bizsolutionsplus Featuring Solutions to Grow Your Business

Give Me a Long Tail

If you haven't read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, don't wait any longer. The book may scare you, as it turns supply and demand economics on its head and makes us look at the way we do business in a brand new way. But it should also excite you, as Long Tail economics opens a new window for both producers and consumers.

Like any new hypothesis, the book is generating controversy. For example, John Jantsch worries it will cause businesses to chase the next new thing and warn that we need to focus on what works.

I worry instead that businesses will ignore the Long Tail until it is too late. Of course, we need to continue to focus on the tried and true, but ignoring new ideas is akin to putting our heads in the sand. The point here isn't that the Long Tail currently requires us to dump our strategies and create a brand new set. The point is that we need to pay attention to Anderson's vision and to what that may mean to our business's future.

Too much is being made of the data in Anderson's book. I prefer to look at the Long Tail as a growing future state of business that may represent a substantial market share. Those business's that choose to ignore new ideas, end up having to catch up to their competitors every time new buying trends appear. I recommend that we instead prepare for new trends by reinventing ourselves regularly so that we are out in front of new trends.

If you haven't read the book, here is a very brief synopsis.

Anderson is the editor in chief of Wired Magazine, who shows us "what happens when everything in the world becomes available to everyone." He discusses the impact and shows us the economics of how the many millions of niches we businesses once ignored can now make up more opportunity for consumers and businesses.

These niches reside at the tail-end of "hits," those products that sell to the masses. In today's wired world, Anderson shows us that those tiny niches that we traditionally believe are insignificant sales and that cost too much to reach. My read says that this is a future trend we need to be ready for, because when Generation M arrives to buy from us, I believe they will want it their way.

In short, the new economics of The Long Tail cannot be ignored. This is a must read.

Eating Serial Entrepreneurs for Breakfast

I guess you could call me a serial entrepreneur, and that is a scary thought.

My fourth company will launch in the fall. The first and to date most successful business, a small publishing house, is now defunct; the second, a communications consultancy moved east from Seattle to become my third company, a business management consultancy focused on marketing and sales.

The driving force behind all this seems to a need and a strategy to always look for the next best thing and to never let a "good" idea go untried. The need and the strategy also represent the reasons I couldn't take the corporate world.

So in the fall my fourth business launches, and it is the first in which I will have partners. Pretty scary stuff. I hope I don't get eater for breakfast

Innovation by Accident

It makes me more than a little nervous that the "Innovation Band Wagon" is spilling over onto the streets. Mind you, I believe in innovation but not to the detriment of best practices and imitation, both of which don't break the bank.

When defined properly, innovation requires the creation of something new, not changing something old. And creating something new costs a bundle. Balance, my business peers, is the way to go!

Also, keep in mind that some of the business world's most important innovations are an accident. Starbucks Frappucinno is a great example.When a southern California store realized it was losing customers to the cafe across the street, which sold a popular iced drink, the Starbucks store manager began playing around in his kitchen with iced coffee concoctions. Long story short--he and Starbucks gave birth to the first Frappucinno. So by accident a cash cow was born.

Prioritizing: Our Biggest Challenge

by Lewis Green

What do I do now? What do I do next? Seth Godin's Blog raised the question, and his readers responded.

For me, the answer comes down to personal goals, which don't always resonate with my business goals.

I left the corporate world years ago not to make tons of money--although I never turn "the right kind of business" down--but to live a lifestyle that afforded my family and me control of our lives. In an earlier post I referred to The Happiness Quotient, and in my business that is my primary goal. It doesn't always refer to what is most important for my business. However, it does always refer to what is most important to my clients.

That may seem a contradiction in terms: Not so.

The Happiness Quotient rejects money as the primary business driver. In brief, my Company's number one priority is to do all we can to ensure that our clients, our families, our friends and our communities always come first, not the fees we collect for our work. For me, it is about building a business that is customer- and employee-centric, that is built on values, and that delivers experiences that exceed expectations. That is what I call The Happiness Quotient.

But none of that means a thing unless the business affords us the time and willingness to treat are family, friends and community in the same ways. So, we take on only those businesses that are values-driven and whose foundations are built upon values that do not include profit as the primary driving force and metric. We believe that companies built on values over the long-term actually out-perform those driven by profit motives. As important, values-driven businesses create work places and communities where people want to work and live.

For L&G Business Solutions, the desired results translate into taking on a limited and small number of clients at any one time so that they receive 100 percent of everything we have to give. It also means that we turn down work wherein L&G is not aligned with XYZ Company's values; therefore, we are not a good fit.

So, going back to Godin's question about priorities: Ours are well-established in our strategic plan. So what may seem most important to do next for other small businesses, entrepreneurs or corporations, may not register atop our priority list.

Making the next sale or getting the next client or making a ton of money is not job one for us. Delivering The Happiness Quotient to our clients, families, friends and community sits atop our What do we do next? list.

For our clients, that always results in their business growth, both top and bottom lines, and we guarantee it. And by keeping our values Priority One, we ensure quality delivery of work, respect, dignity and happiness, as measured not by us but by those we touch.

Lewis Green, Founder & Managing Principal, L&G Business Solutions, is always looking to work with a few good businesses looking to become great in ways that include profit but that are measured in other important ways, as well.

Don’t Blame the Plan… Blame the Boss!

By Lewis Green

Is there anyone in business foolish enough to claim strategic planning always achieves your goals and results in success?

For example, who has not experienced month after month cooped up in meeting rooms hammering out goals, strategies, tactics and metrics for the purpose of measuring our success, only to see the resulting plan filed on a shelf never to be seen again? Or, even worse, perhaps the result was utter frustration from trying to launch and manage a hard-won plan without true executive support at the start, though unending criticism at the end for failing to make the numbers.

Recently, management consulting firm Marakon Associates and the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed senior executives at 197 companies. Respondents said their firms achieved only 63 percent of the expected results of their strategic plans.

And in a white paper entitled Three Reasons Why Good Strategies Fail: Execution, Execution, Execution, which carried the above research, Wharton management professor Lawrence G. Hrebiniak says MBA-trained managers know a lot about how to develop a plan but very little about how to carry it out.

“Most of our MBAs receive great training in planning but far less in execution,” explained Hrebiniak, author of Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change. “Even though they are good managers, over time they really have to learn through the school of hard knocks, through experience, which means they make a lot of mistakes.”

In my 35 years in the corporate world and as a consultant, the above research and Professor Hrebiniak’s insightful comments resonate. Although plans are carefully constructed with much initial enthusiasm by the managers assigned the duty, they often turn to dust in the wind because executives fail to execute the promise held within those pages filled with the innovation and reinvention that comprise a good strategic plan.

Executives can not always be held entirely responsible. As long as shareholders and board members insist upon short-term results, for example, only the most powerful and fearless executives will reap the long-term rewards and margins that strategic planning can deliver. Meanwhile, such short-term thinking prevents American businesses, small and large alike, from becoming the best they can be, and in the long-term this short-changes everyone, including shareholders!

Fortunately, America is still blessed with brave and bold business leaders attempting to pilot American businesses toward greatness. As James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras put it in Built to Last, “Maximizing shareholder wealth or profit maximization has not been the dominant driving force or primary objective through the history of the visionary companies.” Ironically, they add, the result is that “visionary companies attain extraordinary long-term performance….” and that “visionary companies have done more than just generate long-term financial returns, they have woven themselves into the very fabric of society.”

Who are some visionary companies today? Think Starbucks, 3M, GE, Hewlett-Packard, Nordstrom and Procter & Gamble, to name a few. What motivated and inspired business person among us does not dream of the day when he/she might join that exclusive club?

If we plan accordingly, set big goals, hire the right people, build a culture of success, we all can. If we also encourage personal responsibility and calculated risk-taking, practice integrity in everything we do, and employ not only cross-functional best practices but encourage and experiment with creativity and innovation, that will move us in the right direction as well.

For those brave and bold enough to want to join the ranks of the visionaries, consider these suggestions to help your strategic planning and its execution:

• Do annual strategic plans, tie them to your overall business plan and measure progress quarterly. This applies to all businesses—whether a sole proprietorship or a mega multi-national corporation.
• Think long-term, and be flexible and resilient so acting in the short-term is also a viability.
• Set high goals, short and long term. Don’t be intimidated by the Street or the Boardroom or your own fears. Those who merely set goals they can easily make never get around to stretching the business to achieve higher margins and outstanding profits.
• Use metrics to measure every goal in every functional area.
• Align every department (or every business function if you don't have departments) and every employee so that every ounce of the business’s energy is directed at achieving the goals set within the business plan. In other words, there should be no individual or departmental goals that fail to support the overall business goals. Break down silos so that every hand is tightly holding every other hand. be inspired by Howard Schultz, Starbucks Chairman, who says: “We will cross the finish line together or not at all.”
• Evaluate every department (or every business function if you don't have departments) and every employee on how they contribute to achieving the goals; tie their pay and benefits directly to success or failure.
• Make the focus of the plan marketing and sales. Peter Drucker explains, “Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business has two basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results, all the rest are costs.” I believe that every person in every business should understand the goals of marketing and sales and be working daily to achieve them.
• Communicate, communicate, and communicate! If you want your plan to succeed, every member of your culture must be engaged and informed.

These recommendations make up only a few slices of the pie, yet they represent solid principals to drive business planning. But do remember this: A plan is only as good as the leader or boss driving it.

Lewis Green is the Founder and Managing Principal of L&G Business Solutions LLC, which empowers businesses to achieve short- and long-term business development, sales and marketing goals. Email him at lewis.green@l-gsolutions.com or visit www.l-gsolutions.com