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Leading In Tough Times
By Bob Seelert,
Author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

The financial crisis that began in 2008 continues to unfold in unprecedented ways, thereby presenting business leaders with incredible challenges. How does one manage in such a crisis-laden environment? Here are “Ten Things To Do” based on my 40+ years in business.

#1 — Get the truth out on the table. You need to begin with an open, honest, candid assessment of the facts. Sometimes the truth can be ugly, but you’re not in a position to deal with it until you get it out on the table. Making unrealistic assumptions only will prompt inaction, with things getting worse before they get better. Get out in front of the problem.

#2 — Establish standards for the new reality. When markets collapse, you can’t be sure how far they will fall, but you can establish an expectation for how your company will perform relative to whatever happens. At Saatchi & Saatchi, even though our revenue may be down year to year, we expect to outperform the market by 50%. This sets a high standard for our people. We also recognize that there will be margin pressures, but we expect to “draw the line” at X%”, in order to preserve our financial profile for the future. This implies tight management of costs at the same time we aim to outperform the market.

#3 — Think long term; Act short term. Downturns in the economy present the opportunity for far-sighted companies to go for share of market. Inevitably, some of your competitors will pull back when times get tough. Take advantage of this to position your enterprise to gain when the inevitable market rebound takes place.

#4 — Communicate, communicate, communicate. This is the time to increase the frequency of your internal communications and heighten your personal presence in front of the organization. People are understandably nervous and sometimes scared during uncertain times. Now is the opportunity to rally the troops and give them reassurance that your company will be out in front in dealing with what needs to be done.

#5 — Get “All hands on deck.” Tough times call for extraordinary efforts on the part of every employee. You can’t get the job done alone. Now is the time to enlist every person in doing whatever must be done to ensure survival and prosperity. Outhustling your competition is the surest path to gaining share of market.

#6 — Get out with customers. Heightening your interaction with customers will keep you tuned in to their needs and give you constant feedback regarding where the environment is headed. Meeting customer needs and exceeding expectations are the two sure pathways to success.

#7 — Stay true to what made you great in the first place. Most high performing companies got that way for a reason. Now is not the time to lose sight of this. Toyota has achieved success in the U.S. car market through innovation and continuous improvement. Despite the current downtrend in auto sales, they are innovating by introducing the Venza, and putting into the marketplace the third generation improvement for the Prius. These are the kind of actions that will keep them out in front.

#8 — Reframe value for the new environment. Marketers should reassess their messages for relevance in the current economic conditions. Tide always has been the best laundry detergent, but in this environment, it doesn’t hurt to remind consumers that its color integrity feature keeps new clothes looking new longer. For Olay it’s relevant to mention that the cost of Olay pales in comparison to more invasive or surgical procedures.

#9 — Add/Reduce; Create/Eliminate. Despite the economy, it’s likely that your company needs to add some new positions and create some new capabilities in order to meet the demands of the marketplace. You should press ahead in these areas, but you need to have the organization simultaneously thinking about how it reduces and eliminates things as well. Tough times force trade-offs.

#10 — Set tight priorities. Now, more than ever, is the time to set tight priorities. Decide what is core, and what is non-core, and focus your time and attention on the critical few things that will make a difference.
Tough times can bring out the best in organizations and prompt actions that will position your company for future success. Follow these ten things and you will do well.

©2009 Bob Seelert, author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

Author Bio
Bob Seelert, author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders, is Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, a leading global ideas and advertising company. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, he has been CEO of five companies, has built brands and businesses, been a party to two mega-mergers, and enacted numerous turnarounds. He has served on boards of directors of companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. He lives in New Canaan, Connecticut.

For more information please visit www.StartwiththeAnswer.com

Living in a One Page World
By Tony Jeary,
Author of Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life

Words, words, words! The world is becoming a word blur through email, web blogs, magazines, and books. Then, there are endless numbers of reports, proposals, studies and technical publications that also demand significant pieces of our time. The word explosion and the dissemination of those words is one of the by-products of the information age and digital technology. Millions of people can cut and paste billions and trillions of words in an instant, but who is reading all of it? My guess is a small percentage. How many times have you prepared a lengthy document and the responses you get seem to indicate that few people really read the thing?

While the digital age makes it easier to compile and share lots of text, the competition for the time people invest in reading has been increased dramatically. How many emails a week do you trash or ignore that invite you to read something? How many books would you like to read but just don’t have the time? How many newspapers are left unread, beyond the headlines? Here’s the point: This glut of words has become a factor in the way you compete for business and communicate your value. If you can’t get it done on one page, you will probably not be heard! We truly live in a one-page world!

The hardest thing to write is something short. Most people use far more words to make their point than is really necessary. Their writing rambles on and on and on, talking about things that really aren’t essential. That works for a novel, but not in business communications. If you want to communicate or sell an idea you have to be able to frame the important things and capture the value proposition in as few words as possible. This seems obvious, I’m sure. So why do people have such a hard time achieving it? Writing skills are part of the problem, but there are lots of good writers who can help — if they know what to say!

Understanding what to say, and the best way to say it is impossible without clarity! “Clarity.” What a word, what a concept! I spend quite a bit of my time writing, thinking, and teaching others about this dynamic seven-letter word. It’s such an important word, full of potential, promise, and possibility, and it holds the destiny of individuals and organizations in its powerful grip. The basic definition of clarity is having an unfettered view of your vision, which is what you want and why you want it, fed by an understanding of its purpose and value. When it comes to communicating your ideas and your unique selling position, you can see why clarity is the ingredient that makes living in a one-page world feasible and so powerful. The key to achieving clarity is found in the word why.

Why is clarified by understanding purpose and value. Most important, it relates to the positive perceptions people have about purpose and value. If a small group of people create a plan that is mandated for others to follow without ensuring those people have a positive perception of the plan, then focus and execution will be bumpy, to say the least. If there is a negative perception of purpose and value, there will be no willingness to exceed expectations or change voluntarily so that superior results can be achieved.

To understand how purpose can and will contribute to the clarity you have about your communication, you must be able to answer one simple question:

“Why is what I want important to me and to others?”

If you can’t articulate specific reasons why your vision is important to you and to others, then you do not understand your purpose. It’s also important to understand that purpose is a transcendent concept that actually wraps itself around your vision and carries it. For example, in the case of a war, the vision might be to win the war, but the purpose of going to war is to preserve freedom. The motivation of preserving freedom (the purpose) actually transcends the vision of winning the war and legitimizes the entire effort. Communicating value in a one-page world demands that you understand the transcendent purpose of your value proposition and present it clearly and succinctly to your audience.

The transcendent purpose of your proposition is directly related to touching the felt needs of those you want to influence. Value is an issue of perception. When sales are made based on higher perceived value, people will pay more for it. It is unfortunate that many businesses have difficulty articulating their value proposition in a powerful way. This is particularly true of businesses that offer services. Many lack clarity as to what their value proposition really is, or should be, and they have great difficulty putting it into words. They continually search for the elusive, 30-second elevator speech that makes a powerful statement about what they do and the value they bring to the marketplace. They intuitively have an idea about what it might be, but they have a hard time putting it in words.

The difficulty in producing this kind of effective language is caused by not being able to grasp the issues the value proposition must address. Organizations need a value proposition containing language that impacts the listener at the level of “felt need”. What exactly is a felt need and why is it important? Felt needs are about solutions to problems and challenges. People are instinctively problem/solution oriented with respect to their thinking. Your problems may be minor or they may be devastatingly serious. Whatever they may be, you intuitively look for solutions for all of them. Long before solutions for significant problems and challenges are discovered, you usually feel like something new is needed to provide solutions you can actually implement. These conditions are what felt needs are all about. To effectively communicate your value to others, you must touch them at the level of their felt needs. You will be most effective when you can do this on one page!

Copyright © 2009 Tony Jeary, author of Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life.

Tony Jeary, author of Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life, has been and continues to be the coach to the world’s top CEOs and high achievers for more than 20 years. His clients include the Presidents of Wal-Mart, Firestone, Shell, Samsung, New York Life, and the United States Senate, to name only a few. An advisor to many, Tony Jeary has invested his life and career in helping others discover new clarity for their vision, develop focus on direction, and create powerful execution strategies that strategically impact achievement and results. Tony is happily married and blessed with 2 great daughters.

Learn more about Strategic Acceleration at www.strategicacceleration.com
Visit Tony Jeary at www.tonyjeary.com

Start with the Answer
by Bob Seelert,
Author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

My most important management philosophy is “Start with the Answer, and work your way back to the solution” As a starting point, I apply this approach to virtually every situation that comes across my desk. Once you understand the basic facts, where you want to position your organization or yourself should become obvious. The real question is, “How do you get there?” Instead of wasting time dwelling on the problems of the past, you should devote all your energy to creating solutions for the future.

Such was the case when I checked in at Cordiant in July 1995. At the time, the company was losing money due to the tumultuous events of the previous six months. The founders of the company were gone, 6% of the revenue had walked out the door with them, and a large amount of debt was coming due far too soon. Not a pretty picture!

The first two priorities were stabilizing clients and staff, and refinancing the company. Many of the people in the company were caught up in the issues of the day and all the reasons we were losing money. To refinance the company, we needed to produce a credible five-year financial forecast.

Rather than responding to gloomy forecasts, we chose a totally different approach. We started in the external world of the industry in which we were competing by assessing how the Peer Group Composite, made up of Omnicom, WPP, and Interpublic, was performing. After all, these companies were in the same business we were in, we competed for new business in the same pitches, and the market dynamics that affected them were the same ones that affected us.

We learned that we were in a growth industry with worldwide media spending increasing at a rate of 5-7% per year. Beyond that, the major holding companies were growing at a faster rate due to trends toward globalization and clients consolidating advertising resources. The Peer Group Composite was achieving operating income in the range of 10-12% of revenue. Adjusting our business for the scale effect of their larger businesses, we concluded that if 10-12% margins were attainable by them, then an 8-10% range ought to be achievable by us. These business parameters became “the answer,” and we could now devote all our energies to doing what it would take to get us there.

Recognizing the dire nature of our starting point, we set a three-year time frame for success. Three years later we were there, having grown revenues faster than the market rate and earnings per share better than 25% per year. The key element in this achievement was starting with where we wanted to get to, rather than being consumed by the depths of the situation we were in.

BOB’S WISDOM: The first step in a business plan is to “start with the answer” and then devote all your time and energy to work your way back to the solution.

The above is an excerpt from the book Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders by Bob Seelert. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Bob Seelert, author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

Author Bio
Bob Seelert, author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders, is Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, a leading global ideas and advertising company. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, he has been CEO of five companies, has built brands and businesses, been a party to two mega-mergers, and enacted numerous turnarounds. He has served on boards of directors of companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. He lives in New Canaan, Connecticut.

For more information please visit www.StartwiththeAnswer.com

Ten Rules for Leading the Turnaround of a Declining Business
by Bob Seelert,
Author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

I have been involved in turnaround situations at Topco Associates, Kayser-Roth Corporation, and Cordiant. The similarities between these situations were greater than the differences.

In each case, they were companies that had fallen on hard times, but there was a belief that they could rise again like a phoenix from the ashes. Additionally, the fact that the companies were not doing well was by no means a secret to the employees, who were always eager to have the leadership that could bring it all back together and get things moving again.

Here are my ten rules for a successful turnaround:

Rule 1. When formulating goals, start with the answer and work your way back to the solution. Do not get bogged down in the morass of yesterday. Get going toward where you need to be in the immediate future. At Cordiant, we developed a five-year financial forecast within three months of arrival that we used as the basis for refinancing the company. Subsequently, we exceeded every benchmark of that forecast.

Rule 2. Get out in front of people immediately and position yourself as the new leader in the company. Tell them who you are, what you believe in, why you are there, your perspective on the situation, and how you intend to proceed. At Cordiant, I visited all the principal people and major locations in London and New York in my first two days.

Rule 3. Bring an extraordinarily high sense of urgency to what you are doing, but also look before you leap. People are anxious for results, but this is no time for dead ends. Think carefully about everything you do, but keep moving. At Topco, we immediately commenced development of a line of environmentally-friendly products because there was an obvious niche and need in the market for them.

Rule 4. Do not sit around headquarters! Get out to where the work is done — plants and field offices. You need this input, and you need to be a motivating force for people. At Cordiant, I got around to offices accounting for 60% of our revenues in the first six months.

Rule 5. Go out and listen to customers and clients. At Kayser-Roth, one of my first visits was to Wal-Mart. They told me, “Mr. Seelert, we are concerned about the viability of your company as a supplier.” Two years later, we were named their vendor partner of the quarter. If I had not personally gone there to listen and learn, I doubt that this would have happened.

Rule 6. Listen to everybody in the organization who offers an opinion about the business — don’t just hang around with the people who report to you. There are two sides to all coins and stories. You need to understand both. If you can, meet with your competitors or the heads of similar organizations. When I went to Cordiant, I met with the heads of other holding companies, agency networks, consultancies, and service organizations.

Rule 7. Recognize that you cannot get the job done alone. Open communications and clearly assigned accountabilities are essential. Your visits to locations provide the forums for rallying and directing the teams, as well as quickly identifying the true talents across the organization.

Rule 8. Lay out your vision, purpose, values, beliefs, objectives, strategies, and plans for accomplishment as quickly as possible. People cannot really get going until you set the right direction. At Cordiant, I laid out my initial vision on day one. to be the “World’s Best Creative Communications Resource.” I indicated that I would be a good listener and that
together, we would drive the vision forward from there.

Rule 9. If you do not have the internal resources to get the jobs at hand done, do not be afraid to use outside resources. At Cordiant, we employed Price Waterhouse Business Turnaround Services, At Kayser-Roth and Topco, we hired Luther & Company.

Rule 10. Develop the short list of critical priorities and stick to it. At Cordiant, it was two things: stabilize clients and staff, and refinance the company. Accomplishing these two goals set the stage for everything else.

BOB’S WISDOM: Turnarounds are intensely difficult 24/7 situations. Follow the ten rules and you will prosper.
The above is an excerpt from the book Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders by Bob Seelert. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Bob Seelert, author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders

Author Bio
Bob Seelert, author of Start with the Answer: And Other Wisdom for Aspiring Leaders, is Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, a leading global ideas and advertising company. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, he has been CEO of five companies, has built brands and businesses, been a party to two mega-mergers, and enacted numerous turnarounds. He has served on boards of directors of companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. He lives in New Canaan, Connecticut.

For more information please visit www.StartwiththeAnswer.com

Spring Cleaning: How to get Fit in All Areas in the Next 60 Days
Does Your Inside, Match Your Outside?
By John Spencer Ellis,
Co-Author of The Compass

One of the things I love about the work that I do is that it’s all encompassing. Fitness isn’t just about being physically fit. It’s about your mind, body, and soul. If even one of those areas is off balance, your life will feel out of sync, because you are one being, and it’s important not to neglect any part of you.

Does your inside, match your outside?

As a fitness expert for decades, I’ve coached men and women to get themselves in the ultimate shape, from the inside out. Exercise is an important part of life, and how you fuel your body, affects your mind, the way you operate and function, and how well you can perform in all areas of your life. Your body is your temple, a machine, and how well you energize it and fuel it determines how well it works! It sounds simple, but if it were, the diet and fitness industry wouldn’t be as massive as it is today!

When someone wants to improve their physical fitness, there are often other areas that need improvement as well. Whether it’s an everyday person with a normal job or a television personality — we’re all human. We all have the same core issues and needs.
When I worked with one of The Real Housewives of Orange County cast members Jeanna Keough, I focused on the inside, as well as the outside. She’d been in the throes of a divorce, and the resulting feelings and trauma from that would naturally take a toll.

It’s important not to overlook what is going on inside someone, when you’re coaching them on external changes. It’s all integrated, and who we are inside, affects who we are outside. Exercise is an important part of life, yet one of the hallmarks of depression is an inactive lifestyle. Psychologists will tell you that it’s hard for someone who is depressed to think about moving. But moving is exactly what’s needed to lift your mood, and create the physical changes you desire. Even in the darkest valley of your life, it’s important to see the light, and reach for it. Often that’s the first step in mental and physical wellness.

One important and still relevant life lesson stems from the old term no pain, no gain. Throughout the peaks and valleys in your life you’ll discover that true strength comes from the ashes of struggle. This is the same way with physical fitness and it’s a big focus in my training and coaching programs, because a lot of people are trying to understand how to get from where they are, to where they want to be. How do you get out of debt, shed 50 pounds, and achieve the life of your dreams? It seems impossible when you’re in the pit of depression, when you’re in debt, when you’re overweight, or struggling. But it’s all possible, and I coach people how to take one day, and one step at a time to transform.

How?

Step 1: Take action in your life today.

You must be willing to let go of the life that you have (or some things within it) in order to grasp the life ahead of you, the life you are destined for! This lesson is about letting go, and moving on. It’s about taking action in order to live the life of your dreams!

Are there people, places, or even things you need to let go of? Make a list today and you’ll be amazed at how this one simple act ignites transformation. Once you do you are free to take action towards your dreams because you’re moving in the right direction, without any anchors or unnecessary baggage.

Step 2: Keep moving.

Movement is about creating inertia, in your body, mind and soul. When you move mentally, you create change. When you move physically, your external body transforms!

There is power, in movement.

Exercise increases blood flow to the brain and body. That increases the amount of oxygen and removes cellular waste products. Physical exercise causes the lungs to draw in extra oxygen to bathe the tissues and help power the heart. Exhalation removes carbon dioxide, and waste products from biochemical reactions. It’s the same when you exercise your mind and take steps towards your dreams. When you take action, instead of waiting to attract something, your life unfolds and things start to happen!

Step 3: Take a holistic approach.

Don’t allow yourself to focus too much on one area, only. Give yourself a brief assessment. Are you in the best mental, and physical shape you could be in? If not, what can you do to change? Taking a moment to pause, and think about the condition of your body mind and soul, will help you stay balanced and healthy in all areas. Taking a holistic approach means understanding what’s out of balance in your life.

Step 4: Get into a routine.

Successful people who live healthy lives have learned to incorporate some sort of routine in their day. That’s because consistent healthy patterns on a daily basis, create the foundation for real growth and success. Add physical and mental fitness to your schedule. Focus on your physical routine (exercise) as well as your mental routine (reading a positive book, affirmations, or studying something that will expand your mind).

Step 5: Re-wire your mind.

Program your brain for healthy thoughts! Listen to positive music, ipod downloads, and CD’s in the car. Your thoughts drive your future, and if you tend to process things negatively, be self-aware enough to turn that around. Top athletes like Tiger Woods, are masters of their minds, focusing on positive thoughts, concentration, and mental management. Having a healthy and positive outlook is essential for your best life.

Getting Mentally Fit and Physically Fit

In life, your mental and physical routines should be intertwined. One thing affects the other, and even if you’re physically fit on the outside, it’s important to be just as physically fit on the inside. Ask yourself today, does your inside, match your outside?The benefits of a regular fitness program are increased muscle mass, toned legs, buttocks, arms, abs, and healthier looking skin. But the benefits of paying attention to your emotional and intellectual state of mind are a healthier outlook on life, and more positive relationships in life, and also in business. When I coach someone in fitness, I always emphasize the power of routines, and a holistic mind, body approach.

Are you satisfied with your progress in all quadrants of your life — physical, spiritual, emotional and financial? If not, what’s holding you back? Find your compass, and get in sync. Take steps that will lead you to live the life of your dreams.

©2009 Co-Author John Spencer Ellis, co-author of The Compass

Author Bio
John Spencer Ellis, co-author of The Compass, is an internationally recognized personal development and wellness expert. Aside from holding four degrees, John is a philanthropist, professional speaker, and educator. He is the CEO of the Spencer Institute for Life Coaching and the National Exercise and Sports Trainers Association. John is the creator and executive producer of The Compass movie. He can be reached at www.JohnSpencerEllis.com.
For more information please visit http://thecompass.tv/

Mean is the New Nice
By Jonathan Littman,
Co-Author of I Hate People!: Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job

When historians finally get their hands around the lost decade that wiped out our 401k’s, looted our nation’s treasury and battered our economy, they will likely arrive at a simple conclusion.

Playing nice was bad for business.

The last administration sold itself as the “let’s be nice to business” school of thought. It was a philosophy that spread throughout entire industries and our greater economy.

Nice was a forced smile, a phony front for those who wanted to put one over. Most of the seemingly nice results generated by all this nice turned out to be frauds. Those seemingly generous mortgages peddled to new homebuyers blew up into balloon payments that rendered thousands bankrupt and homeless. Wall Street was nice to investors for most of the decade, delivering fabulous returns on investments nobody understood — until the bill for those bad mortgages came due. Bad investments had been stacked upon bad investments in this nice new financial instrument called the derivative that nobody understood until it helped to wreck our economy. The nice, regular returns offered by Mr. Nice himself, Bernie Madoff, was a gigantic ponzi scheme that cost investors $60 billion.

During the orgy of niceness, those entrusted with policing the purveyors of phony nice were way too nice. The SEC and FBI were incredibly nice to thousands of scam artists who went on a financial crime spree. Accounting firms were very nice to lots of companies that didn’t really earn money or ship as many products as they said, which ended up costing lots of jobs.

It was a genuinely nice age to steal billions from everyday Americans and corporate employees.

At the pinnacle of our nationwide nice delusion, two advertising agents wrote a sugary 119-page treatise, The Power of Nice, How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness. It was what everyone wanted to hear. Donald Trump (a client) loved it! The book became a Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller. It was in short, a very nice time for business.

How quickly the herd changes direction.

Nice is now a four-letter word. Companies have been falling over themselves in trying to prove that that they are no longer suckers and anything but nice. Top corporations that have had strong fiscal quarters, or even increases in earnings, have coolly laid off thousands of workers. Smaller firms have even boasted of record earnings — while announcing massive layoffs. Those banks handed the free lunch of our billions of tax dollars have not been very nice to individuals and businesses desperately in need of loans. Congress is on the verge of making it nearly impossible for anyone under 21 — young workers and college students struggling under debt — to get a credit card.

The New Nice is Mean.

Today, thousands of corporations are marching in lockstep to prove how nice they are to their company bank account, which has the trickle down effect of being mean to the people who do the work. Firms are paying employees for four days a week but demanding that they work five. They’re slashing benefits and perks. They’re laying off men and women by the thousands.

They’re being nice about it.

Consider Microsoft, which recently put out an official e-mail from CEO Steve Balmer, announcing the firm was “Eliminating additional positions across several areas of the company. While job eliminations are always difficult, we are taking these necessary actions in response to the global economic downturn.”

See how nicely they did it! They’re only eliminating positions. No talk about firing people.

Mean is the New Nice, and just as the age of Phony Nice ruled America for nearly a decade, we are now headed for some serious mean.

Don’t worry. They’ll be nice about it.

©2009 Jonathan Littman, co-author of I Hate People!: Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job

Author Bio
Jonathan Littman is co-author with Marc Hershon of Little Brown’s I Hate People! and the business blog, IHatePeople.biz. A contributing editor at Playboy, he co-authored the Ten Faces of Innovation and the Art of Innovation.
For more information please visit www.IHatePeople.biz

What Does it Mean to Get Your Business Unstuck?

By Jay Abraham,
Author of The Sticking Point Solution: 9 Ways to Move Your Business From Stagnation to Stunning Growth In Tough Economic Times

Many businesses are in an awful rut these days. That’s because they don’t know what steps to take to tap into what I call “the secret wealth of a bad economy.” There’s much more economic activity going on, even now, in the midst of what many are calling the worst economic downtown since the 1930s. In this article, I’ll share with you 7 smart things that successful businesses are doing in order not just to ride out the recession but to grow and thrive as never before.

1. Break down your numbers, not just month to month, year to date, and year to year, but also into categories like how many leads, how many new sales by product, average sale, and average product-source. Then, you analyze any and all correlations, implications, and anomalies this data tells you.

2. Have a systematic, strategic process in place that is designed in a predictable, sustainable, and continuous manner to bring in prospects and first-time buyers. You keep advancing and enhancing them forward to recurring purchases in a predictable enough manner that you can look at your numbers today and accurately predict what your business will be like in 90 days, 100 days, or some other time frame. You’re able to engineer specific, predictable growth, year after year, because you’re zigging while your competitor zags. He’s still using direct mail, while you are conducting Webinars. He’s running ads that don’t pull, while you’re tying in with affinity groups.

3. Produce not just incremental gains but exponential gains by recognizing how your business really makes money. For example, Costco studied its numbers and realized it made more money from selling memberships than from selling goods in its stores! So it tailors its advertising and marketing to bring people back into the stores to buy things on a regular basis…so they will continue to keep their memberships in good standing. And “The Biggest Loser” TV show promotes The Biggest Loser Club, where an individual pays a yearly membership fee to lose weight in the online Biggest Loser Club. More than a million people choose to do so each quarter. Now that’s real leverage!

4. Have clarity about all of the factors that affect your business, and realize none of the problems they pose are insurmountable. In fact, the vast majority can be improved upon. You now see the potential income in any business situation and how to make it work for you in a most enriching manner. For example, you find that you have one category of buyers 10 times more likely than others, and if you approach them the right way, they are likely to buy 17 times more than your average client. Or when ads no longer work, you know how to get free media. Or when consumers aren’t spending as much money, you know how to find alternative propositions to which they can’t say no. If marketing at corporate events or trade shows stops working for you, then you develop a distribution channel none of your competitors know about. You’ve become Wayne Gretzky, skating to where you know the puck is going to be.

5. Understand your competitors’ appeal, advantage, and differentiation in the market, and know how to pre-empt these advantages, or successfully counter-position yourself against them. Take the time and trouble to learn why certain consumers buy from your competitors and not from you, and you know how to change that. Failing to study your competitors’ strategies is like playing poker over the phone. You don’t get to pick up on their nuances and traits…and you don’t learn how to overcome them.

6. Know the alternative products and services that your prospects can buy in lieu of your products and services, including taking no action at all. Focus on proving to your prospects that choosing you represents the most astute decision any buyer could make. You know how to motivate and persuade them to take action and make buying decisions. You will enjoy not just what I call a “static awareness” or a theoretical knowledge of your marketplace, but how to do something very cool and profitable with your prospects and clients. Remember that until you convince them to make a move, they can just as easily sit on their wallets. That’s something you can’t afford to permit!

7. Incorporate growth thinking into everything you do, every action you take, every investment you make, every contact you forge with your buyer or marketplace. Let’s take Kevin Trudeau as an example. Trudeau is famous for his books on memory and health cures. He is also a master of the infomercial. You want to know the secret to success? Trudeau succeeds because he first runs ads before he sets prices! He would see how many calls per thousand viewers an infomercial generated, giving the price on his product…and then he set his pricing accordingly to maximize his profits. That’s a brilliant approach. Most people just assume they know how much the market will pay for a product or service, but Trudeau takes the unusual — and highly effective and compelling — step of listening to the market and seeing what they have to say.

These are just a few of the means of dislodging your business from the rut into which so many once successful businesses have now fallen. Apply some or all of these tactics you’ll be back on track to superior success.

©2009 Jay Abraham, author of The Sticking Point Solution: 9 Ways to Move Your Business From Stagnation to Stunning Growth In Tough Economic Times

Author Bio
Jay Abraham, author of The Sticking Point Solution: 9 Ways to Move Your Business From Stagnation to Stunning Growth In Tough Economic Times, is founder and CEO of Abraham Group, Inc., in Los Angeles, California and has spent the last twenty-five years solving problems and significantly increasing the bottom lines for over 10,000 clients in more than 400 industries worldwide. Jay has won high praise as a marketing genius in USA Today, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, OTC Stock Journal, National Underwriter, Entrepreneur, Success, Inc., and many other publications. Jay’s clients range from business royalty to small business owners, many of whom acknowledge that his efforts and ideas have led to an increase in profits ranging into the millions of dollars. He lives in Los Angeles.

Learn more about Jay Abraham at www.abraham.com