In The Art of War, written by Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC, Tzu offers:

“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.”

As it relates to your business, this approach is not enough. The goal of all intelligence is to take what you have learned to make better business decisions. From making your business the sought after organization to buy from, the result will be increased sales.

To do so, you need to track your competitors, and the business environment you are all in. Changes and trends in the economy, technology, laws / regulations, ways of doing business (remember the sweeping changes the Internet brought on), society, and international opportunities, to name a few issues, will change the way you need to do business. Look at the big picture that is affecting everyone to understand what industries and markets you should stay in and which ones you should enter.

To know more about your markets and the customers within, ask the librarian in your local college or town libraries. The resources provided are usually no charge to the user. Other resources include chambers of commerce, industry associations (many who keep track of industry trends), your own suppliers who usually sell to others in your industry – they have a unique grass roots perspective – and your sales people, agents and/or distributors too.

Post Written by:

Mike Miller, Director
www.Symbiocracy.com

About Mike:

Mike spent fourteen years in corporate America with Bendix and Allied Signal corporations. Positions he held included divisional chief marketing officer, new product development manager, marketing channel manager, national sales manager, marketing communications manager and acquisition manager, . Since 1989, he has been in the consulting industry. Of Mike’s current clients, three are start up firms. He holds a B.S., Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA), and a M.B.A. from Loyola Marymount University, (Los Angeles, CA), and is certified by the Center for Creative Leadership (Greensboro, North Carolina) to conduct 360º leader assessment and development programs.

Lately, it seems like the less successful companies right now are in one (or two) of two boats:
1.    They have a weak product.
2.    They have done a poor job at marketing their product.

A profitable business requires a strong foundation.

Product:
I define a weak product as one that does not fulfill a need or want of enough people to make the company sustainable.  As follows are the questions I use to measure the companies’ products with which I work (in 2nd person for your convenience):

• How many people REALLY will use your product?
• How many people will spend the time/money to use your company to purchase your product or use your service?
• Do people need your product? (Review Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
• If they do, do they know that they need it or will you need to sell them on the fact?
• If not, why do you think they will use it?
• Do they want it enough that they will pay for it or spend enough time on the site to make it worthwhile to your advertisers?
• What are the advantages of using your competitors? Do those advantages outweigh your advantages?
• Is something about your website turning people away?
• Is there a reason for people to use your company more than once or will you have to continually replace your customers?
• How much money will people REALLY spend for your product or service?

or

• How much money will advertisers spend to reach this customer base?

or

• Do you have another knock-your-socks-off revenue stream?

The strongest products are easy sell and go viral. They don’t require much  advertising (if any at all). Not only because of the economy but also because we can easily shop around for products on the internet, we are much more careful to spend money. And, with the current media overload, our attention is pulled in many different directions, so it’s hard to get our attention for long. Sure, companies sell weak products all the time, but it’s a struggle you don’t have to go through. If you start with a strong product and improve it over time, success will come much more easily. And, once you have a strong product, you can move your focus to marketing.

Marketing: If you have a strong product, marketing is the easy part:

• Honestly represent your product
• Determine your most accurate target demographic
• Engage your target demographic where they will feel most positively about your product.

So, there it is – a strong product and how to market it well – it’s definitely a good place to start when you’re writing your business plan. There are so many things to worry about when you have your own business. You don’t want to have to reinvent your product while you’re dealing with accounting and HR and permits. And, you aren’t going to get the revenue you need if you don’t know how to market your product.