Posts Tagged ‘Business’

Having the right people on the team is the key to winning.

Having the right people on the team is the key to winning.

In 1985, the Big East conference in the NCAA featured the best teams in the country.  Georgetown was the favorite to win the college basketball championship.  They lost to the lowest seeded team in the tournament of 64 college basketball programs.

How could this happen?  Georgetown seemed to have the better players.  What went wrong?  Nothing!  Villanova, a small Pennsylvania college had the perfect players for their program to defeat the mighty Hoyas.

Small business owners need to take a page out of the Villanova book.  They sometimes cry about the big companies dominating the world of business.  Use the Wildcats strategy of just getting the right people on your team.  Don’t worry about your competition.  Play your best game with your players!

March Madness: From Basketball to Business

March Madness

From Basketball to Business

Striving for Greatness!  The Best of the Best.

March Madness is a compilation of the best college basketball teams in the world.  Some teams are looking to play Cinderella and win their first championship ever.  Other teams expect to be in the championship every year.  These teams prepare, perform and propel to greatness.

Some businesses are ok with the occasional championship win.  These same companies struggle to stay in business because they cannot generate constant cash flow.  They don’t prepare, perform and propel to greatness.

Prepare:  Great teams prepare by practicing behaviors of greatness!  Basketball teams that practice teamwork on offense and defense a habit typically win multiple championships.  Companies that develop a team with a habit of focusing on the customer as a rule generate constant cash flow because the customer knows what to expect at all times.

Perform:  The best college basketball teams perform without thinking about what they are doing.  The preparation has created a culture of winning and an expectation of teamwork.  No one wants to be the person who lets the team down.  Small businesses need to create this type of culture to have employees perform without thinking.

Propel:  Achieving true greatness requires a lot of sacrifice and hard work.  Don’t get me wrong every college team makes sacrifices and they work hard.  The perennial champions take it to another level.  They seem to be a step faster than their competition.  This is what business owners need to strive for when competing in business.

Are you ok with your company being one of the best?  Or, are you striving for greatness to be the best of the best?

The Wooden Effect

The Wooden Effect.  It’s about your character!

Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

John Wooden, Hall of Fame College Basketball Coaching Legend

John Wooden is considered the best college basketball coach ever.  It’s hard to dispute his record of ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including seven in a row.  No other coach has done this.

Wooden stated that he developed a character (brand) for the UCLA Bruins that players had to respect, follow and defend.

Imagine if a small business had this type of success.  The best brands in the world develop a character (brand) for their business that people respect, follow and defend.

In order to imitate this success small business owners must start with three basic steps.

  1. Understand who you are. The UCLA Bruins clearly understood who they were in college basketball.  Coach John Wooden ensured that they played basketball displaying the characteristics of the Bruin brand.  Small businesses should not compromise their character.  But first they need to know what that character is.
  2. Who are you serving? The Bruins knew that they were there to help the college to be successful, not only in sports, but overall.  Wooden demanded that his players represented the UCLA brand with pride, dignity and respect.  Many of his players went on to be great professionals in the NBA.  The college is still benefitting from the great tradition developed by Wooden’s teams.  If small business owners can understand their purpose, then they will undoubtedly achieve long term success.
  3. Know your market. Los Angeles is a high profile city with great expectations.  Wooden knew that he needed to prepare his players and his coaches for these extreme circumstances.  Small business owners ignore the market conditions because they fail to do research.  If you understand the environment for your business, you will know how to prepare your company on how to deal with them.

Small business owners need to develop a solid character for their company.  Success is all how you build great character, not a reputation.

All Marketers are not Good Marketers

Choosing a marketing firm that is right for me 

PROBLEM…

There are so many marketing companies to choose from.  How do I choose the one that will work for my company’s needs?

Choosing a company that can accurately and effectively market your product or service can be a tricky process.  First, you have to determine your business goals.  Most marketing companies have specialties.  Although the firm will tell you that they can market anything.  In most cases, that’s just ego talking.  Every marketing firm has something that they are very good at doing.  Some may specialize in entertainment.  Others may specialize in politics.  Then you have those firms that focus on business to business marketing.  There are much more.

The bottom line is your company’s desires.  That’s how you will choose the firm to represent you.

Driving on Fumes!

Most small businesses fail because they run on fumes!  

What happens when you are driving your car and the gas needle is near empty?  Your nerves are shot. You hope and pray that you make it to your destination. Frustrated?  Absolutely!  This is how most failing small businesses operate every day. They don’t have enough gas (marketing investment) to fuel the vision of their company.

You need to learn how to not only put gas in the tank but also how to build and maintain the best car (business) that creates its own gas (cash flow).

Marketing investment + your business = CASH FLOW!

What are the odds?

Although the exact odds depend upon many factors, let’s look at a couple of examples. In a lottery in which you pick 6 numbers from a possible pool of 49 numbers, your chances of winning the jackpot (correctly choosing all 6 numbers drawn) are 1 in 13,983,816. That’s 1 shot in almost 14 million.

Over half of the small businesses fail within its first three to five years.  Most of the business owners surveyed said that they fail because they could not connect with the customer or potential customers.  Would you rather be lucky or great?

 The odds of you getting lucky in business are probably similar to the odds of winning the lottery.  The difference is that as a small business owner you are risking a lot more than a few dollars.  You are investing time and money into your dream.  It’s very emotional!  In most cases, you are risking relationships, a steady job as well as the finances required to get the ball rolling.  So, you want to get it right.

 Connecting with customers and potential customers (prospects) is more of a science than a lucky guess.  The Twelve Steps of Marketing give the business owner a guide to developing customer relationships that create constant cash flow for your business.  The odds dramatically shift in your favor.

YOUR Marketing Mentor,

Shaundell Newsome

A Good Training Camp

The Foundation. A good training camp.

On every level of playing football, I had to prepare for the season with a training camp. The camp was designed to get me into esteem shape to last for the entire season. Typically, my camp performance determined the type of season I would have. So, I took it very seriously. I did the same type of preparation to start my business. I did not want to fail.

In my opinion, most small businesses want to succeed. But they don’t get off to a good start. So, they are always playing catch up. Your company can be in business for many years and never reach its financial goals. The business owner is always searching for a way to get out of a slump. If you had a training camp, your company can figure out how to get out of a slump. The business training camp is all about developing good business habits to grow your company and maintain the foundation of your customer base. When I first started our company eleven years ago, we launched with a solid foundation. My training camp to start the firm was two and a half years long. I focused on:

  1. Administrative
  2. Finance
  3. Personnel
  4. Marketing

These pillars have kept our company through the company’s worse recession because we had a foundation to measure from. In 2006, we started the company with record numbers in our first eight months. Something was going right. Then the bottom fell out in 2009. In 2010, we went back to training camp, revisited our foundation and rebranded the company to reflect the enhancements. In 2015, we were recognized as the SBA Nevada Family Owned Business of the Year!

Today, as our company continues to grow we revisit our training camp with new team members to keep the consistency needed to be successful. My advice is to not take training camp lightly. Spend the time to make your largest investment work for you. If you care about your business then it will show in your actions. Have a good training camp!

Top 5 Myths about Marketing: Word of Mouth as my only form of Marketing

Word of Mouth Marketing is my only form of marketing and it WORKS…
Is Word of Mouth Marketing REALLY working for you? Maybe. But certainly not as your only form of marketing and only if YOU control the message. You need to control your brand’s image. Word of Mouth has to be a controlled process. Here’s how…

Top 5 Myths about Marketing: Advertising is Too Expensive for my Company

Advertising is TOO expensive for my company…
Marketing is a process, therefore it’s an investment and advertising is a part of that process. Saying that marketing and advertising are too expensive, means you’re not ready to grow your business. Learn HOW to invest your marketing dollars and make them work for you.