Grow Your Business! 10 Winning Strategies for the New Decade

By Patrick McClure

Congratulations, and welcome to the New Decade.

Today we start writing the history of YOUR business in the 2020’s. What will it include? Will we see spectacular growth, stellar revenue production and champagne toasts? Or will your decade be filled with lost business deals, declining revenue and sour grapes? The outcome is up to you, and now is the time to plan for your future.

Much of the future is uncertain, of course, but one thing we know for certain. Every one of us just got a year older! And every one of our customers and prospects got a year older. Time marched on for all of us, and this means we need to recalibrate, refocus, and refine our plans. What worked in the 2010’s will need to change to match the 2020’s. And if we don’t change, we risk getting run over by the onrush of technology, ideas, and youth.

In this spirit, we’ve put together this article to help prepare you for the future decade. After considerable research (both past and future), consultation with our focus groups (including millennials and Gen-Z), and getting feedback from industry peers, we are now prepared to put together the following list of the TOP 10 WINNING STRATEGIES FOR THE NEW DECADE.

Here they are:

1. Correct Target Market & Cohort

There are 4 major cohorts in today’s Marketplace, and it’s vital that you understand these generations and the changing buying patterns they bring. Here’s a quick snapshot of the essential features:

You can’t sell anything unless you understand your target market and who is doing their buying. This means understanding the environment they grew up in, the events that shaped their lives, their age, what they’re challenged by, and what’s important to them.
It’s also important to document the buying process at your key prospects. Oftentimes, you will find the actual buyer is a Baby Boomer or a Gen X, but the influencers are really Millennials or Gen Z. Typically, the busy executive will have “someone on their staff” research new products or directions and bring back a short list of what they found. If you are not influencing these younger influencers, you might never make the short list!

2. Unique Value Proposition

We don’t sell products anymore, and we don’t really sell benefits. The world has gone way beyond product details (unless you’re selling highly technical products). Buyers today are constantly asking “What’s in it for me,” or what will it do for my business and my bottom line. This means we need to shift our focus to the Unique Value of our product or service.
If there’s nothing unique about our product, we need to go back to the drawing boards and figure out WHY people are buying from us. Sometimes, the best way to understand your unique value proposition is to ask your buyers.

The key is to understand your UVP, and then BRAND your product with it. And for heaven’s sake make sure that you solve an actual problem for your customers. Don’t make the mistake of creating a “me too” product that doesn’t really solve a problem!

3. Marketing across Generations

If you understand the generations, you’ll appreciate something called “screen size.” Baby Boomers grew up with the television, and some of them were there when color screens were first introduced. They viewed the world through the lens of a television screen, and they received news on 3 major channels only.

Generation X (age 38-54) grew up with television, but increasingly their attention shifted to computer screens. First the desktop with an attached screen of varying sizes, then in later parts of the cohort this transitioned into laptop devices. The screen became smaller, and cable TV was introduced which expanded the number of channels.

Millennials (age 25-39) grew up with laptops and tablets, but their screen now included cell phones which now included email, texting, and web access as well as making phone calls. The screen size was now even smaller. And the next cohort, the sons and daughters of millennials (age 12-25) can seamlessly split their time across all 5 screens but are mostly focused on their cell phones. Indeed, 46% of their waking hours are spent peering at their cell phone screen, which is now leading to multiple medical problems and cell phone addiction (nomophobia).

If important for marketeers to understand their target market and concentrate their efforts on the best screen for their market. If you’re selling to Gen-Z, then you wouldn’t spend your marketing dollars on printed brochures or email campaigns! Conversely if your target market is baby boomers, you wouldn’t feature google ads or gaming consoles. You must match your marketing dollars to the correct screen!

4. Selling in the “New Normal”

Sales today occur at light speed. Buyers are demanding short, concise, value-based branding and gives them an instant WIFM (what’s in it for me). Everything today has accelerated, and you don’t have time for complicated messages. Keep it direct, simple, relevant, and compelling and don’t waste your buyers time!

5. Replace Cold Calling with Warm Calling

The years of cold calling or cold visits are pretty much over. In fact, one of my associates has written a best seller entitled “Never Cold Call Again,” (Frank Rumbauskas) in which he argues that cold calling is not only ineffective, but it damages credibility and drives away potential customers! My advice is simple: if you’re going to be using the phone for sales, make sure you are making “warm calls.” Research your prospects in advance, know their names and their company, and figure out a way to make the call valuable and not a waste of time. Pre-stage your calls by sending a text in advance (if you know their cell phone #), research them on LinkedIn, and try to get a warm referral from an associate or networking partner.

6. Deliver what they REALLY want at light speed

Speed of delivery is incredibly important. Customers are used to near-instantaneous results. They can order product and have it on their doorstep the next day (Amazon Prime), they can purchase and download movies and play them NOW, they can have groceries and products delivered by Wal-Mart or Target within minutes. They are used to near-immediate gratification and simple interfaces. If you have delays in your order fulfillment process, your customers will not tolerate it. Fix it!

7. Use Free as a Strategy

I can remember marketing a Presentation Skills training course for a bargain rate of $499 for an entire day of training. It was a killer price and always sold out in the past! But after renting a hotel room and filling it with 3 attendees (OUCH) I did my research and discovered that one of my competitors was offering a one-day class that same day in that same town for FREE!

The new selling strategy has evolved. Savvy marketeers are now enticing customers to try it out for free or nearly free, and then making their margins on upselling the next step. For instance, SalesForce.Com (the dominant CRM vendor) will happily give away a version of their CRM software to individual users. You can download it for free and use it if you like, and it works just fine. However, when you expand and want to add users or implement more advanced features of the software, you must upgrade (for a hefty fee).

On the retail side, visit Costco and cruise their aisles, and you can try dozens of samples. Of course, this drives huge incremental sales. Ergo Free as a strategy can really work!

8. Replace Selling with Influencing

Millennials and Gen-Z do not like the term “selling.” No one likes to be sold anything, but we all like to buy. The modern sales model uses a lot of “influencers” to generate brand awareness and buzz. Many influencers have hundreds and thousands of followers, and when they endorse a product (via Facebook, twitter, Instagram, or shapchat) it can lead to massive sales and profits.

One of the biggest influencers in social media today are performers. For instance, pop singer Selena Gomez (age 27 net worth $75MM) has 123 MILLION followers on Instagram! BTW, the last we checked her fee for simply mentioning your product in a post (implied endorsement) was over $1 MM.

Of course, you may not be able to afford a superstar endorsement, but your sales planning needs to include a strategy to attract influencers and get their support for your product/service.

9. Take advantage of Technology

Of course, make sure you’re taking full advantage of any technology at your disposal. Depending on your target market, divide your sales & marketing budget accordingly. There are huge benefits to be tapped into with social media, web design, social media marketing, gaming, virtual reality, and online advertising.

10. Hire a Gen-Z or Gen-Y

In order to fully implement technology, my best advice is to hire a Gen-Y (Millennial) or a Gen-Z for your marketing department. First job is to have them review your marketing plan for 2020 and tell you what’s wrong with it! They will not back off from their honest opinions, and they’ll probably give you some great advice.

You might have to bite your tongue and learn to tolerate a younger brash employee who expresses their opinion freely with no filter, but it will be worth it. Especially if you want to connect with a younger target market, it pays you to listen well.

So, there you are! 10 quick strategies for survival in the new decade. Good luck and let me know your success with these tips!

Permission is needed from Patrick McClure and Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC to reproduce any portion provided in this article. © 2020

Patrick McClure is a senior sales consultant with Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC as well as speaker, trainer and author who enjoys working with individuals and corporations to help them achieve maximum performance. He has dedicated his practice to helping others become more successful and specializes in sales training. To learn more and receive Patrick’s free newsletter, please email Patrick at patrick@lighthouseconsulting.com. Or call him at 310-453-6556, ext 415.

If you would like additional information on this topic or others, please contact your Human Resources department or Lighthouse Consulting Services LLC, Santa Monica, CA, (310) 453-6556, dana@lighthouseconsulting.com & our website: www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development. LCS can test in 19 different languages, provide domestic and international interpersonal coaching and offer a variety of workshops – team building, interpersonal communication and stress management.

To order the books, “Cracking the Personality Code”, “Cracking the Business Code” and “Cracking the High-Performance Team Code”, please go to www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

Your Web Presence

By Michael Utvich

2009 was a big year for Twitter and it is still going strong. Politicians, movie stars and sports figures have made headlines, chirping their random thoughts to masses of admirers, who received their transmissions on everything from a desktop computer to a cell phone. The Twitter media phenomenon has become a rocket sled that has propelled the culture of social networking into public view.biz man on road computer

THE SOCIAL NETWORK WHOOPEE SHOW

At first glance, the numbers are staggering. As of July 2009, an estimated 200 million people are members of Facebook, the leading personal social network. The Twitter website attracted 44.5 million unique visits in June of 2009, with millions more distributing messages through Twitter apps beyond the site itself. LinkedIn.com, the dominant social network for businesspeople had more than 43 million members. The massive media coverage has been rigorously trendy, often vapid, and frequently meaningless. Social networks have been presented as a serial web of connected gimmicks.

What has been lost in all the background noise is that social networks and the larger “Web 2.0” technology evolution are now maturing into a system of powerful communication and collaboration tools that will transform the way we work, interact – even think – and have an impact greater than the original World Wide Web did when it was founded in 1993 – only sixteen years ago.

WHAT’S A WEB PRESENCE? DO YOU NEED ONE?

If you send or receive only one email a year, you have a web presence. A web presence is, very simply, the sum of all the places, or touchpoints, where you maintain your identity on the web. For most businesspeople their web presence has been 1) their business e-mail address and 2) their company website.

Web 2.0 and social networking apps are changing all of that dramatically. These new apps are like freestanding computer programs and systems that allow you to sign in and operate a variety of electronic tools to create and distribute your own content, interact with other members and engage in group initiatives over the web. So the businessperson of today has a growing list of touchpoints that make up a web presence, for example:

YOUR WEB PRESENCE – SOME OF THE MOVING PARTS

• Email: Business address, personal email address
• Website: Company website
• Blog: Personal or company blog site (linked to website)
• Business Social Network: LinkedIn.com or other business network handle and profile
• Personal Social Network: Facebook.com or other social net handle and profile
• Private Social Network: Ning.com-based private membership only network handle
• Instant Messaging: Yahoo IM or AOL Instant message handle
• Internet Phone: Skype identity, profile and access.
• Microblogging: Twitter account for sharing and receiving microblog message streams.
• Information Sharing: Twine.com or other information links service to share information with networks of friends.

This is just a partial list of the apps that could be added to your web presence. Add to all of this that these tools are interconnected and can feed off one another, information generated in one application can be distributed in another, notices and endorsements created through one application can be shared through another. The web has evolved from a few simple functional connection tools into a vast, complicated and encompassing global network.

WEB 2.0 & SOCIAL NETWORKS

A partial collection of new technologies and applications that make up the interactive collaboration and communication system driving the Internet and the Web for the future.social media

Far from being the superficial collection of gimmicks often presented through the media, Web 2.0 and social networking represent a dramatic scale up in human communication tools and capabilities.

To see how dramatic the changes are, compare a Web 1.0 application (the Contact list / Address book in Microsoft Outlook) to a Web 2.0 app like LinkedIn. The two essentially capture a network of contacts, but LinkedIn fully integrates your contact list with your background information, a system of endorsements, interest groups, specialized communications and linking network that enables you to see how you are connected to others in your list, and your common contacts. By contrast, Outlook Contacts is little more than a database for name address, email and phone. The integrated, collaborative Web 2.0 application lets you move faster by connecting your information into greater and more valuable forms and richer meaning.

ITS ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

The smart play to build your Web presence is to understand what the technologies can deliver and to build intelligent business objectives around them. You might need to do some out-of-the-box brainstorming — for example—what if you could:

  1. Instantly find the connections in your network to meet anybody you wanted?
  2. Monitor alliances and connections between your clients, partners and competitors on demand?
  3. Build a free broadcast network to engage the marketplace?
  4. Create a Social Store to present your products and services to customers and their friends?
  5. Monitor and participate in opinion leader dialogues in your industry and marketplace?
  6. Present your personal professional brand to a worldwide network of influencers – as well as potential customers.

Without some creative and well stated business objectives, it’s easy to get lost in the fog of activity, and put up profiles on various sites and share data without any sense of outcomes.

COMMUNICATE…AND LISTEN

Web 2.0 and social networking is a conversation, not a one way presentation. If you are coming at this from a business perspective, your two principal targets should be to:

  1. Outbound: Present yourself, your experience and your value to a global audience through well developed media – website, blog, LinkedIn profile, Twitter streams.communicationcommunication
  2. Inbound: Seek connections who have knowledge, expertise, contacts and creativity to bring value to your business and link to them through social networks and tools.

Keep in mind that your objectives with these tools will likely be both outbound and inbound —- not only communicating yourself, but paying attention to others and engaging them in your dialogue. On the outbound level, you may wish to present your product or service to the marketplace. On the inbound level you may need to create interactive and collaborative tools for your clients, customers, partners or members to comment and interact with you.

YOUR PROFILES: REAL TIME STORYTELLING

Social connections through the web create more interactive and intimate communications than conventional marketing messages and email communications. The computer screen, unlike the printed page, operates in the present tense. An online profile is not a resume, a listing of what you did yesterday, it is a presentation of how you see the world, the things you find interesting and the things you value today, right NOW.

Telling Your Story Through Social Networks

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In the intimate, connected, and collaborative universe of online social networks, authenticity is more important than conventional marketing messages, keywords, taglines and themes. The fundamental premise of social networks is that they allow you to interact directly with real people in the here and now – through information, favorite media, shared pictures and images. These are collectively a multimedia storytelling system. Your opportunity is to tell your story using the most powerful medium to carry the message.

This is you, right now, coming through the screen. When people confuse an online profile with a resume or Curriculum Vitae, what emerges is often flat and uninteresting, a list of happenings and facts without context to provide meaning. Storytelling, anecdotes, illustrative quotes are all effective ways for you to profile and present the truly individual aspects of your character and accomplishments, including things other people have said about you in the form of quotes and comments.

OPERATING YOUR NETWORK

Once you have built your presence on a social network such as Facebook or LinkedIn, you now have contacts, your profile, endorsements and other information, you are now in a position to operate that network to generate interest and activity.

Social networking software contains a variety of sharing tools and triggering frameworks, such as photo sharing and user walls for posting of content that enable you to keep a high level of visibility to your audience. In effect, operating your social network allows you to create a persona not unlike a television news reporter or commentator, someone who brings things of interest to your network.

The challenge in operating your social network is to have a clear sense of the voice you wish to project. Just randomly throwing pictures and articles up or overwhelming your audience with useless links or information out of context will exhaust even your best friends. So we come full circle to the beginning of this article and the overriding concept of Web Presence — you need to have clearly defined objectives of how you wish to communicate yourself, your knowledge, and your value, and use those objectives to select the ways you operate and interact with others through the social networking system.

You may find that you use one larger network like Facebook or LinkedIn as the ‘base station” or “mother ship” in your social networking context, you can then add other tools around it. Share Skype IDs with Facebook friends to for free voice conversations Skype to Skype anywhere in the world. Use Twitter to build followers and share items that come out of your LinkedIn or Facebook community. While it is true that the possibilities are endless in this world of many tools and apps, the reality must be carefully considered, focused and designed to stay in line with your business objectives.

To receive a worksheet on creating Your Web Presence… please click here.

See below for a list of social networking sites and social networking.

SOCIAL NETWORK SITES – BUSINESS

• AdvisorGarage – It is an online directory of advisers who are willing to assist budding entrepreneurs.
• ArtBreak – ArtBreak is an artist community for sharing and selling artwork.
• Blogtronix – Blogtronix promotes corporate social networking, enterprise 2.0 and wikis.
• DoMyStuff – A good site for working professionals looking to find online assistants.
• Doostang – An invite only career community for professionals.
• Fast Pitch – It is a quickly growing business networking community in corporate world. Its online provides users with a one-stop shop network to market their business.
• iKarma Inc. – iKarma is a specialist in providing customer feedback for organizations and professionals.
• ImageKind – ImageKind is a community and marketplace for professional artists.
• Jigsaw – An online business card networking directory for users to establish contacts with each other. Each business card is listed with an email id and a contact number.
• Linkedin – LinkedIn is a professional social networking website for business users, one of the most popular such sites out there.
• mediabistro.com – mediabistro.com is for professionals in content or creative industry.
• Ning.com – Create your own public or private-secured list social network for your business
• Ryze.com – A site for establishing new connections and growing networks. Connections for jobs, building career and making sales.
• Spoke.com – Spoke offers access to business network of over 40 million people worldwide.
• XING – XING is a networking directory of business contacts powering relationships between business professionals allowing users to connect with each other.

YOUR WEB PRESENCE / SOCIAL NETWORKING PLAN

The key planning steps shown below are simply a way of looking at the big picture of what you wish to accomplish. Having a central ‘web marketing plan’, even a quick scratch sheet from these notes, will help you focus your presence more effectively than randomly filling in profile forms without a core objective.

The most important is Number 1: Your Web Presence objectives. At the simplest level, you may want to present a clear and compelling vision of your current expertise, the value of the work you do and the quality of expertise you possess. In other words, you can use social networking to convey both your personal and professional value proposition. The more you can focus on the key elements of your background, personality and expertise for emphasis, the more you can develop a clear and accessible profile; adding media, narratives, anecdotes, even video clips bring a rich dimension that both enhances and confirms your image.

The key steps in building a Social Networking Plan are to identify:

  1. Your Web Presence objectives: What is the business, personal or professional goal or goals you have to realize through creating a Web Presence
  2. Your Web Presence profile: Who are YOU, and how to best present it?
  3. Information about you today, your background and experience.
  4. Individuals and groups of people you wish to interact with
  5. Content you need including video, audio, presentations
  6. Web 2.0 social media select to meet your purpose.
  7. Timing which elements of your network to build first, and what follows progressively

Permission is needed from Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC to reproduce any portion provided in this article. © 2014

Michael Utvich has over thirty years experience in strategic communications, product launch and business development marketing. Michael has worked with high technology organizations from Fortune 500 to start-ups to define a deep and relevant customer value proposition that provides the anchor for a smart product launch program including brand, marketing, sales, product knowledge and customer learning programs. He is the award-winning author of 9 books on high technology software and technologies and a frequent speaker on new technologies including Web 2.0 and Social Networking. Epsilon Interactive provides a variety of strategic consulting, coaching and business solutions, helping clients effectively integrate Web 2.0 and social networking technologies their marketing, sales, customer service and internal operations. For more information on this topic, please contact Michael at Michael@utvich.com or (323) 655-4476.

Inspiration and Techniques for Building Championship-Level Performance – Lighthouse clients have one thing in common – all are committed to boosting the performance of their organizations. So, we are pleased to introduce our clients and friends to Boaz Rauchwerger — speaker, trainer, author and consultant. We highly recommend Boaz to you. Ask him to deliver one of his inspirational programs at your next executive retreat or strategic planning session.  One of our favorite Boaz programs is “Playing Like a Championship Team Every Day”. It helps you build on the strengths of everyone’s individual differences. This program helps you discover five steps to get everyone to join the building crew and resign from the wrecking crew. This is a very powerful and inspirational program that receives rave reviews every time.

• Master five techniques to inspire others to perform like champions
• Six recognition techniques including the powerful “good finder” program
• Learn four ways that your team can gain a competitive advantage
• Identify the three prerequisites for maximizing the team’s results
• Learn the two forms of keeping a daily score so everyone wins

Who is Boaz? Over a 30-year span, Boaz, author of The Tiberias Transformation – How To Change Your Life In Less Than 8 Minutes A Day, has conducted thousands of seminars internationally on goal setting and high achievement. He has taught over half a million people how to supercharge their lives, their careers and how to add Power to their goals. His innovative program, for individuals and corporations, is a simple and highly effective process for high achievement. He was voted Speaker of the Year by Vistage, an international organization of CEOs and business owners. How to Contact Boaz – Want more information on Boaz’s Power Program, including “Playing Like a Championship Team Every Day”? Just click here and we’ll be in touch.

If you would like additional information on this topic or others, please contact your Human Resources department or Lighthouse Consulting Services LLC, 3130 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Santa Monica, CA 90403, (310) 453-6556, dana@lighthouseconsulting.com & our website: www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, 360s, workshops, and executive & employee coaching. Other areas of expertise: Executive on boarding for success, leadership training for the 21st century, exploring global options for expanding your business, sales and customer service training and operational productivity improvement.

To order the books, Cracking the Personality Code and Cracking the Business Code, please go to www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

5 Tips for Making Smart Marketing Decisions

By Bob Hougland

Just about every business is impacted in some way during challenging times, but businesses often lack the wiggle room to adapt. Consider the following as you look at your own situation:

1. Don’t make hurried, short-term decisions.

In a financial crunch, businesses often slash or eliminate expenses for things they can “do without.” In most cases, this can prove to be a short-term action with detrimental long-term consequences. First, if it’s something you can truly do without, it’s not likely that you would have been paying for it all along. Second, if you cut or eliminate something just telescope teamto save money without considering the impact on your overall operations, you’re selling yourself short. Rather than drop anything completely, consider reducing your expenditures in several areas to achieve the necessary economy. Consider involving at least your key people, if not your entire staff, in discussion of economization. You may be surprised by some of the ideas they have, and you’ll help maintain morale if they understand your situation and are given the opportunity to kick in their thoughts.

2. Don’t try to take up all the slack.

Part of the entrepreneurial spirit is rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever needs to be done. That’s certainly a viable position in difficult times, but don’t let it go too far. Your job is to stay focused on the big picture and to guide your company into the future, and you can’t do that if you’re bogged down for extended period in day-to-day details. Maintain your position at the helm, but pitch in where you can be most effective. Also, make sure that time-consuming activities are being performed by someone at the lowest appropriate cost-per-hour.

3. Tweak, rather than slash, your marketing program.

Over the years, I’ve seen countless companies dramatically curtail or even drop some or all of their marketing plans when finances are tight. Most often, I’ve seen advertising cut or even stopped entirely. That’s a false economy. First, there are still prospects and customers out there. That means opportunities to develop your existing accounts and generate new accounts out of what remains of your market. As some of your non-accounts become dissatisfied with their present suppliers because of cutbacks that competitor has made, they become qualified prospects for you. You need to maintain your presence in the marketplace and demonstrate your stability and reliability under any market conditions. Second, your competitors are still in place, and they will react to changes in the economy in various ways. Some will cut their advertising or reduce their services. Others will bite the bullet and maintain their marketing activities. Either way, don’t lose sight of the reality that you need to maintain your slice of the pie (i.e., your market share) regardless of the size of that pie, and you can actually carve out a bigger slice in down times by acquiring new accounts from your competitors. So, what about advertising? You can economize on advertising by decreasing your frequency. If you’re running an ad every week or every month, drop back to every other week or month. Cutting your frequency in half doesn’t cut your impact in half, and some people may not even notice the difference. Take a critical look at where you’re advertising. It’s likely that all of the media you are using aren’t equal in their penetration of your most important kinds of prospects, so make larger cuts among the least effective media. Don’t drop any one ad medium entirely since multi-media advertising is proven to provide the most bang for your buck. Cut back on each medium, but keep all in play. Also, maintain your memberships in trade associations and other organizations which get you and your company exposure. Continue to be seen and heard by your marketplace. Look for new opportunities to be interviewed or to publish articles in your area of expertise. That kind of exposure can have greater impact than paid advertising.

4. Keep your sales program alive.

One of my active clients has begun picking up some new accounts in recent weeks because a competitor has pulled his sales force off of all accounts below a certain dollar value and has ordered his sales staff to cut their travel in half. Some of their customers have reacted with resentment at not being seen as “important enough,” while others see a loss of the former level of customer service. Yes, some limits on travel can probably be made, but don’t do anything drastic which will be seen by your marketplace as pulling back. Your customers will understand less frequent sales calls, especially with the cost of gas. Keep your sales incentives in place and discuss with your sales staff the tactics and appeals to win over new customers from among those becoming dissatisfied with one of your competitors. Rather than dropping your prices, consider premiums or freebees to add value to your transactions.

5. Do seize on the opportunity to prepare for the future.

Take a step back with a critical look at your operation. Are you really organized for peak performance and optimum efficiency? Are there improvements you could make that will better your bottom line permanently? I remember from my military officer training that they stressed the best decisions are those which are made calmly and rationally before the map and manneed to implement them arises. Are your difficulties in dealing with a slow market perhaps due to your lack of advanced contingency planning? Business, like the economy, always goes in cycles. How well have you already prepared for a down cycle? Often, job descriptions have evolved from the skills of the people in the particular positions rather than from the functional needs of the business. Are you set up on a strict, vertical department basis? That may work, but you may also be missing opportunities to improve your overall processes so that there is better coverage of an entire process during a temporary or permanent absence. Have you effectively delegated both authority and accountability? If not, you’re missing an important means of optimizing your company’s performance. If you don’t have a Business Plan or Marketing Plan, create one now. Why? Studies have shown that we’re all most careful about what we commit to paper. A documented plan gives you a roadmap through good and bad times by making you think through your activities. General Eisenhower said that the planning for D-Day in WWII was obsolete when the attack was actually launched, but that it was all of the thinking and discussion that went into the plan that prepared our forces for victory.

Look at economic changes as opportunity rather than a problem. A glass-half-full approach will get you farther than a glass-half-empty start.

Permission is needed from Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC to reproduce any portion provided in this article. © 2014

Bob Hougland holds a BA in Psychology and is a Vietnam vet with almost 5 years’ USAF active duty. He began his business career in the fast-track executive development program at AT&T, but sought out smaller employers. For most of a decade, he held sales management positions at L.A. radio stations KIIS, 93KHJ, and K-EARTH101, and created a successful marketing consulting division for RKO General Radio. With both sales management and marketing management awards under his belt, he founded RGH MARKETING. He now is the Owner/Consultant at SuperTemp where he continues his career of helping good organizations be better, new ones to get off the ground and bringing some back from the brink of failure. He is a strategist who sees opportunities where others see problems and bring lessons learned in a wide range of industries to bear on new situations. He can be reached at 803-774-7777 or SuperTemp@pacbell.net or you can read his blog at http://businessguy.biz/.

Inspiration and Techniques for Building Championship-Level Performance – Lighthouse clients have one thing in common – all are committed to boosting the performance of their organizations. So, we are pleased to introduce our clients and friends to Boaz Rauchwerger — speaker, trainer, author and consultant. We highly recommend Boaz to you. Ask him to deliver one of his inspirational programs at your next executive retreat or strategic planning session.

One of our favorite Boaz programs is “Playing Like a Championship Team Every Day”. It helps you build on the strengths of everyone’s individual differences. This program helps you discover five steps to get everyone to join the building crew and resign from the wrecking crew. This is a very powerful and inspirational program that receives rave reviews every time.

• Master five techniques to inspire others to perform like champions
• Six recognition techniques including the powerful “good finder” program
• Learn four ways that your team can gain a competitive advantage
• Identify the three prerequisites for maximizing the team’s results
• Learn the two forms of keeping a daily score so everyone wins

Who is Boaz? Over a 30-year span, Boaz, author of The Tiberias Transformation – How To Change Your Life In Less Than 8 Minutes A Day, has conducted thousands of seminars internationally on goal setting and high achievement. He has taught over half a million people how to supercharge their lives, their careers and how to add Power to their goals. His innovative program, for individuals and corporations, is a simple and highly effective process for high achievement. He was voted Speaker of the Year by Vistage, an international organization of CEOs and business owners. How to Contact Boaz – Want more information on Boaz’s Power Program, including “Playing Like a Championship Team Every Day”? Just click here and we’ll be in touch.

If you would like additional information on this topic or others, please contact your Human Resources department or Lighthouse Consulting Services LLC, 3130 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Santa Monica, CA 90403, (310) 453-6556, dana@lighthouseconsulting.com & our website: www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, 360s, workshops, and executive & employee coaching. Other areas of expertise: Executive on boarding for success, leadership training for the 21st century, exploring global options for expanding your business, sales and customer service training and operational productivity improvement.

To order the books, “Cracking the Personality Code” and “Cracking the Business Code” please go to www.lighthouseconsulting.com.