|
Added for You - Boost Your Success With An R&D Team
Do You Have a Website or a Purple Cow?Or what about a pink elephant? For those of you not familiar with Seth Godin he has written numerous books about how to run a business using marketing, stressing the need to always be remarkable. As a point of illustration he uses cows. In a field full of cows a purple cow would stand out, you would remember, it would be remarkable. Until all the cows became purple of course.A simple illustration that makes a big point, unless you stand out you are invisible. If you're invisible how are you going to sell? The point being that you need to create a product and organisation that is remarkable in order to get that much needed growth.I've read his book and can summarize it fairly succinctly - how can you expect remarkable results without being remarkable? It's simple.This got me thinking, a business a website, a business a website? Same principle. Why should I go to your website and read your articles? Why should I read up about your business when I could read up on 1,000,000 others? My conclusion was the Purple Cow effect.There are many websites out that that are well designed, they look professional, they download quickly, they're all the same, they're boring. The idea of "safe" is becoming somewhat of a phenomenon on the internet like it is in business. The problem is you then don't stand out!I am sure you must have spent some time researching potential suppliers on the internet? Like me you hit Google, put your phr l end up with a far greater number and higher quality of ideas to work with (even if you do end going with your original plan) than you could ever hope to come up with on your own.
(Fun note: Even mad scientists and evil overlords, the two most basic "one-man operations" there are, take advantage of this stress-relieving concept. Remember - you, too, have minions. Use them!)
(c) Soni Pitts ABOUT THE AUT Running a Business is Like GardeningHaving had a busy week, I was only too happy to don my gardening clothes and get outside to do some planting, weeding and pruning last weekend. “It’s interesting”, I thought, “how business refers to a slight improvement as the green shoots of recovery”. I then began to think of other gardening analogies that could be applied to business. OK so now I’m being a bit sad and if I can’t just go outside and enjoy the air, maybe I should stay in more! But hang on, this can be a useful exercise. Think about it. If you “can’t see the wood for the trees” in your business but gardening is easier to relate to, then look at how you tackle your garden and how you could apply the same principles to your business.First of all you need a plan of what you’re going to grow and where (Your business plan – what are you going to do and who is your target market). Maybe that plant you put over in that shady corner is dying off so you may need to cut your losses and dig it up (that line of business is losing money). The border flowers would do a lot better if there weren’t all of those weeds (too many strands to the business) and every time you go to the shed to get your tools out there’s so much clutter you either can’t find what you’re looking for or it all falls out of the shed (desk clutter).Of course, once you’ve done your planting, you’ll need to be vigilant about the watering otherwise nothing will grow, and before you know where you are your annuals One of the best ways to ensure that your planning is successful is to create your own R&D (research and development) group. All truly successful businesses have departments or teams specifically dedicated to finding and developing new and better ways to do whatever it is the company does, so why not you?
At it's most basic, and R&D group can be a small group of friends that you bribe into helping you with problems by offerings of pizza and beer. At it's most complex, it can be a worldwide network of e-quaintences who have signed on to receive email newsletters from you outlining the projects you are working on, and who in return offer feedback or creative help from hundreds of different perspectives.
Wherever your group falls along this continuum, to be effective they must have a clear idea of where you're going and what help you need. Be clear and clean in your discussions, and accept all feedback openly and without defensive posturing. Of course, if someone is taking advantage of your goodwill by scarfing up your pizza, but offering only bland or even hurtful critiques in return with no real effort at being helpful or creating solutions, don't invite them back - just be sure it's them, and not you, who are the problem!
Don't forget to keep your R&D team up to date on the progress of the projects they helped on. After all, it's their baby too, and no one likes to help out and then be left behind - if you pull a "thanks for all your help, b'bye now" routine on them, they will get frustrated and won't want to play any more, leaving you to do all that work by yourself. Reciprocate in kind by joining in their R&D teams if they ask (or offer first, to be really nice).
Creating and using R&D teams can save you much wasted time, pointless effort and avoidable pain. No one of us knows as much as all of us put together, and the group dynamic is a good example of a behavior known as "emergent phenomenon" - it often generates results that are greater than the sum of its parts. By sending your ideas and problems through your R&D team, rather than attempting to handle it all yourself, you'll end up with a far greater number and higher quality of ideas to work with (even if you do end going with your original plan) than you could ever hope to come up with on your own.
(Fun note: Even mad scientists and evil overlords, the two most basic "one-man operations" there are, take advantage of this stress-relieving concept. Remember - you, too, have minions. Use them!)
(c) Soni Pitts ABOUT THE AUTH Franchise Sales and Fear of LossIf you are a franchise sales person perhaps you need a few pointers. You see, selling franchises is a lot different than selling other types of things and there are many reasons for this. Not only is a franchise a very high-ticket item, but it is also a lifestyle change and part of someone's American dream. Buying a franchise is also a risky endeavor, just like starting any type of business, but the franchise buyer knows this and is probably considering a franchise rather than risking their own money in starting a business from scratch. And this is why most people buy franchises.I do believe that is the most apparent reason for buying a franchise rather than going it alone actually in a small business built from the ground up. Additionally, the psychological factors of the "Fear of Loss" is alive and well in selling franchises.Franchise companies talk about this actually in seminars to train franchising salespeople. When I started my first franchising company in the 1990s, I did not know this and I took a totally different approach and I always spent my time trying to talk people out of buying a franchise if I saw hesitation, fear or anything else? Because I know that there is no easy way. My theory was that anyone can sit in the Ready Room and talk about the mission, but when the crap hits the fan, well that kind of separates out all the human spirit from the talk.Nevertheless, most of the franchising salespeople and in franch signed on to receive email newsletters from you outlining the projects you are working on, and who in return offer feedback or creative help from hundreds of different perspectives.
Wherever your group falls along this continuum, to be effective they must have a clear idea of where you're going and what help you need. Be clear and clean in your discussions, and accept all feedback openly and without defensive posturing. Of course, if someone is taking advantage of your goodwill by scarfing up your pizza, but offering only bland or even hurtful critiques in return with no real effort at being helpful or creating solutions, don't invite them back - just be sure it's them, and not you, who are the problem!
Don't forget to keep your R&D team up to date on the progress of the projects they helped on. After all, it's their baby too, and no one likes to help out and then be left behind - if you pull a "thanks for all your help, b'bye now" routine on them, they will get frustrated and won't want to play any more, leaving you to do all that work by yourself. Reciprocate in kind by joining in their R&D teams if they ask (or offer first, to be really nice).
Creating and using R&D teams can save you much wasted time, pointless effort and avoidable pain. No one of us knows as much as all of us put together, and the group dynamic is a good example of a behavior known as "emergent phenomenon" - it often generates results that are greater than the sum of its parts. By sending your ideas and problems through your R&D team, rather than attempting to handle it all yourself, you'll end up with a far greater number and higher quality of ideas to work with (even if you do end going with your original plan) than you could ever hope to come up with on your own.
(Fun note: Even mad scientists and evil overlords, the two most basic "one-man operations" there are, take advantage of this stress-relieving concept. Remember - you, too, have minions. Use them!)
(c) Soni Pitts ABOUT THE AUT Evaluating an OpportunityBusiness opportunities are often based on broad trends, such as:• demographic, such as the "graying" of America (creating opportunities in health services, for example);• sociological developments, like the "green" movement, with its emphasis on recycling and environmental sensitivity, and;• cultural changes caused by changing economic conditions and technological developments.Opportunities can also frequently be found in current and developing business trends such as:• the globalization of business,• the need for outsourcing created by downsizing, and• the burgeoning service economy.The Internet and rapid growth of e-commerce have certainly created changes in the process of buying books and CD’s, trading stock, delivering information, and bidding on collectibles. Where do you see the next process to be transformed in a major way by the Internet?Let’s do a brief case study in opportunity:Neighborhood Coffee ShopI live in the eastern section of town, which is growing rapidly, and food and business services are not quite keeping up. The "East" is fairly isolated from the rest of the city by water, an interstate highway, and an industrial park, forming a separate and distinct market. “People” are saying that the East desperately needs a good coffee shop. (Who are these people? Are they just in our immediate circle? Are they representative enough of the area to extrapolate fro land or even hurtful critiques in return with no real effort at being helpful or creating solutions, don't invite them back - just be sure it's them, and not you, who are the problem!
Don't forget to keep your R&D team up to date on the progress of the projects they helped on. After all, it's their baby too, and no one likes to help out and then be left behind - if you pull a "thanks for all your help, b'bye now" routine on them, they will get frustrated and won't want to play any more, leaving you to do all that work by yourself. Reciprocate in kind by joining in their R&D teams if they ask (or offer first, to be really nice).
Creating and using R&D teams can save you much wasted time, pointless effort and avoidable pain. No one of us knows as much as all of us put together, and the group dynamic is a good example of a behavior known as "emergent phenomenon" - it often generates results that are greater than the sum of its parts. By sending your ideas and problems through your R&D team, rather than attempting to handle it all yourself, you'll end up with a far greater number and higher quality of ideas to work with (even if you do end going with your original plan) than you could ever hope to come up with on your own.
(Fun note: Even mad scientists and evil overlords, the two most basic "one-man operations" there are, take advantage of this stress-relieving concept. Remember - you, too, have minions. Use them!)
(c) Soni Pitts ABOUT THE AUT Sales - Ten Ways to Gain Business RelationshipsThe Power of ten simply means that anything you do should be done in tens. It may seem quite simple but if you think about how many follow-up calls you should do in any day plus the number of new calls to be made and the number of new appointments per week, you are already on your way to success in sales. By repeating a task ten times, your results will skyrocket. Here are some excellent ways to use the power of ten to start gaining more business and forming closer business relationships. Join organizations where your potential customers attend
Learn to network and work a room to your advantage (see our chapter on events)
Follow-up with everyone whose card you have gathered at an event
When joining a leads group, make an appointment with everyone in the group to discover what they do, how you can help them find business and also what they can do for you in the way of leads.
Keep in touch with people on a monthly basis through mailers (postcards or email)
Call ten people a day to touch base and ask for referrals
Send a quarterly "Letter from the Heart"
Use your inner circle to send non business related information to your customers
Do ten activities a week which includes customer meetings
Be truthful and work with integrity at all times, this is worth more than all the business yo urself. Reciprocate in kind by joining in their R&D teams if they ask (or offer first, to be really nice).
Creating and using R&D teams can save you much wasted time, pointless effort and avoidable pain. No one of us knows as much as all of us put together, and the group dynamic is a good example of a behavior known as "emergent phenomenon" - it often generates results that are greater than the sum of its parts. By sending your ideas and problems through your R&D team, rather than attempting to handle it all yourself, you'll end up with a far greater number and higher quality of ideas to work with (even if you do end going with your original plan) than you could ever hope to come up with on your own.
(Fun note: Even mad scientists and evil overlords, the two most basic "one-man operations" there are, take advantage of this stress-relieving concept. Remember - you, too, have minions. Use them!)
(c) Soni Pitts ABOUT THE AUT Is Your Message Getting Through?As a sales coach, I often hear a sales representative make the excuse for a lost sale, that their prospect just did not listen to their presentation. Most psychologists suggest that, “Effective communication occurs when the receiver receives the message the sender intended to send.” From this definition, it is clear that the responsibility for effective communications rests with the sales professional.Every day in businesses across the country, customer or client contact personnel and prospects, customers or clients have difficulty sending and receiving messages. Although there are many factors that can block or interfere with effective dialogue, one of the most common among sales professionals is the use of jargon or a specific industry’s terminology. We use words that are familiar to us because we regularly hear them from our co-workers and read them in our product literature and industry publications. Unfortunately, many of these words and phrases are not understood by many potential customers or clients even though they may have heard the terms before.For example, on a recent sales call with a financial service representative who was presenting a mutual funds to a prospective client, the salesperson moved successfully through each of six steps of the selling process up to the point of presenting his investment product. As the salesperson began to talk about the product, out came a mouthful of financial jargon like: market validit l end up with a far greater number and higher quality of ideas to work with (even if you do end going with your original plan) than you could ever hope to come up with on your own.
(Fun note: Even mad scientists and evil overlords, the two most basic "one-man operations" there are, take advantage of this stress-relieving concept. Remember - you, too, have minions. Use them!)
(c) Soni Pitts ABOUT THE AUTHOR Soni Pitts is the Chief Visionary Butt-Kicker of SoniPitts.Com. She specializes in helping others reclaim "soul proprietorship" in their lives and to begin living the life their Creator always intended for them. She is the author of the free e-book "50 Ways To Reach Your Goals" and over 100 self-help and inspirational articles, as well as other products and resources designed to facilitate this process of personal growth and spiritual development. | |
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.added4u.com/article/45980/added4u-Boost-Your-Success-With-An-RD-Team.html">Boost Your Success With An R&D Team</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.added4u.com/article/45980/added4u-Boost-Your-Success-With-An-RD-Team.html]Boost Your Success With An R&D Team[/url]
Related Articles:
Starting a Business - How to Get Everything on Your List Done!
With all of the pressures that come with starting up a new business it is easy to get overwhelmed. Which many people face is a long list of tasks that need to be dealt with. Keeping yourself and your company organized can be a tall task with everything you have to face.
Creating a Fundraising Opportunities
Organizing a really big fundraising extravaganza can be hard in the pockets. As they say in order to raise big money, you’ve got to have the money and other resources to raise it. This is kinda hard for organizations that do not have the funds yet to organize a big charity event. This is especially true with those that are newly established and those that have yet to get financial supporters from the outside.
How To Boost ROI through CRM Tools
Looking for ways to boost your CRM through ROIs? Let us discuss about some ways to achieve your goals. Whatever CRM solution you opt for, remember that its implementation needs to be quick, well planned and relevant to the target customers in order to be effective.
|
|
|
|
|
|
