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Planning for Change

Planning your strategies for change here they're going to make operational changes product changes, distribution changes, organization changes or marketing changes which is the topic of the next session. Operational changes probably deal with your location is your location okay? What are the advantages or weaknesses you're going to study that you're going to stay that way strengths and weaknesses of your online presence even if you don't do business online that's where your customers air searching for you I promise you that if if they aren't those who influenced amar and requirements and plans for start up where growth your equipment is do you have the equipment requirements for start up a growth do you have training needs to support that equipment and do you have everything you need in terms of requirements? What just simply what's required in terms of licensing regulations anything else staffing operational changes do you need some staffing this year? Do you need positions? Do you ne...

ed a staff you need to determine your step staffing approach is going to be part time full time contract on site remote what are your requirements? That's part of your operational plan your processes do you have processes and product production systems particularly if you want to someday have somebody run the business while you take a vacation or you want to prepare your business for a sale you have to have processes preferably outlined in materials that not even preferably outlined in materials that others can follow changes required to deal with capacity production service issues in many ways it's a scale ability that I go horse talking about product and service quality control in a world where reviews are posted like that be sure you have quality control and requirements and plans if you're planning to start up a grill write it down you have to write down what are your operational strategies? What are going to be your changes in location and maybe nothing other than increase our presence online increase what shows up when our name is is googled and you do that by getting more favorable results that you can't take anything down unless it's really libelous but you can push it down by putting more good step up what it changes in equipment what changes in staffing what changes in processes that your operational strategy your product changes product changes people want new things all the time they want something first of all if you have any changes you have something to talk about and on social media we're all looking all the time for something to talk about that's meaningful to consumers these air often product changes will you change how you price present, promote or deliver your existing products to customers? This is something you have to think about as you create your product strategy will you emphasize certain products over others and this is where I mentioned earlier which products will you emphasize do they have room for growth and are they profitable will emphasizing that product deliver what you wanted to those of the factors that go into that will you rename repackage or change labeling to re inspire interest very very common way to any any packaged product is continually you know you see the burst knew because they know it will create interest so think about this will you rename repackage a change will you alter established offerings to meet competitive challenges or consumers interests? Will you introduce new products? Will you introduce quality assurances or services as you plan your product changes everybody's answers were different but this will help you make decisions about your product strategies and you do it by defining and evaluating your current product what do you sell? How much how many what's the age and health of your offering product life what do consumers think and say about your offering in a really wonderful thing to ask them is when you consider ours or when you first bought ours what three other products did you also consider it really helps you learn your competitive rank you may think I'm just going to use a jeweler you might think that you rank with tiffany's and you learn that they were looking at fred meyer's jewelry I mean it's worth it to know there's nothing wrong with the answer but you begin to see where you are truly sitting in the competitive environment what do customers think and say is it time for product revitalisation which is when it's made it all the way to the end of that product life cycle and and and and need some help and that'll be the next slide and is it time for new products? This again he saw this yesterday introduction growth mature saturation declined you decide where in here you are and you decide if it's clear over it decline because you've already saturated your there's a couple reasons to get to decline once you've saturated your market area, everybody in your market area who wants it, you're getting as many of ms you're going to get the other one would be it's just old it's just outdated one way or another the's air your choices, withdraw and start something else or reinvented so it's always worth it to put your offerings through that kind of of the test and certainly photography I know we have a lot of photography photography is really gone through this price wars so think about where you are and how you re invent and that was the question we got earlier today how do you reinvent too become meaningful in a market that's desires have shifted product lifestyle actions that introduction you build key audience trial and preference if you're introducing something your entire first step is to build audience trial and preference that starts with awareness, but you want it quickly. You don't want to just build awareness you want to get to trial and preference during growth, you gain market share before energy competitors enter. If you are on a streak, move fast, because as soon as people see that you're doing what we were the on ly ad agencies in our part of the state when we opened, a soon as everyone realized that you could serve seattle and portland clients from where we were, how many were there when we sold? I mean, it was amazing. So, um, maturity at maturity, you reap your peak sales and profits. You reap them because the product is mature. It's well regarded, you're not having to do much marketing. People are just buying it. Cost of sales, therefore, are low because marketing is low, peak sales and profits. You better begin your plans for product rien introduction. This is not a time to rest on your laurels, not warrant. Um, saturation. At the point of saturation, you leverage loyalty. You begin to compete for new customers. You realize we have a saturated, we've saturated the market, and I'll tell you, in the market share thing, that's coming up saturation is usually forty percent wants forty percent of the people that want what you're selling or buying from you, you saturated that's! Just true for nike as it is for you, you're never going to get one hundred percent of the people because we don't live in a monopolistic. Small businesses don't operate month monopolistic environments. You compete for new customers at that point, and then decline happens inevitably, after saturation is declined, abandon with phase out pricing that's one way to go, reduce expectations and support in order to get them to keep buying it, but with less, you know you're not going to sell more, so you're not going to put more into it, or you reinvent its identity usage, distribution or an altogether new offering. That's product lifestyle just a second, you did use the word bracketing in the term. There just a few slides back, judge, I was asking, can you just expand on that it's completely new terminology to them? There wasn't sure which part of your example was the actual bracketing element. I'm image almost any objective, measurable, objective, I would say it's worth it to bracket by saying, this is what we want to achieve, but we might achieve a little less, and we might achieve a little more so that's bracketing, so you say you don't just plan for this goal and how you're going to support that goal and what stretches you're going to follow because you need to bracket in case you don't get the response you're hoping how do you respond so that your business doesn't get harmed and if you over if you get more than you expected, how are you going to quickly respond and grow to fill the demand because we've seen it too many times when when business promotions actually work better than they were expected to work and the consumer can't get through the door the line's too long whatever they will go to your competitors if you're not prepared to ramp up what you've actually done it's helped your competitors andi I can give you examples that would take too much time, but we can later go through these examples and you can see reasons for product improvements rejuvenate the product it's just plain tired in the marketplace orange carpet I mean apartments that looked like that need to be rejuvenated if you want to rent them regain market relevant sometimes it's just to regain relevance with proving that you're more environmental year whatever you're more in sync and in tune with consumer interests to rekindle consumer interest sometimes this is to let customers know you love them more than they're feeling rekindle consumer interest, heightened acceptability awareness and trial sometimes that's a reason for product improvements just to come up with trial offers and inspire more sales reasons for repackaging is the packages are business touch points at the time of decision. If yours isn't standing in there and doing a good job for you in the same way that you would work with an employee and set some parameters for change, work with your product, make sure it is doing its duty at the time of sale on guy really mean that even for those who deliver service goods, I mean, we learned that clients like they tended to by the art the layouts more when they were flapped with the logo on them, preferably their logo, they open it up like it's a present almost they like to better from the get go that was repackaging when we started to flap all the presentations to them, I don't know, put your photographer. Maybe you learned that by delivering the photos in a certain kind of folder, it just gets a better response. I don't know repackaging they need to affirm a customer's positive beliefs at the time of decision, everything they thought they were going to get needs to be affirmed and in fact, taken to the next level through packaging they resonate with tastes and interests, they reflect the price and value if your expensive you don't give them a brown paper bag to walk out in, think about tiffany's packaging they must dominate in the purchase setting even if it's one to one service business, how do you deliver it in a way that that is a dominant moment product introduction considerations is it unique? The world is not looking for a new product the world has a million or more private in the number of u p c codes that are issued every years just continues to grow. Is this a unique offering and is this the right time for it? Does it deliver value to a growing market? Is it feasible legal and safe? Does it fit with your business image? You can't just come out of nowhere and offer a product that has nothing to do with your business and expect consumers to believe in it and trust that you're the best one to offer it can you make market and find a niche for it? Does it truly resonate with customer desires? Is that something more that you want or is it something that they want and can it make money because this is a man named sore of a suzuki and he is continually written up on the best, most innovative entrepreneurs are innovators he's a product innovator and makes all top lists uh innovation grew and he says I got to interview him ninety percent of products fail and you'll see this number again and again and again ninety percent of products sale because they're not based on the grounded realities of the consumers innovation becomes useful on lee when it results in meaningful value to consumers, he says, and I think he's absolutely right that the same thing that makes innovation successful gets innovators in trouble. Excitement. Innovation is six, innovation is exciting and it generates excitement. But make sure that excitement within your business or within your mind equals the excitement it will receive in the marketplace. It's worth it to take it to to consumers first, see how excited they are, how readily they understand it, how much they go. When will it be available? At fearless marketing? Somebody called and said, what should I do? People keep wanting to buy my product and it's not ready don't sell it. Are you kidding? If people want it that's the enthusiasm that innovators pray for, so make sure that your product is grounded on the reality realistic interests of consumers. Successful products strategies developing offer what consumers want to buy. They bet on products and markets with growth potential. They introduce new features or benefits something that can be sold as something that isn't already available. They renamed, repackage reintroduce products, that's a successful strategy, and they announced new product assurances. Before you consider your business planning complete, you have to write down your products strategies, what are you going to do with products? Even if products or a service the only difference between services and products is that products people can hold in their hand and services they have to pay for before they get them by and large they have to buy in before they buy with a service which makes branding even more important with service because all they're buying is promise when they're buying a service and brands are promises which gets us back to why I think freelancers should brand their businesses because really when they commit to you whether you're a photographer, a freelance writer, a website designer all they're committing to is their trust that you can really deliver services a product that's purchased because people buy in to the brand and then get the offering products or tangible they can hold them consider them often return them you can't return service so eventually going to write that down the next thing is you're planning the planning for your distribution and delivery changes will you introduce delivery changes home delivery subscription this is what we're talking about guaranteed returns et cetera can you increase sales through new channels always worth that to think about? Is there another way we could be getting it out there? Online distributor partner retailers, et cetera can you benefit from partnerships that provide off premise visibility and sales the computer repair while the cell phone was being repaired going into the mall perfect example of partnerships are you prepared to recruit train motivate and compensate distributors rips partner businesses if you're thinking about going into any kind of partnership getting getting in writing first because going in is always more fun than getting out so write it down before you're done before you consider consider yourself done late this afternoon with business planning you won't be done but you'll know what it takes to be done with business planning one of the things is to write down what changes are you going to make and how you distribute your offerings including the dis addition over shift of emphasis on channels how how we change how you deliver your products including delivery pricing and guarantees and how you develop off premise distributor or affiliate sales the's air among the issues you consider in your distribution strategy next thing is planning for organizational change plans for attracting and working effectively and efficiently with quality people you may have nothing in this but deciding you're going to find some mentors or mentor types to work with on an ongoing basis you may decide it's toe hire people or to forge some some subcontractor relationships but what organizational changes are you going to make one person business networks more than twenty people frequently it's organized as a pack where anyone does anything so you need to have some real good training larger businesses tend to have departments and what's called a divide and conquer where there are business units that each one is responsible those of the typical organizational approaches but you need to know what yours is going to be. You need to write it down what? How are you going to organize your business to meet its goals? How will you attract and work with quality partners and suppliers? How will you build them, participate in networks and manage and leverage your business contacts? This is a really important one for just thinking about how will you be in touch frequently with suppliers and with those two keep them thinking about you because they're also sources of business referrals. The next session is all about branding and marketing and how to get and keep customers. It is the last of the write downs in terms of a strategy but it's so calm it's so important that it gets a whole ninety minutes and I love marketing so there you go that winds us up with twelve minutes for questions, right? Do we have any questions from our studio? Is now appreciate you writing down notes there furiously. I know particularly talking about a service in so many and I think what's really interesting is that I came up a lot of against a lot of unexpected challenges and so it made me refocus so I was teaching yoga out of my house. He got too popular. I went and got this new space spent a lot of money a lot of time building it out it blew up really fast it was so much more popular than the landlord expected that he was unaware of the zoning issue that we didn't have parking that fit the capacity of the number of people that were showing up and he asked me to actually like slow down but hello, you know, this's the business um but for a moment had to totally re shift and that's where we got into production and really focusing on private clients and so minimizing capping the amount of people that come and then actually calling it the secret studio and making it a very a very exclusive location and re focusing how you're going to use that space um so it's really interesting to kind of see like I'd never planned for that I was just kind of kicked in the face and force to deal with it, but as a result some of these things make me think about how can I specialize products that you know that I can create in that space perhaps, but that khun cell after my time so I can use it for production of the wa zoo and maybe it's not just videos that air streaming on another site but maybe it's a dvd or maybe it's downloadable videos or maybe there's podcasts that could be done and different things so my this is adapting to change how she got blind sided by change. It often happens, so really no amount of planning could have said on what if there's a zoning issue, so but the point is once it happened by understanding what it takes to adapt change and understanding how to enact change through the different strategies. The minute you get blindsided, you pull out those for, you know, operations distribution, what can we do with each of these to adapt to this situation? The first thing I tell people to do is to say, and we talked about this yesterday, how long is this disruption going to go on? And if you find out that he says within a month, I'll have the zoning changed great, you deal with it for a month, you get on with it, but if he says this is owning, I am not going to get changed. You cannot have this many cars. I didn't know what I'm sorry negotiate some something you ok? But then you start getting out you thinks it's a ok, this is the new reality. I have two changes move, which would be a lot of a location change that's still a change strategy or adapt, and in some ways it may actually be a silver lining yeah, absolutely very interesting students because we've got some comments coming in from online, I'd like to get a get to those before the end of the segment, but anything you'd like to share this point anything that from the last exercise the bar has been showing that really resonated to do with you in the same way that depict brigitte warrant your you're contemplating, I think I am playing I mean, it's just a lot of things and everyone into this a lot with small business owners, you know, they seal it information and it's not that they don't want to make a plan or they don't want to do something that would answer business because why one day? Why are they in business if they're not gonna be successful? But it it tends to be overwhelming, so I think the thing to keep in mind is, you know, look at it in bite size chunks that you can handle, you can absorb and go from one to the next to the next, the next until you until you're done and at a level you're comfortable to maintain it just to re familiarise are online audience you actually the process right now setting up a new business? Yes, oh we're summing up a partnership now it's going to deal with small to medium size businesses those who have a little bit more funding than our clients at the spdc had but it's only offering the same types of services and when barber talks about change and virgie talks about change one of the things that just kind of happened randomly a couple weeks ago is one of our vendors required us to do or asked that we do a site visit with a customer and a site visit is a paid opportunity like ok yeah, you know they're in l a we're up here why don't we add that into our business model because it's just a easy revenue stream to to get some additional funding so there are a lot of things that happened particularly when you surround yourself with a group of inventive and smart people two things I'd like to follow up on what he said remember the slide yesterday about ideas and then where do ideas come from? What was the first thing customers ideas come from customers that's a perfect example of saying wait if this guy wants that somebody that's one thing the other thing I want to follow up on what warren I always follow up a lot warren says because he says so many good things there is an overwhelming I am aware of the fact that in the studios and online people feel overwhelmed there's a wonderful book that I love and it's for writers it's called bird by bird it's by anne lamont it's a lovely book for writers and whenever I'm writing a book and I feel overwhelmed or even doing business planning in it she talks about one night at dinner her father who was also a writer said to her brother who was a little boy what's the matter and he said I just realized I have a huge report tomorrow on something like thirty different birds in the end on anything it was supposed to be all about birds and the dad goes well buddy, we're going to take tonight and we're going to take a bird by bird and you know what? And you just do it one bird of the time until you're done it's okay not to do this all at once it's why I have all the right it downs if you commit over two weeks to answer the write downs which are all on the business planning templates all the write downs are on this one you could just go through and do them one at a time bird by bird and once you get the gholston it's very sequential once you get the goldstein you're forced to do your objectives once you do your objectives you're forced to do strategies because how are you going to achieve them? You do the strategy is one of the time they're in here write it down your operational strategy and the questions that this was don't get overwhelmed get sequential it's a very linear process you could do a bird by bird this is brown of another thought and so they have more congressmen of now there's all this stuff you have to do for the business right? It was really easy to let yourself get absorbed by the business and not take time to develop yourself either personally or professionally. So I think part of the planning process now is setting aside some time and I'm or congress and of it for doing some sort of personal development, whether that's reading a magazine you know, entrepreneur success magazine and those other things or looking at resources that are outside of your area of expertise for you business so that you're kind of broadening your horizons. I mean, barbara mentioned all these great authors because barbers done her homework and she's a fantastic speaker and prepare so those are things that you can add your quiver and I'll just make you a better person over time. The one of my business mentors is a very successful man in bandar again who I everything he's ever told me or told us to do has been right, and one of the things he said is all his business career he has left from three o'clock on empty and that's the time that he deals with crises, he didn't expect business planning that he didn't get too and personal development creative live is now twenty four hours a day if you can't sleep, do something productive and don't just watch the courses that apply to you I clicked in last week was fearless marketing was playing earlier this week I clicked in to see how it looked how's that and I also noticed photo shop was going an hour later I was still watching that photo shop I don't do photo shop it's not my area of expertise I was fascinated by it so the resource is you're sitting in a resource in terms of personal development but don't always do just what benefits you because when you're doing something else you're learning more about what your customers air doing part of the reason I use social media to the part I do to the point I do is because those I talked to use it and if I see one of you follow a new feed, I follow that feat because I figured this is what people who I care about care about anyway thank you all of this is it's great it's great little tidbits to pull from and really think about as we start our own planning process is well when we come back we're going to be talking more about the branding and marketing do you wantto tell us any more about it or well, mainly just that it's planning for branding and marketing and I have tried and I know that after lunch we're always a little everybody's always a little drowsy so I've tried to keep it really upbeat things like twenty things you need to know about marketing. I've tried to give you a very big helicopter view of what marketing is and what you need to know about doing it right in today's very changed environment marketing hasn't changed. How you do it has changed and then specifics for developing the marketing that will support your goals and objectives wade shares some of the quotes coming in from the internet. We both found them quite interesting, yes and girl said, I had to pull back that launch of the race team project because we lost our secretary administrator and I refused to launch us into chaos. Many thought I was foolish, but we now have a much stronger base structure. It pays to decide to pull the plug flesh, throw it, throw on the brakes sometime, absolutely, and this is what bracketing and milestones can help. You know you need to do absolutely and then also flying drifter says, my mountain, I need to climate staying focused and following through. I have so many good ideas.