled for
you. The cost of it is being shouldered by someone with whom you are working. All
you have to do is deliver your product and/or service and call it a day. That
may be a perfect place for you. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The other
issue you have with being contract ready for today and tomorrow -- whether you
deal with the fortune 500, the global 500 or the prime or the tier-one – is all
of them expect you to be ready to do business not only today but tomorrow. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When I
worked for Shell Oil, human resources personnel came into my office one day and
they were having a conversation about the two different hiring strategies they
had. They had a strategy for what they
called support staff versus staff. Staff oftentimes went into management.
Support staff was excluded from management. Support staff was hourly, and staff
was salaried. I don't know if it's still true today, but with support staff,
the expectation was that you would come in, you would perform what you were
instructed to, you would trade hours for dollars, and you'd go home. And that
was it. They did quite a bit of screening to get the right caliber of people,
but they felt like there were a lot of people that could do that work, so they
had processes in place so that - if they needed to replace people - they could
do it quite easily. With salaried or staff people however, the strategy was
they weren't hiring you for the job that you got when you entered the company.
They were hiring you for the job three, four, five promotions down the road.<br />
<br />
That's kind of fascinating when you think about that. Imagine if you're hiring
someone not just to fill the immediate job, but you're looking at them for the
potential of what they could do for you in the second, third, fourth, fifth job
as you promote them through your organization or move them around. Well, that
concept is precisely the thing that corporations are looking for in their
suppliers. It's not only can you do what they need today, it's that you are
really valuable and important if you can actually help them with the business
of tomorrow. You want to be in a position of not only helping them with the
business of today, but definitely the business of tomorrow, which means you've
got to have a whole host of things in place.<br />
<br />
You have to have the capacity so that if the client makes an acquisition or
merger, you can ride with them -- you can expand the capabilities of your
business. If they decide to open a new facility, you can expand the
capabilities of your business. If they take on more staff, or have a huge increase
in hiring, then you can expand your product or service to accommodate more
employees. This gives corporations a lot of continuity and business certainty
which, if you've been paying attention to this series at all, is the thread that
runs through all nine blogs. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">To summarize: you offer a product or service
with the value that the client says is important; you offer it the way they buy
it; you are contract ready for today's business as well as tomorrow's business;
and you have the scale and capacity to be successful. <span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">That's how to get into the game. </span>So once again, “in order
to create that which you haven't yet imagined, you need to discover what you
don't know”. </span>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-79279394734302177682022-05-09T17:05:00.001-05:002022-05-09T17:05:46.404-05:00Pathway To Your Success - Part 8: The Corporate Opportunity – Small Business Financing<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Welcome to
Part 8 of my 9-part series -- “The Pathway to Your success” -- helping you to
discover the small business growth opportunity with the biggest companies in
the world. During this series, I have gone through various issues such as:
corporate contracts versus government contracts; how to use corporate contracts
for legacy business growth, and what that means; what large companies buy; why
the time is now for small business owners to get into this game; and what is
the mindset for success. For this segment, the topic is “The Corporate Opportunity
– Small Business Financing”. I am going to cover this in two parts.<br />
<br />
There is a reality TV show pertinent to this topic right now on a US cable
channel that features a billionaire who believes that it's still possible to
start a successful business with no money. So, he's challenged himself to go
out with a camera crew -- with nothing more than a hundred dollars in his
pocket and a pickup truck --and figure out how to build a million-dollar
business. Now you might be laughing, like most of us that are cynical, thinking
this is all for show, but he has changed his name so that no one knows who he is and he's
representing that he's not using any of his vast resources. He just wants to
prove that if he can do it, then you can do it, and he has the camera crew to
walk you through exactly the steps he's taking and the challenges that he's encountering.
He's working with people who do not know his background or who he is, in a city
that he's never been in before. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It's
fascinating to watch his decision-making process; how he's putting various
things together; his flexibility; and the challenges and opportunities he
encounters -- basically everything that you have had to go through to build
your company, which encompasses the whole challenge of financing your business.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let's just
go back a year or two ago. What are the ways that most business owners used to
finance their business? What types of financing have they used within the past
12, 24, 36 months? Below is a list of some of the financing
options available to you now. I don't really want you to go through this list thinking,
‘I can't do that, I can't do that’. What I want you to think of through this
list is “maybe I've tried that, maybe I will try that”. It's not about why
these won't work for you. It's more of which one of these makes the most sense
for you. And even if you've tried it and it didn't work out before, how might
you approach it differently?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
first finance option is, clearly, earnings of the business -- and credit cards
if they are available. It's easy to finance your business if you have a
cashflow coming in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Second,
there are a lot of big companies out there -- American Express, Goldman Sachs,
Wells Fargo, Citibank through their Costco program, and several banks actually
targeting small businesses because they know that globally small businesses are
the growth engine for most economies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Third,
large bank loans - - most of us have had our issues with that. I have this
thing about banks because after the financial crisis of 2000 through 2005, and 2010,
banks have gone back to their old business model of loaning money to people who
have proven they <u>don't</u> need it. Although
if you actually are bankable with a bank, go for it. In some cases, if you
can't go for large banks, community banks are often very friendly to small
business owners. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Fourth,
there are always friends and family. You can look at private loans. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Fifth,
if you actually carry inventory or you work with a lot of vendors, there is
vendor credit. Oftentimes vendors will work with you to give you favorable
terms, whether you go net 30, net 60, net 90. Sometimes you can actually close
the sale and get the revenue from your customer before your bills are due for
your products. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sixth,
leasing rather than paying cash, because you can often lease things at a much
lower cost. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Seventh,
SBA loans and small business association loans here in the U S are very good
sources. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Eighth,
online or non-bank lenders. This is actually a growing market that I don't
think people have really explored but can often be a pretty good option for
you.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, here are some of
the bigger financing options: venture capital and angel investors, (more often
than not technology attracts venture capital or angel investors, but they dabble
in other areas as well); private placement of debt; credit union loans; selling
and pledging accounts receivables - or factoring, as that's called; state and
regional loan and incentive programs; private placement of stock; crowdfunding;
and public issuance of stock if you're looking to actually do an initial public
offering. (Not that many small business owners do that quite frankly.) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you are a
woman business owner, some of the more specific things available are small
business grants, which can be found on “grants.gov” for example; the
small business innovation research and technology transfer programs; the girl
boss foundation grant -- G, I. R. L. B. O. S. S; women's business centers; the
economic development administration; and small business development centers.
There is also the Amber Grant-Eileen Fisher women-owned business grant; the FedEx
small business grant; and the National Association for the Self-employed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you are a
minority business owner, you also have some options: “grants.gov” again; the U
S Department of Agriculture; and - interestingly enough – the USDA rural
business enterprise grant program (I
suspect that, in agricultural communities around the world, there are grants available);
small business innovation research and small business technology transfer
programs; the minority business development agency (the MBTA); and the national
minority supplier development council. Also, in the U S once again, the SBA - a
business development program - has grants available; and Operation Hope - a
small business empowerment program. Also, If you're just starting and you have
some money -- you can take it out of
savings, or a home equity loan which is another source that people use.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As you can
see, these are pretty exhaustive lists. I'm sure there are other options for the disabled; veterans; service-disabled veterans; and LGBTQ as well. <br />
<br />
If you happen to work for a company and you have a 401k and you're using that to
get you going, what everybody will tell you is the best time to seek financing
is when you <u>don't</u> need it. The idea being that when times get tight,
then you actually have already planned for that. You have a working capital
line of credit available to you. You have a relationship with a banker just in
general - somebody that understands your business might be going through a downturn
but knows enough about you to work with you - who knows enough about your
industry and what it looks like in your market and is willing to take the risk. You want to make sure you establish a relationship with a banker as soon
as you possibly can. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now I'll
bring you back to the undercover billionaire show that I was watching, because this
guy started with no money. He didn't actually talk about credit or anything
else, but he talked about having just a hundred bucks and his pickup truck. And
5 episodes in, he's done some really fascinating things. He started off with a
simple premise -- which was he'd given himself six months to get this business
going -- to get it up and running. And he knew that he needed at least three
months of capital just to pay his expenses. He knew it would be hard to go out
there and build a business if he didn't know where he was going to lay his head
and didn't know how he would get food. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So, the
first thing he did in getting started was make sure he had three months of
living expenses covered. Check this out. He flipped a used car. He had to do it
twice. He flipped two cars. He went to a used car lot and negotiated a good
deal on a car. He then took the car and went through the car wash, put a for
sale sign in it, and sold it for more than he bought it. And then he turned
around and did the exact same thing again on a slightly bigger car where he had
more money, and he was able to net about six or $7,000 flipping two cars. He was
then able to pull out $3,000 to cover an inexpensive hotel for rent; food; and
gas for his truck. The point here is
that he was awfully creative. One of the other things he did was look for scrap
metal that he could take and sell to recyclers. So, he went to an abandoned
construction yard or someplace where there were some warehouses and sure enough,
he found some copper and other metal, and he was able to pick up a couple of
hundred bucks by selling that.<br />
<br />
I'm watching this and thinking this is a guy that is committed to success. He's
going to do what it takes. And he's being awfully creative and thinking “what
has value? What can I sell? How can I generate cash”? And he's laser-focused
because he knows within six months’ time “X” has to happen. Otherwise, he's
going to be humiliated and embarrassed. He's going to have to “out” himself in
front of all these people and he's going to have to admit that he was wrong: that
the average person can't build a $1 million business.<br />
<br />
The most creative thing that I saw him do was -- once he figured out how he was
going to take care of living expenses -- he went to a small business
development center, which is found in most cities within the USA. It may be co-located
with the SBA. It may be a part of some university, but there's typically a
small business development center. The center provided a whole host of
resources for him -- helped him to do
his market research; helped him to get
in touch with people, and just provided a tremendous number of resources. They
actually gave him an office space with a board room so that he could have
meetings, and a telephone and other kinds of things. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The most
amazing thing that I saw him do was he created a team. He was able to find
about five or six people that bought into the vision of what he was trying to
do. He told them point blank that he did not have money to pay them right now,
but he noted the timeframe with which he was working and that he was going to
make it worth everyone's while once the business was successful. They were all
a part of building something from the ground level, from the very beginning. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I've done
that. I personally have been on teams where there was no money to pay salaries.
And I believed in what we were trying to do and I gifted my time to the
business until we got it across the finish line. I've done it twice as a matter
of fact. And so, it's not a weird thing. It's not out of the ordinary. You may
have done it to the extent that you really and truly had something you were
passionate about -- something that you knew you could get across the finish
line. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With the
resources that I've listed for you: both the traditional ones and some of the
nontraditional ones (the undercover billionaire), you can see that there is a
plethora of possibilities available for obtaining financing for your business. Some
of the ways to raise capital I mentioned will work in other countries. All of
them will work in the United States. You just have to figure out how to make it
happen. Small business financing is <a>available</a></span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" href="file:///C:/Users/fancy/OneDrive/Documents/BlogPost-Pathway%20to%20Your%20Success-Part%208%20%2004-25-22.docx#_msocom_1" id="_anchor_1" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_1">[FM1]</a><!--[endif]--> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">. So, the question becomes “what are
you really prepared to do”?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Stay tuned
for my last post of this Pathway to Your Success series: “Part 9 -- The Corporate
Opportunity -- How to Get Into the Game”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div><!--[if !supportAnnotations]-->
<hr align="left" class="msocomoff" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div><!--[if !supportAnnotations]-->
<div class="msocomtxt" id="_com_1" language="JavaScript"><!--[endif]--><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a name="_msocom_1"></a><!--[endif]-->
<p class="MsoCommentText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<!--[if !supportAnnotations]--></div>
<!--[endif]--></div>
</div><p><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span><a class="msocomoff" href="file:///C:/Users/fancy/OneDrive/Documents/BlogPost-Pathway%20to%20Your%20Success-Part%208%20%2004-25-22.docx#_msoanchor_1" style="font-size: 8pt;">[FM1]</a> </p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-80578248613994757372022-04-12T13:01:00.000-05:002022-04-12T13:01:05.196-05:00PATHWAY TO YOUR SUCCESS - PART 7 -THE MINDSET TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS FOR YOUR LEGACY BUSINESS<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This series
is committed to helping you identify the pathway to your success that lands you
the biggest contracts in the world for the purpose of building your legacy
business. (If you are just beginning, you're going to want to go back to part one
of this nine-part series to see how we are building on these topics.) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In this
segment I discuss the corporate opportunity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do corporations take small businesses seriously?
Do large companies take small businesses seriously? I don't really have a story
for you on this one. I'm just going to share with you my observation from
teaching this topic for well over 12 years now. I have discovered in the workshops
I facilitate that I primarily get three different types of individuals in the
classes, and I'm going to be really, really specific.<br />
<br />
These three types of clients are comprised of businesses owned by women; small
businesses owned by minorities; and small businesses owned by a number of members
of what's considered diverse communities or diverse suppliers. Individuals
that come into my workshops typically fall into one of three groups. The first
group I'll describe as the folks that look at a wall and go, “that's a tall
wall. Whoever built that wall didn't really want anybody to climb it. Don't
they know that's, that's just too hard. It's like the only reason they built that
wall was to keep people out”. And that particular group, for a whole host of
reasons -- many of them which are justified in a reality that the individual may
have had -- believes that big companies aren't serious about doing business
with small companies; that it's a male dominated environment that is not
serious, and they're only paying lip service to women-owned businesses; that it
is a supply chain that is primarily run by a majority -- whether that be white
men or whatever.<br />
<br />
So, there are people that look at corporate procurement and say it's not worth
it. They may have actually gone through the effort, knocked on some doors, had
some doors closed on them and just concluded that it wasn't worth it. And some,
quite frankly, have been told that they didn't get business because they were a
woman, they were too small, or they were a minority. That has happened. I would
argue that 30 years ago, probably globally --and clearly in the United States
-- 70% of the reason why some diverse businesses didn't get opportunities is
because they were minority-owned, because they were women, because they were
gay/lesbian owned, because they were Hispanic owned, Asian-American owned,
Indian owned, disabled veteran owned. That was the reason why they didn't get
an opportunity. I would tell you that now, in today's time, that that's still probably
30% of the reason why they're not getting opportunities.<br />
<br />
I do believe that, as long as you're doing business with humans, all of the “ism’s”
- racism, sexism; and all the “ist’s ” - racist, sexist, misogynist; homophobia
and everything else under the sun are going to be obstacles. I don't know how
long we go before that's no longer an issue, but I would tell you that in my
experience, that's probably 30% of the reason why you’re not getting
opportunities. It's real. It's still happening. I don't want anyone to believe
that somehow you're perceiving the world not really as it is, and that we've
gotten past all of the nonsense from long ago. Some of that nonsense is real. It's
still very present, and if you live long enough, you're going to be confronted
with it. But what we're talking about, with regard to the mindset, is how do
you get past it? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That gets me
to my second group. Now my second group looks at that exact same wall and they
go, “there's got to be a way. I know the wall is high, but there's got to be a
way -- other people have gotten over, so I have to figure it out. I don't know
if I need to grab some ladders. I don't know if I need to stand on somebody's
shoulder. I don't know. But there has to be a way and I'm going to figure it
out”. They understand that if only 30% of the reason as to why they are not
getting an opportunity with the big boys is because they are women-or-minority
owned businesses, then 70% of the reason must be attributed to some other
factor, in which case, it's probably something that they can overcome, and they
decide they're going to do it. (By the way, there is empirical evidence. You
can look at the Small Business Association’s website in the US.)<br />
<br /><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Then we have the third group which goes, “you know what, let me redefine this whole thing. And maybe the wall’s not so tall anyway, maybe the wall really and truly is just a hurdle. It's just a matter of how I'm viewing it. The question then becomes, what do I know about what goes on with walls so I can find the easiest way to get over them?” That's the profile of the three different groups -- and I can tell you right now, the folks that end up in that third category are creating opportunities like there's no tomorrow and never looking back.</span>
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">It takes the ones in the second group obviously a little bit longer, but eventually they figure it out. The ones in the first group take forever because the first thing that we end up doing is having to change their mindset about the wall, since it turns out that corporations do not have an active campaign to keep you out of their business. They don't. They have an active campaign to find a way to get you in, however you have to meet them more than halfway. I don't know if you recall two episodes ago when I discussed the fact that corporations have highly evolved processes and systems, and those processes and systems need to be challenged for innovation. But those processes and systems have been part and parcel to making them successful, so they aren't going to bring a new supplier in and blow up everything if they aren't convinced that: </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">a) what the new supplier’s offering will work; and b) they can implement it with little to no operational risk to the business</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Most corporations have a supplier diversity department -- whether it's a part of supply chain, HR or legal. In some cases, it actually is in community affairs - rare, but I've seen it there as well. These departments are dedicated to increasing the opportunities for small business owners of diverse backgrounds and finding ways for them to participate in the corporate supply chain.</span><br style="font-size: 18.6667px;" /><br style="font-size: 18.6667px;" /><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">However, in order to capitalize on the opportunities that become available, you must have the proper mindset. I have discussed the mindset for success; the various opportunities I've walked through; and why corporate procurement may be a good option for you -- either in conjunction with government procurement or as a stand-alone venture. I've discussed the need for innovation and how large an opportunity it is, but that aside, we still have another issue: the mindset based on their individual realities that people bring to this market.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I remember listening to the Commerce Secretary two years ago saying that the U
S Small Business Administration had seen in their most recent data that one-point
-three trillion was spent with minority businesses in the U S alone. Now
remember, I mentioned to you that the top 500 companies spend 30 trillion
alone. One-point-three trillion is a pretty paltry number in comparison. That
number should actually be about 15 trillion or more, and of course if you include
women business owners, it should probably be about 70% which is 21 trillion. If you look at the Billion Dollar Round Table, you can see who the members are.
These are companies that spend $1 billion a year or over $1 billion a year with
diverse suppliers. I can't recall how many are in there right now. I think the
last time I checked there might have been 21 or 50 or some odd number, but the
number grows daily. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Let's just be honest. A number of people -- number of companies -- got
in before you even opened your business and they have ruined it for you. I was
a Minority Woman Business Coordinator in 1992. As a buyer, I can tell you I
took a chance on some companies and it backfired. They oversold themselves and
they failed. And it was a black eye for me with my internal clients where
anytime I said I wanted to bring in a new supplier – a small business - for an
opportunity, I started getting all kinds of pushback. And eventually by the
time we got to a manager that had the authority to override my choice, I would
lose out because I didn't have a compelling business case as to why we should
take the risk on an unproven company.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
<br />
Now, if you think about it, for your company you would say the exact same
thing. If you have a company that's doing something reliably, doing it to
expectation, then why would you bring in an unknown? Just to see what happens?
You are probably not going to do it. So, the people who came in before you who
didn't exceed the mark, didn't even hit the mark and did not perform worth a
darn have made it difficult for you and a whole host of other companies. That's
just the reality. I need you to understand that fact, which is why when I say, “create
what you haven't yet imagined by discovering what you don't know”, the focus is
on what you don't know.<br />
<br />
Let me repeat. What we focus on is what you don't know. As I like to say, yes,
there's a secret handshake and the people that know it aren't telling you, but
they're not doing it to keep you out. They're doing it because they're building
legacy businesses of their own and that's their competitive secret. That's
their competitive advantage. However, corporations are actually looking for you
to come in, but they need you to be ready to do business. They need you to
demonstrate that you know what you're doing and you can clearly succeed. They
need for you to come in and be the supplier for today and tomorrow. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That's why
the folks in my third group that redefine the hurdle come in with the attitude
of, “well, what do I really need to know to succeed with this customer? How do
I come in and hit a home run? How do I make it clear that I've got the solution
they're looking for that will create the value they need and that, given the
opportunity, I can handle the business”? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That's the
mindset you want to have. Focus on the fact that corporations take you
seriously and they want you to succeed because your success is their success.
Your failure is their failure. The last thing any buyer really wants to do is
to tell a company, “Hey, uh, it's not going to work out. We're not renewing
your contract. We need to cancel your contract. I have a complaint from
somebody in the business unit. I have somebody in the head office talking about
it”. That's the last thing they want to do. Nobody wants to have that
conversation. Nobody looks forward to that. Even the people who've gotten good
at having those conversations don't want to have them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So yes, corporations
are serious about doing business with you. They take small business seriously.
This is not one of those things to which they pay lip service. If it turns out
that you're offering something in a way that they cannot use it, then their
response can be perceived as lip service -- and perception is reality. I get
that. But if you offer it to them at the value they need; you offer it to them
the way they need it; and you can demonstrate that you can handle the business,
then you're never going to look back.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Go to
www.blueprintpros.com and get on our email list to stay up-to-date on new<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>posts and other exciting news.<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-58184157322121683282022-03-22T15:59:00.001-05:002022-03-22T17:43:31.627-05:00PATHWAY TO YOUR SUCCESS - PART 6: What The Corporate Supply Chain & Corporate Contracting Are Really All About<p> <span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is
episode six of my nine-part series on the “Pathway to your Success”. In this
segment I am covering what corporate supply chain and corporate contracting
really are all about; what it means for your business; and how it really and
truly can help you build a legacy business that gives back. It's about
understanding the environment that you're stepping into, the role that you play,
and setting yourself up for huge success. – all of which encompass the
corporate opportunity, the corporate demand for innovation and the role of
small business.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I want you
to think about something for a second. Go back in time. You can go back 10, 20,
30 years - doesn't really matter. Just think about if you were still dealing
with regular mail, you didn't have a fax machine, you didn't have the internet,
you didn't have video conferencing -- how might your business be operating
right now? Imagine that a buyer put a request for proposal in the mail. You got
it seven days from then, because that's how much time they allowed it. Then you
had three weeks to work on it because you didn't really necessarily have a
computer to work on. A lot of your responses had to be manually typed, then you
had three or four days to get it back to the requester, and in most cases they
said it had to be in their office by 12 o'clock on a Friday or close of
business on a Friday.<br />
<br />
In some cases, this was even before express delivery. This was before DHL,
FedEx, UPS, or any type of overnight service. So, you had to hope that the post
office reliably delivered it and you got it certified so that there was a
signature to prove that it was received timely. That whole process took a
month. Now, you may not actually remember this, but I'm pretty sure if you're
old enough you do remember this, and whether you were in business or not, you
kind of remember it. That was just the way it was. Gosh, going back far enough,
this was even before cable television. We had regular broadcast TV. We only had
four channels. So, it gets rather fascinating because you fast forward to today
and you think, “wow, a lot of things have happened between five years ago, 10
years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago”.<br />
<br />
Even if you only go back two or three years, a number of things have changed. It's
like nothing stands still. For instance, if you follow gardening, you
understand that if something's not growing, it's stagnant, and if it's stagnant
it ultimately withers and dies. So, if you're talking about growth, then you
either are growing or dying. You either are doing things to advance the cause,
or you are standing still, becoming stagnant, and you risk falling behind. There's
an interesting phrase that caught my attention. It's an old English proverb: “necessity
is the mother of invention”. It means roughly that the primary driving force
for most new inventions is a need. If necessity is the mother of invention, and
the driving force for most new inventions is a need, then what is the greatest
need for any company? That greatest need is growth.<br />
<br />
Anyone that's trying to run a $200,000 business every year (and there's nothing
wrong with a $200,000 business), but it's at risk of going out of business. Number
one, $200,000 is worth less each and every year with inflation. Number two, as
your costs go up, $200,000 a year is no longer profitable. And number three, a
$200,000 a year business is probably highly susceptible to competition. Somebody's
going to force you to actually lower your price so that you can no longer make $200,000.
The number can be 2 million, 20 million, 200 million, 2 billion -- doesn't
really matter. The major need for change, for any corporation, is the need to
grow, and that is inherently true for most any business. There has to be growth
-- either revenue growth or profit growth. Everything else spins out from that.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, what
drives growth? This is where we get to “necessity is the mother of invention”
and innovation. What does it mean to innovate? The common definition is to make
changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas
or products. Let's expand it a little bit more. Innovation is a new idea or
more effective device or process. Innovation can be viewed as the application
of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs or existing
market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes,
services, technologies or business models than are readily available to
markets, governments, and society. Innovation addresses the need for large
corporations to grow, which of course becomes a necessity for them in terms of
their ability to invent that which has not been yet invented. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Looking at the
last six months, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, there has been a lot
of invention and innovation, and guess what the source of a lot of that
innovation has been: small business. Yes. That's been the source. I think
there's something in the neighborhood of 32 million small businesses just in
the United States alone. In the everyday lives of these small businesses --
where they don't have all the money and all the people in the world to bring to
bear on any problem that confronts them -- they are constantly looking for new ways to get more done with
less. Just that need alone causes them to be innovative, to find solutions, to
do things in different ways and to be able to implement change and create
greater value for their customers – i.e. lower costs or more revenues for their
customers as well for their business. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I remember
when I worked for a large oil company, one day senior management came out and
said “we need to be more innovative. We need to think more like small
businesses. We need the agility, the nimbleness, to be able to respond to
things quickly. And we need to be able to have systems that aren't so
cumbersome and that aren't so unnecessarily burdensome that, when we want to do
something different, it takes three, four, five, 10 or 15 years. We need to be
able to be more responsive to our customers’ needs. The market is constantly
changing. It's a dynamic marketplace. Our customers are demanding more, and our
competitors are really nipping at our heels”. So, it made sense that they started
watching to see what small businesses were doing, and started figuring out
which of the solutions offered by small business could they adapt to their
organizations.<br />
<br />
There you have it. That is the role of small business and large corporate
supply chains. That is why corporations are actively and aggressively seeking
out participation of small businesses. That's why they spend tons of money
every year putting themselves in places where they can interact with small
businesses: trade shows, conferences, etc. That's why they're lead sponsors for
a lot of events and galas and other things where they know small businesses
will be in attendance. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Diverse small businesses, and people who have had
different life experiences are in even greater demand. For example, a woman-owned
business; a black-owned business; a veteran-owned business; a disabled-owned
business, a Native-American owned business; Hispanic-American, Asian-American,
etc. Corporations are saying, “Hey, we understand you view the world very
differently -- possibly due to how you grew up in your household and what you may have been
confronted with in your family alone; and/or what your parents had to do to get you
ready to compete as an adult. The way you approach things could very well be
exactly what we are looking for. So, what you brought to how you run your
business that’s working, that's leverageable and scalable are things for which corporations
are looking. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook was a college student, as was </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Michael Dell.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> Bill Gates and Paul Allen </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">were college students</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">. He and Paul Allen started off in a garage. These are people that have done some
amazing things. They were just entrepreneurs, small business folks, but they
all started because they saw a need and they decided that they wanted to see if
they could apply some innovation to address that need. Remember, a big business
is nothing more than a small business that did a lot of things right. And that
should be your business. I'm going to leave you with that. There's a huge need
for what you do, and big corporations are looking for it. So, if necessity is
the mother of invention, then innovation by small businesses is the engine that
powers invention.</span></p>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Our next episode - Part Seven of this series - will
be “The Corporate Opportunity -- Do They Take Small Businesses Seriously?” So,
please go to our website “BusinessPartnerBlueprint.com” and join our email list
to be notified of upcoming events, podcasts and blogs.</span>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-81220156458430969392022-03-15T11:33:00.002-05:002022-03-15T13:28:13.643-05:00PATHWAY TO SUCCESS SERIES - PART 5 - THE MINDSET FOR WINNING IN THIS MARKET<p> <span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is
episode five of our nine-part series on the Pathway to your Success. This
series is geared towards helping you to discover how to build a legacy business
that gives back. In this series we have discussed corporate contracts versus
government contracts; legacy business growth and what that means; and what do
big companies buy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">
<br />
Part five of the series addresses the mindset for winning in this market --
understanding the corporate customer's challenges and how you help. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">What's
your role? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I want to
start with a story which in this case is very simple. The story is "stop the
insanity". Let me repeat, "stop the insanity". The definition of insanity is doing
what you've always done and expecting a different result. If you keep doing
what you've always done, then you're going to get what you’ve always gotten, and
so that gets rather fascinating because when you start peeling the onion on
that particular phrase for large corporations, it's probably easier said than
done. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Large
corporations have built systems and processes that allow them to do what we
call “manage by exception”. And all of us have experienced this. An example is
when we've called into a customer service call center. We are forced to listen to a menu of options
listing a standard script of reasons the company believes addresses your
concerns. As a matter of fact, they've gone with IVR (interactive voice
recordings) so that it's so hard to talk to a real person. For instance, you
have to work your way through “Press one if you want Espanol; Press two if you would
like the amount due on your bill; Press three if you'd like to change your payment
information, etc.”. All of that is a result of companies having automated tasks
with systems and processes addressing common customer activities. This is done so that when you actually talk
to someone, the expectation is that you are calling them about something that requires
somebody's attention - or what we call managing by exception - that somehow the
regular processes and systems weren't set up to address your issue.<br />
<br />
That's a great way to run your business. We all should have a representative portion
of our business with this feature -- these kinds of systems in place so that
when we get the reports that tell us what's going on in the business, things
should work exactly the way we expect them to work. Therefore, when we see exceptions
on a report, we know what the problems are. We know we need to work on the
areas that potentially are costing us sales, or costing us revenue or profit outside of our working systems and processes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Clearly in
that situation we can always optimize a process, optimize a system, and that's
what a lot of large corporations are doing. They look at an entire system and
try and optimize it. But when you've gotten so good at the game and you trust
your systems and processes, everybody eventually catches up with you. You are then in position to lose your
competitive advantage in the affected areas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
So now, through no effort or your own, you find yourself behind and it turns
out the issue isn't so much doing the exact same thing and expecting a
different outcome. It is that the competition is leaving you behind and you can
no longer afford to keep doing what you've always done. Getting the same result
is not good enough. You have to stop the insanity which means that you have to
inject innovation. You definitely have to adopt innovation primarily because if
you stand still, your competitors are going to leave you behind. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Now then, you
as a small business owner know this because every day you are looking at ways
to optimize your business. You're looking at ways to figure out how to lower
your costs. You're looking at new technologies that you can deploy that help you
to bring a higher level of customer service and allow you to get more work done
at lower internal cost. You're looking at new things that you can take
advantage of to make you more productive. Your everyday life is choosing between
a host of things in the marketplace and trying to determine which one is going
to make you more nimble, more agile, more productive, and allow you to maintain
your customers as well as outmaneuver your competitors. It's just something you do
every day without even thinking about it. These are the exact same needs of the Fortune 500 companies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">We used to
have this phrase in the old days “it’s the big that beat the small”, but now in
this current time, “it's the fast that beat the slow”. However, speed is not an
excuse for poor performance, bad execution or sloppy work. So, you have to do
it quickly and you have to do it right. The problem that large companies run
into is that when they start talking to some of the bigger companies that are
also in the Fortune 500, their systems are pretty much geared along the same
lines and they have the same problems with proven systems and processes that
make them a little slow to come on board. Then there is this notion of prudent
risk that corporations get into where their risk profile is almost to the point
where they do nothing. They basically end up talking to people that are echoing
their same concerns and getting nowhere.<br />
<br />
So guess what? Large corporations have discovered that small businesses -
especially small diverse businesses - are a huge source of innovation. The
challenge is finding small businesses that are really and truly ready to do
business. (We're going to talk about that a little later because that issue of
being ready to do business is the Achilles heel for you and small businesses
like yours.) You may think you're ready for the big contracts, but the reality
is that - from a corporate buyer’s perspective - you may not be. When I approached
a large corporation the first time around, I wasn't ready. I came from a
background as a corporate buyer and I understand I should have known better,
but I didn't. <br />
<br />
Corporations understand that small business owners are the ones that are
driving the innovation that they desperately need to inject into their
operations, so now the big thing is how do they manage the risk of working with
small businesses? That's what's going on with them. Start with that. How do
they manage the risk of working with small businesses? Now I want you to make
sure you actually zero in on their challenges because it's one of those where
you probably heard this before: “I don't care about you until you first
demonstrate that you care about me”.<br />
<br />
To clarify that statement, when as a corporate buyer I used to go to trade
shows, folks would come up to me and start launching into what they sell and so
forth, and they would do it without even trying to understand whether or not it
was something that I needed or something that was a pain in my organization, or
a problem we hadn't solved. They made it clear that it was very important that I
understood what it was <u>they</u> could do and it was less important for them
to understand what it was that I needed, nor did they address any of my company’s
problems that they potentially could solve for me. I found that that lack of
clarity primarily resulted from most people not having done their homework.<br />
<br />
The business salesperson may not have known that we were in the middle of a
merger. They may not have known we were in the middle of an acquisition. They
may not have known that we had just lost market share and become fourth or
fifth relative to our competitors. They may not have known that we had just
announced (because our stock price had declined) that we were going to lay off a
thousand people. They may not have known that we’re a global competitor who just
actually stepped into a new market, bought up one of our competitors, changed
the business model and began to reorient our entire go-to-market strategy. They
may not have known that we had some environmental issues in one of our plants
and we were facing a huge fine or legal challenge or dealing with the justice
department on an antitrust case. They may not have known that we have just
successfully negotiated with the local government and we're trying to figure
out how to actually establish a bigger presence in the local market. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I share with
you all of those different examples because you can take those few and you can
add 10, 20, a hundred more to those. Now you begin to understand the reality of
what it is that these corporations are dealing with and what their challenges
are. Once you know that, you have a leg up, you have a competitive advantage,
you have a better idea of how to make sure when you talk about what you do, it
addresses something that's a priority for the corporation and you can separate
yourself from the people that didn't do their homework. I can't stress enough
how important this is. A friend of mine told me his approach to trade shows was
to pick about three, four or five companies that he wanted to target. He would
do his homework. He learned what their challenges were. He knew how to approach
the trade show booth in terms of how he actually could help them to address
what clearly were issues for their businesses. He was able to find out whether
or not he was talking to the right people and, if not, with whom he should
follow up. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
If you have a good idea; you've done your homework; you know what the company's
challenges are; you know if they're looking to expand in a different area; you
know what value they're looking for; you know the cost pressures that they're
under -- then there's a good chance when
you share with them what you do, you can make it meaningful for them where
they'll say “we need to bring you in and talk further”.<br />
<br />
So the mindset that you need to have is how do you go about understanding the
corporate customer’s challenges? That's your mindset for winning. Understand
their challenges. Imagine if you went to the doctor and before you told the
doctor what's wrong, he said, “here, take this pill and thanks for coming in”. You
would say, “don't you want to know why I came in”? The doctor answers “Oh,
okay. All right, if you really feel the need to tell me, but, hey, I'm a doctor
and I know what I'm doing and I just need to give you a pill and let's move on”.
You wouldn't appreciate that at all. But that really and truly is what some
business owners do. They just start presenting their services/products/skills
without prior knowledge and understanding of the corporate customer’s challenges
- and they all don't have the exact same challenges. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Corporations
are looking for you because they've decided to stop the insanity. They've
decided that they want innovation. They know they can get it from small
business owners, especially diverse small business owners who have different
life experiences, who innovate out of necessity, who see the world differently.
You come up with different ways to approach most every situation, and corporations
want you helping them to move their business to the next level. That's your
mindset for winning: make sure you understand corporations’ challenges. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Stay tuned
for part six: The Corporate Opportunity. I am going to spend some more time
talking about the demand for innovation and the role of small business. I’m
going to drill down on that a little bit more than I just did. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Please go to www.blueprintpros.com and get on
our email list to stay up to date on new episodes and other exciting news. </span>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-37222517093625148722022-02-08T23:34:00.001-06:002022-03-15T11:37:48.173-05:00PATHWAY TO SUCCESS SERIES - PART4 - DIRECT vs INDIRECT MATERIALS vs SERVICES<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When business
owners are looking at the corporate opportunity, they often ask me “do
corporations buy what I sell”? I want you to think about this in this context: have
you ever heard the phrase “starstruck”? You remember when you looked at
rock stars or movie stars or famous people, you saw the glamour of their lives.
You saw all the attention they received and in your head you started thinking
through the amount of money they made and how much easier their lives must be.
How they were always being driven around in a limousine or having maids and
butlers and just a whole host of people that provided them all the concierge
services.<br />
<br />
That’s the image that is exported to us on a regular basis where, you know,
when a person has achieved that level of success they're immune to many things,
and so everybody just generally believes that's their everyday lives. I
mentioned that particular example because you would be amazed - you really and
truly would be amazed how often I get the question, “well, what do corporations
buy?” I could go through a list and I could say, “Oh gosh, everything in the
world”, but I want you to think about celebrities, important persons, the
people that we think have it so easy that surely there are things they don't
do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I was in
Houston, Texas in an electronics store called Circuit City when former President
George H W Bush walked in. He had two secret service guys trailing behind him,
but he was shopping at Circuit city. He was walking around looking for CDs. I
don't know if he was buying presents for a grandchild or what, but he was
actually shopping. I thought surely this man had someone who could do something
like that for him. But no, no, he shopped, he did it himself. And then I've
heard of stories of people saying, “guess who I ran into at the grocery
store?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Guess who I ran into at the
lumber store”? “Guess who I ran into at the department store; in the stadium
while their kids were at a soccer match or in a football game”? We have put the
rich and famous on pedestals, and yet they have everyday lives and everyday
needs just like us.<br />
<br />
My answer to the person that asked me “what do corporations buy?” is, “they buy
pretty much the exact same thing that you buy for your business”. Yes, I say
they just buy a lot more of it, but they really and truly buy a lot of the
exact same things you buy for your business. Now I want to break this down and
we're going to break it down into two buckets: two primary buckets and two sub
buckets.<br />
<br />
The primary bucket is direct materials versus indirect materials, and the sub
bucket is services versus materials. Let's start with direct versus indirect
because I think this is where a lot of people get tripped up. Think about a
large automobile company - Volkswagen, General Motors, Toyota. You might say
you don't sell anything that goes in their product -- which is a vehicle. What
you're saying in that particular statement is that a vehicle is considered an
actual direct product for GM, Volkswagen, Toyota. And yes, you're right. If you
don't sell anything that goes in the vehicle, you don't sell a direct product.
That is a true statement. So you might conclude, well, gosh, there's nothing
that I could sell to GM. That's not true because GM has a requirement of
indirect products that they buy (think of indirect products as everything that
does not go on the assembly line - that's not actually in the vehicle). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It's broader
than that, but that gives you a pretty good idea. Did they buy a plant in which
to build the vehicles? Yes, they bought a plant. Did they buy equipment to
assemble the vehicle? Yes, they did. Do they buy supplies to maintain that
equipment? Yes they do. Do they buy office furniture and equipment and parts
for those buildings? Yes they do. Do they have electricity in that plant? Yes
they do. Do they have lights and lighting and all the various things that you
have in your house when you flip the switch? Do they have to maintain that
building? Yes they do. Do they buy brooms and mops and all that kind of stuff?<br />
<br />
You can just keep going with that. Everything that anybody would need in an
office building, large corporations need. For instance, anything that auto
makers need to make sure that the cars get built, they buy. That gets you into
both direct and indirect materials, and that's pretty much the same in any
industry. You can conclude the exact same thing, for hospitals; the hospitality
industry; computer industry; oil and gas, etc. Pick any industry and there are
direct materials and indirect materials.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Direct
materials are what actually go into their finished products offered for sell
into the market. You will most commonly see them listed on balance sheets as
“cost of goods sold”. Everything else they purchase is considered indirect. So,
while your product may not be a direct product for what the corporation sells
into the market, it could very well be an indirect product. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s go to
the sub-category that I mentioned earlier: products versus certain materials
versus services. Materials are some type of “hard” or physical goods. They are tangible,
something you can touch, and they can be both direct and indirect.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Services on
the other hand require labor – utilizing human capitol to perform a task. For
instance, there are legal services; accounting services; staffing services;
plumbing services; and mechanical services just to name a few. The list of
services in the current market has gotten even more expansive, especially once
you start throwing in things like coaching services. If your business doesn’t
sell materials, parts, or technology, but provides a service, now you can
envision how corporations can use what your company offers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It isn’t so
much that they buy A,B,C or X,Y,Z services, it is more<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>about your ability to show how your service
can actually drive the value solutions they seek: total cost reduction; savings
reduction, etc., in which case they are open to whatever kind of services they
think can drive value. Services is a huge opportunity, but you must show corporations
the value of why they should purchase the service from you and how best to use
it in order to receive or achieve that value.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Here is
another nuance with services: they are not an “or” situation and can be an
“and” situation. The “and” situation is what happens when you wrap a service
around the use of a material, whether it’s a direct material or an indirect
material. If you have a service that allows for better utilization of a direct
material, then they will be singing your praises, writing songs about you and
shouting to the heavens. If you provide a service that gives them greater
utilization or more value utilization or lower costs for an indirect service,
they are going to find a way to keep you around and doing things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It becomes a
huge opportunity when you can provide a service that affects the way that they
do a whole host of things, including how they use materials, and you can bring
that level of innovation that shows them a way to take greater advantage of
that material purchase, whether it’s direct or indirect.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another
thing to consider is that what might be an indirect material or service applied
to one industry may very well be a direct material or service for another industry.
For instance, if you are selling computer servers to a Home Depot, that might
just be something they need to put their accounting system on and call it a
day. But if you are selling computer servers to an artificial intelligence
company, that is a strategic and direct material necessary to deliver their
product. What was an indirect material then becomes a direct material. It
becomes really, really important for the company with regard to how much
attention they’re going to give it and the amount of money they’re willing to
spend on it. In the case of a direct material, they look at things in term of “if
I make this kind of investment, what are the multiples of them that I can get
back in revenue?” If they look at it on the indirect side, the goal is how do they
reduce the costs, extend the life, and bring in cheaper. So, it becomes not so
much whether they buy what you sell, it’s more do you have a good idea of how
to position it. Examples of knowing how to position your product are: offering <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>massage services to corporations under the
employee wellness umbrella; and a chef offering to plan menus for employees
when the corporation is focused on having a healthier workforce.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At this
point, under the category of “what do major corporations buy?”, you can see
that they purchase basically everything. Now that you understand there is a
high probability that they purchase what you sell, you can see that the
possibilities are virtually endless – whether direct or indirect materials, or
services. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Please go to
</span><a href="http://www.blueprintpros/"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">www.blueprintpros</span></a><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> and join our email list to stay up-to-date on future topics.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-52036019162428449882022-01-17T20:46:00.000-06:002022-01-17T20:46:44.955-06:00PATHWAY TO SUCCESS SERIES - PART3: CORPORATE OPPORTUNITY<p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is the
third episode in our “Pathway to Success” series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pathway to Success is about helping you to
discover the small business growth opportunity with the biggest companies in
the world. I am covering topics like corporate contracts versus government
contracts; how to use corporate contracts for legacy business growth; why the
time is now for small business owners to get into this game; and how to go
about financing your small business so that you can play to win.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I want you
to think about something for a second. I want you to think about gifts that
keep on giving. Have you heard that phrase? “It's the gift that keeps on
giving.” In the current climate it is often said about politicians as certain
politicians have a knack for putting their foot in their mouth. In those cases,
their political opponents say that it is “the gift that just keeps on giving”.
Every time politicians make a faux pas, they create political advantage for
their opponents. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Similarly, if
you're in business, you'll oftentimes hear people say some companies just have
the knack for picking the wrong markets. So, whatever those companies do, their
competitors will do something else. That's the gift that keeps on giving. A
couple of other examples of gifts that keep on giving are pocket camcorders,
pocket cameras etc. because you can record a moment and you can relive that
memory every time you see it with just that investment in that pocket camcorder
or camera. Another gift that keeps on giving: how-to books. Think about this
for a second. A how-to book can teach you a new skill or way of doing things which,
for that small investment, can be a gift that gives back 10-fold every time you
apply that learning. If you're trying to build a legacy, then what would happen
if you got into a market where it turned out to be a gift that just keeps on
giving. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Many
business owners don't think about corporate contracting that way, but when you
have the right mindset and you know how to go about it, then that's exactly
what it is -- it's the gift that keeps on giving - unlike government
contracting where there are set asides and you're competing against other small
or diverse businesses and you may not graduate to the bigger contracts.<br />
<br />
If every few years your government contract is put out to bid and you don't
have the lowest price, or it turns out that you decide that the one level of
government is no longer an opportunity for you, then you're starting from
scratch going to the next government -- whether it's local or city or in a
different state or jurisdiction. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Corporate
contracting is the gift that keeps on giving in several different ways. The
first thing is once you get in, they have a vested interest in keeping you
there. If you continue to demonstrate that you know how to show value, there's
a good chance you're going to have that contract for years upon years. I’m
primarily talking about three-year, five-year contracts, because it's critical
that corporations have predictability and stability in their supply chain. They
do everything they can to make sure that the companies they have in their
supply chain continue to add value. This level of sustained vendor performance
means the least amount of disruption to the company’s operations. Disruption is
the enemy to the corporate supply chain. So, when they have great suppliers,
they want to keep them -- but you have to know it's not a giveaway. You must
earn your spot. You must make sure that you're adding value. Once you get in, they're
going to give you additional opportunities, because it's easier to give
business to an existing supplier than it is to bring in a new supplier.<br />
<br />
You must be smart about which opportunities you take, but they will offer you
additional opportunities. So right there if you can get in and demonstrate
value, there's a good chance it's going to be a contract that helps you to
build significant size and profitability once done right. There are some
companies out there who still have suppliers who have been with them since day
one -- and these are companies that have been around for 50 years, a hundred
years.<br />
<br />
As a matter of fact, some of those suppliers grew with them, and the corporate
client and the supplier are now both in the Fortune 500 list of companies. It's
not by accident that some of these companies have grown with their clients. Pick
a corporation – HP, Dell, IBM etc. and if you see that their tier-one supplier is
in the Fortune 500 (tier one meaning the first-tier supplier to a Fortune 100),
there's a good chance that that supplier has had longstanding contracts with
them, and they all grew together. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You will
frequently hear me say “A big business is nothing more than a small business
that did a lot of things right.” Most all of them at some point started out a
small business, so there's absolutely nothing for you to fear. This is a great,
great market for you to get into. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let me tell
you another way that this is a gift that just keeps on giving. Once you know
how to successfully sell your product and service into one of the big boys,
it's easy for you to go and sell it to another one, because now you've got a
case study that talks about what you did and the value that it brings. Now,
each company is different. They have unique supply chains and they may have a
cost advantage from the way they go about buying goods and services.<br />
<br />
They don't really want their competitors to know but once again, because you
know what you're doing, it's easy enough to adapt what you're doing to the next
company’s systems. There is a lot more similarity in these systems than a lot
of the big companies would care to admit. Once you get a contract with the
first one, you will have plenty of opportunities to get additional business. Not
only will you have the opportunity to do that, you can take the same product
and service and, with just a slight modification, offer it to a company in the
exact same industry. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Additionally,
you will have the opportunity to sell it across industries. A huge marketing and
business development strategy is to look at different industry segments --
health care, oil and gas, energy, automotive, banking, consumer durables,
technology, farming, agriculture and then focus on one industry first because a
lot of the sales and marketing language is going to be the same to all of the Fortune
500 in that industry. You know what their plan is -- you know how they go about
assessing value. You've proven that you can do it with one, so it’s highly
probable you can do it with the next one. Just take one industry segment at a
time and then once you feel like you've got a decent market share for that
industry, then go to the next industry and do it all over again; and then go to
the next industry and do it all over again. That works. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The final
gift that keeps on giving in this space is that working with the top companies
in the world is going to constantly change your business model and your
products and services, so that you are always leading the pack. You will be
able to create opportunities for your other customers and - if you do it right
- at higher profitability because they probably won't buy in the same volume as
your big corporate clients. They probably won't be as demanding, which means
there is really and truly a good chance that you can sell at higher profit
margins to those companies. For example, if somebody is buying 100,000 widgets
from you and somebody else is buying a hundred widgets from you, you're
probably going to lower the price on the 100,000 widgets but not on the hundred
widgets.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Once you have
a good book of business with a big corporation that's helping you to stay
sharp, stay innovative, pushing you to the edge to deliver value, you can pass
that along to your other customers. In which case, once again, it's the gift
that keeps on giving and it's one of those things that builds legacy. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you get
past being a small business, and actually do become a medium size business or
large business, then you now have put your mark on the world. You've left
something that can take care of your family. The companies that you hope to
work with are the ones that have a charity or a passion or a cause that they
know can really and truly make a difference in the lives of their family
members, their community, the globe, the environment. <br />
<br />
Now we all can do that in some form or fashion in our everyday lives. We don't
need legacy businesses to make that kind of difference. But if you have the
gift and the desire to start a business and you can not only provide a living
for you and your family, and jobs for the people that work for you, but you can
set the business up where it's programmed and it's systematic that it provides
funds for a charity and philanthropic work that you want to accomplish, think
about the impact that you will have at that point. That's why corporate
contracting is the number one way to build legacy for a small business owner.
Corporate contracting is “the gift that keeps on giving”. <br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-4861183767432840842021-12-18T12:55:00.000-06:002021-12-18T12:55:29.844-06:00 Pathway to Your Success - Part 2: Corporate Contracts vs Government Contracts<p> <span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is the
second in our “Pathway to Your Success” series where we walk you through issues
such as: corporate contracts versus government contracts; how do you use
corporate contracts for legacy business growth, and what does that mean; what
do large companies buy; w the time is now for small business owners to get into
this game, and how to go about financing your business so that you can play to
win.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
<br />
What is the opportunity that corporate procurement versus government
procurement presents? What really is the smartest choice for you to sell your
products right now? Corporate procurement; government procurement; retail; or
direct to customer now that you’re thinking about a legacy business,
sustainable growth, and something that will sell for a good multiple of
earnings or profit. The biggest challenge that small business owners have is
that you build these businesses, but they never sell for what you think they
should sell for.<br />
<br />
You probably have an idea in mind of what you're going to sell your business
for, and you're going to be lucky if you get 50% of that value. So, the
question becomes are there things you can do that help you to get 100% of what
you think you can sell it for? A large part of that has to do with which markets
you're in and how consistent is your business, so let's talk about corporate
versus government contracts. I want you to think of it as you making the
decision you want to fly. For those of you that are afraid of getting on
airplanes, just bear with the analogy here.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Imagine you
want to fly, and right now you can buy any mode of transportation to accomplish
that goal. You could </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">buy a helium
balloon. You know the helium balloon requires much work and it's not going to get
you someplace any faster or that fast at all. It's not going to take you that
high and there are a lot of risks associated with it. Then you say, well, maybe
I could learn how to fly a helicopter. A helicopter will only take you up so
high though, and it's only going to take you so far before you need to refill
it and you can't really put a lot in it. Then you might say, wow, maybe I need
a jet.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
<br />
Now you're left with “private jet or commercial jet”? They can fly for a lot of
hours, and five or 10 times faster than a helicopter, probably 200 times faster
than a hot air balloon. If you are trying to go across the ocean, if you're
trying to go from one end of the country to the other end of the country, you're
talking about doing it in three-and-a-half to four hours, whereas anything else
could take days.<br />
<br />
So think of your choice between corporate procurement and government
procurement as almost like the difference between riding in a helicopter versus a jet that can
take you to 40 and 50,000 feet and travel upwards of 600 miles per hour. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A number of
people will go with government contracting. You may choose government
procurement because the rules are pretty much the same for everyone. Let's talk about what's really geared for you -
the small business owner - with government procurement. We're not going to talk
about the exceptions in this episode because there are exceptions, but they're
not going to apply as much to your business right now.<br />
<br />
The thing to keep in mind with government procurement is that the rules are
pretty much the same for everybody. The government has set aside some money for
small businesses, so government contracting actually makes a lot of sense if
you're just starting your business. <br />
<br />
If you go for US government 8A certification, then you are limited on how many
years you can maintain an 8A certification, in which case you then have to
compete for government business like the bigger companies, which can be a good
thing. The government’s procurement process is 100% transparent. They'll tell
you who all bid. They'll tell you the prices of the bids, they'll tell you the
price of the winning bid. So, they pretty much have detailed requirements. The
requirements are exactly the same for everybody. If somebody comes in with a
better idea, they'll send that back out and share with everybody and have
everybody quote again so the playing field is even. <br />
The key is knowing how to successfully execute against the contract so that you
can get contract number two, three, four, five, etc. and just keep it going
like an engine. Government contracts may actually be the smart thing to do if
you're looking to cut your teeth or just get your business going to a point
where it's repeatable and it's sustainable. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now let’s
look at the opportunities with corporate procurement -- specifically supply
chain contracts. There is no limit to how many years you can have the contracts,
and depending on what commodity you're offering or what product or service
you're selling, there is no limit to how big you can grow with the company.<br />
There is also no limit to how many different companies to which you can sell.
So, government and corporate are two different games. Corporate procurement however
is not the same degree of transparency. I want you to think about it this way.
If you're the government and your income is paid by taxpayers, then you need to
have a system that is accountable to the taxpayers and in which case anybody
pays taxes should be able to see what's going on so that they can say, Hey, you
know, my business got a fair shot. My neighbor's business got a fair shot. My son,
my daughter, my wife's business, my husband's business, you know, my brother’s,
my sister’s and uncle’s business, they all got a fair shot and anybody can look
at that. You know, we talked about it being transparent. If you're a
corporation, then it only needs to be transparent to your shareholders and
stakeholders. It's typically internal, but it does not need to be transparent
to your competitors, and it's simply for this reason: you're trying to maintain
a competitive advantage. Each corporation hopes they buy better than their
competitors.<br />
<br />
Corporations set up systems and processes that they think make them more
competitive, including what they buy, the goods and services that they buy, I.
E. their supply chain. And they believe that the way they do it gives them an
advantage over the way others do it, so they don't want to give away their
secrets or confidential information. You as a seller have to know what the
market is for your product, because if you're walking up to one of the big
boys, you actually need to know the price that's out in the market for what you
do -- the value of what you're selling to their company. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Here is why
this is important in the context of government versus corporate: the vast
majority of the Fortune 500 companies purchase on value. They don't purchase on
price. When you look at a bid, the
company that got the bid has a higher value. They may have a higher cost, but
they also have a higher value - or lower total cost. The government has some
concerns around best value, but given their rules around transparency, more
often than not they go with the lowest price. When procuring the vast majority
of products and services offered by your company or other small businesses,
clearly they have standardized their processes and their procedures to try and
make sure there's a level playing field so that everybody is bidding on the
exact same thing. Thus, the opportunity for them to do best value is probably
not as great.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are
times though when the government buys on best value, and in their case, best
value could be other considerations like the winning bidder may have been
closer to their location (lower transportation costs), or they may have
actually had more inventory and were able to put together a configuration that
cost the government less money. More often than not though, they really and
truly look at the price, take the lowest price, and call it a day. Some of the
exotic things that they get into are the no-bid contracts, or the single source
or sole source contracts. Those are unique situations which you're not going to
run into at this point in your business. So, the big thing to keep in mind --
which is great for small business owners because we're all about innovation and
seeing the world from a totally different perspective -- is to understand lowest
total costs or best value, then you actually can design business models around
that. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You can
design products around that, you can apply your innovation to adapt to that
specific scenario, and you can take this commercial jet called your business to
the highest heights at the fastest speeds and go the farthest distance. That is
part and parcel to why corporate procurement makes for a great opportunity. It's
the number one way to build legacy for small business owners. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></p>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">To stay up to date on new business insights and
other exciting news, please go to www.blueprintpros.com and get on our email
list. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-20654461280656722362021-09-20T14:52:00.000-05:002021-09-20T14:52:16.932-05:00 Pathway to Your Success: Building Legacy<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is the
first in the “pathway to your success” series -- helping you to discover the
small-business growth opportunity with the biggest companies in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">We'll cover
various issues like corporate contracts versus government contracts; how to use
corporate contracts for legacy business growth; and what does that mean? What
do large companies buy, and why the time is now for small business owners to
get into the big corporate contracting game. We’ll also discuss how to go about
financing your small business so that you can play and win in this game and, of
course, the mindset for success. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This blog is
about legacy and giving back -- the small business owner’s dream. What I want
to discuss is why did you start your small business - or why are you thinking
about starting your small business? You get past the obvious things rather
quickly: “I can make some money”; “I'm fed up with my nine to five”; or “I want
to be my own boss”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of you have
wanted to have the independence. You felt like it was your time. You thought
that there was some unique something that you could do or that you thought was
missing in the marketplace. There was a need you could serve, but fundamentally
deeper than that, even if you ended up doing it out of necessity, you probably were
thinking, I want to start my own business because I want to build something. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">All of those
things are additional support and great reasons, but when you think deep down
about it, what does a small business really mean to you? For most of us - and
I'm pretty sure you're probably included in this - it means “I want to build
something. I want to leave something for the family. I want to make a mark. I
want to do something more substantial than just being a number in a big company
of people that come and go. If I do it right, I can make more money, I can
leave something for my kids; I can make a difference in the community; I can fund
passion projects that are near and dear to my heart. I feel like this is my
real shot at living my purpose and living in my purpose”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the
simplest terms, you get to come closer to living life on your own terms - at
least professionally. And if you triangulate it, or if you manage it, or if you
fund it properly, you will be able to do it both in your professional and your
personal life. <br />
<br />
That is really the core of “the dream”. The idea that in this world you can be
whatever you want to be. All you have to do is dream it, right? If you dream
you can believe; if you believe you can achieve, and so small business
represents a huge opportunity personally. I know you might be saying it's hard
out there. It can be daunting. It can be overwhelming. It can be outright scary
because you don't have a safety net unless you build it. Being a small business
owner does not come with a safety net. You have to build it, but you've seen so
many other people do it, so you know it can be done. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You hear things
like 90% - or better than 60 or 70% - of non-government employees work in small
businesses. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Small businesses in the
United States are economic engines and economic drivers and the economy thrives
on them. So if you grow a business - something bigger than a lifestyle business
where it’s just you, or you and one or two people -- you're going to make an
impact. When you have somewhere between five and 50, or five and 200 employees,
then you know that when they report those monthly statistics about job hirings,
they're talking about you. Those numbers are not driven by the top 10 or 20
companies in the world.<br />
<br />
Now don't get me wrong, those companies do significantly drive the economy, but
the majority of the impact on the economy comes from what you do. If you have
confidence that you know what you're doing and you've tapped into a market and you
have good things going, then your small business never looks back. Sure, you're
going to go through highs and lows just like every business does. I don't know
a business that hasn't been through them, but if you're confident in what you're
doing; you're managing the market; you're staying on top of your business; then
you ride those waves. And if you're a good small business owner, you've done things
to prepare for those downturns. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">A banker
friend once told me, “The best time to approach a bank about money is when you
don't need it”. I know you've probably heard that as well, but what he was sharing
was,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as an example, if you're thinking
about a warehouse line of credit for your business, then get it when times are
good -- so that when times are bad, that's not something that you have to deal
with or risk not being approved and you can weather that storm because you
acted before the storm came. This is just a small example of things you can do to
remove some of the fear of growing even bigger, making a bigger impact, doing a
whole host of other things. Why is this significant? Because we're in an
unprecedented time in the economy - big corporations have more economic
stability than they've seen in the last 10 years. They are spending capital
dollars. They're putting projects out there for three to five years into the
future.<br />
<br />
When corporations start talking about construction projects, it takes about a
year or two to plan those. Depending on the project, it can take about two, three
or even four or five years before the construction is complete. Then they start
putting into the books what they believe the additional revenue is going to be from
bringing that asset online. So that's how far out they're looking, and many of
them are beginning to look at more projects because they have confidence in the
tax environment; what's going on in the global economy; and a whole host of
things. The trade issue with China is creating an opportunity for many of the
companies that went there to come back to the US, or go to Central America or
South America, or go back to Europe and go back to other places.<br />
<br />
All of that creates more and more opportunity for small business owners because
you fill a gap that big companies just can't fill. So, if you are thinking that
you're not sure what the economic outlook is going to be for the next five-to-10
years, and whether or not your small business is going to be able to survive
and thrive in this market, what I would tell you is hang in there. Now, you may
have to sharpen the ax a little bit. If you don't recall what sharpening the ax
means, it means you may have to become more precise in some of your skillsets
and your ability to execute against the projects and learn a little bit more
with laser precision. You have to precisely target what particular customers
you're going to go after, and what's going to be the value proposition for them.<br />
<br />
You need to be sharp on how you figure out who the customers you want to target
are, and how to put a compelling business case in front of them. How do you go
about proving that you're the smartest choice they can make for that
opportunity; get the opportunity to cross the finish line; and get the
referrals and other additional business that comes after that so that you never
look back. So, you may have to sharpen your ax right now to be better prepared for
more opportunities ahead. You can't afford to chase all of them. You just can't,
but right now it's a great time to be a small business owner. I mean really and
truly, it doesn't matter whether you're going after big companies or whether
you're going after the public sector. Also, most of the governments around the
world are spending money, and government spend represents a major opportunity
for small business owners as well.<br />
<br />
I started this off with legacy and giving back. That leads me to answering
another part of the big why of the small business owner’s dream. I was in a
workshop and Christina Wise - who wrote a book called “Falling from Money” - a
bestseller - and also owns a company called “Wealthy, Wellthy Life” talked
about being clear on being a small business owner or an entrepreneur and what
that really means to your personal wealth. Obviously, you're not trying to do
this to be broke. You're not trying to do this to be poor. So, what does it
mean for your personal wealth? She said, “being a business owner in and of
itself does not create wealth”, primarily because most of our businesses really
never sell for the value we think they should. A lot of you say, “Hey, if I can
get 10 times profit or 10 times revenue or something like that when I sell my
business, that's great”, but it rarely turns out that way. So, she says
starting your own business is not your way to getting rich and she goes on to
further say that you really and truly have to think about personal wealth in
two terms. As a small business owner, she recommends that you say, “I have my
work business, my small business, or my corporate business -- and I have my
home business. That creates the space for you to think about what your actual corporate
or small business does.<br />
<br />
And she says once you're profitable, once you've stopped struggling and paying
everybody else and sacrificing your own personal wellbeing because you want
employees paid, once you get over that hurdle (which we'll discuss a little bit
more over the next few blogposts), she says what you're really looking at is
your small business. Your company is nothing but a cash flow generator. That's
it. That's all it does. So, if you build it well enough with corporate
contracts or government contracts or whatever and it generates enough cash for
you personally, and it takes care of your employees, and it takes care of your
giving and charitable work, you should actually simultaneously be focusing on
your home business.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">She said, you
have your work business, and you have your home business, and she said the
mistake that a lot of you make -- especially as small business owners and
entrepreneurs -- is that you don't manage your home business like you manage your
work business. In your work business, you know the numbers, you know the
profitability, you know a whole host of things, but invariably in the money
that we pay ourselves in our home business, our lifestyle rises to our income.
And she makes the point that if you're really and truly trying to create
personal wealth, you have to stop -- you have to run your home business like
your small business, and you have to figure out how to do three things: have an
investment account; a savings account; and then a household account where you
pay everything else out of what's left once you take care of taxes, investment
and savings.<br />
<br />
I share that because a large part of the dream is that you are financially
secure. It makes dealing with all the exciting things that come to you as a
small business owner more exciting because now you can devote all the mental
energy and everything else to the work business since you're not stressing out
over the home front. That too is part of the dream. Once again, I love that
concept because you are building a cash flow engine. That's what your business
is. That's what funds the legacy. That's what funds the giving back. That’s
what enables you to enjoy the journey. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the next blog,
I will discuss the corporate opportunity - meaning corporate versus government.
I think you're going to be excited about it being another step on your pathway
to success. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Please go to
www.blueprintpros.com and get on our email list to stay up to date on the
exciting things coming down the pike.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-70447957083503829782021-09-01T23:57:00.000-05:002021-09-01T23:57:22.923-05:00Prolific Opportunities Abound in Business Sections of Newspapers <p> <span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In past
episodes of this opportunity series, w</span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: 18.6667px;">e discussed Apple announcing a billion-dollar construction project. We discussed wearables; technology; the jobs report; drones; and people moving from one region to another. W</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: 14pt;">hat I hope you've been coming away with
is you just need to look at the business pages and see what's going on in the
news. You should see opportunity everywhere. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">As an
example, a couple of years ago an article about a building supplies company in
the US appeared in the newspaper. The company actually supplies a lot of
construction materials, home remodeling equipment, light fixtures, appliances
and different things you can use to remodel your home. Mostly do it yourself
jobs, but they also have a portion of their business where building contractors
come in and purchase supplies. Interestingly, they made an announcement that
they planned to hire 65,000 people. This was an article that delineated the
company’s plans. Let's look at some of the details of the announcement. The
company said some of the jobs were going to be permanent and some temporary. The
announcement came just two months after they said they were closing
underperforming stores in the US and Canada as part of a reorganization effort.<br />
<br />
The company indicated that about 50,000 of the positions would be seasonal, 10,000
would be permanent, and 6,000 people would be hired as full-time assistant
store managers and department supervisors to help improve customer service and
leadership. They said that they were sharpening their focus on retail
fundamentals and simplifying their business. That's what the CEO and president
said. They also said they were investing in key leadership positions across
their stores to enhance customer service, while also creating jobs that would
improve the availability of their most popular products; transform their
technology infrastructure; and provide more access to the home improvement
expertise of their store associates for customers. Now for the coup de gras --
they said they planned to eliminate some in-store support functions like their
project specialists interiors program to simplify operations.<br />
<br />
The company additionally went on to say they would close 20 stores in the US; 30
stores in Canada; and 99 affiliate hardware stores -- and they were writing
down 390 million to $475,000,000. Now this press release was a lot more
detailed about a company's strategy than you typically would see, but man, oh
man, did this news release tell you a lot about where the opportunities were. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Now there's
good news and bad news here. Let's get to the bad news -- which is that a good
bit of planning that they needed to do had already been done by the time they
made the announcement and they made it public. A tremendous number of decisions
had been made. Therefore, the wide-open scope of opportunities wasn't there.<br />
<br />
If you had already been into the company before this happened and were able to
be a part of that discussion, you clearly would have been able to have a
greater impact and more opportunity. However, the window of opportunity is
still substantial even though you're now hearing about this post announcement. Ask
yourself “what do I do and how might my business play a role”? This company is
going to spend a lot of money to bring 65,000 people in, which is part and
parcel to why they closed a lot of stores and the hardware business because
they wanted to create the cash to make this new investment that they think is
going to lead them down the road.<br />
<br />
This is a significant strategic change for them, so let's ask ourselves a few
questions. Why would the company be looking at doubling down on what appears to
be their core business? Home improvement <u>retail</u>, not home improvement <u>commercial</u>.
They're not looking to go after B-to-B business. They're going to retail, so
they're not necessarily interested in contractors. They're betting the farm
that they're going to get homeowners to come to their stores. They want to
improve the in-store experience, so they believe people are going to come into
their store. They don't necessarily believe that people are going to do all
their research on the internet. They believe there is a group of people that is
going to come in and still want that in-person experience, and they're doubling
down on the fact that they believe the home improvement market is going to be a
growth market for the next three-to-five years.<br />
<br />
This company is not making a 65,000 people investment assuming that they don't
have a growth market. Now, they may be wrong, but if they're right, I want you
to think about why they were doing this and what did they see? This is a pretty
substantial company - one of the major players. What are they seeing that is
counterintuitive? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">There are
what's called “leading” and “lagging” indicators. Home construction is
typically a leading indicator and if you start watching what's going on with
companies like Lowe's and Home Depot and Toll Brothers (who is actually a developer)
you start getting a sense of where that industry is going. In this case, this
company is betting the farm on consumer spending and they're betting the farm
that 65,000 people should help them to further solidify their position in the
consumer space for home improvement.<br />
<br />
Home improvement includes a couple of different things -- new home purchases,
or people doing renovation on their existing homes. It's kind of significant
here with this company that they're saying this is the future for them. What
does that mean for you? What that means for you is can your business do anything
to support the company’s goal of improving upon their experience with
homeowners? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">They've
given us some clues here. They said they wanted to hire store manager's
department supervisors. They want to improve customer service and leadership,
and they want to create jobs that will improve the availability of their most
popular products. They might need some help in figuring out how to do that. What
are they going to do with their products that aren't so popular? They then go
on to say they want to transform their technology infrastructure. What does that
mean? Might they want more automation? Maybe they want more demos in store.
Maybe they want people to be able to walk into a store and get a picture of
what something that they see on the shelf might look like in their homes. Maybe
they want to develop apps or holographic information or 3D information or other
types of things so that they can create a better user experience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">They go on
to say that they want to transform their technology infrastructure and provide
more access for customers to the home improvement expertise of their store
associates. They're saying that whatever it is that their associates think
might solve the problem that a residential customer brings in, somehow or
another they want to have a technology infrastructure that allows the customer to
take advantage of their expertise. Don't get blown away here about the
technology. What I really want you to focus on is all of these are going to be
projects -- all of this is going to be leading edge. All of this is going to
bring a new experience from the company to their customers via their
associates.<br />
<br />
This new technology is going to require upgrades to their systems and processes. They're going to have to look at their IT
infrastructure. They're going to have to look at their management and
leadership training programs. They're going to have to rethink what the
customer experience looks like and how their associates begin to deliver. In
this case, you can probably start thinking about if the next generation of home
buyers is millennials, or your AirBnB aficionados, or your Instagram folks,
what does that experience look like? <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">You now have
to think through a little bit more how your business plays into all of those
things. Assuming consumer durables is not one of your market segments this may
not be one of the opportunities you want to go after right now, but if you are
doing something that fits right into this, this is an amazing opportunity. There's a whole host of things that they can
do, but I still want you to imagine what it takes to onboard 65,000 people in
12 months?<br />
<br />
What are the processes that somebody puts in place to onboard 65,000 people in
12 months? They said 50,000 of them were
going to be seasonal, so now they have to off-board 50,000 of those people.
Now, what might your company do? What services might you offer that helps them
to identify the permanent people, and get them ingrained in the company culture?
And then what might you do with those 50,000 people? What processes might you
offer to help offboard those people into wherever it is they need to go next?
Where did they come from? Who might have the next industry that would require
the skill sets of those folks If these are people comfortable with seasonal
work? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">There was a
huge nugget in the article when it talked about the company closing all of
their hardware stores and having to write down 390-million-to-475 million. What's
going to happen to those buildings? What's going to happen to those communities
in which all hardware stores were located? What's going to happen to all that
inventory? Is there anything that your company does that helps to manage that
entire shutdown process, or might there be some things you can identify so that
rather than making the decision to shut down they can get greater utilization
out of all the resources that they had at those stores? We often don't get a
company laying out for us precisely what their strategy is -- what they're
hoping to gain. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">If you walk
into this company and you start sharing with them what specific element of the
things that they lay out in this article you can help them with, you're going
to have a customer for life. You're going to have more opportunities than you
know what to do with. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Once again,
I was reading the newspaper and this opportunity appeared, so at that time I
could have done the following: fired up my network; got on Linkedin; talked to
some of my neighbors. Who did I know that worked at the company? Who did I know
that could have gotten me in so I could talk to somebody? Where did I vector in
and what could I have validated was something that they were working on at that
time? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Before I end,
let me make sure I discuss one other opportunity presented by this article. How
did this impact the company’s competitors and what could you have done to help
them? There was going to be a tremendous amount of repositioning going on just
by the mere fact that they made this announcement and their competitors were
trying to figure out how they were going to respond in the marketplace. So, if
you had a great solution and you couldn't get it in at the company hiring
65,000 people, you might very well have gotten it in at their competitor’s by
saying, “here's something that we thought your competitor could have taken
advantage of, but it looks like they didn’t. You can actually take market share
from them because they weren't smart enough to take us up on what we believe is
a game changer for them. At any rate, I just wanted to put that out there for
you”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">These are suggestions and ideas geared toward helping
your small business get a greater share of the big corporate spin. Please go to
www.blueprint.com and get on our email list so that I can keep you up to date
on news and on other exciting news. We have some great things coming down the
road. </span></span>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-64005263420617212762021-08-12T20:10:00.000-05:002021-08-12T20:10:28.096-05:00HOW OPPORTUNITY MATERIALIZES WHEN BUSINESSES ARE HIRING<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This is a continuation
of the opportunity series. Here I will be discussing opportunities found in the
US jobs report. The most recent jobs report showed that, in the USA, over 900,000
jobs were added in the last period. That's huge. We went through a period where
we were only adding a fraction of jobs in a period and then 900,000 jobs in this
last period. In the US we have what's called the labor participation rate, and
the labor participation rate measures how many available adults are actually
gainfully employed -- which is different from the unemployment number. Pre-pandemic,
the labor participation rate was at a historic 72 percent. Typically, the US
will hover in the mid-to-high sixties, but at that time we were at an
unprecedented 72 percent -- meaning that 72 percent of all working-age people
are getting jobs and we are getting well beyond full employment. Post-pandemic it
appears that we are on pace to achieve and exceed our previous historic
high. We actually have a robust economy,
so I want you to think about what that really means. What does it mean for
corporations to add 900,000 non-farm-labor jobs in a period? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">First, we
need to travel backwards a bit as I'm sure you've seen this in the news. The issue
in the news is typically about companies “reducing” their labor force. We hear
of layoffs or reductions in labor. Why is it that there seems to always be a
knee jerk-reaction to let people go in an economic downturn? You may ask “why
does that happen?” It's a simple reason. People drive costs.<br />
<br />
Let me say it one more time. People drive costs in any business, and more so
the bigger the company. Depending on your industry, one person can cost their
employer anywhere from 50-to-250-percent of their pay, so let's just make the
math easy. If you're paying them 10 dollars an hour, they can easily cost your
company internally 15 dollars an hour -- up to 30-to-35 dollars an hour. This means you need to have a minimum revenue
of $15-$35 per hour to cover the cost of that employee. This does not include
any other direct costs or any profit.
This is just the one employee.<br />
<br />
Now you may wonder “what's all in that number”? Well, let's analyze what's all
in that number. What's in that number is direct benefits. You have to pay
people above and beyond their paycheck, so you have what's called statutories -
which include a social security tax and a government tax that the employer pays
above and beyond what is paid to the employee. These are known as payroll taxes.
Depending on the country, the numbers are even higher if the government
mandates that the employer has to pay for healthcare and retirement and all those
other kinds of things above and beyond what somebody makes in their base wage. Additional
expenses of labor include what you are paying for buildings and for computers
and for other services that the company offers – including HR.<br />
<br />
If you're just hiring one person, it's probably not so bad, but if you hire 100
there's a host of things that you have to have in place to support having a
company with 100 employees. When you get to 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, you can
start seeing that internally what you have to pay just to have people on the
payroll has absolutely nothing to do with what you're paying them. What does it
cost just to hire people? When you start hearing companies say that they have
overhead and additional corporate costs, those numbers really and truly are
real. Those are not soft numbers.<br />
<br />
We can get into a separate argument around whether those costs are being
optimized and whether people have way too many internal costs based on the
amount of labor they have. I'll cover that in a subsequent blog, but the point is
that the cost really and truly is real -- whether a company is top heavy or not
top heavy. When companies announce that they are letting employees go, like
General Motors announced towards the end of 2018, they're saying that they need
to take some costs out of their North American operations because they aren't
profitable. They didn't see enough revenue coming in in their domestic
production to support that level of people cost.<br />
<br />
By the way, that reduction in cost is almost immediate. Truth be told, when you
start letting people go and you start turning the lights off where offices were,
and you start taking people off the computer network, and you start letting go
of the healthcare costs and all those other kinds of things, the cost reduction
is actually realized rather quickly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Now let's
get to the opportunity portion of this topic, which is on the flip side. What
does it mean if you have employers hiring 300,000 employees in a period? It's
the exact reverse of what we just talked about. If they're hiring that many people,
you can go into the US Bureau of Labor Statistics website and you can look up
which industries are hiring. This will be all non-farm-related information because
farming is a bit more seasonal.<br />
<br />
Typically the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Department of Census go
through and look at the non-labor portion because that's more of an indicator
of what's really going on in the economy. In this case, what it tells you is what’s
going on with the Fortune 500 companies. Their hiring practices will be a big
component, although probably not 100 percent of all that growth. Small business
really and truly has been a huge driver of a lot of labor growth, but big
companies also will participate in that. What will be interesting is to look at
the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) and see which industries are hiring. If
you go to some of the job websites -- Glass Door, Indeed.com, etc. you will
start seeing, once you zero in on those industries, which companies are hiring
and in what positions the employees are working. <br />
<br />
Are they hiring blue collar or white collar? Are they hiring managerial or
specific skill sets and expertise? That knowledge should help you figure out
what opportunities are available to your company based on the addition of
people. People drive costs, period. You cannot have a business that hires
people and does not spend money. It's impossible. If they're hiring people,
they're spending money. Kind of like
your business. If you're hiring people, you're a) making money, but b) you're
spending money. By definition, as soon as businesses bring somebody on, they’re
spending money. If they're spending money, they're engaging suppliers at a
greater rate. They've got to buy some more stuff: they have to buy more office
equipment; they have to buy more technology; they have to buy more training;
they have to buy more consulting. They have to buy more just from the mere fact
that they're hiring. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">So, in this
case, when you start looking at these jobs reports, a bell should be going off
in your head. Well, are they hiring in my sector where I'm strong? If they're
not hiring in oil and gas, where are they hiring? Where did some of the people
that you used to work with tell you that they're going? What industries? What
companies? Where are they telling you that their children are working? When you
start hearing these kinds of things you should focus on “where's the
opportunity there for your business”? Where can I go to build my pipeline, and
what does it mean when folks announce that they're hiring? What additional
costs are they going to incur and how is it that my company can help them to get
more productivity out of every single dollar they spend? Can I help them to
onboard their people? Can I help them train their people? Can I help them make
their people more productive? Can I help them provide technology or processes
to their people that allow them to get things done more efficiently, more productively?
Can I help their people with<span style="color: red;"> </span>the process geared towards some
strategic outcome that the company has identified they want to pursue?<span style="color: red;"><br />
</span><br />
Stay focused, but also recognize how all of these gifts that don't appear to be
directly geared toward your business help you to achieve your focus. I am not
saying stop doing what you're doing right now and go chase this, that, or the
other. I’m saying that in the process of building your business, recognize that
there are opportunities falling out of the sky coming to you from every
direction. It's a matter of taking that opportunity and integrating it into
your plan so that you continue to always have opportunities and have a future
for your business.<br />
<br />
What I want you to take away from this is the understanding that people create
opportunity. They always have. They always will. Even as we talk about
automation replacing people, remember that at some point somebody is creating
that automation. Until we get robots creating robots - which is a separate
issue – we have people that are manufacturing all of the components and
equipment and technology that go into automation. Yes, at some point or
another, this all originates with a person somewhere who is making all this
happen. When you know where that's occurring -- if the addition of people
creates opportunities for what you offer to the marketplace -- you can then see
the potential for your business. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Please go to www.businesspartnerblueprint.com and
get on our email list. I will help you stay up to date with future blogs, and
I'll keep you up to speed on other exciting news. We're going to have some
great things coming down the pike.</span> </span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-59727524035584476912021-07-19T11:51:00.002-05:002021-07-19T11:56:42.260-05:00OPPORTUNITY EXISTS EVERYWHERE - PART 2 <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a
continuation of our Opportunity Everywhere series. I am going to focus on
opportunities created by drones. In my last blog I discussed wearables. By discussing
these products, my intent is to really open your mind up to the idea that you
should be able to pick up the newspaper and see an opportunity for your
business every day. Don’t get trapped into the mindset that you have to always
look for a specific thing. Yes, that's good - - you always want to stay
focused. You want to always make sure that you're capitalizing on what you do
best because that's leverageable. It builds on your core, it helps you with
your competitive differentiation. Doing what you do best is a huge formula or
ingredient for success, but you may be missing some great opportunities that
are not within the parameters of your exact search. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How do you
really analyze what's going on in the business environment right now so that
you can present what you do best to businesses that, at the moment, may not
even know they need you? Let’s use drones as illustrations of this process, because
you may not think that drones have anything to do with your business. These
flying machines going around doing stuff here and there - that's kind of a
hobby, recreation kind of thing, right? That's not something that impacts what you
do. You’re in staffing; you’re in chemical manufacturing; you’re in
construction. What would drones have to do with you? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, let's
just think about this and let's talk about Henry Ford for example. Now it made
a lot of sense that somebody would say, well, if I didn't have to deal with
horses -- you know, you have to feed them; you have to care for them. They only
live so long. They can only go so long a day. So then he decided he was going
to make a horseless carriage. People thought he was crazy, but then it was proven
that it could be done. The untold story about the horseless carriage is the
industry that it created. I want you to think about the automobile industry as
it exists today, and the opportunity that has been created for what we call “prom
suppliers” (those suppliers that are direct to the car manufacturers: second
tier, third tier, fourth tier). Just think about all the various services that
a car manufacturer needs. You name it - from soup to nuts. They require medical
services. They need construction to build plants. They need people skills. They
need technology. They need pretty much everything. They buy computers, they buy
refrigerators, they buy office supplies, they buy medical equipment, they buy
just so many various things. It's staggering to start looking at what all they
purchase - and only because someone decided that they wanted a horseless
carriage. Think about what drones mean to the automobile or the transportation
industry in general today. Yes -- major disruption. The whole notion that
Amazon might actually be able to stop using vehicles is impactful. They're
experimenting with using drones to actually deliver packages right now. Just
imagine what that means if you have a company that has a fleet of vehicles for
cargo services. I don't really care how big or small the cargo service is. What
does that mean? How much savings might they have if they can abandon the cost
of the fleet and move to drones, which at this point are unregulated. There is
going to be a whole host of issues, but if it turns out that economic benefit
is there, they’re going to find a way to get greater utilization of drones. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What does it
mean if your business can bring a solution utilizing drones to an existing
customer? Think about how you would deliver your service if either you were
bringing a solution to them to use drones, or they were using drones and you
anticipated some of their other needs that occur from using drones. For
example, who's going to fly the drones? How are they going to be maintained? How
do you train people on that? Where do you get the skills from the pilot, the
drones or to do drone repair? What do you do if you have issues while the
drones are in flight, or if they get some place and they get stuck or other
kinds of things? What opportunities are created just by the mere fact that
somebody is using a new technology? What are the additional technologies that
they're going to need? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These issues
are similar to what the horseless carriage was like. It's one thing to get it
out. It's another to actually build it into a production facility. What might
somebody need to support a horseless carriage industry? What might someone need
to support a drone industry? What are going to be the impacts on the people, processes
and technologies in that company, and how might my company help?<br />
<br />
If you know that there is a new industry being created around drones, how might
you insert your business into that industry? Now we are talking about the
innovation and the type of thinking that actually helps fortune 500 companies advance
their cause. Now you are looking at bringing innovation in, and now you are
beginning to show them what it is your company can do to help them become more
productive, to add more value, to save money, to reduce operating costs. You're
now in that process where you're looking at just the mere fact that we're
getting into driverless cars. If Uber, Lyft, and it looks like General Motors are
actually looking at more self-driving cars, what's going to be the impact of
that as companies begin to roll it out? And what might be the role you can play
to help them adopt that technology into their business, because they're going
to need <br />
things that they haven't really thought of just yet -- and that's going to
create huge opportunities for the supply base. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With these
illustrations, I hope to open your mind to realizing that when you read the
newspaper every single day, you should see opportunities for your business --
ways you can play in different parts of the fortune 500 supply chain, and take
your business to levels you hadn't even begun to imagine.<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-55455001389185734922021-06-04T20:47:00.000-05:002021-06-04T20:47:03.012-05:00Opportunity Everywhere - Knowing Where to Look for Big Corporate Contracts<p> <span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is
a continuation of the series about how to land big corporate clients. Let us
review items in the news and talk about opportunity. Let us change the question
of “does opportunity exist” to “where should I look for opportunity and how do
I identify it”?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
That's right – the question is never “is there opportunity?”. It is always an
issue of “how do I recognize opportunity? How do I spot it? How do I know if
it's something that I should be looking for?” So, once again, this is
about acquiring a mindset and skill set -- becoming a more savvy at spotting
opportunities for your business -- or more precisely, building a robust sales
pipeline. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Let’s
look at Apple for an example of how to spot opportunity. Recently, Apple
announced a $1 billion project for a campus in Austin, Texas. $1 billion is a
lot of money, and there will be considerable suppliers that will benefit from
this investment in Texas. Now you might say, “well, that's great, but that's
not helping me. I can't be a part of that”. Maybe, maybe you can, maybe you
can't. If you have the attitude that you can't be a part of it, yeah, you're
absolutely right. One of the things I can tell you is Apple is one of the most
progressive companies in doing business with small, diverse business owners, so
you better bet Apple is looking for suppliers like you if you can come up with
a way to show them that you actually can help them. So, this is not an issue of
“that cake is already baked”. You do have a chance to get in -- knowing that
Apple is actively looking for companies like yours. And oh, by the way, this
isn't the only project they have coming in the near future.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
Even though there were suppliers that got in line before the project was
announced - which quite frankly is a situation you want to be in - there's
still opportunity for you on this one. Once you start the conversation with
Apple, there's opportunity for you on the next project and the one after that.
What I want to flesh out in this case is the strategy of how to get in and how
to position yourself and how to be ready before the opportunity comes - which
is really and truly what a Business Partner blueprint is all about. It promotes
getting your company ready, in anticipation of the opportunity, because the
corporate space is not a “Johnny-come-lately” space. A corporate space is not,
“we'll come in after, after everything's done”.<br />
<br />
The corporate space, when you do it well is you want to be ready for the
opportunity before it comes. You do this so you can over-deliver. You do not
want to make it up as you go. So, in this case, let's talk a bit more about the
myriad, the sheer number of opportunities created in this announcement. You
might say, “okay, all right, the project is being done in Austin, so if I'm not
in Texas, I can't support this project”. That is not true. There is work that's
going to be pulled in from various places. There is architectural and design
work. There is equipment sourcing and
parts sourcing. There are going to be people working on this project from
different parts of the country. Depending on whom Apple hires to do what, they
are going to be bringing people and companies in from around the world.<br />
<br />
So no, don't automatically assume that since the project is going to be in
Austin, and you're not in Austin, you can't participate. you might say, “Oh,
well this is construction and I'm not in construction”. Once again, wrong, I
want you to think about what goes in a building. Everything goes in a building. Constructing
it - not to mention things that go in the building to operate it - including
lawn care, including janitorial products, washrooms, including getting people
hired. So if you're in staffing, office equipment, flooring, tiling, if you're
in supplies, if you're in HVA, then you can pitch your services. If you're in
pretty much anything - if you make sheet rock, if you do steel girders, if you
make lightbulbs, if you are into energy efficiency and energy management
services, green products, equipment rentals, computers, telemetry and smart
devices - there's pretty much an opportunity, even writing down processes and
procedures, technical writing, etc... On a $1 billion project, there's a good
chance that Apple will need your skills. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now your
trick is going to be navigating how to figure out where this sourcing is being
done. Is it being done by Apple directly? Is it being done by one of their
prime contractors or their general contractor? Or is it going to be one of
their subcontractors that you're going to have to identify.<br />
<br />
There are several ways you can go about identifying this. You can first see if
you can go through supplier diversity; you can then see if you can go to
supplier diversity for some of the prime suppliers supporting the project,
because eventually Apple will announce who are the lead architects. They are
going to let you know who the general contractors are and some of the primes,
and those people also have a responsibility to make sure that small businesses
and diverse businesses are supported. You will have to navigate through that as
news releases come out or as you get more detailed information on the project.
There will be no end to the various things that they will need - not only to
get the building built, but to operate it once is going.<br />
<br />
If you start thinking through what you offer -- whether you're offering a
product or service; management consulting; product support widgets or whatever
-- once you really and truly think through what is the essence of a $1
billion construction project, you come to realize that construction projects
for the most part are </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">huge spends,
huge amounts of money, huge sums that go into initiating a continuous spend.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> They are going to spend a billion putting this thing in place,
but you can best well bet that they additionally will spend hundreds of
millions every year to keep it going. Something going on in that location has
to pay for that billion dollars, so somehow they're going to have to spend
money in order to make the money to recover the cost of building the doggone
thing, which means that they're going to need suppliers in there to do that
work as well.<br />
<br />
They're going to need vendors, they're going to need contractors. They're going
to need people providing products and services once it's up and running. Just
to think this through, pick a building, pick any building, I don't care what
the building is. You can take a corporate office building that you have visited
and start thinking through “what do they consume in this business/building”?
That is, what are they going to need to consume in Apple's building.
Additionally, when you start thinking about constructing it, a lot of the
administration, project management and project execution requirements that they
need to build it encompass a lot of the exact things that you're offering, so
that is huge right now. And Apple is looking for folks to help them. That's the
purpose of making the announcement. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">What's
the impact to the community? They know what the impact to the Austin community
is going to be, but they also understand that if they spend $1 billion, $1
billion easily translates into $4 or $5 billion of economic impact, or more.
That is money that is going to go out the door. So, when you read it in the
newspaper or when you read that companies are making these types of
investments, that is exactly what you want to think through “if I were to try
and approach them, where might I plug what we do into this”? Now bear in mind,
we previously discussed being smart about the industry sectors that you picked.
So, if their technology is not in your identified sector, and you're not in
construction, then this may not be where you want to plug in.<br />
<br />
There's a learning curve and you're going to have to displace some existing
suppliers. So, if this is not where you want to play, that's okay. However,
when you read these types of announcements - even if it's a company that is not
in your sector; that you’re not currently targeting; that you’re not currently
focused on, think through “what do I really do and where can I vector in?
Where can I fit in to figure out what's going on”? Once you crystallize that
analysis, that way of thinking, that way of identifying where an opportunity
for your company exists in that type of announcement, then for companies in
your sector that are building new campuses, that are building new projects, you
can now go in and have a better conversation with them about how can you
participate in those areas and consequently, drive revenue and growth to your
business.<br />
<br />
My prediction is that we're going to see capital spend increase over the next
few years. So, the better you get at analyzing these types of announcements and
understanding how to make these opportunities work for you, the
better-positioned your company will be for success. Again, the question is not
if the opportunity exists, the question is where should you look and how do you
identify the opportunity? You are going to see more places where you actually
can drive additional growth. You can create opportunities in your pipeline, and
you can actually have a really huge, huge opportunity for your business. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">In future blogs, I am going
to further evolve this topic to help you achieve more and more precision
around the specific things that you can do. Stay tuned.</span>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-41269549805040452452021-04-15T14:13:00.000-05:002021-04-15T14:13:30.703-05:00RESULTS VS EFFORT<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">We
have already delved into the first two pillars of building a legacy business:
Be Yourself - and Be The Best. My focus in this post is on the third : “deliver,
deliver, deliver”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In
my opinion and my judgment, these are the three things that really matter, and
they matter regardless of whether you are a woman or a man. They encompass the
mindset, the attitude, the body of work, the way you set your business up, your
approach to business. These are the three success factors that - once you have
these down - you'll never look back. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
am hoping that you have already learned some things that you can implement in
your business almost immediately. In your next interaction with anybody from a
corporation, these things should come across and the person just senses and
feels in you that you are the person with whom they need to do business. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Let
me start by sharing a short story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We won't
be long on this topic, as you should already know the point of the story. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">A
mechanical engineer, having learned a lot of the basic engineering principles
and finished college, gets his first major project to build a bridge. It isn't
a big, big bridge. It may have been a 10th of a mile -- <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>just crossing over a local stream. He isn't
trying to cross the Mississippi River or the Seine in Germany or any other
major river that's a quarter mile or half a mile across.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He performs all of the planning and then takes
it in for a supervisor to review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
supervisor looks at it and goes, “well, you know, I see you put a lot of work
into this. I can see a lot of the detail. I see how you pulled the project
plans together. There is a lot of work here, but I see one problem”. The
engineer asks, “what, what, problem? What do you see?” The supervisor then just
asks him, “okay, would you drive on this bridge?” And the engineer says, “what
do you mean would I drive on this bridge? What are you seeing”? The supervisor
looks at him and says, “your bridge is a foot too short”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The engineer thinks, “I did a great job. How
can that be?” He tells the supervisor, “Well, okay, then I'll just go back and
figure out what it takes to put an extra foot in there and we'll just go from
there. The supervisor looks at it and goes, “you know, when I hired you for
this project, I hired you because you had a great broad background and you had
all the skills and education and everything necessary to do the job, but you're
proposing to me a bridge that's a foot to short and I'm not driving on a bridge
that's a foot to short. I'm not going to recommend anybody take that road. I'm
not going to have my customers go down that road. I am not going to trust my
vehicle on a bridge that's a foot to short.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="background: #F8E81C; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="background: #F8E81C; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">This equates to approaching a corporate buyer with the best
of intentions, trying to land a corporate contract, only to realize that you're
presenting a bridge that's a foot too short.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> The
question then becomes, how do you make sure you don't find yourself in that
situation? What do you need to do? What precisely needs to happen so that you
don't find yourself building bridges that are consistently a foot short? In
other words, how do you set your business up so that you deliver, deliver,
deliver? How do you ensure that, not only is your bridge exactly the right
length, it's going to last the longest of time; and it's going to be the best
bridge ever built by anybody building bridges. This comes from your body of
work. T<span style="background: #F8E81C;">he simplest thing I can share with you is
make sure that you (and you've heard this often) under-promise and over-deliver.
Make sure you detail out the mandatory customer’s requirements.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="background: #F8E81C; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Seek every opportunity to go to the customer and verify. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get their validation and support and buy-in at
every single step of the process. Be transparent with them about what it's
going to take to do the job, how long it's going to take to do it, and whom
you're going to use to do it. C</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">orporate
clients don't like surprises. If you're going to surprise them, it had better
be a good surprise, and even then sometimes that can backfire on you -- so you
have to be careful about good surprises. Do not confuse surprises. They are
never going to be disappointed in over-delivering results, but they can be
disappointed with surprises. Now you have their buy-in, you have their full
support and you're going along, you're keeping them up to date as you go along -
letting them know that everything is proceeding properly and without exception.
If there are any adjustments you need to make in the process, you need to make
those so that you can incorporate any changes that they want to bring about. When
the project is completed - could be an hour-long project, a day-long, week-long,
month-long, year-long, even 10-years-long, but you want to keep your customer apprised.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Here
is the significance of all of this. Once you get that completed, you want to be
able to get your customer to complete a customer satisfaction survey -- not
overly complicated, not overly involved, just something where they can give you
some feedback on what it was like to work with you and the significance, the
impact of your work. What did it mean to their company? What were the savings
that they were able to see? What increase in productivity did they observe? How
much time did it save them? What did it do to their investment: did they not
have to hire as many people or did they not have to fire somebody, or did they
not have to spend budget dollars in another area? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">All
of these questions are great things that show the impact of what you did, or
more precisely, how you were able to deliver and just do that at every single
turn. When you have a good customer interaction, get the feedback. When you
have a bad customer interaction, it is even more important that you get that feedback.
In good ones you definitely want that feedback; you want it in their words; and
you want to get their permission to share it with others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Then,
over time, once people have seen that you have the ability to deliver; that you
can generate results; and that you consistently add value, you will have a body
of work with a proven track record and it will be difficult for them to
question if you can deliver. The only question you will have to ask at that
point is can you deliver in their environment, and that's where your skill set
of knowing <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>their processes and
procedures and what goes on in their environment comes into play. If you
understand how they go to market; if you understand what is significant about
what differentiates them from their competitors; and you are able to
demonstrate how what you do will operate in their world and their environment,
then you've addressed the issue of will it work for them - which is the heart
of deliver, deliver, deliver. You have a proven track record; you have the
confidence of having done it for other clients and you have proven you are able
to effectively demonstrate that you know how to adapt your solution to that
particular customer's environment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">So
that you're not building bridges that are a foot too short, we'll just circle
back quickly. There's a perception that it is different for women in the
boardroom than it is for men and that's probably the reality for a whole host
of people, but if you put the gender issue aside and you focus on what I
believe to be the three major success ingredients - be the best, be yourself
and deliver <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- then your company is going
to be highly successful and you will never look back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">We
have some other topics that we will cover in these three areas because there is
quite a bit of a meat on these bones in terms of specific tactics and
strategies that you can use to support these three concepts. I wanted to get
you up to speed on the three concepts themselves because just having the fundamental
understanding of these three things, these three pillars, these three anchors
you can do everything else as a derivative or everything else as a subset of
all of this. What did we do to be ourselves? Are we doing what we do? Are we
staying in our lane? What are we doing to be the best in class - to be
recognized as one of the industry leaders in what we are doing?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What
are we doing to make sure that when our customers view us, we look like we're
the best possible solution they can have. How are we creating value at every
single turn year over year? Just because we did well last year does not mean
what we did last year is going to work this year, so what are we doing to make
sure that we are creating the value that our customers need, expect and demand?
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">To
bring this home -- results matter. Results versus effort. What is the
difference? Results mean you delivered, so let's make sure you don't build a
bridge that's a foot too short. Let’s make sure that you are constantly
bringing in results and your customers know that your company delivers,
delivers, delivers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Please
go to www.blueprintpros.com and get on our email list to stay up-to-date on new
blogposts, podcasts and other exciting news. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-48235946367630816502021-03-06T20:50:00.000-06:002021-03-06T20:50:24.275-06:00No 1 vs No 2 --Who Cares<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">This
is part three of our series on Women in the Boardroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the last two blogs I presented the three
main things that I believe are relevant to this topic: being yourself; being
the best; and deliver, deliver, deliver. We also discussed debunking some of
the perceptions out there and how to finesse those. Now we're going to get
in-depth about being the best. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What
do I really mean by being the best? Well, let's a journey. It will have twists
and turns. We're going to go over the river and through the woods to
grandmother's house and back, but trust me, we have a destination in mind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I'm
going to pull three major concepts together in order for you to really get a
good picture of what it means to be the best in the corporate context. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Compare
the rental car companies Avis and Hertz. Hopefully you recall the commercials
from years back where Avis had a series of commercials emphasizing the motto “we
try harder”. Basically, Avis was saying that they understood that they were the
number two car rental company behind number one Hertz. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">This
goes back 20 years or so, but the model - the analogy is still accurate or
still applicable because in this case, even with the mergers and acquisitions
and consolidation going on in the car rental industry, the two big companies continue
to be Avis and Hertz. As you think about those two, and it is not to say that
you haven't had a bad experience, but as you think about those two would you
say “Yeah, for the most part, as those two move, so goes the car rental industry”.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Now
this has nothing to do with the Uber and Lyft that you know. This has nothing
to do with the specialty or niche car rental market. As you start thinking
about the two top brands out there, you would still say it's Avis and Hertz
this many years later, but here's the interesting thing about it. Any
conversations you have about the rental car business are going to be “how do
you stack up against those two”? Those two are considered best in class. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
want you now to imagine that you are in a conversation with a corporate buyer, and
imagine they perceive that you and your company are best in class. There you
go. Problem solved. If you are perceived to be best in class, then you have
done the work to earn your spot in the board room. If they believe that you
have something that is either best in class or it can help them get to be best
in class, then you are there. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Let's
look at the opposite, untoward circumstance. Would you as a business owner or
corporate buyer want to put your business at risk by working with the worst in
class? You wouldn't - so we can take that option off the table. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Now
under what circumstances would you say, “let me go with the middle of the road”?
Well, you might do that based on cost and if the risks are low, but it wouldn't
be your first choice, right? Your first choice would most likely be to “let me get
the best that I possibly can for the available budget that I have - if not the
best period”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Fortune
500 corporations are not consciously going out and looking for the worst or
looking for mediocrity. They are looking for the best. Some of the components
of being the best are your subject matter expertise; your domain knowledge; and
your ability to crystallize the value that your company offers within the
context of the systems and processes of your customers. If you can show them
how this saves them money, they will invite you to come back and offer you more
opportunities. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Now
that you have been perceived to be among best in class, there has to be
evidence of it, so let me take you back to the late eighties - early nineties,
then forward to today. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">There
have been four major systems initiatives put in place that, more than anything
else, have helped external customers - and even internally within large
corporations - start to get transparency around their systems and processes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">These
initiatives allow companies to see what they can improve on, and quickly
identify what's not working and how to fix it. That is the major purpose for
setting up systems and processes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">First,
you want repeatability - you want to be able to consistently deliver high
quality and reliability in whatever is your output. Second, you want to be able
to document it so that you can train people on what precisely and specifically
needs to be done. Third, you want an audit trail of what happened so that when
something doesn't work, you can get to a root cause quickly and then you can
solve it for the system. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Even
if the root cause is one off, you should be able to make an adjustment to the
process to make sure that you preclude against that happening again. You
additionally want to be able to represent to customers that you have your
processes well-documented so that you can precisely solve any issues that arise.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">If,
and when something comes up, you are then in position to assure them that their
processes, their systems, their product, their company are not put at risk
based on something your company did or didn't have the ability to fix.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Quality
- the first system initiative - began in the late eighties and early nineties. The
developers of the quality initiative received the Malcolm Baldrige award
because they had quality processes, controls and procedures in place that gave
the most reliability, repeatability, a high level of quality customer service, and
product features and benefits that didn't break down or tear up. That was followed
with a global initiative - ISO 9,000 - and related programs. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Now
imagine what that means. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If for example you
have an issue with lettuce recalls. The ISO process allows you to go back and
identify most major things in the process where you can quickly locate
something that went wrong and then quickly remedy it. So, both ISO and quality,
with regard to documenting your process and knowing what came from where are
huge, especially in an unfortunate situation. If you design these and do them
right, then you have consistent, repeatable, predictable output on the end,
which is what you really want once your business is humming. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The
last two – Lean Manufacturing and </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">six Sigma <span style="color: black;">- are more of the same. They focus on eliminating errors. With
the first two, clearly you wanted to eliminate errors. </span>Lean and six
Sigma <span style="color: black;">just take it to another degree. You may have a
quality process that allows you to have a 1% error rate. By the time you get to
</span>six Sigma<span style="color: black;">, you might have a process that will
get you down to a 0.01 or 0.001 or 0.0001 error rate. With these initiatives in
place, you are able to deliver consistent, reliable, high quality products that
customers can trust are going to do exactly what they were advertised and
marketed to do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Doing
these things may sound difficult and complicated, but it really is not.
Depending on where you are with your business, you can do simple things like jot
down what your actual processes are, and that's going to be huge for you
because as your revenues grow and you personally start exiting certain
activities, you need to be able to hand things off to the people that you bring
into the company. You can give them a procedures manual and it doesn't have to
be 400 or 500 pages. The procedure can really and truly be five or six simple
steps, but it's something that a new employee can read and know what's expected
of them, and what they need to do. You can do that for every single process in
your business.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">You
can do it for how you want mail handled. You can do it for how you want
customer service calls handled; the timeframe in which you need to respond;
what you need to collect in any service call; the information you need to
collect e.g. order number, tracking ID, etc. You can actually hire companies
that will send you procedures and manuals. You can do an internet search on
procedures manuals for sale, and you can go to those websites where they will
determine your industry and send you industry-specific procedures manuals. That
becomes a huge plus for your business. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
want you to think of why it's huge. You, at this point, have probably seen a
number of requests for information, and requests for proposals, (RFIs, RFPs)
where you were asked about your process for ABC for example; your process for a
customer complaint resolution; shipping notification; for handling onboarding
new employees; new staff onto a project. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Now
I can tell you, as somebody that has reviewed thousands and thousands and
thousands of supplier responses, that there are some things that were obvious
right off the bat. No, not those who have processes and procedures, and those
who don't, but evaluating these RFP responses told me whether or not the
company was actually ready to play.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Number
one, I know that if you went through the investment of setting up processes and
procedures you are serious about your business. Number two, you have a
fundamental understanding of what it means to have repeatable outcomes in your
business. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">As
I mentioned earlier, the primary reason for having systems and processes is for
the purpose of having repeatable outcomes for which you can hold staff accountable.
Did you do what the procedure called for? Not, are you making it up at each and
every turn? Number three, it indicates to me that you have some idea of what my
reality looks like, so that when I start communicating with you and I start
talking about my processes and procedures as a corporate buyer, we should be
able to achieve a quick resolution.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Now,
that doesn't mean I'm married to processes and procedures because if there's an
opportunity to improve upon them, I'm going to take it. However, having a
conversation with somebody that understands the significance of them makes for
a much easier conversation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">ISO, lean and
six Sigma<span style="color: black;"> have to do with being the best. Having
those things in place - whether you are starting up or whether you've been in
the game for a while - means that you have done the work to be credible; to
start having these kinds of conversations with the big companies; and you have
the basic building blocks in place to have a business that they can insert into
their operations and not really have to worry about. They don't have to worry
as much because they can work with you and look at your processes and
procedures, see how they overlay with theirs, and figure out how to make them
work seamlessly. It gets you in the conversation of being the best. When they
go and evaluate you, they can come back and say that in their due diligence they
found processes and procedures that they believe can produce what was
represented. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">That
brings us to the third item: what really goes on in the board room? What really
happens there seems to be a mystery, but there is really nothing mysterious
about it. The board room is very simple. The board room is where you make major
decisions on issues that have come before you; or set strategy and direction
for what you expect to come. You come to the boardroom with people who are
supposed to be the experts in their field with the ability to do whatever it is
they represent can be done.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">You
want experts in the field with a proven track record of getting things done,
bringing the best information available so that effective decision making is achieved.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The
board room is not one of those places where you go and bullshit. Now,
cynically, I would say that if you've been in the boardroom for 20 years and
bullshitting occurs, all right. However, the expectation is that a number of
things have already occurred if you come in and make a presentation - especially
for you as a supplier. Number one, you have the right to be there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Number two, what you are representing is
indeed something that's possible. Number three, you are an expert in your field,
and you have all available information to substantiate what you are representing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">This
is not the opportunity to go in and overstate and misrepresent. If you are being
yourself; you are being honest; you are being authentic and you have a proven
track record, then there is really nothing intimidating about it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Remember
though that if your presentation does not get the order, that could be a
blessing. Not all business is good business. When you are an expert in your
field, you have a good idea of what will and won't work, and a lot of it comes
from what you've done with other clients before you even got into the board
room for the Fortune 500.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Therefore,
there is nothing that should be intimidating. There is nothing that
disadvantages any one person over the other person. The real issue is being the
best - and being the best is huge. By understanding the significance of what it
means to have proven processes and procedures and what that tells a corporation
or a potential customer about you and your business savvy and knowledge of what
it means to run a sustainable business, you are winning. Additionally,
understanding why you are there; what it means when you walk into the boardroom
; what you are supposed to be bringing to the party; and the significance of
whatever commitment you make further enhances your confidence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">We
have covered why being the best is significant and what specifically you need
to do in your business to get there, and it's really not hard work. You can
actually purchase procedures manuals for different things. You can hire third
parties to come in and help set up procedures for you, or you can have an
internal initiative where you actually go through, audit your internal
procedures, document exactly what you are doing and look for improvements. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Truth
be told, Fortune 500 companies do this every day. They go through audit
processes regularly, looking for opportunities for improvement when they bring in
suppliers. What they are hoping for is that they can see some process
optimization - if not a complete process elimination and improvement. That is
what they are looking for and they are looking for the best to come in and help
them and work with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Now
we have covered being yourself and being the best. In the next blog we will discuss
“deliver, deliver, deliver”. Once these three concepts and procedures are
implemented, you should be “boardroom ready”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-10159803448611274292021-01-18T13:28:00.000-06:002021-01-18T13:28:15.324-06:00WOMEN IN THE BOARDROOM - PART 2<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In
the last blog I talked about “Women in the Boardroom -- the Truth”, and the
response was amazing. It ranged from, “Hey, that was great information. I like
the fact that you kept the three major points simple around being the best, be
yourself and deliver, deliver, deliver”; to “You are a guy, you don't know what
you are talking about. You have no idea what it is like for women in the
boardroom“ (I knew that one was going to come). The most interesting one was “well,
yeah, the three points you raised, those are so obvious. I didn't get anything
out of it”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Let's
go back and take each one of those three points individually and give some
backdrop to them. The first thing is we know there is a huge effort to create
opportunity for everyone regardless of gender, age, race, creed, academic
background, religious background, sexual orientation, etc. Businesses are trying
to say, “look, we are a gender-blind, colorblind, religion-blind place where we
embrace diversity and inclusion. We want everyone that wants a job to feel like
they can walk into an environment and be their best without expecting them to
conform to what others believe is required - especially to the extent that that
expectation has brought about discrimination and a lack of inclusion”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">That
is a backdrop. It creates a whole host of opportunities clearly, but it also creates
a lot of challenges. There are the external challenges around what other people
do and what's that fight and how do you overcome that; and then there's the
internal challenge around what do I have to do? How is it that the way I see
the world might actually be limiting my success? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">You've
heard me talk about Stephen Covey's “Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People” -
a great book classic. Everything in there is so insightful. It makes so much
sense under the category of being the best you. The one point from the book that
I always talk about is “let me stay within my circle of influence, and not my
circle of concern”. What he meant by that is there are a lot of things that you
are concerned about that you can't influence. As an example, the system is
unfair in the way people treat folks in the board room, and treat women,
minorities, gay, lesbian etc., the disabled - and you are absolutely right to
be concerned about it. You should do whatever you can to the extent that you
can actually influence the unfairness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In
my case, my way of influencing those specific things was to be the best me. That
meant that as I dealt with everything that came up, I was consciously aware as
to whether what I was doing made a difference for the people that came behind
me, and each one of you will need to do this however you see best. As a student
of the civil rights movement, when I look at Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr and debate on who had the better strategy - nonviolence versus other - from
my point of view, you need both voices in the conversation. You need both a Malcolm
and a Martin. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">That
is the case as a woman in the boardroom or as anyone else. Yes, you have a
clear right to be an advocate for making sure that there's parity and equity, and
as a woman in the board room, you have a right to be the best you. You may choose
to be more strategic about the battles you pick by demonstrating through
performance that you can do the job. That tends to be my strong suit - demonstrating
by performance. That is the perspective that I am taking. I am more of the
Martin in this argument than Malcolm, and so I want to talk more about what
that means - especially when we start talking about the mindset for success. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Women
have unique challenges and unique obstacles to overcome and the most I can do
is be sympathetic and hopefully not pile on. Clearly not knowingly pile on. But
what I can tell you is that there are similarities with regard to being your
best. I have found that it is not an issue of whether or not bad stuff's going
to come your way. It is the issue of how you handle it when it does come your
way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Whether
or not you are going to be victimized is not the question. Anyone that's tried
to do business - anyone that's tried to do anything in this country - will be
victimized. The question becomes do you adopt a victim mentality to the point
that it totally debilitates you or prevents you from seeing opportunity? Does
it bring about a victim mentality that precludes your ability to move forward
to advance the cause for the mission and the goals you want? Does it prevent
you from seeing opportunity that actually helps you to move forward and
advance? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">We
all struggle with these challenges and struggles. Struggle is the human
condition, and while we might feel like the struggle shouldn't be necessary, it
is real. It is there. I don't really care who you are. You are going to
struggle. You can have all the money in the world and you are probably just as
helpless dealing with a sick child as someone with no money. You can probably
get some expensive doctors, but you can't do a doggone thing about it. Struggle
comes in many different forms and it hits everybody in some way or another. I
am totally convinced of that. I think it is interesting when people say to me, “Oh,
you have a great life. You don't struggle. You have too much money”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Some
people feel like struggle only happens to them and nobody else, but in this
regard that is not the case. Everyone<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>encounters
a struggle getting to the boardroom. I think the only people that probably didn't
struggle were the first people that created the boardroom. Part of the struggle
is to weed out the people that do not really have a good appreciation for what
it takes to get there – that have not done what it takes to prove that they
deserve to be there. It is designed to separate what we call the “wheat from the
chaff;” the cream of the crop. It really and truly is designed that way. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Here
is how to navigate the struggle. The biggest thing you have to do is have the
right mindset. This is not a question of if people can get into the boardroom -
people get into the boardroom every single day. They do, and it is not always
the same old people. New people come in. Innovation requires growth. Innovation
requires new ideas. Innovation requires seeing things in ways that have not
been seen before. Most companies that have been around for 10 20, 50, a hundred
or more years have had to bring in new ideas, new innovation, and a whole host
of things. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to say ”I want to
build a company that gets me into the boardroom for the purpose of creating the
legacy that I want to create for myself, my family and my community, and I
believe that I am uniquely qualified to take on this challenge and make it
happen”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The
question then becomes who are you to believe that you can make this happen and
what do you need to do to get there? What I am talking about again is mind set.
I will share with you my story. One of my coaches</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Jen Kemm</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> is amazing - a brand master. She
owns a company called KemmCom as well the Master Brand Institute and she works
with small business owners and entrepreneurs on building legacy brands. She has
worked with a lot of famous people and she talks about her core values because
one of the things that she understands, especially around a personality brand, is
you need to stand for something. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
was thinking about that and I asked myself “what actually are my brand values”?
I have five of them. I will name them all for you: Respect, Excellence, Legacy,
Innovation and Candor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I started
thinking about those, I realized that those five are not something that I just
put down on a sheet of paper and came up with because my coach told me I needed
to have core values. Those are things that have actually guided and governed my
life since I can recall. They are who I am. I do believe in showing respect to
others even when it is not shown. I definitely believe in excellence. I try my
level best to make sure that if it has the Dobbins name on it - it is quality.
It reflects excellence. It requires thought. It shows that detail matters. I
may find a few things here and there that need added attention, but it is not
because I was sloppy and didn't care. It was truly an oversight and will be
corrected, and in some cases it may actually be intentional, but not because I
didn't care. That's just something that my grandparents instilled in me. If it
is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Legacy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">For
those of you that have read the Bible, there's a phrase in it “to whom much is
given, much is required“. If you keep reading, it says “to whom even more is
given, even more is required”, and I just believe that my life was meant to stand
for something; to make a difference; to make it easier for the people behind
me, including my own family. Clearly I believe that I am here to make a
difference - to make an impact - and there is going to be legacy. I don't need
to be Henry Ford and have a company named after me. If I leave the face of this
planet knowing that I made it easier for somebody else, I am comfortable with
that as a legacy innovation. I think my Mom would tell you - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>going back to age seven - that I was always
looking at new ways of doing things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
love this millennial generation, because they are questioning everything, and rightfully
so. There's a healthy tension between “here's the way we've always done it”,
and revisiting "why". You know, Why do we do it that way? This is the heart of
innovation. I have always thought - and I think it is the engineer in me - that
there has got to be another easier, faster, better way to achieve an outcome, so
innovation has been a part of who I am from the very beginning. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
have always disliked the phrase, “let me be honest with you”. Let me be frank
and tell you why I hate that phrase. If somebody says ”let me be honest”, I
think, “well, have you not been honest previously? Have you been dishonest? Why
did you feel the need to tell me?” It had never occurred to me that you weren't
honest, but now that you are saying “let me be honest”, I need to rethink
everything you ever told me. Under Candor, what I tend to say is “let me be
candid; let me be frank; let me be direct”. I tend to be candid just sharing
with you what I believe and what I know, so my core values are excellent
indicators of who I am and how I approach things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">You'll
need to come up with your own list of your core values. Once you understand
that when people know who you are, what you stand for, what you believe in,
what motivates you, what drives you, there will be a huge impact on your
employees, and there is going to be a bigger impact on the relationship that
you have with your corporate customers. The mindset around how you see yourself;
what your values are; how those issues help you to overcome struggle; and how
they help you to overcome disadvantage is going to help you overcome a number
of roadblocks that may be thrown your way. All of that is going to be huge, but
there are going to be challenges.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">More
things to distract you and take you off task and off your goal will manifest,
but you've got to have the mental toughness to make sure they don't take you
off your game nor off your path or focus. It is easy for it to happen, and then
you blame the system. Yes, it is going to be an uphill battle against the
system and against “the man”, but I have done it and you can do it too. Others
are currently doing it as well, so it is not an unachievable goal nor an
insurmountable task.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">It
is more of "do you have the right mindset to get you there and are you willing
to stay focused"? What I am going to leave you with is develop your list of
values. Find some that work for you and have them guide you through the
challenges that are ahead. As you do that, it is going to become very clear what
types of business will work for you versus those that won't. Not all business
is good business, so you are going to need to know what you need to walk away
from; and what it is you want to embrace and get more of. As the old adage
says, “to thy own self be true”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 4.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Our
website is up so that you may join our email list. Please go to </span><a href="http://www.blueprintpros.com/"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">www.blueprintpros.com</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> to stay up to date on new and exciting topics. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-47290728442450014632021-01-08T23:20:00.000-06:002021-01-08T23:20:32.431-06:00WOMEN IN THE BOARDROOM -- THE TRUTH<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">We are going
to jump into a bit of a controversial topic: Women in the Board Room - the Truth.
We have written previously about the need for diversity and how large
corporations are making the turn to be more diverse and inclusive - and they
are doing it out of necessity, out of their need for strategic survival and competitive
advantage. This has impacted women in a positive way, but we are still stuck
with the age-old question: is it really different for women in the boardroom?
Now, obviously I am talking to you about this from what I have observed as a
man, so I can say with some certainty that locker room talk does occur.<br />
<br />
I can tell you for a fact that there are men who do not believe women can do
certain jobs. There are some men that really and truly believe women should not
be in the workplace. Some believe women should not actually be preachers or
pastors in the pulpit, so a number of issues that women have come across are
very real. Let's make sure we level set on this reality for any marginalized and
/ or minority group. The life experiences that you have had, more than likely, are
indeed things that happened to you as well as other people. They are real and they
are clearly more than figments of your imagination. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">We are in a
crazy time right now where we talk about the male/female dynamic in the age of “me
too”; where it has been reported that men are now sometimes afraid to meet with
women alone because there is concern of an accusation of bad conduct, or some
type of sexual impropriety. In some cases, clearly it is real, and in other
cases it is manufactured. This has brought about considerable angst in the
workplace now, especially as you get to more and more senior levels where
people have more to lose - just based on mere allegation (real or not). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Let's not
sleep. The “me too” movement is clearly about women, but there have been men as
well that have experienced sexual molestation. Look at the gay, lesbian
movement and whatnot, and you know this really is broader than just one single
gender. It is the notion of somebody with power believing that they can abuse
it and take advantage of someone else for their own personal benefit.<br />
<br />
I want to make sure we are very clear that these things are indeed real. Are
men intimidated by strong, powerful women? Yes, some men are intimidated by
strong, powerful women. Some men do not really like aggressive women, but what
I would tell you is that those aren't things you control. They really aren't. I
tend to tell my daughter the same thing that I tell my son. I do not say “ Hey,
you know, because you're a woman, you need to do this, that, and the other”,
and tell my son “because you are a man, you need to know….”.<br />
<br />
Recently during an interview, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made
an observation about the importance of preparation, which I think is probably
the bigger issue when you really think about it. Her name had been thrown
around for being the potential commissioner of the US National Football League
(NFL). There is a question as to whether or not a woman can coach a professional
football team in the U S, because a woman has never coached a professional team.
Ms. Rice is one of those people (she's now a provost at Stanford university) whose
resume and credentials clearly speak to authority, and an ability to perform
and deliver and operate at the highest levels. It is interesting that she was being
considered to possibly make a move out of politics and academia into
professional sports, and she had a very fascinating response to this whole
thing.<br />
<br />
Ms. Rice said she was honored to be thought of as a potential coach of a
professional team. She said, however, that she had to decline - not because she
didn't think a woman could do the job – that wasn’t it. She said that if the
woman knows sports, plays, offenses, defenses, strategy, etc., then the fact
that she’s a woman should not enter into the equation. Ms. Rice has been on the
selection committee to pick the top four university teams to go into the
college football playoffs. She was on the original CFP committee that started
up about four or five years ago. She actually helps to pick coaches for the
various Stanford teams. Any coach who has interviewed her will tell you that she
knows her sports more than anyone else with whom they've spoken, so this really
and truly is not an issue of her skillset or capability or knowledge. Let's
just put that aside. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ms. Rice’s
observation around all of this was that she had to respectfully decline because
she didn't think that it would be fair for her to just step in at the highest
level in the sport without having gone through the system. She felt that this
would end up being nothing more than an experiment, which could make it worse
for any woman after her if she didn't “knock it out of the park”. She wasn't
saying she didn't have confidence that she could do a great job. She was saying
it makes more sense - especially if you are trying to create fantastic
opportunities for women - that they work their way up through the ranks just
like men. Then when they get to the point where they qualify for a high-ranking
position, they will have the full support of everybody in the system, which is
a requirement for success. A network of support has to be built in order to get
people to buy into what you're trying to accomplish and therefore achieve the
results that you want. She didn't get into a conversation around whether women
- relative to men - are more emotional, or whether women needed to be more
aggressive.<br />
<br />
What Ms. Rice said was that she believes that you need to work through the
system to get the buy in, to have the resume, the success records and the
skillsets that you need to compete at that level. We have seen that we have
women referees in the National Football League, so now it would be great to
start seeing women on the coaching staffs. That way there would be enough in
the pipeline so that when head coaching positions open up, qualified women
candidates would be available.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This was
really not a conversation about whether women can do the job; will men be
threatened, etc. It was about what's the process and what's the procedure that
creates the greatest opportunity for a group that has been underserved. We are
not really having a conversation about whether women are qualified to be in the
board room. Women clearly are qualified to be in the boardroom. The issue has
always been what is the preparation that makes anybody - male or female - boardroom
worthy.<br />
<br />
So, rather than getting distracted by all the other issues out there: - racism,
sexism, tribalism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc. – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we should focus on what we can do, what's
within our control. I love the way Stephen Covey talked about this in his book
“The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. He says there is your circle of <u>influence,</u>
and there is your circle of <u>concern</u>. Most people spend way too much time
trying to operate in their circle of concern. He said he has found that in
order for him to be his best, he tries to operate within his circle of
influence. These are things which he can actually influence, and that's a much
smaller subset than those things that are in his circle of <u>concern</u>. Staying
in his circle of influence allows him to be productive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">There are three
simple things that we can do to follow his advice:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Number one -
with regard to women in the board room - <u>just be yourself</u>. It took me a
long time to get comfortable with being myself. Somebody always wants to make
you believe that there is a certain personality type that's going to be
successful. We are at a point now where that's just no longer true. The issue
is, can you find a customer that really appreciates and understands what it is that
you specifically are bringing to the table? There are going to be some
customers that just are not good customers. It doesn't matter what you do. It
could be your personality; it could be your clothing; it could be the car you
drive; it could be where you went to school. It could be a whole host of things
that have absolutely nothing to do with your company’s core capabilities and
strengths. In spite of these possible obstacles - first and foremost - just be
yourself. Period. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Number two
is <u>be the best</u>. I talked about being a subject matter expert in a
previous blog. If you're competing at the top of the business-to-business (B2B)
game, you need to be the most knowledgeable in your field, which catapults you
to the best. Your go-to-market strategy should be to be at the top of your
game. That is a competitive differentiator for you in the marketplace. You need
to be the best at whatever it is you do. Now being the best in one business is
not defined the same as being the best in another business, so you have to
figure out what it means to be the best in your market. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Number three
is <u>deliver, deliver, deliver</u>. Large corporations are about results.
Trying harder doesn't really mean a lot if it doesn't come with results, so you
have to always be looking at showing your customer value. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Let's recap
the three stipulations: Be Yourself; Be the Best; and Deliver, Deliver, Deliver
Results. Not only are those things going to get you in the board room, but they
are going to get you the deal each and every time you're in the boardroom. It will
not matter that you're a woman. <span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-4031697249302272402020-12-12T23:40:00.000-06:002020-12-12T23:40:31.139-06:00BUSINESS BIAS IN TODAY'S ENVIRONMENT<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I want to
talk with you about business bias: what today means for the future of your
business. This is not going to be one of those “today is the first day of the
rest of your life” discourses. It's going to have a little more impact. I'm
going to ask you to check yourself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now, you may
not know, I was born in the 60s in Alabama, so I’m among the first of Dr. King’s
children - arguably second generation, most likely first generation since he
was assassinated shortly after I was born. Thus, I tend to have a slightly
different view of racism during that time. For me, racism meant you couldn't go
to an all-white school. My brother and I, along with another person, were the
first three black kids to integrate the all-white school where I grew up in
Alabama. All black people lived on the other side of the railroad tracks. My
grandfather and I actually used to step off the sidewalk to let white women
pass. I actually did sit in the back of the bus. I have a whole host of
experiences around overt, institutionalized racism where there were policies in
place based on the color of your skin. I've seen the “whites only” drinking
fountains, and I've gone in the back doors of restaurants because black people
weren't allowed to go through the front door, and yes, I've even had what we
called scraps - which were the leftovers of all the actual good food that the
restaurants would then sell to black people.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I'm talking
about well over 50 years ago, and for a lot of us the 60’s and the 70’s were
reasonably undifferentiated. A lot of that discrimination, especially in the
South, carried over into the eighties, so when you start talking about doing
business with large corporations and you look back 30 years ago, you can say
that the primary reason why a lot of us didn't get business was because we were
black, because we were Hispanic, because we were Asian American, because we
were not white males.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Interestingly,
in other parts of the world, it was just as true. Imagine being a Chinese or
Japanese woman trying to get a contract in those countries 30 years ago. We all
know that the sixties, seventies, 80s were bad. We also know that some of that
still exists today - and that's actually the conversation. A lot of us have had
real experiences with systemic racism. It colors and shapes the world as we see
it, and a lot of us hold on to it. Some days I hold onto it, but most days I
let it go because I realize for me, especially being in business, I don't have
the luxury of assuming yesterday is today and today is tomorrow. If I do, I'm
going to go out of business quickly and let me tell you why.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The vast majority of opportunities that I have gotten came from people that
don't look like me. If you ask me if I believe people are racist? Yes. If you
ask me if I believe that a racist has helped me, I would probably say “yeah,
maybe” - but if you ask me do I personally know a racist that specifically had
it out for me and did things to totally sabotage me, I would say I don't really
recall a lot of that happening. I'm sure it did, but what I recall are people who
looked at me and saw what I offered: my talents, my capabilities, and my
skills. They saw that the system was unfair and they helped me to break
through. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is true
for a lot of people that I know. They can point to specific white people who,
when they were in a crunch, helped them generically. People of different
colors, different genders have been more helpful than not. That's kind of the
situation we find ourselves in right now. We find that there are people out
there looking to help us, but we've got to meet them more than halfway. We
can't assume that whoever is offering to help isn't genuine - that their help
isn't authentic. Even if it is just their job, they're being measured on their
performance. If they are paid to help us get in for the benefit of the company,
then that is what they will do even though they may exhibit a bad attitude. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They're honoring their paycheck - they're
doing it to the best of their ability - and we have to understand that that's
the olive branch that's been handed to us and we have to take it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While working
with minority business owners in 2018 and 2019 as a buyer and as a seller - and
now as a trainer, coach, facilitator, and small business owner - I have heard
so many people say “they're not really serious about doing business with us” in
referencing other larger companies, or they'll say “they're just paying lip
service. We're not going to get the big opportunities”. At this point, if you
believe that, then that's probably true. If you really and truly believe that -
it's probably true.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I want you
to quit making excuses. There is a company in St Louis that has, at this point,
about five point $7 billion in sales. There is a black owned company in Los
Angeles with about one point $3 billion in sales. The one in Los Angeles is
woman-owned as well as black-owned. There are billion-dollar companies that are
run by people who look like us: diverse, non-white males and females.<span style="font-size: 12pt;">If you are thinking
“Yeah, that's just one”, that really isn't the point because it turns out these
are just the ones we know about. A lot of us want to get ahead and succeed, not
because of how we look, but because of what we can do, in which case we don't
want to bring attention to the fact that we are Hispanic, Asian-American,
Indian-American, Black-American, African-American, a woman. We just want to be
able to compete based on our ability to make a difference.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you go to
the Women in Business Enterprise Networking Council's annual conference, you'll
see five-to-7,000 different women business owners. They have some 13,000
members. If You go to the National Minority Supplier Development Council's
annual meeting you will see once again three-to-5,000 suppliers there, and they
have over 12,000 members. There are 25,000 members in these two groups alone,
so that's 25,000 companies that are actually pursuing corporate contracting
just in the US. We're not talking Australia and the UK and any place else. There
are diverse, minority-owned companies day in, day out that are actually
succeeding in corporate contracting. I need you to overcome whatever bias you
have internalized from what other people have told you, what you've read in the
press, even to some extent your own personal experiences because bad things
happened. Let that go. You really and truly have to adopt the attitude that you
are going to assume the best intentions. You are going to be the best supplier you
possibly can be. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You will still
call out nonsense when it occurs because you have a responsibility to do that, but
you are not going to assume that that nonsense, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, or
any other bias was the reason why your business didn't get the contract. Excuses
such as “they play golf together; their kids play soccer together; they go to
church together; they go to meetings” are no longer plausible. The practical
reality is a lot of people that are making the decisions right now grew up with
our children. Their parents are in retirement. That old way of thinking is
dying a slow death. A lot of the people that did what they used to do 30 years
ago aren't even in place anymore. Quite frankly, the generation coming behind
them includes many people that are like you and me. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Diversity
and inclusion are big issues in most organizations right now, and not just because
they are trying to meet a goal. The business reason for diversion and inclusion
now is because they want people who think differently. If they keep going to
people whom they've always gone to, they're going to keep getting what they’ve
always gotten. When they start bringing in people who have different life
experiences, they get different input, they get different solutions, they come
up with things that resonate with an even larger customer share because they're
appealing to a new market - a new audience in most cases.<br />
<br />
This is a market and audience that looks like you and me and has been
overlooked for the longest. That also extends to the supply base. Corporations
have to extend diversity and inclusion all the way to the supply base if they
are committed to getting the innovation and the solutions that their company
needs to continue to grow and meet and exceed shareholder value. It's just that
simple. Sears is about done. Circuit city is done. We're watching Walmart try
to reinvent itself as a result of what Amazon and Whole Foods have done. We've
seen Microsoft reinvent itself after Microsoft took out IBM. Look at what Tesla
is doing to Ford GM and of course who can say Chrysler, it's Fiat Chrysler - now
with the emphasis on Fiat. There are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of
diverse companies around the globe that are successfully selling into this
market. Therefore, I cannot say with any accuracy or truthfulness or validity
that the vast majority of the reasons that you might not be getting a contract,
or I am getting a contract, is because we're diverse. That's just no longer
true for the most part. Don't sleep though - it still occurs. As long as we
have people we're going to have racism, sexism, Islamophobia, etc. I don't care
how many generations we get from now.<br />
<br />
An interesting thing that I went through when I had diversity training back in
the 80s was that, at that time, they talked about 14 different dimensions of
prejudice. It can come from whether you are bald or have hair; it can come from
height; it can come from weight; it can come from education; it can come from
race; it can come from religion; it can come from eye color. There are so many
different ways in which people can discriminate against one another and
actually hold them back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought, “I
just can't keep up. I really can't - because if it's not my skin color, then
maybe it's the fact that I'm bald. Maybe it’s because I'm brown-instead-of blue
eyed; maybe it's because my degree is not from whatever the major state
university is in whatever state I'm operating in”.<br />
<br />
I can't keep up. What I can keep up with though is does my company offer the
best possible solution out there for my target customer base that is within my
control. This enables me to easily get in front of an open-minded customer,
understand the challenges in their organization and help them to see how the
solution I offer can help them accomplish their goals. I can do that day in,
day out and I have enough organizational awareness and sophistication to help
them help me because corporate relationships are never about the one person
you're talking to. It's about the organization. Later on we're going to have a
conversation about large account management and we're really going to draw open
the curtain on what large account management means for corporate contracting,
and why that is a skill your company but must have.<br />
<br />
If you are relying on one single person for the life of your contract with a
corporation, you're putting your business at risk. Very few things hinge on one
individual, which is why another topic we'll talk about is the illusion of the
decision maker. But what I want you to take away from this today is that if you
still operate in the paradigm that a lot of what you experienced yesterday
still dominates what's going on today, and then it affects your expectation
around tomorrow, it's time to let it go. Today is a new day. We've got
different people at the table. Decisions are being made in different ways. There
is more opportunity for diverse businesses in 2020 than there has ever been. There
is going to be more in 2021. There is going to be even more in 2022, and there
is going to be even more in 2023, 2025 and 2030.<br />
<br />
If we, if you, if I, if we don't change our mindset around how to take
advantage of this, we will be left behind. I'm not going to let you be left
behind. It's not going to happen – not while you're listening to blueprint pros
podcast. You're going to understand what's going on in the business world; what
opportunity looks like; what you need to do to craft the right solution to get
to where you want to be; and how to reinvent your business every single year so
that you're riding the crest of the wave and not taken under by the wave. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1574952037196062461.post-68380859060913312372020-11-24T22:21:00.000-06:002020-11-24T22:21:07.151-06:00Strategic Alliances<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">News headlines are dominated by events related to social
justice, social equity, and diversity & inclusion gaps in the workplace and
in the supply base. In response, member
companies of the Billion Dollar Roundtable are committing additional billions
of dollars toward creating more opportunities to support small and
diverse-owned businesses. Corporations that
are not members of the Billion Dollar roundtable are stepping up their
commitment to small business and diverse-owned business spending as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">H</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">owever, up to
40% of small and diverse-owned businesses no longer exist due to the
economic downturn caused by the pandemic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">This stark reality raises 2 concerns.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The first is why weren’t more of these
companies better prepared to withstand this downturn.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The second is what new opportunities does
this reduced number of competitors create for those of us still in
business.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">We will address the 2</span><sup style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;">nd</sup><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> concern here. As a consequence
of the downturn, there are now greater opportunities for a smaller group of
businesses to land corporate contracts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Corporations however, although now highly motivated toward
inclusion and promotion of small businesses’ participation, currently and
historically claim the<b> </b>greatest challenge to doing more
contracting with small and diverse-owned companies is that: </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">1) very few small and diverse businesses</span><b style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">know the
corporation's business </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2) very few know the corporation’s supply chain and
how to drive value inside it; and</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3) very few have the ability to handle the contracts<b> </b>once
awarded</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">I want to be clear on this issue.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Big companies have </span><u style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">not</u><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> gotten burned
awarding contracts to small businesses that are </span><u style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">ready</u><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> for these
opportunities.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Corporations are reluctant to award substantial contracts to
small companies due to the aforementioned three reasons because, over
the past 30 or more years, their experience has been that small companies
are generally not ready. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">This of course makes the hurdle to get these lucrative contracts
more difficult for small and diverse suppliers.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The <i>Business Partner blueprint</i> (BPb) program
exists to solve these 3 issues. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The heart of the BPb program is the concept
of Strategic Alliances.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Strategic
Alliances </span><u style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">are committed relationships between companies,</u><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> where each
commits significant resources to gain and sustain lasting benefit. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">In other words, Strategic Alliances are the solutions to
the 3 challenges large corporations name as limiting small and/or diverse
companies’ success in getting contracts with them. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yet in many instances, small business owners
are unaware of these challenges, and do not know that Strategic Alliances are
the solutions. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Strategic Alliances are the single greatest tools available
to small and diverse-owned businesses to rapidly </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">grow profits, scale
operations, enhance product / service solution offerings</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and build
enduring businesses.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Business Partner blueprint addresses Strategic Alliances
from <b>three dimensions</b>:</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">1) What </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">operating capacity do you have to support an
alliance</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and what gaps can an alliance partner fulfill for your
business. This helps your business combination </span><b style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">avoid the failures
and mistakes</b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> due to prematurely entering into partnerships without
understanding what you really need in a partner. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">2) How to</span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> identify, negotiate and manage a strategic
alliance</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> with a business partner and how to design it to provide the
solution a big company seeks. This gives you confidence that the
partnership will fill the needs for your business, your partner's business and
meet the strategic goals you seek.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">3) How to </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">position the alliance in the corporate supply
chain for long-term contracting business growth</i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">. This provides you
the business savvy you need to effectively navigate complex supply chains and
calibrate the needs of your business partner relationships so that your
business can contract with large companies for decades.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">For more information
about the Business Partner blueprint course curriculum, click here:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://training.businesspartnerblueprint.com/p/business-partner-blueprint-masterclass" target="_blank"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">training.businesspartnerblueprint.com</span></a></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></p>Florahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03085589494123525639noreply@blogger.com0