strategic planning Archives

Real Estate SEO: Carving out a niche with keyword analysis

Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 10:06 pm  
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Today, I have created a video that speaks directly to the real estate industry as I am in the middle of a large prospecting campaign which targets real estate professionals.  Even if you are not in the real estate profession, this video may help you carve out a nice little niche within your market.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://smbconsultinginc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/niche-research.swf" width="500" height="334" allowfullscreen="true" /]

If the above embedded video doesn’t show, click the link below (wow, that rhymed!):

Real Estate Niche Research

If you haven’t received an email from me about downloading your own FREE copy of “The State of Online Search for Real Estate,” please head on over to http://smb-seo.com and register now.

Let me know what you’re thinking after you’ve finished watching the video. Read the rest of this entry

SMART Goals are out; it’s Time to Get DUMB!

Sunday, June 17th, 2007 at 3:42 am  
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If you’ve ever read any strategic or business planning literature, you’ve no doubt come across the acronym SMART for mapping out goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. Those are all fine and dandy objectives, but I’m out to propose another side of the coin—DUMB goals. Hear me out for a second!

DUMB stands for Dreamy, Unrealistic, Motivating and Bold. If you stop and think about traditional and realistic goals, they aren’t that inspiring or exciting. They encourage status quo and/or staying within confined areas to achieve marginally better results at best. Most employees can see through status quo goals and aren’t going to go that extra mile to achieve things that are already within relative reach—greatness comes from inspiration; not reaching a plateau that the ordinary can achieve with typical or expected efforts. That might be why a majority of employees so willingly sign off on the goals during a formal review process—they know they don’t have to do a whole lot more to get the raise that comes from a satisfactory review next time around. Let’s dig a little deeper to see how “DUMB” we can get.

Dreamy goals repeatedly wake you up at night wondering if something is possible with an effort that is truly remarkable. They imply going for that rarified air no one dares to breathe. It’s finding that special “cause” that will unite people on a mission that makes them feel part of something special versus merely putting in time to collect a check. It’s like your kid at five years old saying he’s going to be President one day and you encouraging her/him to be anything they put their mind to. What happened to encouraging that blank canvas of wide open thinking?

Unrealistic goals are the ones traditionalists warn against and believe aren’t obtainable by anyone. To most, a job is a job until there is a challenge of the unimaginable or someone telling you “it can’t be done.” Unrealistic goals push people to really push hard to move beyond what’s expected to stand out in the crowd and achieve greatness. Isn’t it a lot more fun to do something someone says can’t be done?

Motivating goals are those that make someone wake up each morning ready to take on the day versus figuring out a way to muddle through it looking busy even though time is being wasted. They are those things that people want to come to work for instead of calling in sick because they just can’t stand spending all day in the office. Most SMART goals encourage toiling through the day in an effort to fool everyone around into believing someone is working really hard. A motivated workforce is tough to stop because momentum builds daily.

Bold is charting a course competitors don’t dare take because the fear of failure or success is too daunting. There’s a very fine line between failure and success, and most companies and individuals will walk right up to the line and toe it without ever stepping over it. What is the worst that could happen if you stepped across that imaginary line and really went for something? You’ll never know until you try, and most people simply aren’t bold enough to try—we’re too scared we might not be able to return to the comfort zone we currently live. That’s the beauty of the comfort zone however—it’ll always be there in one fashion or another.

I encourage you to DUMB down your goals the next time you’re charting the course for yourself or your company. Who knows what you might achieve?

10 Ways to Improve Cash Flow

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 7:07 am  
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Just about every business would like to improve their cash flow. Below are ten ways which may help your business achieve that objective rather quickly:

Bill Promptly; Take Advantage of Payment Terms

The faster you can invoice a client, the quicker the clock starts to tick for the customer to pay in order to meet the terms of the contract you both agreed upon at the beginning of the relationship. Conversely, if you’ve agreed to terms of Net 30 with one of your suppliers or vendors, don’t pay the bill immediately; wait a little bit to take advantage of those terms and keep the cash in your (hopefully) interest bearing account a little longer.

Offer Payment Incentives; Penalize Late Payers

Many times businesses set forth payment terms of Net 15 or Net 30, but they neither offer any incentives to beat those terms nor penalties if the terms aren’t met. Consider adding both to your invoices to decrease your accounts receivable days outstanding. Chances are most of your customers will pay promptly if there is an incentive involved.

Run Credit Checks on Potential Customers

While this sounds like a no-brainer suggestion, many businesses today take whatever business they can acquire and run checks only when problems arise. Often times it is too late to run a check after issues surface. It’s better for your business over the long haul to reject a customer immediately that slow pays or is consistently delinquent. Slow payers are frequently troublesome clients aside from their propensity to get behind on paying you—they are typically the impossible to please variety that will nitpick your organization and sap its resources.

Sell off Under Utilized Assets and Fully Depreciated Assets

Once an asset has run through its useful life and is no longer a depreciable asset, consider selling it off if you can get good value for it. You’ll get an influx of cash that can help you replace that asset or upgrade to a new technology or model and possibly reduce your debt in the process. Many assets will last well beyond their useful life so you may be able to fetch top dollar from a smaller business looking to improve their operation by adding used equipment.

Encourage Partial Payments

If your business is in a bit of a cash crunch, try encouraging your clients to make partial payments on the front end of projects or working arrangements. Most will be agreeable to such provided you make some concessions on your end such as small pricing incentive or discount to do so. This helps you improve your cash on hand while helping your client spread payments out so that everything doesn’t hit all at once in one lump sum.

Comparison Shop Suppliers Online

The Internet makes comparison shopping a breeze, and some of your vendors and suppliers may take you for granted by not adjusting their pricing to reflect current market and competitive pricing. By checking the competitive landscape every quarter or so, you can gain some leverage by knowing how much you should be paying for particular items especially those that are more commoditized.

Stick to Budgets

This is another suggestion that may seem rather obvious, but there are several projects that suffer budget creep throughout a fiscal year. A couple hundred bucks here or there may not seem like much for a particular project, but it will quickly add up if there are multiple projects going on across an organization.

Spread Out Payments; Don’t Pay All at Once

Spreading out payments through a month versus paying everything on one day can really alleviate a cash crunch due to the natural flow of business and customers’ payment preferences. All of the money due to you in a given month doesn’t come in on one day so why should all of the money going out? This little tip can save a lot of headaches even though the temptation to pay everything on one specific day to get it out of the way may seem logical at times.

Add a Shift Versus Taking on More Space

A lot of small to medium businesses are quick to add office or production space when it may be more cost effective to simply add another shift. If your business is a morning shift only operation, how much could you save by simply adding a second shift versus adding production capacity? Chances are you could save quite a bit of development and rental costs by better utilizing the space you have today.

Pay by Credit When Possible

Paying by credit seems to have a stigma attached to it, but it can buy you some extra time to stockpile more cash to pay things off if you play the terms correctly. Since there are also some low rate credit options available, it may be more cost effective to take on a little interest expense until the cash reserves are built up enough to pay things completely off.

Cash flow problems don’t have to cripple your business if you take a step back and evaluate your options objectively. Implementing a few of the tips above can improve things almost immediately and put you back on the right track to a positive cash flow.

Why Most Small Businesses Fail

Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 3:19 pm  
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Michael Gerber, author of the mega-best sellers “The E-Myth” and “The E-Myth Revisited,” is one of the people I admire and respect and who has had a significant impact on me and my businesses. Although I have listened many times to Gerber’s audio tape about the E-Myth, and have read and reread his book, I always come away learning more. In addition, I have read a booklet by Michael Gerber entitled: “Why Most Small Businesses Fail and What You Can Do About It.”

In this booklet – Gerber lists the 10 reasons why most businesses fail – and how you can avoid them. So – here they are:

1. Lack of management systems

2. Lack of vision, purpose, or principles

3. Lack of financial planning and review

4. Over dependence on specific individuals in the business

5. Poor market segmentation and/or strategy

6. Failure to establish and/or communicate company goals

7. Competition or lack of market knowledge

8. Inadequate capitalization

9. Absence of a standard-quality program

10. Owners concentrating on the technical, rather than the strategic, work at hand.

After reading this list a couple times, it became apparent that “strategic planning and strategic thinking” are absolutely vital to avoiding these reasons for failure. And that is the primary focus of my consulting practices, J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group(TM). If you would like to learn more about how to be better prepared to develop and grow a successful business and know how you can avoid these ten reasons for failure, please contact Glenn Ebersole through his website at www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com

Glenn Ebersole, Jr. is a multi-faceted professional, who is recognized as a visionary, guide and facilitator in the fields of business coaching, marketing, public relations, management, strategic planning and engineering. Glenn is the Founder and Chief Executive of two Lancaster, PA based consulting practices: The Renaissance Group, a creative marketing, public relations, strategic planning and business development consulting firm and J. G. Ebersole Associates, an independent professional engineering, marketing, and management consulting firm. He is a Certified Facilitator and serves as a business coach and a strategic planning facilitator and consultant to a diverse list of clients. Glenn is also the author of a monthly newsletter, “Glenn’s Guiding Lines – Thoughts From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach” and has published more than 250 articles on business.

To find out more about the benefits & rewards of effectively working with a strategic thinking business coach, please contact Glenn Ebersole through his web site at http://www.businesscoach4u.com or jgecoach@aol.com

Strategic Planning – The Three Key Elements

Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 3:17 pm  
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For businesses strategic planning is a concept, a mind set and a process. It is looking down the road at what’s around the bend. When everyone around your place is focusing on what’s coming you will all recognize it in time to take advantage of it.

As things appear on the horizon each of you will be asking the question, what’s important about that from your various perspectives. You will be able to articulate the important elements of foreseeable future possibilities so you can all focus on the possibilities each offer. The goal of the business is, after all, to help each of you make your dreams come true.

Strategic planning keeps you focused on the options you now see more clearly, so you can collectively make choices that benefit the company and all of the people involved.

In this brief article I will describe the five key elements of a business strategic plan. It has been my experience that when these three elements are combined into a simple straightforward do it yourself process your company will achieve its goals. This is not rocket science, unless you are building rockets, and will work for companies of as few people as one and as many people as you have on board your company.

Your Strategic Planning Team:
The strategic planning workbooks, textbooks, and how-to books all discuss the importance of the strategic planning team – the implication being that the company must be big enough that there are leaders at every level who can become part of the strategic planning team. Unfortunately that eliminates about 75% of all the companies in existence.

If that includes you do not fear as I am about to show you how you can reach out to the best people possible, individuals with various perspectives whose input will help you create a balanced strategy. In addition these successful people will help you develop and maintain this workable strategy over the long haul. And since they are not going to be charging for their input you will be able to afford an active strategic planning team forever.

I recommend that you connect with members of your industry’s trade association, business owners whose results have been demonstrated over time and whose opinions you trust. The well known power of group dynamics suggests that you limit the size of your strategic planning group to 6-8 people including yourself.

Each of you should also be located outside each other’s traditional marketing areas. If some of you are nearing retirement with vast experience, others in the midst of their careers growing their companies and some who are successors in successful businesses in your industry you will have an important range of diversity. Those who have been around a while can see things coming that are invisible to those just starting out and vice versa.

The Strategic Planning Process:
The strategic planning process should be simple, just three questions to focus on, so you will keep them at the top of your mind. Naturally there are multiple components of these three questions that will become second nature as the process of discussion moves along.

What are you going to sell in the future and how? Each member of your strategic planning team will offer different ideas based on what’s working for them now, what they have already considered for the future and their perspective (such as their Internet savvy or lack of same). ,p>

Who are your target customers and why? Every successful business owner focuses on their market share inside their traditional market. With different perspectives you will be able to expand that traditional marketing area AND focus on increasing your share of each customer. Members of your strategic planning team will open your mind to tactics they are using to sell more products of one kind or another to your existing core customers.

How can you differentiate your company vs your competitors? This often means discontinuing lines no longer profitable that you’re still carrying because you’ve always carried them. It may mean focusing on fewer products and services where your specific capabilities excel. And it most assuredly will mean introducing new products and services recommended by your strategic planning team based on their experiences and perspectives.

Once you and your team have these three questions at the forefront – the qualifiers become automatic. What’s important? What is it now? What exactly do you want it to be? And what’s possible to achieve at the intersection of your goals and your resources?

A Commitment To Action:
With the continual input from your strategic planning peer group you will be able to more easily target strategic opportunities all around you. Opportunities that would have continued to be invisible to you without their well considered input. These actions will, in and of themselves help you choose those capabilities important for your future growth and enhance your capacities for making the most of them.

As you and the other members of your strategic planning peer group put your plans on paper and keep them in front of each other you will develop an environment for continually review and modify your evolving mission statements.

Continually articulating your goals for the future as they are continually refined by your strategic planning peer group will keep the important next steps always in view. Taking action yourself or delegating it to the individuals or teams within your organization who have the power, authority, and accountability for their completion is all that now stands between where things are today and where you want them to be in the future.

If you are seriously interested in your organization’s future you’ll find that there’s really no better way to create and manage your strategic planning process.

Your next move should be to click below and take five minutes to review my recently published report that contains complete instructions for your Do-It-Yourself Strategic Planning process. Article by Wayne Messick, publisher of http://www.iBizResources.com

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