How to Take Your Company to the Next Level

 By strategically sizing up the competition, you can help take your business to the head of the pack.

"I want to take my company to the next level."

I hear these words from CEOs all the time as they talk about their goals and dreams for their companies.

When I push for the details, the conversation tends to get a little murky. It's usually just a recap of how the company has been performing recently. The conversation always ends with a statement of aspiration, "I just know we are ready to really grow."

Certainly, set your goals for the stars. Along the way, however, you need to pass the runner in front of you before you overtake the record-setter at the front of the pack. If you have ever raced, you know the importance of focusing on the racer right in front of you as you look for your opportunity to pass.

What to do:

1. Study the pack
Pick out the market leader. Now pick out the one-to-three competitors who are at the next level ahead of you. Take your ego out of the conversation as much as possible and put your analyst hat on. What separates the pack into their current positions? These layers in the market are often set by what the market values. The question should be, what criteria are being valued by the customers you want and the market-share you want to take? If you can determine those elements, you can plan your company's stepping-stones for growth.

2. Emulate, eliminate, differentiate and overtake
You've done your homework on your competitors. Now look at your company. In the comparison between you and them, what are the characteristics that are making them successful? This is no time for emotional self-indulgence. Focus on what is worthy of emulation, what should be eliminated from your costs and offerings, what truly differentiates them from you, and what it will take to overtake them.

3. Build your race strategy one competitor at a time
There are lots of things to learn from the market leaders. I believe in learning from the best practices of the best players. However, the company who is ahead of you is your focus in the short-term. Market performers have a tendency to cluster around similar components of success. Figure out those cluster formulas.

A word of caution: This set of strategies is about getting your company to the next level, but it is not a plateau. As a CEO, building a strategy exclusively around replicating the successful traits of your competitors will lead to a flattening growth curve. You need to combine the winning characteristics of your competitors with your own unique game-changing strategies. By defining what the next level is, then identifying how to get there, you can give your team a real plan.

http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/ceos-set-the-right-next-level-for-your-company.html

Stop Bargaining and Start Negotiating

A good negotiator knows how to get the bargainer off his or her script.

For me, the term “bargaining” conjures up a chaotic, aromatic scene in one of Taiwan’s night markets, where haggling over the price of pineapples, slippers, or just about anything else is a national sport.

When I first arrived in Taiwan, I couldn’t really participate, much to the disappointment of the vendors. Once I learned my numbers and a few other key words, though, the vendors really lit up. As an American, it felt awkward, but I slowly got used to it.

More recently, I attended a seminar on negotiation led by management consultant Jack Kaine. He wasn’t talking about pineapples, of course. He focused on negotiation for entrepreneurs, making a big distinction between bargaining and negotiation. I was caught off guard and drawn in at the same time. Aren’t bargaining and negotiation the same thing?

Not at all. And not just because I’m selling product development services rather than chicken feet.
Something about this distinction really sank in for me, and I found myself using it almost immediately without realizing it.

The distinction goes like this:

Bargaining is about focusing on who is right. It is competitive and win-lose.
Negotiation is about focusing on what is right. It is cooperative and win-win.

To truly engage in a negotiation, you must have trust and openness between the parties. Otherwise, it is impossible to find the common win-win.

When I found myself in a conversation with a bargainer who was trying to nickel-and-dime some services that had been requested by his more win-win-minded colleagues, I went off-script and asked what he really needed. I agreed with him that I was asking for a lot of money, and asked him what he wanted me to eliminate from the scope of work. After all, scope and pricing are judgment calls, and I was merely trying to provide him with a good outcome.

That stopped the bargaining in its tracks. Who wants to be the person in their organization responsible for a sub-par outcome?

Negotiation often requires creativity to ask the right clarifying questions and figure out what is truly of value to the other party. It may not be what you think until you ask.

To stay on a negotiation script and get off the narrow-minded bargainer’s script, focus on these three things:

Education. Questions, questions, questions. Learn what is truly important to the other person. Creatively push on the boundaries to explore what may not be obvious at first. This will enable you to address value in the deal and get away from focusing solely on numbers.

Expand the pie. Instead of subtracting things, figure out what you can add to get to a win-win. If you ask enough questions, you’ll know how to add extras that may not even cost you much, but may be of huge value to the other person. Perhaps they are totally off the main topic of the deal, but who cares if it gets you to a place where everybody wins?

Make it personal.  Yes, you may be doing a deal with a behemoth, but you are negotiating with people who have their own issues, problems, and agendas within the behemoth. Don’t lose sight of the people! Find out what they need in the deal to make the most effective use of your time together. Build trust. Never back them into a corner.

Bargaining in the night market was good training. I remember all the antics my friends engaged in, like stomping out of the stall and having the vendor chase you down the alley lowering the price, only to return and continue the game. It was passive-aggressive drama at its best, but kind of fun if you didn’t take it too seriously. Of course, when the only thing at stake is a pineapple, it’s a little easier to play hardball than when you are desperate to get a new contract for your company.

Still, the best way to learn to negotiate well is to do it. And in the best negotiations, everyone walks away feeling like they got a good deal-;making them more likely to come back and do business another day.

http://www.inc.com/laura-smoliar/the-difference-between-bargaining-and-negotiating.html

3 Things You Don't Know About Sales

Ideas are great, but no start-up can survive without sales--and a mastery of the psychology behind selling. (Hint: manipulation skills are not required.)

Sales can be a daunting task for any young entrepreneur.

If you're working on a start-up, you're spilling your heart and soul into your idea. Now, you somehow have to convince others to buy into--and literally purchase--your idea too. The truth is, most entrepreneurs don't know the first thing about getting an effective sales process up and running, let alone how to pitch customers.

Since we created ElasticSales, which is essentially a sales team on demand, I've had the opportunity to work with several different young companies. I always start by teaching them about the psychology behind sales. Why? Because most people think a sale is about manipulating or pushing people into making a decision. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Here are the most important things I tell my clients (and my own salespeople) again and again about the psychology of sales:

1. People don't buy products or services. They buy emotions.
By "emotions," I mean: A desired feeling. Superiority. Love. Comfort. Excitement. Security. Or sometimes, the opposite--fear.

These and more are all emotions around which you can position your product or solution. However, you have to know what emotion your customers are actually looking for. If you don't, you won't understand how to sell to them.

The best way to determine this is to ask the customer what's important to them and what they need. Once you know this, you can position your solution around their needs and then sell your benefits--NOT your features.

2. Emotional states dictate buying (and all other) decisions.
Have you ever been in a "shopping rush?" A state in which you wanted to buy something desperately, though the feeling has very little to do with what you are about to buy?

This phenomenon happens in both consumer and enterprise sales. Make sure you pay attention to what emotional states your customers are in before selling them anything. Are they depressed? If so, they really shouldn't be making a big purchasing decision. Are they in that "shopping rush" where they have no idea what you're offering? Then the last thing you want is your customer to feel buyer's remorse because you pressured them into a purchase.

Above all, make sure you're in a good state for your customers as well! Customers can pick up if you're not in a good state to sell them your business.

3. Communication is all about tonality and body language--it has little to do with content.
This is a very old truth, but it's still surprising to most people. If your lips are saying "buy!" but your body and voice are communicating "don't do it," you won't win many deals. Listen to your phone calls or record yourself conducting a presentation. Make note of your tone and posture and ask yourself, "Would I buy from this person?"

If the answer is "no," then you have to adjust your pitch. Be conscious of your tone and body language to make improvements everyday. After a few weeks, you'll see improvements in your tonality, body language, and sales.

http://www.inc.com/young-entrepreneur-council/rules-to-work-by-steli-efti.html

Master the Art of Customer Loyalty

If you don't have a loyalty program, you're not taking advantage of your happiest customers. Here's how to get started.

Marketing your small business is easier said than done. Maybe you’ve tried Google AdWords or created a Facebook page but were disappointed with the results or complexity. You may have considered daily deals but realized that selling products at negative gross margin to one-time customers is not a winning combination. So what’s your next move?

There are no silver bullets in marketing, but I learned one important lesson from the Fortune 500 clients I consulted for at McKinsey--the power of customer loyalty. For many small businesses, loyalty marketing may be the only marketing they need, because it builds upon their greatest asset: their most satisfied customers. Bain & Company famously wrote that it costs 6 to 7 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Though you probably can’t invest in loyalty like a Fortune 500 company would, there are steps small businesses can take to begin loyalty marketing.

First, invest in service. Zappos pioneered the mantra that customer service is the new marketing. An American Express study showed that 70 percent of Americans would spend more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service. Service is the strength of most small businesses, so you should be able to do this well immediately.

Second, build a robust loyalty program that:

• Increases Customer Visits. Remember the first time you joined an airline frequent flyer program? Initially you were probably comfortable spreading your miles across a few airlines, but as you neared a reward in one, you started to stick with your preferred airline. And then once you experienced the benefits of airline status, you were hooked. When you build your loyalty program, make the first reward easily attainable, so customers experience the thrill of getting a reward early on. Then add additional tiers to earn even more memorable rewards and maybe bonuses after a certain number of visits. Even if you use a simple punch card, you should be able to launch this kind of program. Companies that implement simple visit-based loyalty programs can increase customer visits by 30 percent with very little cost.

• Increases Spend Per Visit. As a second step, consider rewarding customers not just based on visits but spend. For example, if you are a restaurant, give a point for every $5 in spend. This encourages customers to not only come more frequently but also spend more per visit. This has a multiplicative impact on sales.

• Increases Revenue from Promotions. Fortune 500 companies love loyalty program signups because you are no longer just an anonymous customer to them. Once you’ve joined, they have your contact info and can reach you with promotions. Do you collect emails when you sign up customers to your loyalty program? It’s a small step that will give you an additional revenue stream when you send them relevant promotions on holidays or special events. 

• Increases Word-of-Mouth. Do you encourage your loyalty program participants to follow you on social media as well? You’ll have another channel to share news and promotions, and they can amplify word-of-mouth about your business to hundreds of friends.

I was chatting with a friend recently who said that he wished his favorite pizza shop around the corner had a “frequent flyer program.” Shortly thereafter, they rolled out a digital loyalty platform, and now that he’s earning rewards, he loves his shop even more. That love is likely to translate into 30 percent more visits over the course of a few months. And what did the pizza shop owner have to invest to get this return? A few free pizzas.

http://www.inc.com/victor-ho/master-the-art-of-customer-loyalty.html

Most Important Task You're Ignoring

Answering emails, putting out fires--those are important. But one founder suggests something else should take up at least 25 percent of your day.

Businesses are built on a few key pillars: the idea, the team, the plan, and the execution. However, one pillar that is often neglected in the fast-paced world of email and social media is good old-fashioned relationships--with employees, investors, suppliers, customers, the press, and probably many more people involved in your business. For me, this is what holds everything together.

Too many founders I've met speed through their days on autopilot, putting out fires to keep all the balls in the air. You know the drill: get into the office, check calendar, respond to urgent emails, drink too much coffee, avert crisis... and repeat! Maybe you squeeze in some relationship building at the end of the day. It’s an easy trap to fall into, but in my experience, relationship building should trump all of these things. In fact, I'd say founders should spend 25 percent of their time building, fostering, and growing relationships.

It’s actually quite easy when you break it down. Here is how I look at it:

Step 1: Write down your list.
Pick five people in each category above who are critical to your success. Make a list. Refer to it weekly.

Step 2: Make (genuine) contact.
Pick up the phone and see how things are going. Be sincere. Get to know them. Use your commute to knock this one out, so you won't be distracted with other work.

Step 3: Date.
Plan dinners, break bread, go to happy hours, go skiing. Build a friendship. People like to do business with people they like--full stop. (Note: If you truly don’t like a person, don't force it.)

Step 4: Repeat. Frequently.
A few years ago, Yes To hit a bump in the road (well, HUGE obstacle might be more accurate). After two years of phenomenal growth, we faced a major production issue with a key retailer that had the possibility to cripple the company. Our supply chain was clearly at fault and we admitted so to the retailer. Upon learning of this issue, I immediately left my family vacation and flew with my entire executive team to the visit the retailer. We rolled up our sleeves and worked with them until we found a solution. We apologized. Profusely. And together, we successfully brought this account back from the brink.

A year after this debacle, Lance (my business partner) and I sat with the CEO of this company. He leaned over and said with a smile "if it wasn't for me, you guys would have been long gone." He emphasized to us that because he gotten to know us as people, he truly wanted to be part of our success rather than our failure. This was someone with whom we spent years building a true friendship, someone we trusted, and someone who truly changed our lives. The four easy steps came through for us that day.

http://www.inc.com/ido-leffler/relationships-make-break-your-business.html

Why You Should Never Compromise

Forget about trying to appear diplomatic. When you compromise, you willfully give in to mediocrity.

I was in the middle of a conversation with a team member the other day and I caught myself almost committing to what I consider to be one of the worst sins of business leadership.

I almost compromised.

In that moment of weakness, I saw myself almost head down a path from which it is often hard to return. It would have been so easy to just give in, to let it happen.

The slip-up almost happened while I was discussing the final approvals for a marketing campaign that was intended to generate online "clicks" that would turn into leads.  I wanted to use a bold headline and concept. I knew it would work.

My team member wanted to soften the message, which in turn would soften the impact and the result. We had been back and forth for a couple of weeks about this particular campaign--massaging the wording, perfecting the call to action. Frankly, I was tired of talking about it.

It would have been so very easy in that moment to decide to compromise, in the name of giving in and keeping the peace. Then I could move on to something else on my long to-do list.

It's in this kind of compromise that some of the greatest companies fall off a cliff and enter the realm of mediocrity.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying don't listen to others' ideas or don't listen to reason. You should surround yourself with a team that is constantly challenging you and making your company and your approach better.

I am saying that you should never sway from your stance if you know you are right. It's your company, it's your vision, you carry the burden if something fails. You also reap the greatest reward.

In my research, I have found that the bigger your company grows, the more likely it is for compromises to start creeping in. Many leaders, especially entrepreneurial leaders, are ready to get on with it, move forward. The danger lies in this impatience.

It is up to you as the leader to set the tone. Once others see that you're willing to compromise for no good reason, they'll start to do the same. Compromise then grows like a cancer and turns your great company into something average to far worse.

That's why it's important when you do back down from a decision or decide to move in another direction that you explain why you have made this new choice. Providing the reason not only shows your willingness to listen, it also provides important insight into how you make decisions for the company, so staffers learn to do the same.

When I thought about how I would explain the change in that marketing campaign's wording, I realized I was about to compromise--that I didn't agree with my team member and he hadn't provided me with a good case for why we should change direction. I knew if I allowed the campaign to be changed, and if I was asked, that my only answer could be "because I was tired of talking about it."

Check yourself when you start to give in to a suggestion or recommendation as you grow your company. If you feel you can justify it, and the change is backed by good evidence, then you're making a good decision. If the answer is anything less, then reconsider, because you're probably about to compromise.

http://www.inc.com/eric-v-holtzclaw/why-you-should-never-compromise.html

Convert Community Goodwill Into Cash

You've worked hard to build your company's reputation in the local community. Convert that goodwill to real value as you prepare to sell your business.

Valuation can make or break the sale of your business. If your company is overvalued, it won't capture the attention of serious buyers and can languish in the marketplace for years. But undervaluation can be just as problematic. Although your business will sell more quickly, it may also mean sacrificing the financial objectives you hope to accomplish from the sale.

In the business-for-sale marketplace, overvaluation happens more frequently than undervaluation. For years, the seller has worked hard to build the company's reputation in the community, so when it's time to sell the business the intangible value of the company's reputation should be factored into the sale price, right?

The value of a company's relationships with customers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders is called goodwill--and it does have real value for buyers. But to realize that value in the final sale price, business sellers need to execute strategies designed to convert goodwill to demonstrated business value.

How to Demonstrate the Value of Goodwill
As a small business owner, it's in your best interest to start making a case for the goodwill value of your company as early as possible. The more time and energy you invest in creating tangible measurements of your company's relationships, the easier it will be to demonstrate its goodwill value to prospective buyers.
With adequate planning, it's possible to increase your company's sale price by strategically documenting foundational elements of goodwill value.

1. Measure customer loyalty.
Customer loyalty is a reflection of your company's relationships in the local community. Although most business owners recognize the importance of loyalty improvements, relatively few owners establish loyalty goals and document the achievement of loyalty milestones for buyers.

2. Document customer service outcomes.

Businesses with strong customer service programs can benefit from positive word-of-mouth, advocacy on social media sites and other advantages. In addition to archiving positive customer comments and customer service interactions, create mechanisms to measure the effectiveness of your customer service efforts (e.g. average response time improvements, customer survey results, etc.).

3. Prioritize employee retention and development.
Employee relationships play an important role in determining the goodwill value of a small business. Buyers are willing to pay more for stable companies that can demonstrate above average employee retention rates and organized employee development programs.

4. Differentiate your products and brand.
Businesses that offer a unique product or service have a tendency to pique buyers' interest. By differentiating your business from other local providers, you can significantly improve its goodwill value--especially if you can demonstrate that customers perceive your business as the community's sole provider an in-demand product or service offering.

5. Benchmark everything.
Benchmarking is the key to demonstrating the cash value of goodwill. Sellers that make the biggest impact with buyers in the business-for-sale marketplace gauge loyalty, retention and other measurements against industry and regional benchmarks to quantify the company's intangible value.

Most small businesses have at least some goodwill value that can be converted into cash value during a business sale. However, the quantification of goodwill can be nuanced, so it's advisable to consult a business valuation professional before you assign actual dollar figures to the value of your company's relationships with customers, employees and other stakeholders.

http://www.inc.com/mike-handelsman/convert-community-goodwill-into-cash.html

4 Tips to Take Your Company to the Next Level

You've built a pretty good company. You're finally turning a modest profit. But now you seem to be stuck in a holding pattern. Have you reached your capacity or is there a way to take things to the next level?

That was the question facing Jacquie Berglund, founder and CEO of Finnegan's Inc. She'd started out in 2000 with a grand idea: create a local brand of beer and ale, and donate 100% of the profits to charity. "We do what Newman's Own does," she explains. The company was modestly profitable by its third year, and had donated a total of $150,000 to various charities by 2009. But that year, for the first time, revenues fell compared to the past. Berglund wondered if this was it or if there was a way to go from good to great.

Fortunately, one of Berglund's college friends was Buffie Blesi, a business coach and a franchise owner with AdviCoach, which provides counseling to small businesses. Berglund began meeting regularly with Blesi, and the two worked out a strategy to take a plateaued company to the next level:

1. Set specific long-term goals.
"We're creating a strategic plan that centers around her mission and then how to scale it," Blesi says. "What does she want to accomplish in two to five years? Next year? She sets quarterly goals and if there are obstacles, we spend time working through them."

Finnegan's revenues had hovered between $500,000 and $650,000 annually. Working with Blesi, Berglund set a long-term goal to increase that number to $1 million and to meet increasing goals for profits (and thus giving) as well. In 2011, the company gave away $45,000 and it's setting future goals at $100,000 per year and more. As of 2012, Finnegan's is Minnesota's fifth largest beer company.

2. Find a simple mission.
One problem for the business was not how much money it was donating, but how it was donating that money. "We were giving to dozens and dozens of very innovative programs that were working on poverty," Berglund says. But at the company's 10th anniversary celebration, as she tried to describe the difference Finnegan's had made, she found it was difficult to articulate. The company needed a more focused strategy.

Now, Finnegan's donates all its profits to a program that purchases produce from local farms and delivers it to food pantries. There are multiple advantages to this approach. It provides fresh fruit and vegetables to people who can't easily get them while supporting small farms in a tough economy. Also, Finnegan's can target its donations to specific locations, and can thus give back to the communities where its beer is sold, strengthening the connection between drinker and recipient. It's easy to track specific metrics--every $1 donated equals two pounds of produce--and that helps Finnegan's set financial goals.

Finally, because "turning beer into food" is an attractive proposition, Finnegan's is now able to form partnerships, for instance with a local pizza company that makes a donation for every large pie sold on a Monday, or a local liquor store that sells Finnegan's at cost. Some farms, too, are matching Finnegan's donation with additional donated food.

3. Get a simple message.
Now that Finnegan's had focused its mission, it was time for an equally focused message that would get the idea across quickly to the drinking public. "We connected with an ad agency and they created a visual that allows everyone to get it," Blesi says. The new Finnegan's graphic incorporates a shamrock with a halo floating above it and the slogan, "Here's to doing good."

4. Don't go it alone.
In order to meet its goals, Berglund knew Finnegan's would have to scale. Since the company uses a contract brewer, scaling production was no problem, but sales and administration presented more of a challenge.
"I was the sole employee until 2009," Berglund says. "I had bootstrapped and didn't have investment capital, and I was afraid to take the leap of hiring anyone else." Instead, she relied on the help of a network of volunteers. "With volunteers, we could only get to a certain level," she says now. "They were donating their time when they had time. We weren't optimized for growth."

So Blesi helped Berglund work through her fear of hiring by calculating how much additional revenue a salesperson could bring in. Today, the company has two sales representatives, a sales coordinator, and a volunteer coordinator who works with its volunteers. Berglund plans to hire two more sales reps in 2013.

Growing beyond a one-person company has not only helped Finnegan's reach donation goals, it's good for the company's long-term prospects as well. "Because Jacquie now has a team doing a lot of the work she used to do, visiting distributors and going door-to-door at restaurants and liquor stores--she can spend her time developing those relationships in the community," Blesi says. "That helps build beer sales."

http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/how-to-your-company-to-the-next-level-4-tips.html

10 ways to make your business more efficient

Takeaway: If your business isn’t taking off — or worse, if it’s going downhill — it’s time to look for inefficiencies that may be plaguing your systems and practices. If your business isn’t running at top efficiency, you’re failing. In today’s world of instant access, social networking, and constant connection, working with inefficient systems and software could quickly lead to a series of micro-fractures that can bring your company to its knees. Though you may not see it happening at first, at some point the failure will become obvious. To avoid this, your company must be working at peak efficiency. But when you’re already deeply embedded in your systems, software, and managerial practices, how can you retool your company for a more efficient environment? Here are 10 tips that can help.

1. Don’t expand too quickly
I’ve seen this happen many times. Businesses start seeing dollar signs and think that the bigger they get, the better their bottom line. Those dollar signs blind them to the fact that expanding too quickly means the proper systems and training can’t be put into place. When you’re small, your workflow is designed accordingly. If you expand too quickly, you can’t properly adjust workflow, the systems that support workflow, or the employees who must manage the workflow.

2. Don’t employ technology until it is thoroughly tested and understood
This is another issue I have not only witnessed but have fallen victim to. Companies are often seduced by the idea that a piece of software or hardware will make their workflow infinitely easier. A PR-pro can easily sway them with numbers and user quotes. But you can’t always tell whether that piece of software is well suited for your needs and staff. If you’re thinking about new tech, get a demo of it and test it before you buy it or insist your employees start using something that will, in the end, cause serious inefficiencies.

3. Don’t make technology decisions unless you have considered the users
I’ve been on both sides of this coin, and I know how frustrating this can be. There are users within your company who, in many ways, know how things work better than you. They’re in the thick of the workflow every day. Those people need efficient tools and systems in place if they have any chance of getting their jobs done. If you’re about to pull the trigger on a technology decision, make sure you have discussed this decision with those it affects.

4. Make communication a crucial component
One of the last aspects addressed within business is communication. When communication is poor, work is inefficient. Period. Communication could be as simple as an open door policy or as complex as a content management system designed to ensure every single piece of work is documented. Regardless of what you do, place the highest priority on communication. Make sure staff can easily communicate with their fellow workers. Make sure the company can communicate with clients. The second communication fails, efficiency fails.

5. Use secure and reliable technology
There are times I have been on the receiving end of technology that simply doesn’t work. When I work within an office, I make sure I can use a Linux box for the majority of my day because I’m far more efficient with that platform than any other. When you deploy technology, make sure it is secure and reliable. Having to work with unreliable software (or hardware) is one of the prime reasons people can’t get their work done. Viruses, malware, underpowered hardware… it all adds up.

6. Prepare for disaster
It doesn’t take a natural disaster to bring down your business. A break-in, dead server hardware, a disgruntled employee — many issues can cause a company disaster. Unless you have an effective means of dealing with disaster, you will be dead in the water until the ship is righted. And even after the ship is righted, it may take awhile to get workflow back up to speed. Make sure your disaster plan continues through getting hardware back up and running and getting users working productively again.

7. Don’t create redundant management tiers
Micromanaging is bad enough. But when you add redundant layers to management, you wind up with too many cooks in an already complicated kitchen. Those managers can often wind up in a war of egos, causing further roadblocks to efficiency. Make sure your chain of command isn’t clogged to the point of confusion and paralysis. If you expect efficiency from your staff, make sure the managers above them can also work in an efficient manner.

8. Don’t give your employees more work than they can handle
You know when an employee quits and you dump their work on another employee, thinking you’re going to save a dollar? That is one of the single worst roadblocks to efficiency you can put in play. Once employees reach a certain saturation with duties, their efficiency drops exponentially. If you don’t overload your employees, you should be able to expect efficient work from them.

9. Have a sufficient network pipe to handle your network load
How can your staff possibly work efficiently if you have insufficient or unreliable data pipes? With a constantly clogged pipe, your staff won’t be getting much done. As a remote engineer, I have experienced plenty of instances where a data pipe was either too slow to do my job or a network connection was dropped. This is one of those issues that’s simple to resolve: Just upgrade your pipe. Don’t let those things that are easily controlled caused problems.

10. If an employee has an idea for a more efficient way of handling a task, listen!
Sometimes, those whose job titles don’t start with the letter “C” might come up with a brilliant idea. Not only will you benefit from that great idea, but employee morale will get a nice bump from the understanding that you trust and respect your staff. Besides, those staff members are the ones who actually have to do the bulk of the work — they probably have some killer ideas on how to improve it.

Other tips?
Efficiency should be one of your top priorities if you want your business to thrive and grow. Without efficient systems in place, each phase of growth will only cause more issues, perpetuating the cycle of inefficiency. Take a close look at your company. If you can honestly say that everything was designed and built for the most efficient workflow, you’re already miles ahead of your competition. Have you experienced inefficient practices and environments with your own work? What suggestions would you add to this list?

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-ways-to-make-your-business-more-efficient/3499

8 Ways to Find the Best Long-Tail Keywords

Ranking well for competitive keywords is incredibly tough for the average small business. That's why more specific and less competitive keywords can make a huge difference. For many, long-tail keywords (in aggregate) add up to the majority of their website's search-driven traffic.
(If you aren't familiar, "head" terms are more popular and more frequently searched: like "road bike." Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific: "aluminum vs carbon frame road bike.")
A long-tail keyword could be the title and topic for a highly targeted blog post or article (or video or infographic or other content.) Or a long-tail keyword could be used to further optimize a longer article or guide that targets one primary keyword.
And if you're running pay-per-click (PPC) ads, long-tail keywords are usually a lot less expensive.
The key, of course, is to identify the best long-tail keywords for your business, so I asked Elisa Gabbert, a Content Manager at the PPC and search engine marketing company WordStream, for tips:

1. Use Google Suggest
Google Suggestions can be a great source of long-tail keyword variations. Simply start typing your primary keyword into the Google search box and check out the variations Google suggests.
Longer-tail keywords that Google suggests are phrases people actually search for. You may not want to use them all but you will get a great indication of which search terms are popular. You'll definitely uncover some surprising combinations.

2. Use Google Related Searches
The same principle applies as with Google Suggest; Related Searches appear at the bottom of the search engine result page, below the last organic result.
Keep in mind the suggestions may be somewhat personalized for your geographic location.

3. Use a Variety of Keyword Research Tools
If you only use one keyword tool every time you do keyword research, you're selling yourself short and probably missing out on tons of long-tail keyword variations. The Google Keyword Tool is a great basic tool and a good place to start, but if you're looking for more long-tail keywords, try these other options too:

• WordStream Keyword Tool: A free keyword tool that will generate more long-tail suggestions than most other tools. (The Keyword Niche Finder is great for this purpose, too.)
• Google Trends: To determine currently popular searches.
• Social Media Tools: For example, YouTube's Keyword Tool and Twitter Search.

The more keyword tools you consult the more long-tail keyword variations you're likely to find.

4. Dig into Your Analytics
Your analytics will tell you many, if not all, the keyword phrases that lead visitors to your website. By digging through those keyword referrers you'll find a number of long-tail queries that are already driving traffic.
Those keywords may be relevant to your business but not yet highly targeted by a single page on your site. For example, a few years ago Wordstream found that a lot of people wound up on its site by searching the phrase "what's a good click through rate." At the time, the company didn't have a page with that title--so the team wrote one and now it drives tons of traffic.
To find your own private store of long-tail keywords, go into your analytics and locate your organic keyword referrals (in Google Analytics, the path is Traffic Sources -> Sources -> Search -> Organic).
You can scan all the terms for good, relevant long-tail keywords you can turn into content or you can set the time frame to something fairly broad (depending on your traffic flow, try a three-, six-, or 12-month period.) Then search for patterns. For example, you might search for question keywords (like terms that begin with "what," "why," etc.)

5. Dig into Your Search Query Reports
If you're running a PPC campaign in AdWords, don't forget to use your Search Query Report the same way you use your analytics. The Search Query Report shows the search queries that drove people to click on your ads rather than your organic search results.
As an added bonus, you get more comprehensive access to this data than you do with organic referrers in Google Analytics.
It also may be easier to see which keywords are driving conversions and not just traffic. High-converting long-tail keywords are especially worth chasing.

6. Browse eHow
Sites like eHow are basically fueled by keyword research--primarily long-tail keyword research. They use powerful algorithms to find long-tail keywords they can rank for with hyper-targeted content.
You might not have their data sources or content algorithms on your side, but you can still learn from their methodology.
Take a look around: If eHow is targeting a keyword phrase you can bet it has search volume and advertisers interested in buying placement on those pages.
Another good bet? Whatever they produced to target those keywords is generally lame. The content eHow churns out tends to be thin--and it's precisely the kind of content that post-Panda Google no longer favors.
If you create strong content with real value that is also hyper-targeted you have a good chance of eventually outranking the content farms.

7. Browse Wikipedia
Is Wikipedia the most optimized site on the Internet? It's definitely up there. That means you can learn a lot by copying Wikipedia's on-page optimization.
When doing research around a base term, try checking the Wikipedia page. For example, look at the table of contents for a fairly broad term; say, "horse racing."
Check out the Contents box. Many of the headings translate into long-tail keywords: "history of horse racing," "history of thoroughbred horse racing," "types of horse racing betting," etc.
You can also do a page search for your primary keyword to see variations that appear throughout the text. And the "See also" section at the bottom of many Wikipedia articles can help you find clusters of related terms.

8. Borrow From Your Competition
Start with head and mid-tail terms that you want to rank for, then see what keyword variations are used on the pages that rank in the top five to 10 spots.
For example, say the head keyword you're chasing is "gift baskets." It's no surprise that the page that ranks first for that head keyword is filled with "gift basket" combinations. You may not be able to beat them with the head or mid-tail term, but the longer-tail versions could definitely be up for grabs.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/8-ways-to-find-the-best-long-tail-keywords.html

The Analytics Lesson from the Obama Campaign: Keep Your Data Organized, Secret

Time magazine just published a fascinating account of how President Obama's campaign team used data to microtarget voters. At HBR, we've been tracking the rise of Big Data in the private sector for some time, and see this as a useful case study of how one organization actually implemented those analytic principles to get results. I spoke over the phone with MIT's Andrew McAfee, a regular contributor and principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.

Even though there's a push for data transparency, it seems like Obama's key to success was the opposite: to keep his data and algorithms as secret as possible. Organizationally, does it make sense to keep your data team siloed off from the rest of the team, or do you want them to work together more closely?

In this case, it's easier to identify the downsides of sharing that data more broadly. It could leak out, leak to the press, leak to the other candidate. If there is some secret sauce, you want to keep that close. If either the data asset itself or the algorithm on top of it seems to be cutting edge or proprietary, I wouldn't go shout it from the rooftops. You want to have the data team say to the volunteers, "Call up these people, knock on these doors, go to these neighborhoods." The volunteer doesn't need to know why; they just need to know they're knocking on the right doors.

That seems to be a move away from this movement we've been reading about about information wants to be shared, data wants to be free, everything should be transparent —

From any rational standpoint, that line is nonsense. That's like saying, "All money needs to be free," or if you're a trucking company, "All trucks need to be free." Data is an asset, like everything else.

In the spotlight on Big Data that we just ran in the magazine and online, we focused heavily on making the case that executives really do need to use it. We focused less on the execution piece of it. But it seems to me that having the data is only one part of the problem; you really need to know what to do about it.

There are two different questions to the execution piece. First, there's executing with the data resource and the computing resource itself. A lot of organizations aren't good at that because our data is fragmented. The amount of centralization and rationalization to take real advantage of big data is pretty daunting for a lot of organizations. To take the Obama campaign as an example, look at their move from having two databases in 2008 to one in 2012. I guarantee you that was not easy. That was technically pretty challenging, and it was organizationally super, super difficult — it means you have to convince one group to let go of their database and let go of being the sole keepers of that data. That's hard.

The second side of the execution, though, is the question of what do you do with the data. Which ads do you serve up, which doors do you knock on, which streets do you go down? Campaigns have been doing this for a long time; they know how to knock on doors. That's not the hard part. But to my eyes, what big data can do is help them be more efficient, by allowing them not to knock on every door on that street. You can say to the volunteer, "Just go knock on house numbers 14 and 18, and then skip the next six houses and go knock on house number 30."

Big data lets you be small. It lets you do really precise, targeted interventions. I see evidence of this over and over, in all kinds of organizations. It started with marketing, but that has led the way to operations and the supply chain also using those kinds of precise data-driven interventions. And then you can do that at scale.

So you're saying it lets you be small, but at scale? Are you then big again? [Laughs]

It's a very different kind of big; it's not mass production. "Mass customization" is an overused phrase and it's been around for a while, but in this era of big data we can really do that. It's no longer just configuring my car so it has the upholstery I want. It's that campaigns no longer need to do the kind of mass mailings they're always relying on; they can get the right kind of mailing to the right kind of voter. Maybe this one cares about women's rights, but that one cares about economic policy.

For the Obama campaign, that was at the heart of their ground game advantage. In our HBR article, we included an example from the health care sector. Over and over we're seeing this ability to be precise and differentiated, at scale and repeatedly, with a lot more efficacy.

How would this work in the business world, say in health care?

Take the example of Aetna. They have around 20 million lives under care. Because they're the company that pays the doctor, the lab, the pharmacy, and so on, they have all this information about my health. There are huge confidentially concerns, of course, but let's put that aside for a moment.

What that means is that they have better data about my health than any other player in the system; than my doctor, my hospital, my pharmacy. What Aetna can do at scale, in real time, over and over, is check across the millions of lives in their system and say, "Do we see any obvious gaps in care here?" They can then send a message to the doctor or to the patient. Now, we need to be careful about confidentiality, and we need to make sure the messages are phrased the right way so they're not ignored, but we can use this database to do mass scale interventions into health care delivery. And that means we can improve outcomes without having to rejigger the entire system.

Okay, so say everyone starts doing that. Then do you get to a place like we see now in baseball — where a few years ago, crunching the numbers gave some teams a big advantage, but now everyone does it and it confers less of one? Look at the Oakland A's. Using data used to give them a big advantage, but since every team started to do it, it really doesn't seem to give them much of one.

Yes, you've got to move on. It's not going to give you an advantage forever, but if you are analytically oriented, you can push ahead and get finer-grained insight and advantage. In baseball, the science of sabermetrics has moved on. They're doing increasingly sophisticated things. Billy Beane and the A's were able to pick the low-hanging fruit and do really well for a while because they were able to do the simple things better. Now everyone has those insights so they've got to work harder. The marginal benefit might be less, but you've still got to do it. If you just go back to scouting players like you did in the 1990s, that's a great way to have a terrible team. Standing still is a very bad strategy.

What's interesting to me is that the volumes of data are exploding terribly quickly. The toolkit is also expanding by leaps and bounds. This is a real new arms race. You might not love it, and you might wish the world was predictable and calm and that Excel would get you through — but that would be a recipe for disaster.

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/2012/11/the_analytics_lesson_from_the.html

How To Beat Copycats

The world is full of fast followers. Every new business immediately spawns copycats, riffers, and discounters; cheap knock-offs and traditional players trying to use their brands and size to barge into new markets. In many cases, when you invent and establish a new product, service, sector or approach, you actually make it easier for the guys running right behind you to succeed. Why?

• They ride on your coattails, your PR and your advertising in every possible way. They’re not pioneers and they’re not inventing anything. They’ve just learned to say, “We’re just like X but cheaper or faster or closer.” Saying, “We’re just like Groupon but better,” saves a ton of time, money and marketing.
  
  
• They lean on your success to establish their own credibility, and to show their customers that the idea or product works and works well.
  
  
• They go to school on your errors and missteps. They save time and money by avoiding first-timer mistakes. They get to enter the product development and delivery cycle at a later and more stable level than you did.

So what’s a hard-working CEO to do?

Simple: You need to keep raising the bar on yourself, and your business, before your competitors do it for you. The acid test is, “What’s the best you can possibly be?” The answer is, “Better, for the moment, than anyone else who’s trying to do the same thing.

Of course, just because no one else has done something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aiming for it – you can’t let other people’s limitations hold you back. Entrepreneurship means committing to a life of constant awareness (okay, paranoia), continuous change and extreme flexibility, as well as the willingness to eat and to abandon your “offspring” before they run out of steam. If you can’t do it, someone else will do it for you.

A good example of a great company falling asleep at the switch is Nike. Nike owned the athlete for years. They had the coolest shoes, the coolest endorsements, the best technology and the coolest television ads. When the Web came along, they put up a pretty robust site to show off their ads and their products. Then, having fallen in love with their own videos, they sat on their laurels.

It didn’t take long for competitors to figure out that the real athletes weren’t in it for the ads or the glory. They launched web sites that served the real needs of athletes – providing exercise programs, race training regimens, fitness tracking, online connections with like-minded people, athlete and team meet-ups, etc.

In pretty short order, the real athletes--and plenty of weekend warriors-- totally bailed on the Nike sites. The other sites were far more connected to their interests and represented far better uses of their scarce time. Nike opened the door for small, quick competitors to jump in with simple, straightforward tools and applications that let them to eat Nike’s lunch.

How badly did this hurt Nike? We can track the popularity of Nike’s brand online by tracking their Facebook likes. (Yes, there are some questions about fake likes, but since I’m interested in comparative data, we don’t have to worry about those right now.) True, this is only one way of keeping score, but it’s one of the best we have right now.  So here’s the “likes” math:

Baseline Players                         October, 2010                       September, 2012
Coke                                        15 million                            50 million
Starbucks                                  16 million                            32 million
Athletic Brands
Converse                                    7.4 million                          33 million
Adidas                                        4.8 million                          15.7 million
Nike                                           2.5 million                          10.5 million

When you look at these numbers, it’s clear that Nike really isn’t in the same league as the big dogs.

Raising the bar means that you need to constantly make yourself obsolete regularly cannibalize your products and services. The rate of change is autocatalytic – each change creates the next at a faster rate, and leading to disruption and radical obsolescence. It’s all driven by virality and almost perfect cross-market intelligence. If you want to stay in the game, keep raising the bar.

Remember: No one cares who made the first version of something. They care about who makes the best version.

http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/how-to-beat-copycats.html

What High-Growth CEOs Do Differently

Want to build a fast-growth business? An expert explains the four aspects of your business you should be focusing on.

Business coach and consultant Jim Schleckser has spent years trying to understand how start-up and small business CEOs budget their time. Not surprisingly, the best CEOs--the ones that are able to grow highly-profitable, fast-growing companies--had a lot in common.
As part of the CEO Project, a boot camp for entrepreneurs, Schleckser advises CEOs and company founders on the most important areas of their business to focus on. At the core of his advice, Schleckser believes CEOs need to put the blinders on and focus on what truly drives growth. Here are the core components Schleckser says you should focus on.

Business Model
"Time spent on your business model drives growth," says Schleckser. Most importantly, CEOs should aim to increase the proportion of recurring revenue in their businesses

"Lock revenue each year," he says. "And when you decide to sell your business, you'll get higher offers."

Schleckser also challenges CEOs to raise prices. "Pricing drives profitability," he says. "I recommend you go home and raise your prices 10 percent."

Lastly, CEOs need to have a product so strong, he calls it the "mafia offer," an offer your customers can't refuse.

Talent
Schleckser believes all CEOs need to add  "Chief Talent Officer" to their title.
"Better players on the field means better performance," Schleckser says. The silver lining of the recession was that plenty of talented workers are looking for jobs--now is a good time to snatch up great employees at a reasonable price.
"You're able to get talent now that you couldn't get years ago," he says. "You need to be out there looking for talent all the time. Put a few of the A-players in, it's like magic in changing the business performance."

Process
What seperates good companies from great companies are those that are able to differentiate their brand based on better processes. What does that mean in practice? Schleckser advises CEOs to always being developing new product lines, adding value to current processes, eliminating waste, reengineering processes, and standardizing methods.

"Go the extra mile," he says. "Design processes that fulfill promises to your clients."

Leadership Approach
At the beginning of the company's lifecycle, CEOs are involved in all aspects of the business. But as the company grows, the CEO needs to be able to defer power to managers.
"It feels great to close a sale," says Schleckser, "but if a CEO is out selling, he's not doing his job."
The point is to foucs on the aspects that will drive future growth, and that often means taking the CEO out of his or her comfort zone.

http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/what-high-growth-CEOs-do-differently.html

The quickest way to get things done and make change

Not the easiest, but the quickest:
Don't demand authority.
Eagerly take responsibility.
Relentlessly give credit.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/05/the-quickest-way-to-get-things-done-and-make-change-and.html

Accountability and Integrity: The Golden Rules of Business

Deciding to do the right thing seems like a simple rule of business but often it gets lost in the day-to-day grind.

Say what you do and do what you say. Do the right things, and the right things will happen. It sounds as simple as the Golden Rule, but there is a surprising lack of accountability and integrity in the business world today.

These two attributes are central to OtterBox and our ability to continue to grow at a rate that's landed us on the Inc. 500|5000 four times. Integrity and accountability are, in fact, two of our core values.

I think most of us know what the right thing is, but being able to execute on it is another matter. Doing what's right isn't always easy. People frequently default to the simplest option as an automatic response, which often means integrity is not upheld and accountability is at stake.

An extreme example of lack of integrity and accountability can be seen in today's political landscape. No matter where they land on the spectrum, politicians are consistently promising to do the right things if elected. Lower taxes, save the environment, stimulate the economy - every election season the American public is inundated with promises.

To be fair, these politicians might actually think they can follow through on their vows, but the lack of results from any single one of them or any party as a whole has become an epidemic in and of itself.  That's where accountability comes in - you must do what you say.

Much like the American public, customers are quickly fed up with a lack of accountability. However, unlike the American public will quickly respond and take their business elsewhere.  Like Howard Beale said in the 1976 film Network, they'll be "mad as hell" and surely are "not going to take this anymore!"

Also unlike politicians, businesses can and must admit when they have fallen through on promises. Not all decisions made will be the right ones, but open and honest communication about those situations maintains integrity and accountability.

Integrity and accountability are daily decisions, not one-offs reserved for top level decisions by the CEO. Every employee must adhere to these values in all the tasks and operations they do. If a business doesn't have integrity in the small things, no one will believe it has integrity in the big things.

http://www.inc.com/curt-richardson/accountability-and-integrity-the-golden-rules-of-business.html

4-Step Formula for Guaranteed Success

This amazingly simple formula drives virtually every successful business. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs and investors lose sight of these basic principles.

Success in business, especially in growing businesses, does not require an ingeniously complex solution. Often, success comes from mastering the basic fundamentals.

In short, success is about addressing a customer need better than you or your competitors currently address it. In many cases, the "new and improved" solution is surprisingly incremental, rather than revolutionary. Examples abound:

Google, one of the most valuable companies in the world, began as a slightly better search engine.
The Toyota Camry was the best-selling car in America for many years because it had better gas mileage, was fun to drive, didn't break down, and was less expensive than other sedans.
Oprah Winfrey dominated daytime TV by tapping into topics for women in more interesting ways than Phil Donahue and others had done for years.

Starbucks reinvented the concept of the coffee shop-something that had been around for generations-by consistently serving good coffee in a pleasant environment.

As we analyze the drivers of success in these and virtually all other entrepreneurial successes, we find that there is an extremely basic, and in hindsight, glaringly obvious, four-step formula common to each.

1. Develop an understanding of customer value.
What's the value equation from the customer perspective? This is defined, most simply, as benefit minus cost. Many businesses and entrepreneurs simply don't understand what would make a customer happier or better off. Often they are trying to fit their product to the customer rather than identify what product would fit the customer

2. Create a better product or solution for a specific customer.
Because each customer is different, identifying the specific customer or segment you are targeting is critical. Attempting to be all things to all people typically results in an indistinct product that benefits no one.

3. Determine how to scale the product from one customer to many customers.
Once you've mastered the value equation for one customer, you can focus on finding many customers that think and act alike. Most management teams try to scale the business before they've created a valuable product with one customer. It's similar to launching a rocket to the moon without mastering the aerodynamics. It might have the power to get there, but it's not going to make it.

4. Develop a business model that allows you to build scale while generating incremental return on Investment.  

In the end, you'll need to build a business case for investing capital to grow the business. If the customer value equation is still in flux, no amount of growth capital will fix the problem. We like Alex Osterwalder's business model canvas as a template for building a solid business model. But, it's important to calculate how the investment will create a return on capital.

Of course, execution is everything. If business success was as easy as following a few steps, everyone would be a mega-billionaire. But it's surprising how many competent entrepreneurs, corporations, and even experienced strategists develop business models that omit one or more of these basic steps.

3 Strategies to Adopt From Apple

These three product strategies you can lift from Apple's playbook and incorporate into your growing business.

It's no surprise that Apple has kicked off 2012 with a bang. Profits are soaring, its stock price is up by more than 80%, and the new iPad has been touted as one of the company's most successful product launches in history, which is saying a lot considering the tech giant's recent history.

What has made product launches at Apple so successful, and what can you learn from them to benefit your own business? Here are three important lessons.

1. Price your products to customer segments.
Often lost in the anticipation of Apple's launch events are the subtle changes the company makes to its product portfolio. When Apple launched its most recent iPhone a year ago, it reduced the price of its 3G version to $99. During its most recent launch of the new iPad, it reduced the price of the iPad 2 by $100. In both cases, Apple established a market for additional customer segments.

This strategy allows Apple to capture high margins with early adopters and drive penetration among a broader, more price conscious audience at a later date.  Not every company has product launches that allow it to adopt this strategy, but there are always opportunities to evolve and re-price a successful product to address the needs of a new and different customer segment.

2. Keep your eye to the future.
Success and growth elicit expectations. As Apple continues to launch innovative products, the expectations rise. Each Apple event seems to be met with more anticipation than the last, and technology pundits spend months leading up to the events with conjecture about Apple's "next big thing."

To its credit, Apple has never stopped innovating. iPad sales for Apple's fiscal first quarter increased 111% over the year-ago quarter, and the company still maintains 74% market share in tablets. Amazon, Blackberry, Samsung, and others have all launched tablets over the past year each with features that they believed provided an advantage over the Apple.  But Apple's continuous innovation and forward focus have allowed it to stay ahead of competitors. There's a lesson there for any business that thinks it can ride the coattails of a single successful product for the long term.

3. Listen to your customers.
With the advent of social media, customers have a variety of avenues available to them to express their opinions on a particular company or product. But even if your company isn't a common topic of bloggers, there are more old-fashioned ways to listen to your customers. What's unique about Apple's two most recent product launches, the iPhone 4s and iPad, is the remarkably minor changes the company made to create an abundance of demand.

The new iPad, for example, is not all that dissimilar from the iPad 2. A new screen, 4G, faster processor, and better camera top the list of major developments, but there hasn't been a total redesign of the product. But the new iPad addresses some of the major concerns customers have expressed since the initial launch of the iPad in 2010. By directing product development to the voice of the consumer, Apple was able to benefit from the most successful tablet launch in its history. Listening to your customer is something a firm of any size can do.

There are few companies that compete with the size of Apple, and fewer still that have been as successful as Apple over its most recent stretch. But the formula that has defined Apple's success is not restricted to the economy's behemoths. The key tenants to Apple's growth can be applied to a business of any size.

http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/3-strategies-to-adopt-from-apple.html

Don’t Cut Your Price: 6 Tricks

The pressure to discount can be overwhelming. These conversational tricks can help you push back.

Here's a sentence no seller wants to hear: "Can I get a better price on that?"

The information explosion, globalization and economic pressures have created an environment in which everyone believes that they can get anything you are selling for a lower price. Buyers have access to many more suppliers and can make a decision with greater confidence–even without a personal or local relationship.

Here are six smart ways to win sales without having to compromise on price.

1. Bring new information.
Often the buyer is using inaccurate information or inaccurately applying information. By bringing new insights and new facts to the conversation, you can move the conversation from “price only” (or worse, “cheaper only”) to real issues.

Recently one of my clients was faced with a “drop your price by 35% or else” ultimatum. By demonstrating the real raw cost numbers for materials, they were able to disarm the “drop or lose” threat.

2. Give buyers a different way to look at information.
Misunderstandings often are rooted in context: A prospect or client may not be considering seasonality, expedited vs. standard shipping, regular vs. remnant pricing, full featured vs. basic specifications. One way to change the conversation is to ask: “Which characteristics of our more fully featured approach would you like to remove in order to receive the deeper discount?”

3. Let the customer control the conversation.
Customers often feel powerful and informed–so if you try to take control of the conversation, you may create a confrontation. By letting a customer have control and talk themselves through the pricing concerns, you can steer a conversation rather than fight it.

As one of my mentors often says, “Don’t be frustrated; be fascinated.” Ask questions and guide rather than argue. Read more: 3 Things My Mentors Taught Me

4. Focus on yield, not price. 
Many times, the difference between prices is not seen in the inputs, but the outputs. How will your product, service or solution affect the yield of your customer’s process? By keeping the discussion on the buyer’s business issue, you align your prices with their real needs.

5. Understand your own math.
Smart sales people understand the numbers of the buyer’s industry and competitors as well as their own. This allows you to be more versatile in the conversation.

6. Be prepared to walk away.
Easier said than done, I know. However, if you're not really willing to walk away from a bad opportunity, you can waste a great deal of time with bad prospects.

Often, you face a buyer who learned that pounding on suppliers for lower prices demonstrated strength. That buyer missed the rest of the lesson: the value of being effective. In a situation like that, you have to diagnose early and exit fast.

http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/dont-cut-your-price-6-tricks.html

The 6 Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

You're the boss, but you still spend too much time on the day-to-day. Here's how to become the strategic leader your company needs.

In the beginning, there was just you and your partners. You did every job. You coded, you met with investors, you emptied the trash and phoned in the midnight pizza. Now you have others to do all that and it's time for you to "be strategic."

Whatever that means.

If you find yourself resisting "being strategic," because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you're not alone. Every leader's temptation is to deal with what's directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you'll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you're off is leading off a cliff.

This is a tough job, make no mistake. "We need strategic leaders!” is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small. One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It's hard to be a strategic leader if you don't know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.

After two decades of advising organizations large and small, my colleagues and I have formed a clear idea of what's required of you in this role. Adaptive strategic leaders — the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain environment – do six things well:

Anticipate
Most of the focus at most companies is on what’s directly ahead. The leaders lack “peripheral vision.” This can leave your company vulnerable to rivals who detect and act on ambiguous signals. To anticipate well, you must:

• Look for game-changing information at the periphery of your industry
• Search beyond the current boundaries of your business
• Build wide external networks to help you scan the horizon better

Think Critically
“Conventional wisdom” opens you to fewer raised eyebrows and second guessing. But if you swallow every management fad, herd-like belief, and safe opinion at face value, your company loses all competitive advantage. Critical thinkers question everything. To master this skill you must force yourself to:

• Re-frame problems to get to the bottom of things, in terms of root causes
• Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including their own
• Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation, and bias in organizational decisions

Interpret
Ambiguity is unsettling. Faced with it, the temptation is to reach for an fast (and potentially wrongheaded) solution. A good strategic leader holds steady, synthesizing information from many sources before developing a viewpoint. To get good at this, you have to:

• Seek patterns in multiple sources of data
• Encourage others to do the same
• Question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses simultaneously

Decide
Many leaders fall pretty to “analysis paralysis.” You have to develop processes and enforce them, so that you arrive at a “good enough” position. To do that well, you have to:

• Carefully frame the decision to get to the crux of the matter
• Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Leave perfection to higher powers
• Take a stand even with incomplete information and amid diverse views

Align
Total consensus is rare. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue, build trust and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge. To pull that off, you need to:

• Understand what drives other people's agendas, including what remains hidden
• Bring tough issues to the surface, even when it's uncomfortable
• Assess risk tolerance and follow through to build the necessary support

Learn
As your company grows, honest feedback is harder and harder to come by. You have to do what you can to keep it coming. This is crucial because success and failure--especially failure--are valuable sources of organizational learning. Here's what you need to do:

• Encourage and exemplify honest, rigorous debriefs to extract lessons
• Shift course quickly if you realize you're off track
• Celebrate both success and (well-intentioned) failures that provide insight

Do you have what it takes?
Obviously, this is a daunting list of tasks, and frankly, no one is born a black belt in all these different skills. But they can be taught and whatever gaps exist in your skill set can be filled in. I'll cover each of the aspects of strategic leadership more detail in future columns. But for now, test your own strategic aptitude (or your company's) with the survey we've developed at www.decisionstrat.com. In the comments below, let me know what you learned from it.

http://www.inc.com/paul-schoemaker/6-Habits-of-Strategic-Thinkers.html

4 Principles Apple's Chief Designer Lives By

Jonathan Ive opens up about what makes Apple's design process work. Here's how to make it work at your company too.

It's not often that Apple head designer Jonathan Ive gives an interview. Not only does Apple have its secretive culture, but he is reportedly a private person. However, give an interview Ive did to the London Evening Standard recently, and it's full of lessons for entrepreneurs who want to take markets by storm with great products.

Do Something Well, not Different
Many companies focus on differentiating themselves from the competition. And, certainly, that is important if you want to offer strong reasons why customers should do business with you and not a competitor. But any difference has to be organic and not contrived. "A product has to be genuinely better," Ive says. "Committees just don’t work, and it’s not about price, schedule, or a bizarre marketing goal to appear different—they are corporate goals with scant regard for people who use the product." If you're not trying to do something better, then you're not focused on the customer and you'll miss the possibility of making your business great.

Focus on the Idea
Although Ive has been key to Apple's success since the early 1990s, he's a cultural outsider in important ways—raised and schooled in London and getting his first experience in design companies there. So he still has an outsider's eye for what makes Silicon Valley different. When asked what he liked about the area, he said this: "There’s not a sense of looking to generate money, it's about having an idea and doing it. I think that characterizes this area and its focus." If you focus first on making money (an important part of commercial success), then you're less likely to pay attention to the ideas, which are the basis of products and services. You lose direction and then are back at contrived differentiation.

Remember the What If
According to Ive, the least challenging approach to innovation is when there's a problem you're aware of. The need is obvious. However, it may be obvious to others, as well. What is more rewarding, and more difficult, is when you see an opportunity. "It’s not a problem you’re aware of," says Ive, "nobody has articulated a need. But you start asking questions, what if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device, rather than tactically responding to an individual problem." Solve the nagging problems, but look to the possibilities to set the world on fire.

Put in the Time
Ive says that even solving a tiny detail of product development and design can take "months and months and months." But a good product has integrity, in the sense that everything works together. You can't ignore the small details without which you can't address the big issues. Of course, there's no guarantee that you could attain the success of any of Apple's products. But principles are important. Follow the ones that have been proven to work and you're closer to attaining your own goals.

http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/design-better-products-the-apple-way.html