Archives for category: Planning

The Genuinely New Idea

February 6, 2017 //

What do you do when you come up with what you think is a genuinely new idea for a business, product or service? Inventions, as we all know, are 1% perspiration and 99% inspiration, so you probably still have one foot in the starting blocks even though you have a great idea.

Maybe it’s such a great idea, so obvious that when you make it a success people will say ‘that’s so obvious, why didn’t I do that?’. Maybe you don’t know if it’s been done before and you’re anxious to get it off the ground before someone else who’s better resourced and financed than you comes in .

I’m not an expert in this area, as I tend to help people scale their start-up, which is a step or few beyond what I’m describing here. Nevertheless, there are two things you can assess pretty easily. First, does this thing, or something close to it, already exist? Second, is there a market for it?

If it doesn’t already exist, it’s often a good indicator of viability if your idea dovetails into some of the emerging mega-trends. You need to look out for articles like this one from people who know the field. Who knows, you might be nicely aligned with some of the future ‘big things’. There’s no guarantee that someone somewhere isn’t already developing precisely your new idea, and you could argue that if it’s been identified as an emerging trend you’ve missed the boat, but who knows, there might be room for more than one player in the truly hot areas.

Sometimes it’s a genuinely new idea that there isn’t a market for, and we’ve all had those, probably several of them. And perhaps it’s a genuinely new idea that we don’t have time to work on, because of other commitments. I had a genuinely new idea about two years ago. I researched it and nothing like it existed, which amazed me, because it seemed so obvious. Two years on, I’m still working on my idea, and it still doesn’t exist.

At some point, you have to forget the genuinely new idea and move on, or go for it. Nothing ventured…

Tags Entrepreneurship, Innovation

Categories Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

Normal

January 11, 2017 //

Why do so many of us strive to be normal, to fit in? Is it our natural herding instinct, the safety in numbers? We don’t want to stand out too much, do we?

But what is normal?

Is it a basket of behaviours that can be grouped into a standard, a category or a stereotype? To me, normal is rather like ‘average’. Calculating an average number, or an average person can be a useful yard stick for grouping people or things, if it’s interpreted correctly.

But who is average? Who wants to be average? No-one is average. Average is a mathematical nicety describing a group, not an individual. It’s like when someone says ‘well most people would do that.’ Well, I’m not most people. Besides, how could I be?

So who wants to be ‘normal’? What is normal? Can one person really be normal?

I don’t want to be normal. I don’t want to be thought of as normal either.

Tags average, Behaviour, Normal

Categories General, Planning, Strategy

Primary, Secondary

January 9, 2017 //

Almost everything we do is secondary. Not secondary in importance, you understand. Secondary as in it’s been done before, said before, heard before, tried before.

We spend 99% of our entire school and college lives learning stuff that has already been figured out. We’re getting it second hand and not doing the primary work, the genuinely ground-breaking stuff. Remember that odd time when you stuck your neck out in school or college and wrote what you felt was something new, a product of your independent thought? I bet it was marked wrong, right? You’re treading where thousands of people have gone before, so your new thing is not thought to be right – thought being the operative word.

So much of what we do is secondary. Our working lives are about replicating processes, re-working, recycling, renewing what’s been done before. So little of it is actually new, never done before.

There is a very small number of people doing the primary stuff. Making the law, setting the precedent, inventing a financial mechanism, product, sport, piece of technology, process, creating something new and valuable. The rest of us are studying it, reading it, criticising it, adopting it, using it, benefitting from it, and sometimes improving it.

In the world of doing primary stuff there is failure, mistakes, false dawns, incorrect conclusions, disappointment and a huge amount of wasted time. But also, by an order of magnitude greater, there is fame, fortune, progress, history, satisfaction, gratitude and humility.

What primary stuff are you doing, or trying to do?

Tags Adaptability, First, Recycling, Rework

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

Really Viral

January 6, 2017 //

There’s nothing like the physical world to give us a powerful corollary of how it works in the cyber world.

I’m always reminded of this in late December when families and friends get together at the end of a few months of solid graft and a winter vomiting bug or two runs riot, moving through areas like wildfire.

That’s really viral, genuinely viral. You can see why the term virus was coined in the cyber world. A physical virus is an amazing thing, replicating itself, producing different strains and moving quickly through people in different cycles and timeframes.

Millions can be affected within the space of a couple of weeks, brought on by the combination of people being at a low ebb and slightly more vulnerable to infection after a sustained period of work, proximity to others, and mobility within family groups and circles of friends.

I’m always fascinated by how terms like desktop, folder, cloud, virus and so on are borrowed from the physical world for their digital equivalent. They always seem so apt.

Tags change, Virus

Categories Communication, Customers, General, Language, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy, Technology

Meeting with New People

December 16, 2016 //

Did anyone notable ever say something along the lines of ‘a wise man speaks less, a foolish man does not’?

If they didn’t, they should have, so I’m filling the gap now.

When you’re in a meeting with new people, I think it’s a sensible course of action to keep your own counsel first. This is deferential, which is polite and considerate, but also gives you a chance to gauge the situation, see what they’re like, assess what they know, and generally rate them as individuals, based on your early impressions.

Then, when you’ve given them a chance and you’re surer of the situation, you can start contributing from a more knowledgeable basis.

This approach certainly works well in sales and marketing, when you’re looking to get the customer to do the talking so you can learn more and propose a better solution that builds on your increased understanding of their requirements.

When you understand the situation and the new person you’re talking to better than they do you, you’re in a position to help them better, make a better first impression, and have a better chance of controlling the dialogue and the output.

Tags Productivity, Relationship, Work

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales

Polls

December 14, 2016 //

When it comes to polls, it’s been the year of inaccurate polls. When we finally realised they can be wrong, and actually, a bit of a liability. When they don’t get the simple binary result right – yes or no – then what use are they?

Let’s not forget that polls are statistics, which are rarely accurate if they’re not scrupulously scientific. A poll takes a sample size of the population and projects that sample size onto the population as a whole. All of a sudden, polls become ‘the truth’.

Of course, this is flawed in a number of ways. The sample size is probably not be a reflection of society at large. People may lie or change their mind between when they are polled and when they vote. Polls are run by people of a certain societal group prey to their own prejudices and predispositions. The way the poll is calculated may be wrong. And, perhaps most important when you think of the 2 major instances when the polls got it wrong in 2016, the polls don’t reflect the complexities and intricacies of how votes are counted.

Is this the death knell for polls? Probably not, but it’s a useful reality check, a reminder that statistics can be a guide, but often a faulty guide; misinformed, biased, made up or just plain wrong.

As our US friends might say: polls, schmolls…

Tags Poll, Statistics

Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Planning

The Eighth B2B Account Planning Stage

December 2, 2016 //

And so we’ve arrived at the final B2B account planning stage. You made it. Congratulations, well done. If you follow this process you should reap the benefits of your great work. So far we’ve researched, grouped, targeted, strategised, built & executed, monitored, and, in our seventh B2B account planning stage, reviewed.

Now we come to the eighth and final B2B account planning stage. It’s a lot like the final stages of other sales and marketing series I’ve shared.

Of course, it’s to start again. Back to the research.

A financial year is effectively a cycle, but it’s a cycle you never get to repeat. Account planning is a cycle too, which is why you start again, as soon as you’re finished. Business is a cycle too, but it’s one that you can do over, as the US would say, and improve upon every time.

If you were reading these posts as they were first published, the timing is good. You’re in good time to get your account plans done for the next calendar year. If you’re reading them some months or years from now, that’s OK. It’s never too late to start the account planning process, wherever you are in your financial year. I advise you to read them in order; it shouldn’t take you too long. There are plenty of longer posts or books you can read to go deeper.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this series and that it’s given you a taste of how much business you can generate and how much control you can exercise over your business if you do account planning well, and ideally with the support of technology for all its collaborative, communication – and these days data-driven and AI-inspired – insights.

Good luck! Good selling :-).

Tags Account Planning, B2B, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales

Categories Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy

The Seventh B2B Account Planning Stage

November 30, 2016 //

Into the final quarter of the B2B account planning process we go, and not a moment too soon.

So far we’ve done research, grouping, targeting, strategising, building & executing, before, in our last post, monitoring, the sixth B2B account planning stage.

Now we come to the seventh B2B account planning stage, which is reviewing. Towards the end of the period to which your account plan applies, it’s always good to take stock and see how you got on. Here are some questions you should be asking:

How many of our targeted opportunities did we win? Was our hit rate higher than for regular opportunities?
What was our final percentage performance against target for the plan? What does that say about the target and the performance?
What went well during the process? What went less well?
Did we get good team alignment and participation? If not, how can we fix that for the next time?

Reviewing helps you close the loop on your account plan. It allows you to review how successful you were, and to discuss and learn the lessons that you can incorporate as improvements for the next account plan.

Tags Account Planning, B2B, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales

Categories Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy

The Sixth B2B Account Planning Stage

November 28, 2016 //

In our series of blog posts covering the B2B account planning stages, so far we’ve researched our accounts, grouped them, and decided which ones to target for further work. Then we’ve strategised on them to create projects that would work best for both us and them, before embarking on the fifth stage, in our previous post, which was to build and execute our plan.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Where all the hard work starts to pay off, or not if we don’t follow through.

The sixth B2B account planning stage is to monitor our progress against the plan. Don’t forget that a plan is a living document. You’ll never get your plan totally right, or even mostly right, so it’s important to monitor as you go, checking actual performance agains planned targets, and adjusting where necessary.

Regular communication is the key here, since it’s a team effort and everyone needs to make sure they’re fulfilling their part of the tasks, or taking action if they’re not. If you don’t communicate regularly, the plan will stagnate, you’ll lose momentum and you won’t monetise all of your great work to date.

Keep going! Keep focused on those specific tasks that help you nibble away at the grand prize, which is securing the go ahead on those high value opportunities.

Tags Account Planning, B2B, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales

Categories Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy

The Fifth B2B Account Planning Stage

November 25, 2016 //

We’re half way there. We’ve completed the first four stages of the B2B account planning process. We’ve researched, grouped our accounts, targeted the ones we’ll go after. Then, in the crucial fourth B2B account planning stage, we strategised on the accounts and came up with projects that we could work on with our accounts to help them solve problems that we’ve identified for them.

Now we’re onto the fifth B2B account planning stage, which is to build and execute our plan. Building the plan involves being selective about which projects and opportunities you’re going to pursue. In the previous stage you brainstormed lots of potential projects. You can’t do them all – if you can you didn’t create enough of them. Now you need to select the best ones. These are the ones that are in the happy place of offering the most value for you together with the most impact – and hence value – for your accounts.

Once you’ve selected the opportunities you’re going to pursue, you need to make a plan for how you’re going to win the business. This involves understanding how the accounts work and who the movers and shakers are within each account. It also involves breaking the big task of winning the business into a series of smaller tasks where you assign a specific member of your team to secure something definite from a particular member of the account team. Breaking it down this way means that you should only consider smaller tasks that will actually help you towards the big task. Forget all the other smaller tasks that don’t help; they’re a distraction.

Smaller tasks shouldn’t be woolly, like ‘get a meeting with the CEO.’ They should be specific, like ‘get a meeting with the CTO by the end of the month to secure her sponsorship of our project.’ By all means use a more detailed framework for your tasks, like SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely – because you need to be able to monitor your performance against plan.

When you’ve built your plan, go execute it!

Tags Account Planning, B2B, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales

Categories Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy

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