Get Fulfilled

Situational Marketing (4)

2011-01-12T17:11:00.003-08:00

By promotional campaigns
Companies could stimulate their market presence through sales promotions and campaigns. This form of marketing works occasionally because it is in human nature to get something for nothing. (But not like the lottery or gambling kind of promotion that prevalent in our marketplace today where some enterprises almost extort their consumers). Andrew Griffiths quipped, ‘All businesses can have specials and all businesses should have specials because they make customers feel lucky and they tend to buy more’.

This mode of marketing should serve two main purposes. First is to reward your dedicated customers across the ranks of your clients, whose loyalties are needed to keep the business going. By doing this, you acknowledge that you appreciate their choice of choosing your product-service, in the midst of the growing competition, and hence you keep them for life. Always bear in mind that most customers have the habit of changing allegiance to any establishment that tend to offer them something that they can’t get elsewhere.

If you have clients who have identified with your business for a long time, this is one of the best ways to reward them. You know the effort you are making to get new customers why lose those you already have? Taking any client for granted has grounded many businesses. (And usually, this also whets the appetite of prospective customers).

Secondly, promotional campaigns could also lower the ladder to appeal to the minds of undecided buyers. This makes it easier to convert prospective customer to customers. And for the later, your promotional campaigns should be around your unique qualities, and more than the competition can offer. I must warn that no establishment should make it their main means of marketing or rather getting customers’ attention. But should serve as a way of adding to whatever marketing strategy that is on ground.

It makes a whole lot of sense for an outfit to introduce promotional campaigns once in a while, both to get the attention of prospective customer, and to retain the devotion of existing ones. From findings, promotions are just short-term marketing tool, and should essentially serve this purpose. This idea works most for a product-based business. And for a service-based outfit, they can creatively introduce it too. I want to ask, how much have you rewarded your loyal customers lately?

By direct / cold marketing
This is a very popular means in generating customers to whatever product-service that you sell. One of the ways to market is to talk to people. I am yet to see a thriving outfit that has not got marketers but I have seen those who didn’t market but are out of business today. Our marketing approaches differ, leading to the type of results that we get. Let’s also examine this segment of marketing.

One significant thing that counts in marketing is the customers’ perception of your product-service, and how those perceptions affect them emotionally. Your duty as a good marketer is to come-up with marketing messages that affects their perception and appeal to their emotions. But you have to understand your target market, especially your buyers, and communicate well your product-service. You’d short-change yourself if you don’t know who you are marketing to. It’s usually difficult to relate to a person you barely understand in any way. A good understanding of who is buying helps you to build the right platform to achieving your marketing objective effortlessly.

Marketing is basically a game of mental warfare; a battle of perception, and not of product or service. The rule of this game is manipulating consumers’ perceptions so as to appear as the best and also the most preferred. There are no best products, not even one; all that exist in the world are perceptions in the mind of the customer or prospect customer. But we can influence people’s perception by knowing first of all what they value, or what value means to them.

Buyers buy on value. And interestingly, value is subjective, and subjectivity is guided by perception. (You can re-read that again). Consequently, it is the duty every marketer to create a channel to influence people’s perception based on what they care about. This sometime might require you to play on people’s emotions not to manipulate but to win them over.

You would primarily need to determine your customer’s make-up and personal inclination to the product-service that he or she wants to buy. For instance, his personality and communication style, and then channel what you’ve got to meeting this unique make-up. As people differ, so are the strategies for reaching them. As we are different, so are our needs, expectations and drives. And anybody that addresses these needs have won our hearts! To help you understand your buyer better, here is my advice: listen, observe and follow through. You’d be astonished at what you will discover. Remember, it all begins in listening, and not just with your ears but your eyes and your body.
As I conclude, it’s very critical that we understand that there’s a new marketing horizon, and we’d have to cross this new business chasm by developing improved marketing means that would give us better returns. And this requires some element of ingenuity. After all, marketing encompasses everything you do to attract and keep customers in your business, and sometimes your activity-posture may change. We would have to combine logic (and sometimes intuition), and connecting them to synchronize with feelings of the buyers to achieve this intention. Thus, every establishment that really want to remain competitive in this dispensation should act fast by implementing their innovative ideas if they are going to have strong competitive position.

And more importantly, business people should ensure that any method that they adopt in marketing their product-service should reinforce their presence in the marketplace. I think we can still be a little bit tactical about our marketing approaches, and watch the positive effect that will follow. I think that the mainstream media dying? Don’t just get tied-up with what is popular; once in a while, try to experiment. Task your brain. It pays to do so.

Spending so much money on marketing is a waste when you don’t know how to effectively communicate to those who need your offerings. And like Morita Akio, Japanese business executive said, ‘Communication is the most important form of marketing’. At the root of excellent marketing is excellent communication skill. Marketing is about communication, and that entails talking and listening i.e. getting feedbacks.

The cash flowing into your business presently is in direct proportion to the quality of what you are communicating to the market, and also hoe they are receiving them. Marketing has been said to be an act of conversation, where the market is the conversation. A good relationship between you and the buyers is an indispensable tool to a productive marketing, whether it is done one by one, or on mass. My team and I would be unleashing some cutting-edge strategies on how to win the market war in our next business development training workshop. Feel free to me a mail if you are interested. Now that you know, it’s up to you to make the marketing side of your business to happen!

Tony Ajah is a highly consulted business growth strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development. tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 01 958 7802

Situational Marketing (4)

2011-01-12T17:11:00.001-08:00

Situational Marketing (3)

2011-01-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

By word-of-mouse
Word-of-mouse is simply digitally augmented word-of-mouth. We can still refer to it as online marketing, or marketing via the internet. This method of marketing has been necessitated by the present business dispensation, which has been aided by technology. And it covers grounds where you may ordinarily not cover through the word-of-mouth, in an unprecedented dimension.

Promoting most businesses today would largely be digitally-influenced and digitally-enabled. The web-community is progressively changing the face of marketing from what we used to know a couple of years ago. And this change will continue to happen. We have more people customers and prospective customers we want to sell our product-services to online per time than anywhere else in the world! I’m thinking that marketing in this era should assume fresh posture too and not lag behind. After all, what actually is the reason for marketing if not to get in touch with people (in their numbers) with your valued-offerings? And what better way can we meet this objective? Thus, if we want our product-service to be found, we’ve got to take them to where majority of seekers seek.

What is this the idea of this word-of-mouse? You have surely heard about Facebook and may even have an account there. How did you get to sign-up? Have you seen their TV ad or billboard? But I can tell you that that idea called Facebook is booming (although there are other factors to consider). Let me borrow the words of Seth Godin, a marketing guru, ‘Facebook turned into an idea virus’.

The bottom-line is that someone you know and trust infected you with it. Imagine my business and your business spread across the world by word-of-mouse like Facebook, Yahoo or Google. You’d certainly be the richest Nigerians if you could discover ways to infect the right people with your product-services by word-of-mouse. If your product-service offers a solution to people, then express it using a viral platform.

Our concentration here is how you can spread the information about your offerings virally. To achieve this, it must be a product-service that could be captured or summarised as a valuable-idea, and would hence be spread as a virus! It’s then that marketing by word-of-mouse would be very useful and successful. (We’d examine this in details some other time).

The online marketing has got an advantage. It’s convenient, relatively inexpensive, fast, and gets to large number of people at the same time. (Indeed, today’s business landscape calls for it). To add to its benefits, you’d own your media platform that you can creatively control and influence the market at will. Those who have mastery of this art of marketing are smiling to the bank nowadays without fear of their rivalry.

Several changes have happened in our world by the advent of internet-technology. It’s obvious in the world today that virtual (internet) presence has come to validate our real presence, and also those of our product-services. There are certain product-services that could best be vended via word-of-mouse. Remember that online community is the largest community in the world today; more people spend time on internet that they do on TV and radios.

This should call for a strategic action plan by the marketing arm of any outfit. I have experience a situation where buyers of certain product-services are more concerned about the marketer’s web-address among other valuable things. If getting through to people has tilted towards online, then, companies who are not maximizing their online presence are short-changing themselves unknowingly.

Viral marketing or marketing by the word-of-mouse is the future in the present, and one of the effective ways of promoting your business solutions. It’s true that technology has made marketing much simpler than what we used to know. But this can best function when you have the right people with the mouse, and target it at the computer screen of the prospective clients. If you get it right, the idea spreads and your cash flows without restraint!

It’s not every business that can be marketed online (for now). Marketing by word-of-mouse has also got its own demerits. Neither is it every product-service that needs online presence; everything depends on your intended scope of market and influence. You don’t necessarily have to have an online business but if you are building a global business, you should have an online presence. Does that make sense?

By advertising
It’s on record that for the last 100 years, the single best way to determine whether a company was going to get big or stay small was to look at its (size of) advertising. Time and time again, aggressive companies with great advertising—regardless of their industry—have managed to make the ads to pay-off; they grow and become profitable. In fact, such outfits used this means to dominate the market in the past but it’s not the same these days.

On a critical evaluation, the clutter in the marketplace has finally made advertising even less effective. I could say that a threshold may have been reached. And with hundreds of TV channels and cable stations, thousands of magazines and newspapers, access to countless radio stations (even on your cell-phones and online), dozens of bill-boards, and literally millions of websites (including blogs and portals), there’s just too much clutter to reliably interrupt people and break into their attention-web. These buyers, we should bear in mind, have other things that also occupy their attention and interest.

Before writing on this subject, I took time to listen to number of ads on TV, radio jingles, look at billboards and newspaper adverts with keen interest and curiosity. At the end of the day, I tried remembering the most striking ads and could hardly mention up to three in all. And amongst the three, only one could move me to action to patronise the product-service. I wouldn’t know if that was peculiar to me or so. Even at that, not a few establishments still believe that with adverts alone, they can control the market. Please, think again.

I am not saying that advertising doesn’t pay; you must be sure that it’s one of the good ways of marketing your product-service to a large audience. Like Steuart Henderson put it, ‘Doing business without ad is like winning at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does’. Those words should be kept to heart. However, organisation should do much more than using the conventional advertising. John Wannamaker, a British executive, once said, ‘I know half of my advertising works; I just don’t know which half’. That somewhat facetious comment reflects the fact that we are not certain when advertising has worked, and the magnitude.

Research in America has it that seventy-six to eighty percent of consumers don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertisements. The figure could be more in Nigeria, yet a good number of product-services are marketed via ads. Dozens dramatically consider this method to be more powerful and positions their company and its product-service as clearly distinct from your competition. But it still looks like a guess work. There still exists the mediocrity of mass-marketing of some product-service through ads, and enlightened consumers are aware of this.

Advertising, by and large, does influence some buyers’ action by creating product-service alertness and also strengthening customers’ attitudes. It’s possible that the action a buyer has taken may have been persuaded by advertising seen long before the action. Before a product-service is positioned in the mind of a buyer, the customer must be aware of the product-service. It’s like expanding the scope of your leads; you wouldn’t know who may buy. One may be right to say that, the bigger your strategic-advertising-network the better for you. And it must surely contain creative-depth, be emotional and memorable.

On the other hand, organisations should run ads for different objectives: for information, especially of a new product-service; for persuasion, especially when the competition increases; for reminding the market of an existing product-service as it’s the case with Coke and Pepsi and similar multi-nationals. An outfit can also enhance or reinforce her corporate image using advertising, after all. If your purpose does not fit, it’s advisable that outfits look for other ways to promote their product-services.

Apparently, ads promote the image of a company’s product-service, and don’t really generate sales. I see it as a means of telling buyers ‘hear I am’. And it’s better for a product-service that this medium is most appropriate to spread the news about their offerings. Ads can help build brand-consciousness for a large corporation but I doubt if they really move them to action that much. Here’s a paradox if you want to grow big: you can’t grow without it. But you can’t grow with it alone, either.

Situational Marketing (2)

2010-08-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

Unless you find a more profitable way(s) to pass your marketing message across to your chosen market segment, your business or product-service would suffer for it. People are getting busier these days and don’t really have the time and patient to look at every product-service. They only create few rooms in their already flooded brains for just a few of them, wherever and whenever necessary. At times, I will be shock to hear that a particular product-service (I may need) has been around for ages. And I will ask myself, where I have been. Did you get the point I am making here? Marketers should do away with assumption, and apply what works to targeting its main buyers!

Hence, it behoves on organisations to adopt a marketing means that they can effectually manage, control and influence. The same marketing technique should equally give you utmost profit(s) for the effort. Never be lured into adopting a marketing method because others are doing it. More like me-too-marketing-approach. There’s no wisdom in doing so much and getting so little. Asking the right question before diving into the market would do an organisation so much good. Who actually are your prospective buyers? Where are they? Then formulate the right way to hit them with your well-aimed marketing messages.

There is the necessity for new approach of marketing thinking. Let’s call it contextual marketing or better still, situational marketing. It’s just a matter of time we would start measuring our ever-increasing marketing budgets with critical eye to evaluate its return on investment. That should be the bottom-line of any approach you may adopt to go about your marketing business. Nobody wants to run a business at a lost, not even Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.
Sergio Zyman, former marketing officer, coca-cola once taught, ‘Marketing is comprised of everything a company does from how its product is packaged, to how it is positioned in the eyes of the consumer through ad and promotion. All these things define the benefit to the user.’ But how many of us have got it, and are effectively using it? Firstly, you’ve got to know who your customers are and where they are, and then device a procedure to give them a superior service than the competition.

The essence of marketing is to have your product-service get to the end-user effortlessly, and also leave you with something profitable at the end of the deal. To achieve this, it’s necessary that one breaks out of the marketing clutter and then fashion a strong system to move most consumers to action. This might require your doing a little home work to know the system that is most appropriate for your kind of business. ‘The purpose of researching your market is to find out the subtler truths. Marketing research can help you spot opportunities and problems’. That is how Sarah White and John Woods wisely put it in one of their books. It’s very sad that nearly all of us are still engaged in what I would refer to as blind-marketing, even when it doesn’t pay us that much.

I want us to briefly assess some of the ways you can market your product-services and the advantages and limitations of each process. And whether that particular method was superlative for what you want to achieve in the market arena.

By word-of-mouth
Someone once asked this question to a group of individuals: ‘When forming an opinion of a company product-service, how credible would the information be from a staff of the company? What about the opinion of your friends and peers?’ It was so revealing that sixty-one percent trust and value the judgement of other people (like themselves) than those from the company or their representatives. This is very natural for most of us; we value thoughts and opinions of friends than those of strangers.

A survey by Edelman Trust Barometer in 2006 disclosed that word-of-mouth is seven-times more effective than newspaper advertising, five-times stronger than a personal sales pitch, and two-times as effective as radio advertising. And thirty-six percent of surveyed consumers reported learning of an innovation through word-of-mouth, while fourty-eight percent reported being influenced by word-of-mouth when making a purchase decision. (Some other statistical figures are even higher). Did you see that?

People trust peolpe, and by that I mean friends trust friends more than marketers, who are paid by their respective companies to serve as advocates to their various product-services. Inspite of everything, scores of business executives tend to over-rely on mass media advertising and under-rely on the reputational campaigns like word-of-mouth. Oftentimes, if people want to buy certain product, they first get the counsel of respected friends, neighbours or colleagues, who they think should have a better idea about the product-service. We still believe them even when they have little or no knowledge of what they are talking about. In fact, it has happened to me on numerous occasions.

Word-of-mouth is one of the finest forms of marketing, particularly if you know how to create a buzz using it (to boost the sale of your product-service). This is governed by the 90/10 rule: ninety percent of the world is influenced by the other ten percent. Or better still, Vilfredo Pareto’s 80/20 rule can’t be truer elsewhere than here. You get eighty percent of your business from twenty percent of you customers. I am saying this experientially. Think of the first time you visited a particular business outfit that was novel to, what largely brought you there was the testimony of a person (possibly friend or colleague), who may have had an experience with that particular product-service.

Another good thing about this mode of marketing is that it has the tendency of creating a ripple-effect. And often times, buyers here don’t come to make inquires (or do window-shopping) but to buy, or rather have an experience like their friends with your given market offering.

Obviously, the most successful product-services (or businesses) are those that spread and grow because of the customers’ relationship to other customers and prospective customers, and not because of the markets to the buyers. At the centre of every thriving business are the voices of customers, which resound louder than those of the sellers! A great mind summarised it thus: ‘The future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people cam market to each other...Ignite consumers networks and then get out of the way and let them talk’.

Nevertheless, it’s not every product-service that could be effectively dispersed by word-of-mouth alone but no establishment, no matter how big or small can do without it. This type of marketing has a way of giving credibility and enhance acceptance by the general public, no matter your business.

Situational Marketing (1)

2010-08-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Without any doubt, the business of marketing forms the bed-rock of any budding establishment. You will agree with me that every business rises and falls on its position and reputation in the marketplace. I have closely observed how a number of companies (and individuals) make frantic efforts to sell their product-services in the marketplace, and they use several procedures to achieve this purpose. While some succeed, some others don’t. And I’d wonder how we can better approach this marketing business and make it a little bit easier, and also create a win-win proposition for all the parties involved in the matter.

We wouldn’t neglect the fact that there shouldn’t be one way of marketing a given product-service. It’s perceived that the more of them you have and, the better for you and your product-service, and the better you might possibly edge-out the competition. After all, different buyers have peculiar things that motivate them to buy, and you may not know the one that would work.

However, there should be a company’s primary channel of marketing its offerings to its target market for maximum returns. It’s not every enterprise that may have the resources to integrate all the known marketing mix (wherever it’s necessary). It’s on this ground that I am compelled to put down this piece of work, and it’s based on some of my market and marketing experiences.

Let me begin by asking us this question: what do you consider as the best form of marketing? I’m sure that there would be several answers as there are diverse marketing situations. The hyper-competition in the market arena is not helping issues either; every business outfit wants to dominate the market. This has made countless companies and individuals to be under pressure, spending so much money to get their product-services across to the presumed-buyers. Sadly as it may appear, many of these wonderful product-services barely reach the ultimate end-users quite effectively.

It also gives me much concern whenever I see establishments spend millions in marketing campaigns – in advert, radio jingles, TV commercials, bill-boards, and what have you. And I’d question if they do recover from some of these crazy ,and somewhat extravagant expenses. Well some of them could be justifiable but my reservation is, how much do they get in return after all, since some of them don’t rationalise the investment made. In business, it’s not how much you spend but how much you make.

Research has it that more money is practically wasted in marketing than in any other human activity (outside government). That’s crazily amazing! If companies have discovered better ways of reaching their target market, they’d spend pretty less, rather than do what look more like trial and error.

Obviously, some of what certain organisations do is more or less counter-productive, and occasionally may fail to appeal to those at the receiving end. For instance, some companies spend millions of naira to interrupt people with ads they don’t want and with product-services that they don’t need. Or another that mounts bill-boards across the streets that passers-by are blind to. Quite a number of these things rarely work nowadays. Remember, you are not the only one bombarding the buyers’ brains, in the name of marketing!

Nevertheless, writing off all marketing expenditures because most of the time they don’t work isn’t the right answer, either. There must be a way out of this marketing-maze. I sampled the opinions of buyers of some of the things being marketed through several means before coming up with this article. So, I’d be taking it from the consumers’ point of view, and I think every good business or marketing executive should take this very seriously in developing their subsequent marketing plans. In the market place, it’s not what you think that matters but what the people think and do about what you are giving to them. That is why someone warned, ‘Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from customer’s point of view.’
In my own opinion, unless organisations find a more cost-effective way to get their product-services to their primary consumers, their businesses are certainly endangered. Marketing must be contextual for it to deliver the desired result. I see it as a whole work of art and science, (except that one wants to trail behind in the marketplace).

The buyers of these product-services are getting busier each passing day. They barely have time for any product-service, especially new ones, and so give small room in their over-crowded-media-hyped brains for few (known product-services). Therefore, anyone who must grab an appreciable market-shared must adopt a strategic means to register their presence in the business arena. (It’s difficult to sell to a man who isn’t interested to either look or listen).

Marketing, indeed, is abroad discipline, and its environment is so dynamic that anything can happen. And each day provides us with what works, and what does not work. It now makes sense to me when Dina El Tabey, a marketing guru remarked that, ‘Marketing is about continually trying new ideas and refining ideas’.

You can’t do today what created marketing buzz yesterday, because there’s no way that’s going to create more buzz today. Peter F. Drucker suggested that, ‘Crises in organisations occur because the assumptions on which the organisation has been built and is being run no longer fit reality; an organisation’s survival lies in its ability to learn and adapt quickly. Plans must be altered at the very time they are implemented’. I think this is mostly true in our present marketing circumstance.

On a more practical note, my team developed a marketing strategy for certain business establishment some time ago. Initially, they were scares at our approach, which was unconventional (but it’s the approach that suit the occasion). Nonetheless, at the end the outfit were so amazed at the result. Interestingly, they saved good money! What’s my point? The game of marketing must fit the present realities for it to deliver what you want. People might doubt the process but not the result.

A man said, ‘Marketing changes its focus from equilibrium management (why and how markets settle own) to disequilibrium management (why and how markets are constantly changing through the development of competitive products and production processes)’. Every business day opens us up to other sides of marketing or the market that we possibly may not have thought of before now. I am sure you will agree with that. So, let you action show your conviction.

There are several marketing approaches. And each marketing communication has got its advantages as well as slight disadvantage, or better still limitations. Not every product-service would, or rather should be marketed by advert or radio/ TV commercials. Neither is it wisdom to market some others solely by word-of-mouth, bill-boards or even online. What is most important is whether your method is suitable for the current market situation, and also if it is actually reaching your intended market. How do we determine the one that works? That is, the one reaches our target buyers. We would try to look at that in the next issue.

Tony Ajah is a highly consulted business growth strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development. tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 01 958 7802

2010-04-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Second coming of Business (Part 1)

At the end of last century, everybody was apprehensive of what the new millennium would hold. One word became a buzzword, and that was being ‘Y2K compliant’. Not few of us were talking about that because of the fear of the so called ‘millennium bug’. (I know that you can recall that, and was probably were compliant by one way or the other). I can still remember that the economical aspect of our lives was on major area people expressed considerable fear and anxiety.

It’s quite a decade ago, and a lot of things have drastically changed in our world, and particular in the business world. The vicissitudes have come much rapidly at a terrifying rate than we thought possible with so much unpredictable happenings. The high rate of unemployment, the closing down of so many companies, the crashing down of the stock market, the merging and acquisition of companies, are all indication that it’s purely business unusual, and not forgetting also the emergence of dozens of technology enabled and internet-based businesses, and more. We are yet to see the end of this ironic revolution that has begun.

Of course, no one could have imagined that the world would witness an economic holocaust, or even thought about it at the degree at which it came and has been sustained. More business surprises would still emerge in this new season. Quote me. But it would favour only those who are better prepared for the ‘surprises’.
I can then say that the year 2000 marked a new business dispensation, and ushered in the redefinition of so many business models and assumptions, until the advent of this recession. And this would herald the coming of a new style and way of ‘businessing’ like never before.

Several world events (usually disaster and recovering from such unfortunate incidents) have reshaped the events of the world. The other day it was the September 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers in America, which by a closer look has changes ‘businessing’ across nations and continents. Times magazine of September 9, 2002 said about the incident, ‘It may someday be said that the 21st century began on September 11, 2001...’ I wouldn’t know how true they were, but there is an element of fact in that statement.

The stage is now set for a much more ‘reinvented-business’ life. So many methods of doing business like we have known them are gradually phasing out; it would be a sorry case for those who are still tied to ‘known customs’. The year 2010 is very strategic for the commencement of the next phase of business; somewhat like the evolution of the next stage of the ‘business life-cycle’. The current global crisis would change the business landscape. Remarkably, the change has started. We are going to have a more renewed economic system that would be fashioned to suit the demand of the times. More so, we are going to do almost everything new sometimes, as the occasion demands!

Towards the end of 2009, I took some time to search and study the business trends of the 2010 (and presumably in the next decade), and I was thrilled with amazement! There were so many feedbacks as there were so many business situations where they apply; although most of them were outside the shores of this country. We, however, should not take anything for granted in this globalised age, where what affects one nation has the tendency of affecting the whole world.

One thing was so obvious from my findings: the new era of business has just surfaced even beyond what the ordinary eyes and mind could perceive. And most of them have been born out of necessity that the current business experience brings. But how many of us could recognise this fundamental business eye-opener?

To be ahead of the game, you’ve got to be compliant, much more than you did at the break of this century. I want to break this piece of work down in the most practical ways so as to make it relevant to you and your trade. The big question now is, how do you position yourself to being one of the major players in the current business progression? ‘Life’, Wallace Stevens observed, ‘is the elimination of what is dead’. The same could also be said of every progressive business. And we are already seeing the need for it.

Business as we see it today is still in the process of becoming. We’ve come so far to go further, and must take bold steps and responsibility to getting there. How do we set this in motion? Alan Alda said something I liked. ‘Begin to challenge your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in’.

This business times would be preceded by some many changes that only those who understand and play by the rules would rule. Here are some of the things you should acquaint yourself with. Like Tzu Sun admonished, ‘We have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays’. So, let’s set things in motion then.

Align to the change
The time of crisis is often times for change. One language that would echo louder than any other is change! The business world, I want to say again has changed. This change shouldn’t be viewed as a threat but as an opportunity. In the words of Warren Bennis, ‘Change cannot be viewed as the enemy, for it is instead the source of organisational salvation. Only by changing themselves can organisations get back into the game and get to the heart of things. All organisations, especially those that are growing, walk a tightrope between stability and change, tradition and revision’.

At any time of change, only those who adapt to the demand of the times remain secure and also relevant. Like you already known, every aspect of our business life is constantly in the state of flux. This has become more obvious now than before. So, we can’t stand within, and make progress without.

There is always a demand for change and progress. One of the reasons is because of possibilities that exist when we do or because of changes in the external world as we have met it today that asked for it. Please, don’t ever be forced to change but flow with the change and run your business. The later is usually advantageous.

Rapid and apparently crazy changes take place today in the business environment at a startling rate. Your business security lies in your ability to respond to those changes intelligently. If you would be sincere to yourself, you can still do more than you have done. And to do more than what you have done, you have to become more of who you are or even who you were not. Just be new!

You have to begin to form new business perspective; the present one is overdue for change. So much ‘busy-ness’, little ‘busi-ness’. There could be no better way of forcing you and me to change than by what we now witness. This is the best time to re-write them. (I have begun in my circle of influence. What about you?)

Another world of business opportunities is knocking on the door, or rather has pulled in. Remaining where you are, and doing things the way you’ve always done them may be very costly. Joel Barker, the author of the book Future Edge remarked, ‘When a paradigm shifts, everyone goes back to zero. Your past success means nothing.’ There is a paradigm shift in the business arena, and it’s still shifting. Without proper alignment you trail behind. I challenge you to do one important thing; be flexible in spirit, soul and body.

One of the primary keys to remaining in business is flexibility. Flexibility is a good business virtue. You have to be flexible enough to respond appropriately to whatsoever change that may come your way. To enable you to make the most of the emerging trend, you have to make necessary adjustments. This would certainly require your learning, unlearning, and relearning some business skills, wherever necessary. Do them so as to secure the future of your business. Businesses do not stand still; they may fall behind some times. But those that succeed do so by continuously improving their operations.

There may be so much to change, but begin by changing conventional business boundaries. As the saying goes; we grow only when we push ourselves beyond what we already known. I think it’s another time for us to grow in business, and grow fast for that matter. And for that to happen, change is inevitable. ‘Living with change’, a wise man observed, ‘need not imply insecurity, but rather developing new forms of security’. I can’t wait to secure my business position. What about you?

For all I know, change means growth, and every growth comes with change. It’s so obvious then that adapting to the ever-changing present is the sure security for the unpredictable future.

The Ultimate Business Strategy

2010-03-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

Every business activity is a game and fundamentally a game of strategy. A lot in business today depends on strategy. Like you already know, a strategy converts your intentions into the desired accomplishment. Joel Ross and Michael Kami, two management experts remarked in one of their book that,’ without a strategy, the organization is like a ship without a rudder, going around in circles. It’s like a tramp; it has no place to go’. That could be why John Collins also taught that, ‘Competing in the marketplace is like war. You have injuries and casualties, and the best strategy wins’. You sure have got a business strategy. Don’t you?

In truth, strategies are not something that you hope for, but something that you work for. And this has to be based on response(s) on the present realities in the market place. Getting to where you are going requires knowing where you are, and how much is required to move you on, and in what direction. A map is not functional until you know where you are on it. The same is true in your business strategy.

You can’t win a game you haven’t defined based on the prevailing business truth. Each business situation is a classroom opportunity to learn about what works and what does not work. You had your strategy quite alright, but how helpful has it been to you? Let me relate this to something we can easily grasp.

Every game has its own rules and its own definition of victory. No matter what the game is, there is always a scoreboard. In sports, everybody understands the importance of the scoreboard – players and spectators alike. Anytime I came in the middle of a match (when my favorite team plays), I first look at the score line, before settling down to enjoy the rest of the game. I know that you do the same, consciously or unconsciously. That would at least give you a clue on why they play the way the play, and so becomes baffling when a losing party cares less about the scores; playing as if nothing has happened or was at stake.

Think about how a basketball team approaches a game. Before the competition starts, the team spends much time planning. Players sometimes study hours of game films and spend days figuring out what their opponent is likely to do, and they decide the best way to win. And come up with detailed game plan. As the game begins, the game plan is very important, and the scoreboard means nothing (of course, everything was going to begin from zero). But as the game goes on, the game plan means less and less, and the scoreboard becomes more and more significant. This is simply because; the game is constantly changing (and in most cases the scores also). By now you must have know your opponent better, their strengths and weaknesses, and what to take advantage of. A man once taught, ‘If you know the enemy (your opponent) and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles’. That would be a plus to those who have got the eyes.

The scoreboard is essential to understanding, evaluating, adjusting, re-strategizing, and hence winning. Even if you are half way into the game, you can look at the scoreboard and assess the situation well. ‘The scoreboard’, John Maxwell once said, ‘provides a snapshot of the game at any given time’. I quite agree with him. It’s from there that you learn better what to do, or possibly what not to do. You may work so hard, but without a feedback that comes from the scoreboard, you wouldn’t know how well you are doing and how to improve. Changes are made considering what the rival is doing (or likely to do). So, you can counter whatever scheme he has got. Have you got a business scoreboard? What does it read now?

The game plan (initial strategy) tells what you want to happen. But the scoreboard tells what is happening; where you are doing it right or wrong. Victory here hinges on your ability to convert what’s on ground to your benefit. Here, you have to employ the scoreboard strategy, which by all means is the ultimate business strategy. Peter Drucker was right when he taught that, ‘Planning is an intellectual exercise. Until it becomes actual work, you have done nothing’. Most of what many organizations called strategy’ is nothing but mere plans. And I am saying this out of experience. (I hope you are not one of them). While there is need for plans, it’s very dangerous to totally rely on them to face your everyday business challenges without making most important modifications.

Obviously, strategies have to accept new fundamentals and new horizon. An organization’s strategy is partly planned and partly responsive to changing circumstances. Effective strategy looks at what is happening now in the light of what you want to achieve. No team can ignore the reality of its situation and still win; making key adjustments is the secret of winning in every game, even in business.

According to Frank Tarkenton, American management consultant, ‘Business is a game where the clock never stops and the score can change everyday’. It’s laughable how some businesses in Nigeria want to make it without a scoreboard, which they care less about. How would you know if your business is on line without the scoreboard? You may be working hard, but without a true market-response, you wouldn’t know how well you are doing. The scoreboard gives you that insight. Let’s come up with a law. I decide to tag it the law of scoreboard and it states that, businesses can make deliberate adjustments and move on when it knows where it stands. Period. You use the information from the scoreboard to know when to concentrate on what you are doing right, what to get rid of the irrelevant things.

It behooves on you to develop a strategic framework to analyze information to understand your position, pin point your competitive advantage, define the scope and depth of your impact in the market, decide where you want to focus your resources, identify priorities and possibly implement changes. Toughness in business means mental concentration and willingness to pay true attention to performance and to correct it through measurement and reinforcement. That I think is simple business intelligence.

Someone likened tactics (or strategy) like water; water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows. That’s tactical, or what do you think? Tzu Sun also quipped, ‘He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponents, and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain’. The same added, ‘Whether to concentrate or divide your troops must be decided by circumstances’. What else can I say?

Always remember that the scoreboard strategy is dynamic. Nothing kills a business faster like rigidity in your methods and approaches. That which worked today might not certainly guarantee success tomorrow. Be creative about it – know what and where to adjust and consolidate, and what to pay less attention to.

On a final note, it doesn’t just take strategy to win; it takes the scoreboard strategy. Making key adjustments is the secret of winning in life and in business. You can’t win without a strategy, but you can lose with one, except the scoreboard strategy. The later often produces the winning magic you business needs to break-even. What are you waiting for to start using it? Join my team and me as we unleash strategic moves on how to unlock your next business gain. Send me a mail if you are interested. What are you waiting for? It's up to you to make your business happen! It’s a new day.

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist. He is the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development.
www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 0805 140 3056

Igniting your Entrepreneurial Spirit

2010-01-07T07:14:00.000-08:00

It’s the entrepreneurs’ world. Statistics has it that 74% self made millionaires in America are entrepreneurs – people who started and built their own businesses. It’s also on record that between 1996 and 2004, America has turned out an average of 550,000 entrepreneurs monthly! That is amazing. Sometimes, i’d begin to wonder what we are actually doing in this country. However, the awareness is gradually getting to this place very rapidly. Every type of human development that we see around us today spring out from entrepreneurship of some sought, and the beat is not going down.

There is a paradigm shift in the business world– it’s no longer business as usual. I can remember vividly the dream I had when I was much younger: go to the university, study hard while in school, and get a lucrative job. (You must have had the same kind of dream, although there seems to be nothing wrong about it). That was the order of the day at a time, and eveybody was on that path.

However, on a very critical observation, you’d notice that times have changed, and are still changing; it is wisdom to read the handwriting on the wall. A lot of enterprises, including the multi-nationals are laying-off their talent-force, both great and small. This should call for a question from a thinking mind: what does the future hold for us who are working harder to get in and climb the corporate ladder? Today’s challenging economic environment demands entrepreneurs who truly have the eagles’ eyes to see creeping opportunities.

One main way of weathering the storm is to go back to the basis – entrepreneurships. Everyone has got it, not excluding you and me. There may not be enough jobs for all of us, but there are need to be met every day, in our society, and we can do something about it. Entrepreneurship springs out from a niche market needs. In other words, every problem is a business, and every business is a solution to a problem.

If you can spot a problem in your environment that you can provide a solution to, and in which people would be willing to pay you for, you have a strong basis for starting the business. According to Robert Middleton, ‘Problems are where people live. When you mention a problem, you hit a nerve. It’s what they are thinking about. And if you can address their problem, they will realise you know something important about them’. So, look where others don’t; people’s needs are business opportunities.

Entrepreneurs are market-need opportunists. They understand three important elements require from every entrepreneur – to understand timing, to understand current market needs, and to understand positioning. And when they take advantage of the three, they end of their story is always full of bliss.

There is this question of: how does one get started? I asked that question, time and time again until the light shown. Business is a game of skill, and all skills are learnable. Behind every skilful man were his unskilful years. All those we admire in the business world today, began from somewhere, at a time, and you too can. You don’t necessarily have to be a master to begin, but becoming one with time; each passing day bringing closer to your business paradise.

Starting and growing a business is a journey that is worth going, and it takes time to get there. There’s no short cut in such a route. If you really care to start a business, be prepared to invest in the process. Preparation and investment are winning; that’s one of the laws that governs life. Every one of us at one point in life may have ran into some kind of opportunities that can turn our lives around for good, except that only a few are prepared for the occasion, and not very many still are willing to throw themselves into it.

One important point to note is; what do I have to get there? Business begins with an idea; if you can’t sell the idea, don’t start the business. But beyond the idea, you have to possess other qualities that would give you an advantage. Nothing could be so frustrating like having an idea that you don’t know how to express. Here’s a wisaman’s statement on this: ‘Many people have ideas that could make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The problem is most people have never been taught how to put a business structure inside their ideas and so many of their ideas never take shape or stand on their own.’ Isn’t that revealing? You may require the help of those who have gone the way that you want to go. This would help you to gain time, and direction. Businesses are built on fact. That means, knowledge is very critical for every business development. Go for knowledge, and not just information; something that would stimulate something in your entrepreneurial spirit.

Every business is a reflection of the spirit of the entrepreneur. Interestingly, this is the spirit we begin to develop from youth. What you see me do today I developed many years ago, and when opportunity called, I was prepared for it. You have got energy and exuberance; turn that energy into entrepreneurship, and you’d see yourself start another revolution! Let that spirit be strong and full of knowledge, you would excel.

In addition, an entrepreneurial spirit had got some personal qualities that set them apart from the crowd. Here are some them: self belief, character, purpose, drive, knowledge/ competence, focus, courage, integrity, discipline, and creativity. Please, check if you have got them, and go for them if you have not. The more of them you have, the better your business would become. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Let me warn you: you don’t necessarily have to get the support of friends and relatives. Because as Albert Einstein taught, ‘Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds’. Does that tell you something? Only be sure of you mission and how to get there. Stay true to it till the end. ( I am saying this experientially). There is no doubt, people have their fears when they see us do crazy things, but what is surer is your victory at the end. Starting every business is very risky. You know what, risk means stretching, taking chances, trying new tactics, making mistakes and learning to work through them. More so, go for professional assistance whenever you should to gain speed, energy and resources. The interesting thing there is that it’s worth the effort.

Lastly, it’s good to know that all businesses are created twice: first in the mind and then in the physical. The way you think creates a picture which would surely manifest with time. A couple of years ago, I saw where I am today. And I’m still expanding my horizon to get better. Your imagination is going to be one of your greatest resources on his journey; do all you can to sharpen it at all times.

Only you can stop you. You have the key to living the kind of life that you desire. Never leave anything to chance, lest you become a victim of circumstances. Indeed, it pays to be a business owner, after you must have learnt the trade. Just like Paul Nelson quipped, ‘Launching your own business is like writing your own personal declaration of independence from the corporate beehive.’ As I close my eyes, I see you there. Entrepreneurship beckons, would you heed to the call? Set that spirit on fire today, and watch great things turn out to your favour. It is up to you to make it happen!

Tony Ajah is a business growth strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business development. ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk

Technology driven business

2009-08-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that technology has come to stay. And more importantly, it has come to reshape and redefine the way we live. Technology has bridged the time, making what was seemingly impossible yesterday, possible today. It has still gone ahead to show us that anything we ever imagined can be achieved with time. Even the business side of our life is not left out. Technology has ushered in a new era of (business) economy i.e. technology driven (business) economy.

Technology is a direct expression and representation of human level of sophistication. The essence of technology is to simplify business activities (and life in general). ‘Simplicity’, a man once said, ‘is the highest form of sophistication’. And here's the vehicle to make that happen.

The business world is going through a 'blazing period', influenced by the present technological break-through. We have different names for it; to some it’s jet age, computer age, information age, digital age or even blue-tooth age. In the words of Peter F. Drucker, ‘The new technology embraces and feeds the entire array of human knowledge’.

In today’s business environment, the market tastes and wants are met faster by the use of technology. Technology has become the major enabling force in the business landscape, transforming business models, work styles, value nets, and opening up new markets for touching human lives in most unique and amazingly strange ways. Business leaders have their mind-eyes focused on emerging trends engineered by this advancement. Technology is the leading force defining these new, and often yet to be tapped opportunities.

In order to move your business from its present position to the centre-stage, you must be technology-compliant. If human beings in sectors like banking, hospitals, oil and gas can be replaced by micro-processors and technologically-induced machines – so could your business and mine, if we take this revolution for granted.

Every sector of the economy is catching the fever – telecommunication, transportation, and media, amongst others – all technologically aided. Virtually every industry has ‘software’. What about you? As a piece of advice, don’t try to do ‘manually’ what you can leverage on using technology. You may not have the technological know-how but let your thinking and approach to your work show that you are compliant after all.

Constantly reinvent yourself. Update your skills, whatever they are, remain relevant in your field. Each technological change introduces a paradigm-shift. Joel Barker, the author of ‘Future Edge’ taught, ‘When a paradigm shifts, everyone goes back to zero. Your past success means nothing’. The better an enterprise can foresee its total environment, the better it can prepare for the future through establishing strategies and supporting plans to take advantage of its capabilities in the light of the environment.

Every business needs to innovate, both its ‘software’ and its ‘hardware’. By software, I mean your mental equipment, and hard-wares, your visible equipments. This economic dispensation calls for your continuous self development to become indispensable (with or without any technological inventions). Don’t just be in business, be an innovative business talent that people you render services to can’t do without. And more so, to adopt means of express what you are thinking.

The fact still remains: no matter what we see in the world of business today, technological-revolution is still at it baby stage compared to what’s yet to come. (The techno-mania may not have an end). Technology is the change that has already happened; the change that is happening; and the change that will continue to happen. If anything would replace technology that is more technology; it’s the future in the now. And it is very advisable that none of us should joke with it.

On the other hand, technology should not be introduced for novelties; it must create a value. And must also be measured by what they contribute to the market and customer. In order words, technological innovation should be the creation of new value and new satisfaction for the end user- the customer.

Make a projection and take a journey into the future, three to five years from now. What are new opportunities that could likely emerge (in your industry) from technological developments? How are you; positioning yourself now? The wages of this technological change would pay you if you are well-aligned or a tragedy if you are not. This largely lies in your attitude - an attitude that is always ready to leverage on the know-how. What are you waiting for to be on track? It’s up to you to make your business happen!

Tony Ajah is a business growth strategies, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development.
www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk +234 8051403056

Let's Talk about Branding

2009-07-07T09:34:00.001-07:00

The subject of branding is a very serious and important issue as far as the present business climate is concerned. Every body talks about it (including me).I regard it as the soul of any budding establishment. Every organisation, whether great or small, has a brand, or best is a brand.

To put us in the right atmosphere, let’s briefly throw a light on what a brand is. A brand is the sum of the good, the bad, the ugly (written or unwritten) about a given venture. It‘s your best or worst product, service, and the identity or image you communicate to those who see you or do business with you. That is, the totality of your company and its business model.

For years, companies have devoted tremendous resources to branding. They know that well developed brands enlarge market share, attract and create customers’ loyalty. In a society of so many choices, being different could be the determining factor in the decision making and market behaviors, since it is in human nature to associate with the known object or thing relative to the unknown. Branding is about recognition (awareness), articulation, memorization, and preference. You may have heard this statement: in the sea of sameness brands must stand out.

A brand is a living thing. Originally, branding began as an outside thing – an exterior differentiation of a given ‘product- service’ from those in the market place. Today, things have changed. There is a shift from the external concentration to something entirely different. What worked well some time ago is now loosing their grip. That’s the nature of the world you and I live in. What actually is the true representation of a brand in the present business economy?

The Duality of Branding
There are obviously two faces of branding, which is more like a double-edged sword. We have the visible and the invisible brands. Visible brands are the often seen, the often heard, the often hyped and the often projected. It is the brand container. The invisible brands, on the other hand, are the salient part of the organisation. It’s often not seen like the former but strongly felt; it’s the brand content. While the visible brands attract, the invisible brands keep.

What is this invisible brand? Why is it so powerful and needed in today’s business place? The answer is very simple: it’s the heart of branding. This emphasizes on the soft attributes of a ‘product-service’ - Attributes such as convenience, comfort, trust warmth, companionship, beauty… Just mention all the good intangible qualities that tap into ones emotions. What else does a true brand represent?

True brand is an encounter, an impression that shapes people’s perception and attracts people’s respect for it. The essence is the imprint it plants on the minds of the market. It creates a kind of feeling, emotion, and develops an affinity to those who encounter what the enterprise has to offer.

Branding should be from the heart. Do you still remember the maxim? ‘The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart’. The heart of branding is the authentic brand that represents you in totality. Real brand is personal and answers the question of who you are. It’s about what is inside you and your organisation that is saleable to the public (your perceivers).

Building an intangible brand is about your frame of mind – a departure from the norm; the conventional service thing that is devoid of humanness. It’s not enough to say that a product works or that a service is superb. Does it leave you with an unbeatable memory? That’s what will guarantee you business future, even as the competition is becoming increasingly fierce in each passing day.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. General Motors once went into art, entertainment and mobile sculpture which coincidentally happen to provide ‘experience-ful’ transportation service. And they are still there, improving by day. Cars of the future will be sanctuaries and complete suite, with mood lightening and thrilling. (It’s already happening but that’s just the beginning).

We are starting to realize that whatever ‘product-service’ we use is who we are; our identity. And so, we are always selective looking for what goes beyond ‘quality’ to ‘extra-quality’. Be it in banking, buying something from a departmental store, patronizing a restaurant, or watching a particular TV station.

As an assignment, fashion great ideas to suit your ‘product-service’. Think of it in terms of story, adventure, and you’ll hit the essential nature of your reason for being. Let it provide something ‘extra’ to make it thrive in the new economy. A strong brand needs to create a story that sticks to almost every listening ear. This will strengthen the brand and give it a presence. Let people feel your brand, taste your brand, smell your brand, touch your brand, use your brand, talk your brand, and ultimately become devoted to your brand.

I have personally tried to know what makes a great brand. There might be more than one reason but one thing keeps reoccurring; outstanding brands are value-based. And the more value they add, to touching our humanness, the more money they make. Isn’t that interesting? They make every contact you have with them unforgettable, whether you buy their product or are engaged in their services. Here, you are delighted at turn of every event. Their ‘product-service’ goes beyond meeting needs to helping define who you are. They make you want more, and they are full of fun and wet every caller’s appetite. Some people may buy from a weak brand but they easily switch allegiance. But great brands have club members and fans who help promote them. What is value to you? Give it to your customers. I think it’s a right place to start.

Day by day, the value-added proposition of businesses becomes more and more intangible. Set your brand apart, cultivate the culture of intangibility. Let what you’ve got be ‘experience-creating’ brand. Intangible brand transforms your product and service into experience and solution. The feeling associated with using a particular brand is the fundamental basis for its value. This is the core of that brand; the fuel that keeps the flame aglow. This type of brand makes a company influential and increases her sphere of dominance.

One more thing before I close, a brand reflects and project integrity which clarifies one great thing: uniqueness. And that uniqueness makes a dramatic difference in the hands of its receivers with a powerful touch. The heart of brand is drawn from our inner being, and our emotion is one of it. I mean, authentic brand goes into the heart and comes from the heart (of the enterprise). Did you get that?

How can you make that dramatic difference that will stick with people? A difference that will eventually become your trade mark? Branding is more about meaning and not just marketing. It is internal and not external. It is about deep company uncompromising conviction that sets it apart from the rest. What is the heart of your own brand? Thrive on it. It’s up to you to make your brand happen!

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist whose ideas have helped businesses in Nigeria. He is the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development.
www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk +234 805 140 3056

Starting a Business without a Capital

2009-05-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

Many of us have business ideas, or may have had business ideas. But one monster has kept staring us on the face, eventually leading to the abortion of our brilliant ideas. And that big monster is capital or money. I was once in that position until the light on the right thing to do came, and everything now is a story. That’s the knowledge I want share with you here. (Maybe it could be helpful).

Without any gainsaying, one can hardly start a business, let alone run it without fund. T. Harv Eker was right when he remarked that, ‘Any one who says money isn’t important doesn’t have any’. I see it as the lifeblood of any enterprise. Money indeed is power, whether in life or in business. But often times for most start-ups, the capitals is not forth coming, even when we may have made some calculated moves, or try to get assistance from financial institutions. (You may have found yourself in such situation).

What do we do then? Surrender our priceless ideas at the mercy of lack of capital? It gives me much concern whenever I see entrepreneurs struggle in business because of inadequate fund. And dozens have given up because of it.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin. Like a popular saying goes, you can use what you have to get what you want. You may not get started by the virtue of your wealth (capital), but you surely can by the wealth (capital) of your virtue. Did you get that? You can re-read it again.

The question now becomes: what are those wealth (capital) of your virtue that you can leverage on? Leveraging is the key to great wealth. We are going to take them one by one.

Use your Mental Capital
The capital of any institution or nation is literally the head of that institution or nation. That invariably means that the capital you need for your business is your head. (Simple logic, isn’t it?). So, the first capital we should talk about is your head; every other thing flows from there.

An American industrialist by name Harvey Firestone once taught, ‘Capital isn’t so important in business. Experience isn’t so important. You can get both these things. What are important are ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and life.’ Very remarkable. It’s folly to doubt the man who has done. I want to here that good ideas reside in good heads. I want to believe that you already have a marketable idea.

If you have ideas and the knowledge of what to do with the ideas, you already have a business. Ignorance is the major barrier to starting a business. When you understand the main ingredients businesses are built, and follow through, building yours becomes much easier.

There are several definitions of wealth (as it were), and find two of them very interesting. ‘Wealth is a way of thinking and not a dollar amount in the bank. Money is not a thing but an idea created in the head’. Those were the words of Robert Kiyosaki. And Ayn Raud added, ‘Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think’. Both points to one direction: your mental capacity to think.

The process of building a business is first a mental process than a physical one. Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solution to problems. And it now begins in your ability to find answer to the issue of your capital. That I think is the first proof of your possessing the right spirit to starting and running a business, and it is a very important hurdle to jump.

I formulated a business law known as the Law of Capital. It states that your most valuable asset, in terms of cash-flow is your physical and mental capacity, your earning ability. So, starting your business depends mostly on you than on any other thing. However, at the start of any business, finding a way of getting the cash-flowing is the most important thing. This launches us into another point.

Use your Reputation
The entrepreneur is the system to keep the money flowing in. And every business system succeeds or fails on trust on trust and not on cash. Having integrity and to be trusted are fundamental to securing assistance and support in starting a business. That’s worth millions of dollars.

Your reputation could be an asset or a liability, depending on the direction the pendulum swings. A good reputation is a credit facility. Before you seek for fund, ask yourself: am I person of character? That answers other financial questions. That could be why Brian Tracy taught, ‘Guard your integrity as a sacred thing. Your character and reputation are perhaps your most valuable assets in your career’. Trust and integrity are the very substance businesses are built on. If you don’t have them, you short-change yourself.

Use your Network
When you’ve got reputation, then use your network, your contact, or your connection. There is a saying that says: your network will determine your net-worth. My question now is, do you have the right network? If you are a man of character and still find it difficult to raise money from your circle of interactions, you are probably in the wrong company. My best advice is, change your network.

Poor network would always yield a poor net-worth, and vice versa. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Communicate Well your Idea
Having a strong network is not enough. You can be in the midst of right company and still die of dearth. You’ve got to know how to communicate your ideas. Cast it as a vision and create the right perception that would appeal to them, and also inspire them to action. You attract money faster when the person you want it from sees that your proposition (idea) is worth investing in.

It has been said that the secrets of riches and wealth are other people’s money (OPM), and other people’s time (OPT). But you have to prove that you have the necessary character, skill and experience to attract those investors, and also guarantee their investments. If not the response you’d receive would be very discouraging.

Everything you have done, especially the one you are doing now could make or mar your starting your business. I mean everything. So, be careful on the image you are projecting about yourself. Like Leke alder, a senior colleague said, ‘If you don’t have history, your idea is incredible, if not incredulous. Until time, performance and consistency prove otherwise’. And I want to add, if you have bad reputation be sure of spending more time looking for fund because no one would be willing to support you.

What are you waiting for? Engage all your wealth (capital) of virtue and get that business started. I will be having an intensive business development session on turning your ideas into wealth during recession. For details get my attention. It’s not so much about a great idea, but a great person who is well informed on how to give meaning to those ideas. Your ideas and business depend on nothing but you. It’s up to you to make them happen!

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development.
www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 08051403056

Turning your Best Ideas into Best Businesses

2009-05-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Without any doubt, it’s the entrepreneur’s world. Statistics has it that 74% self made millionaires in America are entrepreneurs – people who started and built their own businesses. It’s on record that between 1996 and 2004, America has turned out an average of 550,000 entrepreneurs monthly! The awareness is gradually getting to this place very rapidly. The question I keep asking myself is this: do we have enough businesses yet? And the answer is no; entrepreneuring’ has just begun.

However, we still have one major challenge. It is on record that 80% of businesses go out of business the first year. And of those that remain, 80% of them will not be in business five years from now. This statistics is very alarming. Why do many people start businesses and fail to complete them? They had great spirit at first, which gradually began to wane when realities hit them. The answer is not far fetched.

Businesses are built on fact. Most blunders made by many start-ups are those of assumptions rather than facts. I have come to realize that the difference between a successful entrepreneur and an unsuccessful one is in what they know and do, and in how much value they place on the two.

It’s laughable that a lot of people venture into businesses armed with nothing but their raw ideas and they still expect to make it big. Ideas are not enough, after all everybody has an idea.

Don’t stop at idea – everything is execution under the right knowledge. Nothing could be so frustrating like having an idea that you don’t know how to express. That was why Thomas Edison taught that, ‘The value of a good idea is in using it.’ No idea is worth more than the structure that supports it. ‘It isn’t the quality of the ideas you have that will determine whether you make a success of them; it’s the qualities you bring into those ideas.’ So, advised Harvey Mackay. Those ‘qualities’ could chiefly be accessed via authentic fact that is based on current business realities.

Businesses mature in the same way that human beings do. And if you don’t have what supports their growth and development, they die, (all the ideas in this world not withstanding). Any business idea without a thought-out structure dies a natural death. A lot of Nigerians victims of this bitter experience; they have put millions of naira into their ideas and came out with nothing. If they had known better, the story would have been different.

An entrepreneur increases his chances of surviving and thriving if he puts a strong system behind his ideas. Usually, we suffer for what we do not know. Robert Kiyosaki was right when he quipped that, ‘It’s not the system that you know about that are the problem – it’s the system you are not aware of that cause you to crash.’

Knowledge is very critical for every business development. Every business is a system of inter-locking and inter-operating systems. The most important part of any enterprise is the system behind the business idea. If the system is weak, the business collapses but if the system is strong, the business flourishes.

Here’s Kiyosaki’s additional statement on this: ‘Many people have ideas that could make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The problem is that most people have never been taught how to put a business structure inside their ideas and so many of their ideas never take shape or stand on their own.’ Isn’t that revealing? I can say with all authority that it does not take just a great idea build an enviable business as it would take a great person (mind) behind the idea. More businesses fail from inside-out. It’s not the idea that’s to blame but the pilot of the idea. To be successful in any endeavour, your business will require all of you – your time, energy, resources, and commitment.

We are blessed with so much business ideas. The irony is that many of these ideas lack substance. Yet, only a few people care to know or seek for professional help. Scores of those who have succeeded in business today were at one time struggling until they learnt the secret, some times from the experts. As they began to do what ought to be done, their story changed.

Growing a strong enterprise is not a function of quality of your ‘product-service’, or your ideas, or even the number of years you have spent in the pursuit. But largely at what rate you are moving, doing the right things. ‘The best proof,’ Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher remarked, ‘that something can be done is that someone else has done it.’ If you do what is required your business will grow. Any one who wants to enjoy the juicy fruit of business must give it his all.

Your business foundation must be very strong. And one of such foundational areas is in your business plan. A well worked out business plan is a requisite for thriving enterprise. If your business ideas are not convincing on paper, you could be driving at a terrible speed with your eyes closed. If you can’t commit to writing them down, you perhaps won’t commit yourself to following it through – if you won’t connect to paper, you won’t connect to reality. ‘The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it to happen.’ So said Lee Iacocca.

Wouldn’t you prefer to make your business blunders on paper? And save time, gain speed and direction. According to H. Stanley Judd, ‘A good plan is like a roadmap. It shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.’ For instance, you could assess your market opportunities on paper by doing what I called ‘business intelligent gathering’. It’s no longer the question of ideas but the marketability of those ideas. (The success and failure of any business is almost down to how well it’s marketed. Yours cannot be an exception).

When you do poorly on paper, the tendency of reproducing the same practically is there. If the need be, engage the services of experts as you start your business. Don’t rely on assumptions, rather consult. It cost you some money but you would gain it at the long run. Barry J. Gibbons once observed, ‘There are two groups of people confused by business today: those who are in it and those who aren’t.’ To avoid confusion of any sort, prepare for your business. Preparation is winning. Like a wise man once said, ‘The will to win is nothing without preparation’.

You are the only one playing your own game, and have yourself to bless or blame. You could be the next to start a business, why not get the necessary assistance on how to build a system before taking your chance. I will be having an intensive business development session on turning your ideas into wealth during recession. For details, get my attention. You can start you business and start very strong. It’s up to you to make your business happen!

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist. He is the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business development.
www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 08051403056

Starting a New Business during Recession

2009-04-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

The word ‘recession’ is no longer new or news to many of us, including those who have little or no knowledge of what it means. Experts and non-experts have one common language for the economic climate: it’s rough out there. Everybody knows that. What do we do then? Live at the mercy of recession?

Recession is part of life; we are not witnessing it for the first time, neither would it be the last. However, I see recession from a whole new vantage point. Like I said in my article on, Thriving in Business During Hard Times, things are not usually as bad as they seems. And that it can get so bad that there won’t be a way out.

There’s definitely the good side of recession if you think differently. The February edition of Harvard Business Review editorial reads: ‘Some winning companies have emerged in every past recession, and this one won’t be an exception’. That’s an indisputable fact.

Hard times are times of fresh business opportunities. In this period, new businesses would emerge. As with other human challenges, some people would respond proactively to the realities while some others won’t. Today’s challenging economic environment demands entrepreneurs who truly have the eagles’ eyes to see creeping opportunities.

There’s no perfect time to starting a business, and this depression should encourage rather than discourage you. Fred Deluca, an American entrepreneur taught, ‘No matter what business you are thinking of, you must get started at some point’. This might be that time you might be waiting for. See the present economic situation as a life time chance. Understand the opportunity and seize it without looking back. Inaction could be the riskiest response to the uncertainties of any economic crisis.

The purpose of business is to meet needs in a unique way, and then make money in the process. (Money flows in the direction of needs). Are there no fresh needs to be met now? Of course, there are. And more would arise. ‘Problems are where people live. When you mention a problem, you hit a nerve. It’s what they are thinking about. And if you can address their problem, they will realise you know something important about them’. Those were the words of Robert Middleton.

Look where others don’t people’s needs are business opportunities. Economic downturn does not eliminate human needs, nor does it stop business life completely. Whether recession or no recession, people still have needs to be addressed. A wise man once remarked, ‘Every problem is a business, and every business is someone’s solution to a problem’. You can meet specialised (recession) needs in a specialised (recession) way. Did you get that?

People are always happy to pay for any problem you solve for them. They wouldn’t mind borrowing, the prevailing circumstances not withstanding. Let me give you a hint: there would be need for fun and entertainment so as to relieve stress cause by the depression. Have you ever thought in that direction? Such businesses that opened in my area are having swell time, and I mean during recession. This is just the beginning.

If you have a good idea and the knowledge of what to do with the idea(s), you already have a business. Ignorance is the primary barrier to starting a business, whether in time of economic boom or meltdown. I know that you have wonderful ideas but question how to start. Your apprehension may have heightened now that there’s economic instability. But our ideas must find practical expression in the business world for they are worth giving meaning to. One thing should encourage you to get started - Primarily due to changes in technology, the risk of becoming a successful business owner has been greatly reduced.

What idea do you have now? And how can it meet the market needs? When your idea meets a need, business is born. You can start a new business as an extension of your present one (if you have one already), or an entirely new one. Be bold and step out of the cube even when you don’t feel like it. Business favours the bold.

Entrepreneurs are market-needs opportunists. But you’ve got to have the eyes. Closed eyes are closed opportunities – opportunity is in the eyes of the beholder. John Lubbock said, ‘What we see depends mainly on what we look for’. What do you see? Time for you, your business and family to go down because of the meltdown? Or time to go up and blaze the trail? I se

I learnt that when written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’, whether economic crisis or whatever, is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity. If your attitude is negative, you would see things negatively, and vice versa. You choose how the recession would affect you and also what you make out of it.

Another world of opportunity is here. Without proper understanding and alignment you may miss out big time. Being flexible is one of the keys you need to sail. So learn and relearn where necessary and unimaginable doors will be opened for you. Starting a new business could be the bail-out you need in the wake of dwindling savings and increasing expenses.

I will be having an intensive business session on turning your ideas into wealth during recession. For details get my attention. A wise man said, ‘There has to market need for what you do; you have to have the competency to meet the need; and you have to have the passion to fulfil it. So, look where these three things are, and you have a brilliant career’. What are you waiting for? It’s up to you to make that your idea happen!

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development.
www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 08051403056

THRIVING IN BUSINESS DURING HARD TIMES

2009-03-13T02:03:00.000-07:00

I was on a short trip out of the country sometimes last year when the news of the global economic melt-down began to make sense to me. I saw as businesses there moved slowly that what they used to be (especially in my previous visits).

One question came to my mind: what would happen if this crisis eventually hit us directly here? Many businesses in Nigeria have been having it rough in good times. What would turn out if the situation becomes unfavourable? Try to imagine that.

Hard times are bound come, whether in life or in business. I have useful proves from history. The good news is that it’s seasonal, and not the end of the road. However, who you are and what you’ve got to face such times is very critical; it would determine what would become of you. ‘The problem’, someone said ‘is not the problem itself but the size of the mind confronting the problem’.

I’m not just talking about your surviving hard times but thriving and making a remarkable and sustainable growth as if nothing is happening. The question now is: what do you do to survive and thrive in the midst of economic crunch? Informed preparation before it bites harder would preserve your business and prevent it from going down.
Here is my advice which could possibly be helpful to you:

Maintain the Right attitude: Your attitude in difficult times is more important than any other thing. It sets the pace for what would happen while the period lasts. Things are not always as bad as they seems. And it can’t get so bad that there won’t be a way out. Most of the panic or fever we have is not real; they are speculation induced.

Hard times are times of fresh business opportunities. In this period, new businesses would emerge, but you must possess a positive attitude in order to see them. Closed eyes are closed opportunities. Remember, opportunity is in the eye of the beholder. People with right attitude would swim where as those with negative attitude would sink. In other words, if your attitude is negative, you see things negatively and if you attitude is positive, you see things positively.
Whenever things look bleak, always learn to display a sunny outlook towards the situation and watch what would happen; you’d be amazed. Charles Swindoll advised, ‘The most significant decision I make each day is my choice of an attitude. When my attitudes are right there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.’ I have personally gone through rough times in my business. One of the things that kept me going was my attitude.

Interestingly, your attitude is your choice – you choose how the situation would affect you, or not affect you. See the recession as a time that would usher in great things for your business, and then follow through your convictions. ‘The success and failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.’ So, taught Walter Scott.

Reposition and Restructure Your System: Like I said earlier, another world of business opportunities is knocking on the door. Remaining where you are, and doing things the way you’ve always done them may be very costly. Joel Barker, the author of the book Future Edge remarked, ‘When a paradigm shifts, everyone goes back to zero. Your past success means nothing.’ There is a paradigm shift in the business arena, and it’s still shifting. Without proper alignment you trail behind.

One of the primary keys to remaining in business is flexibility. Flexibility is a good business virtue. You have to be flexible enough to respond appropriately to whatsoever change that may come your way. The business world after all, is a dynamic world. To enable you make the most of the emerging trend, you have to make necessary adjustments. This might demand your learning, unlearning, and relearning certain business skills. Do them so as to secure the future of your business.

Focusing on what really matter makes you produce the result that really counts. This time calls for your concentrating only on what you are very good at, and then pour yourself and resources into it. Give up whatsoever you struggle at before now, and focus on your core competencies. Eliminate the unnecessary to maximise resources.

This might require your doing an inventory analysis to know your true strength and weakness, and capitalise on where you have competitive advantage. Identify priorities and refocus your resources where they are going to give you gainful returns. ‘The most successful business man,’ Robert P. Vanderpool said, ‘is the man who holds the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better’.

If a business is not reinventing itself and adapting to the times, it would die. In business, a permanent state of reinvention is good for you future growth. That something worked today does not guarantee the same tomorrow. In addition, you’d have to set up a creative atmosphere that would give room for development. This has been very helpful to me in my outfit.

Engage in People-Oriented Service: The basic aim of any business is to meet a need and make profit in the process. I don’t know of any other thing. Hard times don’t eliminate businesses completely (although some businesses may be suspended or even go into extinction in the process). But human needs are rather compounded than eliminated during economic depression. At a time like this, those who are not called into business might not survive it; things that would discourage you would abound but don’t give up.

You’ve got to redouble your effort to give your clients seamless services that truly meet their needs like no other. People will be too conscious of how and where they spend their money. If it’s not worth it they would hold back or go elsewhere. Everybody has a ‘product-service’; it’s what you do beyond the ‘product-service’ that makes all the difference in business.
There would certainly be need s for what you are offering but you have to improve in your approach to generate enough patronage. It might also necessitate your establishing a stronger relationship with your key buyers to retain their loyalty. Much out there are seeking for the attention of few buyers. Why not be the one they would love to do business with all the time, no matter the market situation?

Adopt New Strategies: The period of recession calls for re-strategising. Strategies have to accept new fundamentals. No business would ignore the realities of its environment and still win. Take another look at your business. Will the strategies you have now carry you through the rough road? If yes, congratulations but if no, you have to adopt fresh measures.

A lot in business depends on strategy. Each business day is a class room opportunity to relearn and rework. Business situations always create new realities that demands more from us. Victory here hinges on your ability to convert what’s on ground to your advantage. Develop a new strategic framework to understand you true position and the possible impact of the challenging times on your business, and then make critical changes. I called this the scoreboard-strategic approach. It doesn’t take just a strategy to win; it takes the scoreboard strategy – the strategy you adopt based on current truth. You can’t win without a strategy but you can lose with one except the scoreboard strategy. I see you winning, and winning big with it!

Integrate the G-Factor: Integrate the G-factor. G is for God. Yes God. The Almighty God is the God of business and He is interested in your running a thriving business, whether in good times, and in presumably hard times. In the domain of God, there is no recession. You can introduce the same in you enterprise and live in that domain. I am surely there.
If reputable business scholars and business schools cannot find an immediate answer to the tumbling global economy, I know God can. Check the history, any time there’s a problem beyond man, there’s usually a need for one that’s divine. Some call it divine intervention. And He never fails. God is the surest security your business needs now. I am saying this experientially. I won’t be truthful to myself if I don’t tell you my secret.

There’s always this still voice that whispers to our hearts whenever we are in a kind of business cross-road. (And that’s one aspect of it). The problem is that we are usually too busy to hear or listen. That voice has a message that you can’t find in any business book. Would you listen? It’s up to you to decide.

There is so much to talk about but with these you can restart your business on a better note. So go and take action. Don’t panic and be courageous even when what you expect is not what you are seeing, and a new world of business would open up to you. Feel free to get my attention if you need further assistance. It’s up to you to make your business happen.

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development. www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 08051403056

Making Marketing Fun

2009-03-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

There could be more volume of books and articles written on marketing or market related topics than on any other business issue that I know. Research has it that more money is ‘wasted’ in marketing than in any other human activity (outside government). Yet, it appears that the number one business challenge is in the market, or rather marketing.

Like I mentioned in my work on The Business of Marketing, businesses all over the world struggle because they simply haven’t found ways to generate constant streams of customers and keep them buying time after time. The success and failure of any business is entirely down to how the business is marketed; the sure business maker and breaker.

To many people, marketing is becoming harder as the competition is becoming fiercer each passing day. Not too many of us see marketing as glitzy; the rest see it as either complicated, a burden, a necessary evil, stressful, and sometimes mysterious. As a result, they feel shy or scared, and often time lack the confidence to market their ‘product-service’ to the targeted market. They are probably afraid of failure or rejection. But if you must remain in business, you must be in control of what goes on in the market, whether you feel like it or not. To succeed in business, you must attain some level of marketing mastery, either as an individual or as an organization.

Marketing is a natural aspect of your business, or rather what it should be. I have done a lot of work for enterprises and most of their worries tilt towards the market and marketing uncertainties. How can we demystify this marketing thing, and make this all important part of our business life fun?

Obviously, you don’t need a degree in marketing to be a skillful marketer. No. I have seen people with several marketing qualifications who are still in a big marketing mess. For this piece of writing to be very beneficial to you, you’ve got to discard every misconception and ill-feeling you previously harbour regarding marketing.

The marketing environment is dynamic. It’s good that we understand what works in today’s marketplace, and how best to tap into it. Many business executives may have employed almost all the marketing mix – They may have a good price for their wonderful ‘product-service’, known the right places to market it, done their promotion very well, and even played the politics but still miss the profit. I think that something must be wrong with the whole mix.

Marketing is everything you do to attract and keep customers in your business. And it is a combination of logic (and sometimes intuition), and connecting them to synchronize with emotion of the buyer. If the old marketing techniques don’t provide the desired result, it’s very imperative we try something new. We would be looking at two fundamental marketing ingredients that dozens tend to neglect during marketing exercise.

Understanding the Prospective Buyer
You shortchange yourself if you don’t know who you are marketing to. It’s usually difficult to relate to a person you barely understand in any way. A good understanding of who is buying helps you to build the exact platform to achieving your objective effortlessly. This comes naturally when you first establish rapport with him or her. Rapport is the link that connects you, your prospective buyer and your ‘product-service’. Whenever it’s in place, reaching on agreement becomes easier.

Marketing is not a blind game. And neither what you realize at the end of a long talk or demonstration, but the point you reach while you are busy connecting with the prospective buyer, bearing in mind his or her unique nature. Excellent marketers don’t have their eyes closed on the prospect; they focus on them, and how to get their product-service across effectively. Knowing who you are marketing to set the tone for the rest of the transaction. If you don’t know who is buying and why he is buying, and how you ‘product-service’ would benefit him, how would you sell? You would ultimately loose him and there would be no sell.

You would primarily need to determine your customers ‘make-up’. For instance, his personality and communication style, and then channel what you’ve got to meeting his true make-up. Resolving this earlier would give you access into his comfort zone- the zone where he opens his wallet for you happily. He now sees you as a friend who understands what he really wants. Your ability to move into your buyers ‘comfort zone’
sets a stage for a very positive working relationship even after the first sale. (Relationship is the anchor that holds every business, including marketing). When you fail to put up a relationship you miss bigger opportunities afterwards.

As people differ, so are the strategies for reaching them. As we are different, so are our needs, expectation and drive. To help you understand your buyer better, here is my advice: listen, observe and follow through. But it all begins in listening.

We fail to spot chances when we fail to listen. Closed ears are closed opportunities, and you end up making presentation to the wrong audience. And when you have the right buyer, you spend time talking about your ‘product-service’ features and not the benefit; I mean the ‘buyer’s benefit’. This is like majoring on the minor. Benefits strike a chord in the mind all the time. Always remember that, benefit, value and quality are all relative. You only sell customized benefit, that is, what benefit means to the buyer. So, listen, listen, listen. Listening makes marketing easier.

Position Your ‘Product-Service’
Your position is the place you occupy in the mind of your prospective buyer; it is how you are perceived by him or her. And it is perception driven. One significant thing that counts in marketing is the customer’s perception of your ‘product-service’. Your duty as a good marketer is to create the right perception. Marketing is a game of mental warfare; a battle of perception, and not of product or service. The rule of this game is manipulating those perceptions so as to appear as the best and also the most preferred. There are no best products, not even one. All that exist in the world are perceptions in the mind of the customer or prospect.

It’s very important to know the person you are marketing to, and more importantly how to position your ‘product-service’ to reaching him. It is your primary duty to construct a bridge that would make your marketing messages (spoken and unspoken) to get to, the receiver’s mind precisely. This is the whole idea of positioning. Precision is the key. If you miss it here, you may hardly regain it.

People have several reasons for buying. This is where you employ the knowledge you previously had about the buyer and then sell his benefit to him to her. While doing this, you should have one question in mind: how would I position this ‘product-service’ to meet the immediate needs of this prospective customer more then those of my competition? Answering this question earlier makes the rest of the work easier. Of course you are not the only one seeking the attention of the buyer.

To get your position right, you must have first defined it. I mean you must have take up a position that best suit you - your passion, uniqueness, specialty, and then drive that position to a conclusive end. If you fail to determine your position, you end up confusing yourself and your buyer, and what you get is rejection.

The bottom-line of marketing is to make a profitable sale. The sale is the ultimate marketing event – you are marketing to sell. It’s one long journey that transits at certain ends. (Let’s leave it for another day). So, understand the buyer, position your ‘product-service’, and enjoy the experience. But remain confident, be consistent, professional, and patient and maintain your excitement. And when you get your ‘product-service’ in the mind of your buyer, remain there.

There is much to say than the paper can contain. For a comprehensive marketing training programme for your team, feel free to get my attention. Marketing has just begun to be fun, and it’s up to you to make it happen!

Tony Ajah is a highly consulted Business Growth Strategist. He is the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development.
www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 0805 140 3056

Before You Start a Business

2009-03-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

Without any doubt, it’s the entrepreneur’s world. Statistics has it that 74% self made millionaires in America are entrepreneurs – people who started and built their own businesses. The awareness is gradually getting to this place very rapidly. The question I keep asking myself is this: do we have enough businesses yet? And the answer is no; entrepreneuring’ has just begun.

However, we still have one major challenge. It is on record that 80% of businesses go out of business the first year. And of those that remain, 80% of them will not be in business five years from now. This statistics is very alarming. Why do many people start businesses and fail to complete them? They had great spirit at first, which gradually began to wane when realities hit them. The answer is not far fetched.

Businesses are built on fact. Most blunders made by many start-ups are those of assumptions rather than facts. I have come to realize that the difference between a successful entrepreneur and an unsuccessful one is in what they know and do, and in how much value they place on the two.

It’s laughable that a lot of people venture into businesses armed with nothing but their raw ideas and they still expect to make it big. Ideas are not enough, after all everybody has an idea.

Don’t stop at idea – everything is execution under the right knowledge. Nothing could be so frustrating like having an idea that you don’t know how to express. That was why Thomas Edison taught that, ‘The value of a good idea is in using it.’ No idea is worth more than the structure that supports it. ‘It isn’t the quality of the ideas you have that will determine whether you make a success of them; it’s the qualities you bring into those ideas.’ So, advised Harvey Mackay. Those ‘qualities’ could chiefly be accessed via authentic fact that is based on current business realities.

Businesses mature in the same way that human beings do. And if you don’t have what supports their growth and development, they die, (all the ideas in this world not withstanding). Any business idea without a thought-out structure dies a natural death. A lot of Nigerians victims of this bitter experience; they have put millions of naira into their ideas and came out with nothing. If they had known better, the story would have been different.

An entrepreneur increases his chances of surviving and thriving if he puts a strong system behind his ideas. Usually, we suffer for what we do not know. Robert Kiyosaki was right when he quipped that, ‘It’s not the system that you know about that are the problem – it’s the system you are not aware of that cause you to crash.’

Knowledge is very critical for every business development. Every business is a system of inter-locking and inter-operating systems. The most important part of any enterprise is the system behind the business idea. If the system is weak, the business collapses but if the system is strong, the business flourishes.

Here’s Kiyosaki’s additional statement on this: ‘Many people have ideas that could make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The problem is, most people have never been taught how to put a business structure inside their ideas and so many of their ideas never take shape or stand on their own.’ Isn’t that revealing? I can say with all authority that it does not take just a great idea build an enviable business as it would take a great person (mind) behind the idea. More businesses fail from inside-out. It’s not the idea that’s to blame but the pilot of the idea. To be successful in any endeavor, your business will require all of you – your time, energy, resources, and commitment.

We are blessed with so much business ideas. The irony is that many of these ideas lack substance. Yet, only a few people care to know or seek for professional help. Scores of those who have succeeded in business today were at one time struggling until they learnt the secret, some times from the experts. As they began to do what ought to be done, their story changed.

Growing a strong enterprise is not a function of quality of your ‘product-service’, or your ideas, or even the number of years you have spent in the pursuit. But largely at what rate you are moving, doing the right things. ‘The best proof,’ Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher remarked, ‘that something can be done is that someone else has done it.’ If you do what is required your business will grow. Any one who wants to enjoy the juicy fruit of business must give it his all.

Your business foundation must be very strong. And one of such foundational areas is in your business plan. A well worked out business plan is a requisite for thriving enterprise. If your business ideas are not convincing on paper, you could be driving at a terrible speed with your eyes closed. If you can’t commit to writing them down, you perhaps won’t commit yourself to following it through – if you won’t connect to paper, you won’t connect to reality. ‘The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it to happen.’ So said Lee Iacocca.

Wouldn’t you prefer to make your business blunders on paper? And save time, gain speed and direction. According to H. Stanley Judd, ‘A good plan is like a roadmap. It shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.’ For instance, you could assess your market opportunities on paper by doing what I called ‘business intelligent gathering’. It’s no longer the question of ideas but the marketability of those ideas. (The success and failure of any business is almost down to how well it’s marketed. Yours cannot be an exception).

When you do poorly on paper, the tendency of reproducing the same practically is there. If the need be, engage the services of experts as you start your business. Don’t rely on assumptions, rather consult. It cost you some money but you would gain it at the long run. Barry J. Gibbons once observed, ‘There are two groups of people confused by business today: those who are in it and those who aren’t.’ To avoid confusion of any sort, prepare for your business. Preparation is winning.

You are the only one playing your own game, and have yourself to bless or blame. You could be the next to start a business, why not get the necessary assistance on how to build a system before taking your chance. You can start you business and start very strong. It’s up to you to make your business happen.

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist. He is the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business development.
http://www.ta-strategies.com/ tony@ta-strategies.com 08051403056

YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR MIND

2009-01-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

Every business was once a thought before it became a thing. Business is a game; a game of the mind. The process of running a thriving business is more of a mental process than a physical one. Great business achievers think differently from majority of people. You can’t achieve much more on the outside than what you have achieved and become on the inside.

Much of what we see today in businesses is observable representation of what were going on in the minds of their owners. The depth of treasures deposited in any mind would always translate visibly in their businesses.

According to a man called Claude M. Bristol, ‘The successful people in industry have succeeded through their thinking. Their hands were helper to their brains’. I quite agree with him. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Your business, however it looks, is what your thinking has made it to be. This simply shows that, to take it to new heights, you’ve got to alter your present thought process.

The limitations we have had in businesses in the past years cannot be separated from the limit we have placed on our mind. Our number one business challenge is not economical, neither is it political, environmental, technological, but mental. All the business battle is largely mental battle.

There are several business depths and ways of ‘businessing’ that could better the business landscape than what we witness presently. But it must begin in a new way of thinking to make this to happen.

Thought Re-engineering
It is a natural law that we will never change our actions until we change the thinking that generated those actions. We are who we are in our mind first, every other thing follows. Whatever you are thinking in your business now will create your business future. I have a little question for you: Is what you are thinking today in line with what you want to happen tomorrow? If not, change your thinking fast. You thought in a certain way last year and saw the result, which you probably don’t like. To move away from there, you have to think differently.

To a very large extent, our thinking pattern is being affected by the kind of environment we are in, consciously or unconsciously. I learnt this many years ago, and since then I only allow the environment (tangible or intangible) that support the reality that I want to create, in my life or in my business. You too can do the same. Don’t be limited by what you see, transcend it.

Stretch Your Imagination
Your business haven is limited by your imagination. Albert Einstein said that, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’ Knowledge could be limited but imagination cannot. Imagination is so so powerful, than we can think.

The mind has a way of completing any picture we put in it. The amazing thing is that, they come out enlarged. What picture do you have for your business this year? How does it affect your thinking? It’s your alone to answer.

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it (when you diligently pursue it). I discovered one truth about imagination and summarized it thus: imagination is real; those who acknowledge this make it a reality. There is on limit to what you can do in business – only use your imagination. A great mind is what it imagines always.

Let go of certainties; they provide restraints to what you can do. Stretch your imagination. ‘Man’s mind’, Oliver Wendell Holmes, a US Supreme Court Judge Jr. taught, ‘once stretched by new idea, never regains its original dimensions’.

Move Out of the Ordinary
Be a superior business thinker; always think possibilities in what perhaps might look impossible. Don’t use what is to set your business standard. Rather use what has not been but can be. Then, go ahead and make it be. You can redefine the standard if you try a little harder. That’s the domain I love to operate in business and life in general. A lot of today’s business ideas are overdue for change; they are only waiting for that man who can dare. I think we can. Until we refuse to accept the status quo can we then change it.

Find the strangeness in the familiar and simplify whatsoever that looks complicated. In business, a permanent state of restlessness is good for your growth. Find a better way and make that way better. When we are immersed only in what we are familiar with, we fail to see creeping trends, and so miss huge business opportunities.

Train your eyes to see new business opportunities. Opportunities are in the eyes of the beholder. ‘The eye’, Henri Bergson thought, ‘see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend’. Free your mind in this new year and no door will be closed to you.

Finally, have a good mental attitude towards your business. Walter Scott once said, ‘Success and failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even, than by mental capacities’. This attitude would help you re-engineer your thinking, stretch you imagination, and move out of the ordinary. Just like Benjamin Disraeli quipped, ‘Nurture your mind with great thought for you will never go any higher than you think’.

So, think about what you are doing, and above all, do some thing about your thought. ‘There are two kinds of failures those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought’. That was from Laurence Peter, an American educator. Thinking alone doesn’t get the work done but all progressive work begins from there. It is a new business day and yours to either make or break. If you change your mind, you change your business for good. It’s up to you to make your business happen.

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA Strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business development. www.ta-strategies.com tony@ta-strategies.com 08051403056

Managing the Emotional Aspect of Your Business

2008-10-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

Today, the success of all businesses whatsoever, hinges on how much they are able to manage the emotional needs of their customers. You are in the motion business. Customers do business in pursuit of emotional experiences. And when they find it, they return to the same business and become devoted to the brand because of the way the business makes them feel. The real key to earnings is repeat customer. Emotion builds connection, consciously or unconsciously.

Science has partnered with the psychology of performance and has provided us with stacks of statistics that emotion drives our decision making, even in business. We make emotional choices and then back them up with logic, reason or data. That is to say, what we feel is more important than what we think. Although we might choose to indulge ourselves in the facts and try to convince ourselves that our decisions are based on logic. It’s really our unconscious emotional-side that keeps pulling us beyond our reason, demanding a connection between us and the business we patronize. Dale Carnegie was tight when he taught that, ‘When dealing with people let us remember we are dealing with creatures of logic but emotion.’ Whatsoever meets a man’s emotional need is the most important thing in his life at that point in time.

Our humanity is defined as the ability to involve ourselves emotionally in everything we do. Man, whether male or female is an emotional being. And that humanity is most evident in our feelings. Feelings are the way we personalize our thoughts, ideas, and reactions. People do things for their reasons (not your reason), and those reasons are emotionally aroused by the way they feel.

Emotional bonding is the single most important element you can integrate into your business in today’s business culture. Emotional connection always precedes economic ones, the way the heart comes before the head. If you ignore the former, you lose the later. Mind-share often comes before market-share. You can rarely move people into action unless you first move them with emotion.

‘The purpose of any business’, Scott McKain , a business executive said, ‘is to profitably create emotional connections that are so compelling to customers, that loyalty is assured.’ He also added, ‘Today’s customers are saying “good is not good enough”. If you want my business, amaze me. Knock me out. Make an emotional impression I won’t forget.’ Not only has the quality of ‘product-service’ changed in recent times, expectation of the people who buy these ‘product-services’ have changed. If you don’t understand and change the way you relate toy your clientele you are going to be out of business soon.

Everybody has a ‘product-service’; it is what you do beyond the ‘product-service’ that makes all the difference in business. How your customers feel about you in the marketplace can be much more important than what you are selling. I have come to realize that customers blend the facts about the quality of your product and delivery of your service with the feelings they have about the experience of doing business with you. ‘As times are changing, so is the standard desired by customers. No longer are they searching for excellence: now they are pursuing something that would make them go, wow! They want to experience a product or service that does more than simply satisfy them: they want to be amazed’. Those were the words of Tom Peters.

How much are you fulfilling your customer’s needs on the emotional stand point? The value of any business is measured by what it means to the buyers. People prefer and refer businesses that represent an amazing memory to them. Always remember that what people think about your business is not as important as what they feel about it. The devotion you get from your customer does not necessarily spring from your ‘product-service’. Loyalties develop when clientele feel emotionally engaged in the outcome they attain in a transaction. Whether they buy a product, bank in XYZ bank, shop in a certain store or use a salon. This even extends to ones place of religious worship. When customers feel good about your ‘product-service’, they tell their friends about it.

If you will ever track your clients’ loyalty, large sum of them came from emotional connection they have with you, more than the quality of your ‘product-service’. No one would care about you business that much, except they are emotionally linked to it. You can turn your business as a tool kit for touching you clients’ emotion while you serve them. This, however, requires some skills. Let me give you some tips:

See things from your customers’ private goggles. See what they see.
Pay attention to feelings than you would to their money. For the money to come, the feelings must be richly touched.
The primary mode of the emotion is non-verbal. We can hardly conceal our true emotions. Our faces most times tell what’s going on in us. Look at the faces of your customers. Make it a habit and you will learn a lot about what they feel about your business. Nothing could be so interesting in business like meting the emotional needs of your customers. I gave a client some ideas on how to manage their customers emotion, and the response have been highly positive. You too can achieve the same result.

The bottom line is that your customers are going to have an emotional experience because of their contact with your organization, whether you like it or not. Your responsibility and challenge is to provide them with the kind of emotional connection that will inspire loyalty; the more powerful the connection, the greater the success of your business. How are you factoring emotion into your business? You can as for professional help. It’s up to you to make your business happen.

Tony Ajah is a highly consulted Business Growth Strategist. His ideas have been helpful to businesses in Nigeria. He also serve as Creative Director, Smartspeakers Resources, a Lagos- based firm that is into soft skills development.
tony@smartspeakersng.org ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 08051403056

Unmasking the New Face of Business

2008-10-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Business is a journey; a game that has no finish line. Interestingly, the face of business has changed, or rather has been unmasked. It’s no longer the usual thing you may have known but one with a new rule. If you don’t like change, you might discontinue yourself automatically from business, no matter your level of accomplishment. If you stand still where you are in business, you get run over quickly.

Andy Grove, Intel CEO once instructed, ‘There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance; miss that moment and you start to decline.’ What does this tell us? Frank Tarkenton, a management consultant writing on Strategies for Business Success summarized the answer thus: ‘No matter how great your victory today, tomorrow is a new game with new plays and new opponents’. There is a great danger in complacency especially now that the course of ‘businessing’ has been redirected.

With the emergence of the new business economy, it has been preceded by a new business model and culture, which carries with it new strategies, new tactics, new weaponry, new approach, and new sweet result that is ‘wow-wrapped’. Better is better. And this business order is better. It’s a reinvented business that adds value in the most meaningful way. And here, whoever has the best practices rules.

What is the nature of this new face of business? This is business with total humanness – ‘the human side of business’. It’s the point where the heart marries the head to provide the best deals that enriches both parties. Business is a means of touching lives in a way that tells people (your clients) that you understand their needs, and are willing and able to meet those needs. We are human being first and every other thing else follows. Every deal should reflect this humanness shared by every one of us. Before now, we have been playing down on this salient aspect of business. Today, it’s no longer a minor aspect of business but the major.

There has been a swift and successive progression in the order of ‘businessing’ the world over. You would recall that doing business in yesteryears was centered on raw materials, then to goods, then to services, and to the rave of the moment, which I call ‘the experience-ful’ business. This shows the sequence of human maturity and degree of business sophistication up until now. (We might not exactly say what will become order of things tomorrow. The best is yet to come).

For instance, a ‘service-based business’ as we know is a pure transaction that is some what dry and often straight to the point. It may have succeeded in the time past but now it is gradually fading away. On the other hand, an ‘experience-based business’ is a terrific happening, a thrilling adventure that is worth your time and money. You get it and ask for more. It adds to your story and something to share with pals and loved ones. For instance, you receive a ‘product-service’ from an organisation, and from there a whole new life begins.

Take the example of a saloon service. If the price was the only issue, you’d simply go to the cheapest one. But you care more about the depth and stability of service offered that transcends beyond making hair. Call it a relationship, care or warmth, you are right. When you get that (s)he doesn’t end up becoming your hair dresser but a trusted friend and partner whose business progress you deeply care about. If you’ll recall, almost every business thrives on relationship and relationship thrives on trust. If you are in doubt, think on what got you hooked to those you patronize most.

Let me illustrate this using the experience I had in Accra some time last year. I needed to barb and was attracted by a good looking saloon and went in. Frankly speaking, I was given a clean cut. But beyond that the barber gave me something beyond service; he bonded with me. That was a kind of experience inherent in his brand (business). When I needed another cut, I wasn’t surprise that I went there not minding the distance. Did you get that? Even here in Nigeria, I am a fan of that saloon.

Any one who has become my trusted associate has bought my heart and allegiance, and I’ll gladly open my purse for him. What else does a business wants? Business is not just service-oriented, but also people-based, and love-engrained. It knows where to strike and strike hard.

Experience is the language of this emerged business enterprise, whether you sell a product or offer a service. Tom Peters, the Americas management guru taught, ‘Big leap takes place when the experience dimension enters the mix’. This mix is nothing other than using everything within you reach in treating your customers the way you would love to be treated. To achieve this, an outfit has to reinvent its entire business system to be people-focused. When you do, you attract exceptional loyalty from customers who would eventually lead you to your business growth and profitability.

‘The secret of success in business’ Aristotle Onassis sais,’ is to know something nobody else knows.’ The beauty of knowledge comes when acted upon. Now that you know, what will stop you from elevating your business to a new height and make it compliant? Ready. Aim. Fire!

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist whose ideas have helped businesses in Nigeria. He is also the Creative Director of Smartspeakers Resources, a Lagos based firm that specializes in Soft Skill Development.
www.smartspeakersng.org tony@smartspeakersng.org ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk +234 805 140 3056

The Heart of Branding

2008-07-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

The Heart of Branding
The subject of branding is a very serious and important issue as far as the present business climate is concerned. I regard it as the soul of any establishment. Every organisation, whether great or small, has a brand, or best is a brand.
To put us in the right atmosphere, let’s briefly throw a light on what a brand is. A brand is the sum of the good, the bad, the ugly (written or unwritten) about a given venture. It‘s your best or worst product, service, and the identity or image you communicate to those who see you or do business with you. That is, the totality of your company and its business model.
For years, companies have devoted tremendous resources to branding. They know that well developed brands enlarge market share, attract and create customers’ loyalty. In a society of so many choices, being different could be the determining factor in the decision making and market behaviors, since it is in human nature to associate with the known object or thing relative to the unknown. Branding is about recognition (awareness), articulation, memorization, and preference. You may have heard this statement: in the sea of sameness brands must stand out.
A brand is a living thing. Originally, branding began as an outside thing – an exterior differentiation of a given ‘product- service’ from those in the market place. Today, things have changed. There is a shift from the external concentration to something entirely different. What worked well some time ago is now loosing their grip. That’s the nature of the world you and I live in. What actually is the true representation of a brand?
The Duality of Branding
There are obviously two faces of branding, which is more like a double-edged sword. We have the visible and the invisible brands. Visible brands are the often seen, the often heard, the often hyped and the often projected. It is the brand container. The invisible brands, on the other hand, are the salient part of the organisation. It’s often not seen like the former but strongly felt; it’s the brand content. While the visible brands attract, the invisible brands keep.
What is this invisible brand? Why is it so powerful and needed in today’s business place? The answer is very simple: it’s the heart of branding. This emphasizes on the soft attributes of a ‘product-service’ - Attributes such as convenience, comfort, trust warmth, companionship, beauty… Just mention all the good intangible qualities. What else does a true brand represent?
True brand is an encounter, an impression that shapes people’s perception and attracts people’s respect for it. The essence is the imprint it plants on the minds of the market. It creates a kind of feeling, emotion, and develops an affinity to those who encounter what the enterprise has to offer.
Branding should be from the heart. Do you still remember the maxim? ‘The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart’. The heart of branding is the authentic brand that represents you in totality. Real brand is personal and answers the question of who you are. It’s about what is inside you and your organisation that is saleable to the public.
Building an intangible brand is about your frame of mind – a departure from the norm; the conventional service thing that is devoid of humanness. It’s not enough to say that a product works or that a service is superb. Does it leave you with an unbeatable memory? That’s what will guarantee you business future, even as the competition is becoming increasingly fierce in each passing day.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. General Motors once went into art, entertainment and mobile sculpture which coincidentally happen to provide ‘experience-ful’ transportation service. And they are still there, improving by day. Cars of the future will be sanctuaries and complete suite, with mood lightening and thrilling. (It’s already happening but that’s just the beginning).
We are starting to realize that whatever ‘product-service’ we use is who we are; our identity. And so, we are always selective looking for what goes beyond ‘quality’ to ‘extra-quality’. Be it in banking, buying something from a departmental store, patronizing a restaurant, or watching a TV station.
As an assignment, fashion great ideas to suit your ‘product-service’. Think of it in terms of story, adventure, and you’ll hit the essential nature of your reason for being. Let it provide something ‘extra’ to make it thrive in the new economy. A strong brand needs to create a story that sticks to almost every listening ear. This will strengthen the brand and give it a presence. Let people feel your brand, taste your brand, smell your brand, touch your brand, use your brand, talk your brand, and ultimately become devoted to your brand.
I have personally tried to know what makes a great brand. There might be more than one reason but one thing keeps reoccurring; outstanding brands are value-based. And the more value they add, the more money they make. Isn’t that interesting? They make every contact you have with them unforgettable, whether you buy their product or are engaged in their services. Here, you are delighted at turn of every event. Their ‘product-service’ goes beyond meeting needs to helping define who you are. They make you want more, and they are full of fun and wet every caller’s appetite. Some people may buy from a weak brand but they easily switch allegiance. But great brands have club members and fans who help promote them. What is value to you? Give it to your customers. I think it’s a right place to start.
Day by day, the value-added proposition of businesses becomes more and more intangible. Set your brand apart, cultivate the culture of intangibility. Let what you’ve got be ‘experience-creating’ brand. Intangible brand transforms your product and service into experience and solution. The feeling associated with using a particular brand is the fundamental basis for its value. This is the core of that brand; the fuel that keeps the flame aglow. This type of brand makes a company influential and increases her sphere of dominance.
One more thing before I close, a brand reflects and project integrity which clarifies one great thing: uniqueness. And that uniqueness makes a dramatic difference in the hands of its receivers with a powerful touch. The heart of brand is drawn from our inner being, and our emotion is one of it. I mean, authentic brand goes into the heart and comes from the heart (of the enterprise). Did you get that?
How can you make that dramatic difference that will stick with people? A difference that will eventually become your trade mark? Branding is more about meaning and not just marketing. It is internal and not external. It is about deep company uncompromising conviction that sets it apart from the rest. What is the heart of your own brand? Thrive on it.
Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist whose ideas have helped businesses in Nigeria. He is also the Creative Director of Smartspeakers Resources, a Lagos based firm that specializes in Soft Skill Development.
www.smartspeakersng.org tony@smartspeakersng.org ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk +234 805 140 3056

The Business of Marketing

2008-06-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

The Business of Marketing
Every business is marketing, and marketing is a serious business. No business exists without marketing – it being the critical area of your enterprise. The success and failure of any business is entirely down to how the business is marketed; the sure business maker and breaker. There is no business except one buys or sells something. And none of those things will happen without marketing. No matter the model of your ‘product-service’, you are in the business of marketing.
I discovered that the number one business challenge is marketing. Research has it that more money is ‘wasted’ in marketing than in any other human activity (outside government). Think about it. Businesses all over the world struggle because they simply haven’t found ways to generate constant streams of customers and keep them buying time after time. That may be the reason why Peter F. Drucker once said, ‘Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from customer’s point of view.’
Every business is the same. They need a steady supply of clients, and once they’ve got them, they need to keep them. You business is there to meet a need, and a need is no but a market. Marketing, indeed, is abroad discipline. Sometimes, it’s scarcely known to some of us, including those who claim to be experts. (We might not go in to that now).
One significant thing that counts in marketing is the customers’ perception of your ‘product-service’. Your duty as a good marketer is to create the right perception. Marketing is a game of mental warfare; a battle of perception, and not of product or service. The rule of this game is manipulating those perceptions so as to appear as the best and also the most preferred. There are no best products, not even one. All that exist in the world are perceptions in the mind of the customer or prospect. Come to think of it, the only realities you and I can be sure of are those of our perceptions. (The observer’s perception is his reality). What choices of car do you drive? What brand of toothpaste do you use? It’s all in your perception. Quality is nothing but personal-power we transfer or confer on a given brand product.
Perception is a mind-game. Today, what wins in the market is not just the ‘market-share’ but ‘mind-share’. You can’t win the market battle if you’ve not won the mind battle.
All ‘product-services’ that are hitting it big in the marketplace are persuasive. And persuasion comes from altering of perception. Businesses are nothing but what people perceive it to be in the eyes of the market. Here, every appearance is reality. Never joke with it. An establishment cannot claim to be what it thinks it is, but what people think it is. After all, your business is not there for you except for the people you serve – the market.
The better the customer is understood, the better you are able to fulfill the customers’ needs, and also win his or her approval. Always have it in mind that you are in the business to determine the primary target market’s wants and needs better than your competition, and deliver it to them.
Perception does not work in isolation. Quoting Sergio Zyman, ‘Marketing is comprised of everything a company does from how its product is packaged, to how it is positioned in the eyes of the consumer through ad and promotion. All these things define the benefit to the user.’ We would look at those things that would help put your business in the heart of the market. In my own term, marketing is anything that you do to attract and keep customers. Here are two of them.
Simple Marketing Intelligence
Positioning: By positioning, you create an image in the minds of the target market, establishing the desired perception for your ‘product-service’ relative to others. Writing on the subject, Al Ries and Jack Trout in their book, Psychological Positioning said, ‘Positioning is not what you do to a product; it’s what you do to the mind of the prospect.’ That is quite indisputable.
Knowing whom you are marketing to, and the character of the person is a huge plus in the business of marketing. You aim and fire with a precipitating positive effect.
Strategic Visibility: Market visibility is everything. When people see you often, they perceive you as superlative. Constancy of appearance is suggestive. If you are in doubt, ask Coca- Cola who spend millions of dollars annually to remain as the most visible beverage drink. Visibility builds credibility and increases ‘preferability’ and profitability. Your business abilities and potentials are not as important as your visibility.
It’s what people see that they feel, think, believe, support and profess. Great businesses make news. Are your business ideas strong enough, take them to the media. Adopt every method possible to be heard and seen. Announce yourself until the market starts announcing you. Above all, be very strategic about it.
The ultimate purpose of positioning and visibility is to engender adequate attention in the marketplace. Attention is what everyone and business live for. I know you need attention as much as I do, whether as a person or in your business. Attention is money; big money. What businesses are competing for is attention. And those who know how to generate enough of it smile to the bank.
When it comes to business, if you don’t toot your horn, you lose in the market. When you win in the market, you win in business. ‘Competing in the market place’, John Collins taught, ‘is like war. You have injuries and casualties and the best strategy wins’. With this fresh insight, make effort to blast into the mind of the market and watch the result. Of a truth, business has just begun.
Tony Ajah is a Business Development Expert whose ideas have helped businesses in Nigeria. He is also the Creative Director of Smartspeakers Resources, a Lagos based firm that specializes in Soft Skill Development.
www.smartspeakersng.org tony@smartspeakersng.org ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk +234 805 140 3056

The Soft-Side of Business

2008-02-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

At a first glance, many businesses in Nigeria have all it takes to hit it big in business locally and internationally. Of course, we are good business people with sound business acumen and savvy. I know that you will agree with me.

Ironically, countless number of businesses, including those favoured by political, economical, social, technological, environmental and legal (PESTEL) factors, are still struggling in spite of huge investments. Something obviously may have gone wrong in their business equation.

You and I are familiar with the hard business operations like management, accounting, marketing, strategies, planning, and other operational models. Today, running a successful business has gone beyond having the money, minute, machinery, material, and the man behind the wheels like a military man on duty. It requires that pressing the magic buttons that produce the desired results. There is more to business that what we do presently.

It’s high time we looked at a new side of business that has emerged in the new economy –the soft side of business. This is the new business order which turns every other thing on in the business world. While the hard business is important, soft business is very, very paramount.

Suffice it to establish this premise: evidence everywhere indicates that the hard world is irreversibly softening. Our present, run by the intangibles, has gone soft and still goes softer by each passing day. This is the hallmark of the new world, or rather business dimension and you can gain a huge advantage by riding on this trend. Gone are the days when we relied on the physical or hard strengths to get results and take the lead. Times, indeed, have changed; everything has gone soft. Microsoft, the highest valued company today is a soft company.

The same change has hit our business life, which constitutes the core of our living. To keep your place in the present business economy, you’ve got to be compliant by basically going soft. Let me express it this way: it’s either soft or you rust.

The business universe is evolving and expanding daily. I know you would like to be left out. That would be very suicidal in this fast-paced business dispensation. You have in your hands the opportunity to escape being a business dinosaur.

As I pointed out earlier, what drives business has changed, and keeps changing; it’s no longer business as usual. The business operations no longer tilt towards the hard-side but the soft-side. What has brought us to our current business level may not take us beyond this point. There is indeed another side of business, the soft-side of business.

What is the whole idea of this new business paradigm? You may ask so impatiently.
The soft-side of business by definition is that aspect that meets the human pressing and usually unexpressed needs. It’s, in other words, business with human face, or still, the human side of business. This business model uncovers our ‘humanness’, touching our lives on a deeper level with immense intensity. It has the power to attract, keep and multiply clientele because it is human and speaks the language every one of us loves to hear. Who wouldn’t like it?

The challenges in today’s business life are most those of the intangibles, which over the years have suffer neglect, and also suppressed in most business deals. But the rule of the game has tainted for good.

This new-fangled business economy is based on the understanding that every person has a need, a drive, a motivation, a taste, a want and some yearning that they want met in the course of doing business. Check it out, in every business transaction; people are hungry for love, connection, respect, warmth, care, attention, relationship, and acceptance. There are never enough of them. And the tougher the times, the more important and scarce they become. In most cases, these virtues are value that the very transaction that brought us to the establishment in the first place.

How we are perceived as human beings is becoming increasingly important in the new business globe. And the difference maker in business today comes from this very side of business.

There are diverse sides of this business archetype. But for the purpose of this discussion, we would be looking at two main side of it: the emotion and the connection.
Join me as we examine the soft business that will make you win in the hard world o business. See you then.

Redefining Success

2008-02-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

Success is a word that has captivated the attention of all. It has gained more popularity and attracted more publicity than the greatest king whoever lived in human history. Everywhere you go; people talk about it with much relish. The word tastes sweet, sounds great and smells good. It is treasured more than gold, adorned more than a god, and ‘succeeds’ more than anything the mind of man could ever imagine. Even the devil himself wants to succeed.

Success is a subject that many great men have talked and wrote about, and many more are still on it. No other word could best describe how the society feel about it, except to say that success is everything, and everything thing that succeeds is success.

No wonder everybody has gone out there in search of this priceless treasure, which may have appeared elusive to many. Some have even gone beyond the ordinary means in search of success, yet to no avail. They at the end would curse their fate, and look for whom to blame for their failures.

Is that enough to say that the word success does not exist? Or is it a thing meant for the super-humans? If not, why are we not succeeding in our individual lives? We salivate at the thought of this magic word, maybe wait to take our eternal exit without a touch of it.

Indeed success is rare but attainable. It is an irony that under the same condition, some folks literally wine and dine with success. By every indication, they are success personified. What then must have gone wrong with the rest? Or could the success we know be different from theirs, or could be redefined. What is your own definition of success? What exactly is success? It is necessary that you know , to enable you go for it.

Thousand and one definitions have been made on this all important subject, by different calibre of people. But, how many of such definitions have defined what success truly is. Suffice it to say, how many of such definitions have stood the taste of time. That is just the point. A word wrongly defined would be misconstrued. And that is like leading the whole world astray.

Dozens have tried to define success as something that happens to us. But, when we separate success from who we are, we automatically become bunch of failures. Success begins with you as a person and it’s lived out. It is more of your nature than your activity. It is an intense journey into yourself. Every other thing outside this is secondary.

Of all the definitions of success I have come across, the one that makes more meaning to me than the rest combined is this: success is who you are. And who you are is what you are. In the words of Jim Rohn, "Success is not a set of standards from our culture but rather a collection of personal values clearly defined and ultimately achieved". And Herbert Casson added, ‘The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves’. So, true success is who you are.

Success begins inside out. Success we have known is a journey and not a destination. And the journey is an internal trip. To grow out, you must first grow in. Trying to be outside, what you are not in your inside is the genesis of all frustration. Life will always give you who you are because your nature will put limit to your performance and results. The world is designed to be piloted by man’s internal forces. Those who surrender their lives to external forces never succeeded.

There are no failures in this life, except men and women who see success as something happening to them and not something happening in them. They often mistake success for luck and end up locked. You are the success or the failure people talk about. Separate every successful work from the people who achieved them, what you have left is more or less failure. Just think of any great individual or body or organization or country that is very successful. What do you think have made them so?

At the centre of every success is the man. So, success is the man who succeeded. Success is internal and not external. Success is within and not without. Success is what you have, and not what you are given. Success is in the inner world and not in the outer world. Success is all about you as a person. And more of your being than your doing. Everything that happens to us is directly proportional to what is happening in us. Of course, life is not what is happening to us but what is happening in us. For you become outside, what you are inside. Jim Clemmer said it all, "We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are". Come to think of it, you reflect outside what you are inside.

A man said, "The key to winning in life is what’s inside a person". And Wilfred A. Peterson also buttressed, "success is not confined to one part of your personality but is related to the development of all parts: body, mind, heart and spirit. It is making the most of your total self".

What more could be added to this? If your inner man is successful, it will be definitely show in your outer world. So wake up to reality and live your success. Why running to and fro in search of that you already possess. In you is the success that you need to succeed .Locate it, turn it on and you will become enviably successful. How? By working on yourself, with clearly defined goals and values. Then you will attract to your life that which you are Listen to this thought shared by Zig Ziglar, "You already have the ability necessary for success. Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowment, with the seed of greatness". Isn’t that wonderful! You have to break in now to break forth.

I end with this word from a sage written on marble, "Not in the clamour of the crowded street. Not in the shouts and defeat, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat". I know you would not like to be defeated. Just tell yourself that you are the success that has long been announced. What are you waiting for to start succeeding? Develop yourself now and watch the amazing result in your life. You are lifted!

Tony Ajah
0805 140 3056

Living Legacy 1

2007-10-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

Why stay on earth if not to do something meaningful with your life? This, ultimately, is what I think we are here for, and the hallmark of ‘good living’. What do you think?

We were not created to do just anything with our lives, maybe live at the mercy of circumstances. We were created to create things that will outlive us; something that is worth remembering; something that will better the face of the world and beautify the face of the earth. Wouldn’t you rather be fulfilled that you are one of those that will leave the world a better place than they met it?

Man was designed to do outstanding things and get unusual result in every field of endeavor he engages himself. And these results are not something meant for selected few, or what some people might call ‘super-humans’, but for all, including you and me.

What do you want to make out of this your precious life? Have you ever asked yourself such question? Life is more than inhaling and exhaling.

However, it’s never late to get back on course, irrespective of your age or status. You can start now to let your voice be heard, loud and clear, by living a more purposeful life. Objectivity of will make all the difference. I assure you that, and can equally testify to that.

I have decided to make my life a living legacy. This is a conscious decision and action that I have committed myself into and it’s paying off. What are you waiting for? This might appear unimportant, but with time it will turn to be the corner stone of your great life well-lived. Give it a shot today. See you there!

LivingLegacy 1

2007-07-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

Why stay on earth if not to do something meaningful with your life. That's ultimately what I'm here for. I don't know about you.

We are notcreated to do just anything but some thing of value; something worth remembering;something that willout live us; something that will make history and better the face of the world. Wouldn't you rahter be fulfilled that you left the world better than you met it?