Strategy Insight

A review of our final five lessons will help us prepare for our upcoming session on May 5^th and the introduction of a framework by which we can build a vibrant consumer franchise.

Lesson 6: Draw Attention Using Traditional Approaches. Do not forgo the use of traditional techniques to build awareness just because there are new social media techniques available. Being in a technologically driven world does not mean we should discount or overlook effective traditional methods of promotion. It is very possible to create customer demand through the effective use of traditional marketing and push-pull techniques.

Lesson 7: Use Technology to Forward Your Business. Technology is never the solution in and of itself. Technology is a tool – a very effective tool for transforming the way one processes transactions on behalf of its customers or delivers products or services to them or communicates with them. Use social media to promote and support your business and build presence.

Lesson 8: Rethink…and Rethink Again. It is only natural to assume that what has made a business a success in the past will continue to allow it to be successful in the future. However, when we successfully step back from the way we have run our businesses we intuitively know that this cannot be true. Engage yourself and your colleagues to rethink the ways that you have done business and explore options to create new ways of marketing or new niches to pursue.

Lesson 9: Understand Your Value and Leverage It. The success that you have had with your most successful products is likely the result of your innovative way of uniquely addressing a consumer’s challenge. As an example, your most successful products have likely created a following. Leverage this following to create additional opportunities in building and generating new sales opportunities.

Lesson 10: Re-examine and Re-define the Business. Businesses are living beings in that they have specific cultures and DNA’s that dictate how they function. And like many living beings, in order to survive, they need to evolve.  Allow your business to change with the times and needs of your clientele.

As I prepare for the session, it has become apparent to me that this is the next appropriate stage in my own learning experience. My goal will not be to provide a “solution” but rather to stimulate a conversation whose whole hopefully will be far greater than the sum of its parts.

It should be an exciting conversation…I’ll let you know what I learn in the next post.

This entry was posted on May 3, 2009 at 3:31 am and is filed under Leadership, Sales, Strategic Plans, Strategy. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: consumer franchise