Five Minute Strategy Primer; Innovative CEO ebook; Get Schooled

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

"Revenue is not a given today -- in a sense we've been in daycare since we've had it so good up to this crisis -- and now it's time to grow up -- we're all going to need to go back to school." 
                                                                                                                            
                                             Brett Sheldon, Founder
                                             Salvo Real Estate Solutions

Five Keys to Driving Revenue -- the first is to sell "loss avoidance" instead of benefits, the rest are outlined in my latest "Growth Guy" column which I've presented to over 1000 executives the past few weeks -- these keys work. Take three minutes and read or listen (I led a 20 minute teleconference on these five strategies on Tuesday -- here's the link)

Strategy Drives Revenue -- I just got off the phone with Brett Sheldon who is attending our Sales Summit in a couple weeks -- Brett's always been a great student of business. He asked me an important question -- what are the frameworks for strategy/marketing (I see strategy and marketing as one in the same) since there doesn't seem to be a single unified theory. Here's a quick primer on strategy and some key resources:

0. First framework is Jim Collins' Hedgehog -- www.jimcollins.com for description, worksheets, tutorials -- and a key is figuring out a profit/x different than everyone else in your industry -- he has a tutorial on that as well -- I'll be pushing him on this topic at the Growth Summit in October.
    
0. Second framework is Bob Bloom's Who, What, How, and Imaginative Acts outlined in his book Inside Advantage. Noted Brad Skelton in an email to me last week, who runs a $100 million plus business that has averaged 35% annual growth the past eight years "We did a session 2 nights ago with Bob Bloom. Fantastic mate! He helped us cut through the crap and get to the essence of what Skelton Sherborne is about in simple language. The clarity we have is amazing and we are embarking on changing the way we communicate with customers and attract new business."
0. Third framework is Philip Kotler's Classic 4 P's of Marketing:
    
   0. Price -- we don't think strategic enough about this topic, so read Holden and Burton's Pricing with Confidence as well as their blog or hear Burton speak at the Sales and Marketing Summit
   0. Product -- Geoffrey Moore is the thought leader -- his whole bowling pin strategy outlined in Crossing the Chasm is key along with the idea of making sure you pick a narrow enough niche and provide it with a 100% solution -- it's this last point most companies mess up and don't fulfill. Moore created an important marketing matrix for those of us at the Growth Summit in Vegas.
   0. Place -- whoever is in the most channels wins! Better to have less products and more channels than the other way around. Michael Masterson's book Changing the Channel outlines 12 different channel strategies -- I'm working to get him to next year's Sales Summit
   0. Promotion -- where the first location anyone looks is the web, a strong content-rich, educational promotional program is critical. David Meerman Scott is the first guy, in my viewpoint, that has made sense of Web 2.0 in his book The New Rules of Marketing and PR. These are the most cost effective promotional tools a business can use. We're actually webcasting his 2 hour presentation from the Sales Summit April 21.
       
0. Then there are four critical articles to read (listed on My Gazelles as well):

0. Jim Collins "Building Your Company Vision"
0. Jim Collins "Turning Goals into Results: The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms"
0. Francis Frei's "Commerce Bank" case study
0. Michael Porter's "What is Strategy"

Own a Word or Two -- then Control the Ink in your Industry -- when it's all said and done, what you hope to do is own a word or two in your industry ("Growth Guy") and then get about controlling the ink around that word -- books, articles, blogs, wikis, etc. And how do you know if you're making progress? Google your word(s) and see where you rank.

Ron Alvesteffer's ebook for Service Express -- speaking of ink, Ron, YPOer and President, emailed me last Thursday to let me know "I took your advice and wrote a book" -- and it's a very innovative ebook where he's embedded video of himself in the ebook -- you have to check it out by going to his website -- it's in the right hand column. It cost him roughly $50k including the ghost writer. It's serving as an excellent sales and marketing tool as well as a recruiting tool to find top talent.

Just find the best ideas and then implement them -- this is Ron's philosophy which has helped him take the company to over $25 million, 135 employees in 14 offices. And his best producing offices are in Michigan! Notes Ron "once every two months I bring in all the managers from our offices and spend a day learning together. The key is simply finding the best ideas -- we attended last year's Sales Summit -- and then implementing them."

It seems the best keep on learning!