Denbrook Strategic Advisors...

As you stare down the tunnel towards the end of the economic downturn, the light appears closer and brighter. So now might be the right time to assess what you can do to speed up your trip towards the light of a growing economy. Consider forming one or more strategic alliances to get a jump on growth. In the same way that you will be careful in adding full time employees today, you also will be careful in making growth investments for your business. A strategic alliance is a way to grow without making a huge initial investment.

Booze-Allen & Hamilton reports that strategic alliances are becoming popular in nearly every industry and are important drivers of added growth. That’s just the kind of boost your business may need today. With the right alliances you can drive into new markets faster, meet competition more effectively, reduce costs, and respond to a fast changing marketplace. A primary benefit of strategic alliances is to minimize risk, generally by avoiding re-inventing the wheel.

A “partnership” with other businesses is an effective way to gain improved exposure and increase your revenue. Sometimes these close working relationships just seem to happen and other times they are the result of proactive searching and matching. Use an alliance to jointly market or sell into new channels, combine capabilities to produce a new or more complex product or service, add to your research and development, collaborate on design, etc. You can begin to work together horizontally with businesses that complement your own or you can link up with vendors or customers.

Let’s say that you make widgets and you have a customer who wants to buy your widgets but needs them redesigned for a unique application. But you do not have the in-house design capability. You could outsource this need, but you want a closer working relationship than you can get by simply buying the design hours from a “body shop.” What you are looking for is a business “partner” that can provide the design capability but would also provide the guidance you need to expand on this new custom business you are experiencing. Small businesses need to be market driven, and if your customers are telling you they want a broader or different service from you, responding may be the only way to keep growing. To launch off into this new custom production world and not fall on your face, you need a relationship that can endure and that injects experience you lack.

This is a typical scenario that leads to the need for a strategic alliance. Sometimes the company you choose to connect with is already involved with your business. Or perhaps you need to hunt down an appropriate partner.

But first do some work before you link arms with a new partner. It is important to document exactly what you are looking for from the alliance by documenting a basic business plan. What are the business objectives you want to achieve? What sort of partner are you seeking, i.e. company culture, personal chemistry, sense of commitment, etc. What are the absolute requirements and what will you compromise on?

If you already know the companies you want to consider, use your business plan to objectively evaluate the potential for the partnership arrangement. If you do not know of a business you want to align with, network through your professional contacts and associations to find candidates.

While none of us likes to document a relationship because the devil is always in the details, failure to develop a written agreement covering the operation of the strategic alliance will ultimately cause trouble. It is true that most partnerships fail eventually. And that will happen with any strategic alliance for lots of reasons. With a document that specifies what happens when the relationship ends, what triggers end, and how and when money flows between the partners, at least you will have some agreed approaches to get past the tough spots.

A strategic alliance like any other ongoing deal is only good if both parties benefit. An agreement where either party can end the relationship on 30 days notice is probably wise. An initial stated term for the working relationship is also useful. Maybe it begins as a two-year agreement with automatic renewals for some period subject to a 30-day cancellation by either party at any time. By setting a term of a few years, both parties can take a longer viewpoint in planning the working relationship.

These “outs” may sound pretty loose, but the whole purpose of the alliance is to benefit both parties and as long as everyone is happy, then time frames and ending arrangements are moot. The 30 day out acts as a brake on either party running rough shod over the other.

Because you are documenting a relationship that may include exclusivity and confidentiality aspects, as well as other details that can get sticky, you will need to have an attorney review the final agreement. But hold off on involving attorneys until you and the partner have documented the agreement to the best of your ability. Then let the attorneys at it; but beware of the tendency of the legal eagles to over protect a party, or inject other unpalatable stuff into the agreement.

Before you sign the final draft, go back to your original business plan and objectives for the relationship. Make sure you are achieving your goals and that you have developed a win-win working relationship with the partner.

A strategic alliance is not a merger or a buyout, but it can put your business on a faster growth trajectory if you get the right match. And who knows, maybe the strategic alliance will grow into something more. It could become a merger that someday provides the exit strategy for one of the partners—and lead to a happy result for both parties.

Here’s something worth trying this year: make ten New Year’s Resolutions that you actually track—and keep! I came up with ten different subjects for you to use as a framework for your personal list. They relate to four areas: management, leadership, finance, and personal. And I added a bonus one at the end. Here is the list.

Management

Delegate One Thing. Find ONE aspect of your responsibility that you can delegate to another team member. It should be something you don’t like to do that will “stretch” the recipient. Be sure to delegate the necessary authority.

Set and Track 2010 Objectives. Make your list more than just revenue and profit. Include specific, time phased goals that involve HOW you will achieve the primary revenue and profit goals. Do not forget to assign responsibility for completing each one.

Evaluate Your Website. Take an objective “third party view” of your current website. Does it still look good? It is your “front door” to lots of prospective customers. Take the actions needed to keep it current and competitive.

Finance

Take Vendor Discounts. Make sure your payables system is set up to take all discounts offered by vendors for quick payment and do it throughout the year.

Produce a Cash Flow Forecast. Do this every month or more frequently. Cash is always king and you need to treat the king well or he will punish you. Know when and from where your revenue is coming for several months out, and what your expected cash outflows are in future periods. These can be educated guesses based on historic records combined with actual accounts receivable and payable figures for close in periods.

Leadership

Listen More. This is tough to do. But your team members and your boss often convey messages within their words or by their body language. And it may occur in casual conversations, not in formal meetings.

Recognize Deserving Team Members. Recognition needs to be “public” and legitimate to be most effective. It does not need to be expensive. Often some time off is most appreciated.

Create Real Performance Plans. The people you lead need to know what you expect of them, and they will help you set their goals. Do this early in the year and tie recognition and evaluation to each person’s plan.

Personal

Schedule Your Own Time Off. You owe yourself and your family a regular break from the pressures of business. Weekly time, some vacation weeks, or some other regular down time is important. If you are the owner, your team expects you to take some time away. (They like the time in the office without you and they will surprise you by making good decisions in your absence.)

Learn Something New. What do you want to learn this year? Add to your skills, to your hobby, to your interests, etc. Running a business operation can sometimes become unexciting. If that is your situation, brighten your outlook with the challenge of learning.

Bonus

Smile More. Smiling is a simple solution to making life more pleasant. People will smile back. You will feel better. Make a resolution to be a pleasant person to be around. As a leader you don’t need to be popular, but you do need to be respected professionally. Projecting a positive confidence in a smiling manner is infectious and earns you respect.

So that’s my Ten for ’10. Maybe you have a different list and that is fine. Just make a list and review your progress over the year. Good luck and Happy New Year!

You are in the midst of preparing your 2010 plans, right? Setting objectives and making a budget have never been more important as the economy slowly begins to climb out of the Great Recession, as it is now called. Your approach to next year’s plan needs to be a little different since so much uncertainty remains.

The process of planning has always been more important to me than the product (plan) itself. That is because the process is where you think through alternatives and bounce ideas off of your planning partners. It is the time to ask the “what if” questions that lead to identifying options and contingencies. This year it is difficult to peer through the haze into the future because so much remains in doubt. Major government actions are bound to impact even the smallest business and probably the impact will be negative. But that is no excuse not to plan.

So here are some comments designed may deserve some deeper thinking as you prepare your plan.

• First, be sure that all your objectives and actions are “SMART.” They need to be Specific, Measureable, Attainable, have a Responsible person assigned, and include a Time requirement. You will be operating your business within a tight budget, and the SMARTer you are, the better chance you will have to accomplish things within budget.

• If you have a strategic plan that looks out several years and you have not revisited it in 2009, make that one of the first steps in your 2010 planning. Be sure your longer term goals are still valid and that your time frames for them remain realistic. If not, update them now so your 2010 detailed plan is in sync with your long term plan.

• Determine the breakeven point for your operation as it is currently staffed and also for the contingency that sales might vary by 10% up or down. If you cannot cover your breakeven point after a sales dip, what can you do to lower your expenses? Develop sidebar contingency actions for this and set a trigger point so you take action in time. Remember that for most businesses, labor is not a variable expense, although you may be able to shorten work hours and reduce pay somewhat, maybe you should simply cut headcount. What other expenses could you cut? Likewise, if sales grow how will you cope with additional workload? Overtime is often the best way until you are truly comfortable adding people. Contract labor is another way to do this, but be sure you are not mislabeling an employee as a contractor. That can cause serious tax and insurance problems.

• If you have not evaluated your customers individually for their contribution to your profit, that is a worthwhile exercise now. You may find that at the bottom of the list are some customers you would be better off without. They may cost you more than they are worth and it is time to “fire” them. If it is a large customer that may be hard to do. But a realistic discussion with them may enable you to raise your price to cover the loss they are generating. On the other hand, if you have too many customers costing you money or time you could spend more profitably elsewhere, then you need to examine your pricing and marketing to be sure you are focused on prospects that are good for your business.

• On the flip side, what are you doing to keep your good customers happy? Perhaps you should meet individually with them at year-end to thank them and to discuss their needs for 2010. You need to be market driven, not the other way around. Unless you are a really big business you cannot drive the market. Also, are you keeping TOMA (Top Of Mind Awareness) with them by “touching” them regularly with newsletters, direct mail, sales calls, etc. Sometimes we think such actions are only needed with prospects, but your 2010 plans should be protective of your current revenue sources, too. Remember your competitors will be trying to steal your customers’ business so do not take your customers for granted.

• What about a written marketing plan for 2010? The best way to do this is to determine what kind of a marketing budget you can afford and then devise the best way to allocate the money to generate business. Not enough businesses actually produce a realistic marketing plan. And few allocate enough money to really accomplish their plan properly. Consider manpower or the purchased services needed to execute the plan. And do not underestimate the challenge of coming up with the material needed to produce newsletters, brochures, an updated website, etc. Outside marketing firms rarely have the knowledge to do that for you. They will take your work and improve on it, but cannot do it all on their own. Once you have a plan and an idea of the manpower, post a calendar on the wall and mark in when each item in the plan is scheduled. Look that over and see if it is realistic. Can you do all that work? If not, then scale back to the things you can do. And do them well.

• Have you met with your loan officer recently? What actions should you build in the plan regarding finances? If you are being hounded by your bank, what other banks might want your business, and how will you go about making those contacts? Who do you know who can help?

Planning is much more than setting revenue and profit goals. That is easy. But determining the realistic actions that will get you to the goal is much more difficult. While I am not an advocate of letting the resource availability hamper creative thinking, at the end of the day, the plan needs to be achievable. If your actions require more resources than you can devote, then you need to devise a different approach.

Next year will be a challenge for most, but even if it is a cake walk for your business, you need to produce a “thinking person’s” plan, not simply an exercise that gets put away and never seen again. In my experience, if a plan is thoughtful and documented, it has a real chance of being met.

On the other hand, if you do not know where you are going—as the saying goes—any road will get you there.

Some businesses have been frustrated with the attitude of the recent college grads they hired. It has been said these “millennial” young adults seemed to demand special treatment and expected to be made executives within the first month of being hired. More than that, they also expected that their personal time would not be impacted by work. Managers observed that they worked only to fill the time between the weekends when they could pursue their personal agendas. They simply did not view their job as anything more than a way to pay for their weekends.

That may be a little over the top for most employees today. But the principle underlying their philosophy is a principle business executives need to think about for themselves. Millennials have their priorities, and work is not at the top. Yet most of us who have been in business leadership roles for a while have more traditional priorities. Usually the business needs come out on top a high percentage of the time.

The “constantly connected” aspect of our business lives is a good example. Some of us feel we must respond to emails from business associates no matter what day or time they show up. The ubiquitous Blackberry is as much at home on the beach or ski slope as it is in the office. Texting in the midst of meetings, talking on the cell phone in restaurants and permitting other kinds of electronic intrusions are pervasive. And they are wrong!

It always incenses me to see a person shopping in a retail store loudly talking on the phone while perusing stock or filling a shopping cart. What or who is so important that they need to multi-task? In fact tests show multi-tasking doesn’t work very well. Serial task performance is much more accurate and takes less elapsed time overall.

Those of us who are not millennials need to think about how this electronic intrusion into our lives will ultimately play out. Will the next big advance in technology further tie us to the company? Or will we draw a line in the sand with our Blackberry and say “Enough is enough!”

Here’s why it’s critical to cut back. First, your family is more important. Your kids will grow up well before you expect. And then you will wonder what happened. Remember “The Cat’s In the Cradle?” Second, it has been my experience that when the CEO takes off for a few days, even in the smallest companies, things don’t fall apart. Imagine that! Fellow employees can pick up the slack, make reasonable decisions, and carry on without you present, whether you’re the CEO, a top executive, or a manager.

The Millennials have grabbed onto a principle that the rest of us should consider. More thought about the weekend and keeping business in perspective makes a lot of sense. It also may make you more efficient at your job if you really do kick back regularly.

If you are the owner of a business, or have P&L responsibility for a portion of a business so that you are free to set the goals to drive the business in the direction you want, then here’s something you should do today. Document your personal vision. What do you want the business to do for you and your family? How much do you want to work? What kind of income are you looking for? What is your longer term exit strategy? The answers to these, and other similar questions, become the basis for your personal vision—a statement of what you see the business providing for you over the next 5 years. Once that is down on paper, the goals and action plans for the business can be made to synch with your personal vision.

Why carry the burden of business ownership or executive leadership if you do not use that responsibility to shape the business to perform as you want it to? When you do this, the business is working for you; you are no longer working for the business. This is an extension of the millennial philosophy that can make all the difference in your outlook, and will “authorize” you to turn your Blackberry off between 5:00 pm on Friday and 8:00 am on Monday. Give it a try and see how it works. And find out how much happier you will be!

If there is one common characteristic among sales people it is persistence. People in a revenue-generating role find it difficult to cut and run from an opportunity. In their mind, the prospect or market segment they are trying to develop just needs a little more effort to come around. So they are persistent, sometimes to the point of misspent money and effort.

Even when they realize there is a slim chance of converting their efforts into revenue for their business, persistent sales people leave the now-dead prospective opportunity on the “potential list.” That is when procrastination takes over. Failure to face up to the necessary thinning of the pipeline by some sales people and entrepreneurs ignores reality and prevents focusing on new opportunities. Instead it provides some false comfort to keep them on the list.

But most of this wasted effort can be avoided if we are honest with ourselves and practice the skills of qualification. Qualifying the prospective opportunity requires some probing into the situation and for some this is an uncomfortable activity. But if we approach it on a businesslike basis, it is simply an effort to make sure all parties involved are spending their time productively.

Qualifying the opportunity means determining that the people involved have the money, the need, and the authority to buy. This is easier said than done in many cases. Sometimes the best you can do is infer that you are not dealing with the real decision maker. This can be truer when someone seems to be the right person (or says he or she is) but there are some missing buying signals.

For example, maybe the prime contact indicates the need to consult a higher authority about some aspect of the proposition. Try not to lose control of this opportunity to join the contact in meeting with the higher authority. Have a standard reason you can use that supports your request to go to the meeting.

Perhaps the prospect is simply too nice to tell you to “get lost.” You may have developed a good working relationship and the two of you get along well. Maybe the prospect is enjoying your attention. In this situation the prospect will often delay by asking for more time to think about it. You find yourself making constant follow-up calls but seeing no real progress. This is the time to review the whole proposition with the prospect and ask what additional knowledge the prospect expects to learn by thinking about it, since you have answered every question and proven the value of your proposition.

Some prospects will delay the inevitable by pushing for changes in terms and conditions without actually intending to buy. They lack the forthrightness to tell you they are not truly interested. Perhaps digging into the reasons behind the repeated requests for changes in the “deal” may indicate the need to cut and run.

In these and other situations a sales person needs to become decisive. Yes, you are not working in a marketplace filled with an infinite number of prospects, and so you are not happy to be the one to break off the relationship. And it doesn’t mean you will never revisit the opportunity. Certainly do not burn bridges in cutting off your sales efforts with a prospect. Find a way to leave the door open and maintain your “right” to contact the prospect at a later time. But bringing reality into your current pipeline is an energizing activity.

So as you look at your year-end marketplace activities, be honest and ruthless about your opportunities. Classify your pipeline and work on those that are ready to buy. How do you know who is ready to buy? These are the people who have convinced you they have the money, need and authority. You will be convinced when you “vet” them properly and thoroughly. In today’s economy you cannot afford to do anything less.

“45% percent of the 27 million small businesses in the US say they are currently not profitable,” according to a recent Newsweek article summarizing a survey by George S. May International Co. These are businesses that employ 100 or fewer people, and make up half the nation’s private, non-farm payroll.

If your business is showing signs of persistent profitability problems, now is the time to make plans that change the status quo. Here are some suggestions to start your thinking.

Whenever an operation is spending more than it makes, there are only three things that can be done: increase revenue, decrease expenses, or shed assets. Approaching the last third of 2009 and perhaps the bottoming out of the recession, it is time to plan the steps to prepare your business for a stronger 2010 performance.

Sometimes it is more comfortable to live in denial and not face up to making the tough decisions needed now. And sometimes we feel we have the plan in our heads and that we can work our way through it. But a plan that is in your head is no plan, it is just a dream. Put your options down on paper and evaluate the effect of each one. Then write the actions you need to take to achieve the results you want. And track yourself as you work your plan.

Decreased expenses is responsible for profit improvement in many of the public companies in the last quarter. And maybe you can gain some traction with a miserly approach to your business operations. Reducing payroll may work if the productivity of the remaining employees can be increased as business grows back, and their morale can be sustained. But the cost of replacing people resources can be very high. Cutting head count is low on the list for a small business. On the other hand, a “fanatical” attention to the little costs that add up in a business can make a difference. One hundred dollars saved in electricity each month flows right to the bottom line. Look for savings in all the “expense habits” you and your staff have made routine. Question everything.

If a business does not continue to grow, it will eventually decline. It cannot remain static. Increasing revenue can be a big profit boost if the new revenue does not involve too heavy an investment in inventory, marketing, or personnel. It may be right to look at a new product line or marketplace, but before jumping in take the time to create a business plan that shows true potential. Regardless of how you go about it, a revenue increase plan for 2010 must be in place.

And if you shed assets use the proceeds to pay down debt, not to meet payroll. Us asset sales to offset liabilities not cover operating expenses. This approach is usually a one shot deal and can be of value if you have unused equipment, excess inventory, etc. But make sure you don’t need to repurchase the asset later when business improves.

You are a leader and your team expects you to make the decisions that are needed to maintain business prosperity. Keep this responsibility at the forefront of your mind this month and make it a priority to produce a year-end action plan. Your business should be in the 55% category…making money and moving forward. It’s your job!

Persuasion is fundamental to sales and effective leadership. We need to convince someone to accept our product, service, or point of view. Welcoming an objection to our proposal is alien to most of us because we think it means we failed to sway the prospect. But experienced sales people know that rather than leading to rejection, a well-handled objection is the fast path to a sale. An objection means you are making progress. The prospect is giving your proposal serious consideration.

Objections are opportunities to sell, and an indication of interest, or at least curiosity. Usually they show up in the middle or near the end of a sales call. If they don’t show up, good sales people will try to draw them out because the reasons for an objection are really the keys to the sale.

People make buying decisions emotionally and justify their decisions with facts. A case in point: as a serious photographer I enjoy buying gear to make my photography more interesting or creative. For several years I have watched the development evolution of a new creative lens called Lensbaby. Finally I bought the newest and most expensive version. This was an emotional decision, but I justified it on the fact that it would enable me to create stronger images for monthly competitions. My original objections involving ease of use were answered by the new version, and the fact that a photographer was teaching its use at a conference convinced me that it had a place in my camera gear. Emotion closed the sale, facts justified the decision.

So look for objections as the opening to satisfy an emotional need of the prospect. But sometimes the real objection is several layers deep. Price is often tossed out as the first objection. But we know people do not buy on price alone. It’s one of the top 3 or 4 considerations, but often not number 1. The challenge is to get beyond price to unearth other objections. One approach is to promise to handle the price question but first ask the prospect what other than price that stands in the way of a sale. Handle these other objections first, and then come back to price if needed.

Digging beneath the first layer of objections can be tricky. You must be sincere and honest. You must promise to answer the primary objection, but you should ask the prospect to help you understand more about their concerns. What is it specifically about the issue that they are having a problem with? If the issue is product or service specs, you will need to explain why the specs are what they are and why that is a benefit to the customer.

Sales people often fail to translate a feature or spec into a benefit for the particular prospect and then, most importantly, to seek the prospect’s reaction to the benefit. Sometimes objections can be handled effectively by the old “feel, felt, found” approach that uses a reference to a satisfied customer. Again seek a reaction from the prospect.

Remember to stick with open questions in digging into an objection. “What” and “how” questions are less threatening than a “why” question. Although you may get more specifics with a question starting with “why.” Some have said it takes seven levels of “why” to get to the base objection, but I think that would be hard to do without angering a prospect and losing the sale.

Newer sales people often fear objections and will shy away from responding properly. Two things they need to remember: 1) Know their product, themselves, and their prospect so they have a high degree of self confidence, and 2) Never make up an answer. Instead be honest with the prospect by saying that they will find the answer and get back promptly. Then be sure to do just that.

Most of us do not relish handling objections whether from prospects or employees, and yet they are the fastest way to clearing the air to make the sale. There are some helpful sites on the web for picking up techniques. Here are two--

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sales/objection/objection_handling.htm and http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/six-steps-to-handling-sales-objections.html.

Just Google “handling objections in sales” to find many more.

Maybe your sales efforts are so good that you cover everything the prospects wants to know and you can close the order without the need to handle objections. Congratulations! However, I don’t believe that is a frequent occurrence. Instead, we are all regular people trying to show prospects how our product or service meets their needs and relieves their “pain.” We believe our offering is right for the prospect. When the prospect doesn’t see it our way, we need to elicit why and then handle the objections to move toward closing the order. Sometimes it can be frustrating, but it’s our job to help the prospect improve his business success with our product or service and that takes patience and skill in handling objections. So welcome the objection—and know that it does not mean rejection.

Success is determined, in large measure, by what a leader is able to get other people to do. Properly transferring responsibility and authority to subordinates is an important skill for an effective leader. If you want to pick up a couple of hours of time every week, then you need to become proficient at delegating tasks.

Why bother to delegate? It takes time to delegate a task and “no one can do it as well as you can,” right? Sure, but if someone can do your task 80% as well as you can, then making the effort to delegate can have real value to you. Here’s an example.

Let’s say your time is worth $200/hour. But a task you are about to do can be done by someone that costs you $50/hour (including benefits and overhead.) If the job takes you one hour, then the 80% effective subordinate would need one and one quarter hours. Yes, it might take you 10 minutes to transfer the task to him/her, and another 15 minutes of intermittent supervision or review while the task is being performed. But you would net a savings of about half an hour at a cost of $50 to pay the employee offset by saving $100 of your time—a net of $50 the first time. But if it is a weekly task, over a 50 week year you would gain $2,500 of your time.

Delegating gets you free time to work on your business. It can add up to many days opened up in a year. The delegated tasks protect your company if you become ill. The time frees you to create growth for the business, execute an exit strategy, etc. And free time reduces your stress level.

Why don’t leaders delegate more often since it offers such great advantages? Sometimes they lack confidence in employees, do not want to take the risk, or actually enjoy some of the tasks they should delegate (especially if not delegating avoids facing up to other more unpleasant work. And leaders who are constantly seeking perfection avoid delegating. Others won’t delegate because it means change. Or the task may not be accepted by the employee. Some fear the employee will do the job better than they do, or are paranoid about sharing company systems or methods.

While effective delegating means shifting responsibility and authority to the employee, it also means that accountability now flows from the employee back to you. There are levels of authority that you can manage when you assign responsibility. At its most restrictive you may say, “Report facts back to me and I will make a decision on what is to be done.” More freedom might be given an employee with the words, “Advise me of your plan; proceed with the plan unless I tell you directly otherwise.” At the greatest level, transferring authority may be “Activate your plan to solve the problem and don’t bother to get back to me.”

But in every case subordinates should be accountable for their performance of delegated tasks. Performance should be evaluated based upon staying within authority boundaries and on the results achieved. This may mean holding regular update meetings with the employee and carefully listening to what you are told. You may also help create “to do” lists with the subordinate after an update meeting.

Successful delegation of responsibility means giving the employee guidelines and standards of performance, timeline schedules, the proper level of authority, and an incentive for performance. Employees need to understand why they are doing what they are doing, what results are expected, and how their responsibilities fit into the long term plan.

Your delegating may be ineffective if the selected employee lacks ability or incentive, fears risk taking, or fears punitive action for failure. And if you, the leader, are unclear about job duties or the specifics of task assignment, if you constantly criticize task results and techniques, or if you fail to set achievable goals, your delegation effort may not achieve the results you want.

Be specific. Identify the tasks you want to delegate, make a plan for the delegation process, and select the employee you want to empower with the responsibility and authority. Some tasks you may consider delegating are things you do not like to do, tasks that take more time and require less business acumen, activities that you think others can do better, and work that you are not good at.

Once you understand the “formula” for correctly delegating tasks, you will be successful at it and begin to enjoy the rewards. These include increased time to devote to your strategic responsibilities. This gives you time to develop successful business growth plans. It also improves the company culture by empowering employees and giving them greater job satisfaction. Finally, freeing up your time means more flexibility and personal time to enjoy life.

Like anything new or seemingly “risky,” start simple. At first, delegate something that has a good chance of success, accept the fact that “no one can do it as well as you,” and relax and enjoy the creative approaches and results your subordinates deliver. Then exercise your new delegating skill by regular practice. Set a target of freeing up at least an hour a day every day. Can you do it?

When was the last time you looked at your company vision statement or thought creatively about your mission? As the country slowly comes out of a deep recession and technology continues its relentless attack on traditional ways of communicating, you need to make sure your vision and mission are tuned to the new reality ahead.

It is easy to get all twisted up in definitions of mission and vision, but for now think of mission as “what my business does to meet needs of my market,” and vision as “the way my business should look in order to fulfill my mission superbly.”

In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber says that a business must have an “Opportunity Worth Pursuing.” He asks you to determine if the business you have “alleviates a frustration experienced by a large enough group of consumers to make it worthwhile?” He makes the point that although a customer walks out of your business with a product or service, the real product you sell is how the customer feels about doing business with you.

Your mission needs to be thought of in terms of the customer. The story goes that Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant, asked a manufacturer of hand tools what his business was. The response: I sell drills, mostly quarter inch ones. Drucker immediately pointed out that he was not selling quarter inch drills; he was selling quarter inch holes.

Hold that thought! Think about your mission statement. What are you really selling? What frustration are you easing for your customers? Perhaps you should get your key team members together to re-brainstorm your mission in light of the shifting reality of the business world today and in the future.

I wonder if buggy whip manufacturers had thought outside the box more. Would they have concluded that their business was helping people move faster from point A to B by improving the performance of the horse? Would that have made them interested in making the newly developed internal combustion engine run faster or more efficiently? If they answered that question positively, would they then have had the courage to set off in that new direction? I don’t know. But the point is to really think about what you are helping your customer do, and how will you need to help him do it in the future.

Your mission statement is generally worded so it can be stated publicly. Sometimes it needs to be simplified so it becomes a “tag.”

Once you have reevaluated your mission, you need to revisit your vision as well. While a vision statement needs to be forward looking and expansive, it should have a reality check every few years. Especially now that we are struggling in a recession, the incremental steps you may have taken to sustain your cash flow to keep the business viable may have shifted your direction enough so that your vision is outdated. And if your vision statement fails to recognize the new realities of communication such as social networks, constant e-communication, personalized marketing, etc., it is time for an update.

Vision statements can be more expansive and should describe the structure of your business. This can include the resources you employ to deliver your product or service, the size and structure of your business over the next several years, and clarification of your markets and products or services. As a basic ground rule, if you have not integrated the latest generation of web design and functionality into your business you are behind the eight ball.

In structured planning, which is the way you should approach the project of clarifying your mission and vision, I am a strong advocate of the value of process over product. Thinking through everything with a group of key employees and working with flip charts to preserve even the most off-the-wall ideas is the process that ultimately produces the product: a clear, creative mission statement that helps customers understand why your business exists, and an expansive vision statement that helps all your employees understand where you want your business to go. But the process of coming to these statements is critical to getting the team buy-in that promises future success.

As the leader, your job is then to articulate the vision and the mission continually so that all your stakeholders have the “picture.” You need to sound like a broken record: stick to your guns, keep the priorities clear and lead the business ahead into the reality that will be the second decade of the 21st century.

The Boston University hockey team last week won the NCAA title with a performance their coach called “the greatest championship game ever played.” Extraordinary efforts evened the score from a 2 goal deficit in the last minute of regulation play, and scored the winning goal after eleven minutes of overtime.

Beneath their uniforms, the team wore t-shirts that said “Burn the Boats.” The curious quote is attributed to Cortez who, when he landed in Mexico in the 16th century, sought the full commitment of his men to the search for Aztec gold. He gave the order to burn the boats as they started inland. He explained that “If you want to get this treasure, you have to raise the level of commitment because nobody else can do this. If we’re going back, we’re going back in their boats.”

Lots of times business leaders invoke sports analogies to inspire their employees (team). The “Burn the Boats” concept set me to thinking whether this appeal would work in today’s environment. As a strong believer in the innate persistence-against-all-odds displayed by intrepid entrepreneurs, it has a place, I believe.

Today, businesses are facing very tough times that also portend a different future with slower growth and continuing high unemployment as well as unprecedented government involvement in markets. Making strategic growth plans is an important requirement now. Plans that realistically assess the environment, play to your strengths, and recognize the certainty of marketplace changes driven by new technology are the ones that will be most successful.

Consider the case of today’s major daily newspapers. Here’s an interesting example of what happened to one of them. During its startup, Monster.com offered The Boston Globe the opportunity to partner with it in exchange for funding, etc. The Globe refused, and Monster went out on its own and shortly thereafter generated half a million dollars in annual revenue. The Globe was concerned that in becoming a Monster owner, they would begin cannibalizing their own classified employment advertising. Today the Globe is in deep financial trouble with the threat of closing. It ignored reality. It neither saw nor understood the longer term implications of the Internet, and was unwilling to “burn the boats” and go for the gold that might exist in another part of their world of information dissemination.

As a business leader, you may need to take the risk of setting out in a new direction that leaves behind some favorite part of your business. Often it is impossible to have it both ways. The old goes out when the new comes in. When high quality short run color printing first hit the market few traditional printers saw the threat to their businesses. But these machines replaced short run traditional printing and increased the market for full color printing. Adopting the new technology required heavy investments and a “burn the boats” approach for those who offered the service. The expense and technical challenge sucked up time and resources but persistence and fear of failure drove the entrepreneurs forward; there was no turning back for most. And many late adopters were left in the dust.

Whether you use the term with your team or not, a “burn the boats” approach on your part can easily make the difference between success and failure. Overcoming adversity in a new business venture is a great learning experience. It often requires a “burn the boats” attitude to get past the bumps and craters on the way to success. But it can be worth the pain.

Selecting the “gold” you want to go after is the really important task. You need to pick the right target and move forward into the right “jungle” ahead of your competition. And that brings us back to the critical need to make a strategic plan that identifies the best opportunity for you.

There are always more opportunities than resources to exploit them. But when you determine a particular opportunity is the right fit for your business, then you need to enthusiastically go for it. As the leader it is your responsibility to not only point the way forward and explain the benefits to the company and the team, but also to convince them that there is no going back to the old way because the results would not be beneficial to the team or the business.

It may seem harsh and over the top, but I think a “burn the boats” approach works in business as well as in the jungles of Mexico or on the competitive ice of the NCAA Hockey finals.

Business people continually need to look forward, accept reality and strategize a growth future.

Admittedly, today it’s pretty hard to look forward with anything like eager anticipation, as we did for much of the last 10 years. I have never felt as uneasy about the future. But getting out of a self-analyzing, blue funk and into a positive, action-taking mode is really the only way to move ahead, isn’t it?

Let’s face it: It Is What It Is. So now what?

Well, what does, “It Is What It Is” mean in this economic situation. Regardless of your political leanings the die is cast for a significant shift in the way we will see our country run over the next four or eight years, or even more. So given the increasing role of government in the market economy, how do you plan to position your company, and more importantly your attitude?

It is interesting to note how a pragmatic outlook has influenced the positions taken by business-related organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the National Federation of Independent Business. They are all, to one degree or another, on board with the Obama administration in its efforts to restore the economy. And why not? There seems to be no other source of repair. (Although sometimes a patient may recover almost as fast without excessive treatment if simply allowed to rest for a period of time.)

Other than the dangerous Employee Free Choice Act, which is patently unfair to business, most of the actions built into the stimulus package are not anti-business, and thus can yield some benefits. Of course a lot of the money will go into peculiar activities that seem to have little to do with fostering economic recovery.

It is depressing to think about how much of the stimulus money will be skimmed off as it flows down the pipeline. Bureaucrats will specify all kinds of administrative requirements requiring more government employees and while this actually can add or save jobs, it also contributes towards reaching the tipping point, e.g. that time when a majority of people receive government largesse and they then can control the vote, and will extract more and more entitlement payments from the minority who are the ones creating the Gross National Product. But fortunately that time is a ways off, and may never happen.

So what about your attitude? Griping and yearning for the good old days is over. Your teenagers will grow up more frugal; they will never have it as good as you did when you were in your early earning years. And you will need to remain frugal, too, for an extended time. In fact, the standard of living may well shift down a notch or two in the USA. It can hurt and it can be humbling. But in the end we need to learn how to save for purchases, and not to buy things on credit betting that future earnings will cover the debt payments. We have seen where that attitude towards consumption has gotten the country.

Your attitude needs to be pragmatic. You cannot snipe at the Obama administration. You cannot join the party of “no” because it is not an effective way to influence government. You can, however, take the steps you believe in as a citizen of this, the greatest country and still the most successful free market in the world. Send reasoned opinions to your state and federal legislators. Too few people take time to contact their elected officials. That means that a personal message, not a form letter, will carry weight with your senator or representative. They know that if you took time to write, there are a large number of people with the same opinion who did not write.

You can pay close attention to the flow of the money and find the ways to get your share of the economic boost. Probably most businesses will see the effect of the stimulus second or third hand. You may, for instance, supply services or products to some other business that is supplying services or products to some entity that actually benefits from the stimulus money directly. You probably need to follow the business news closely to see what companies win government contracts and then figure out how your business can help that winning company succeed.

You can maintain a sense of humor and balance in your dealings with employees and customers. Regrettably, the President does not display much of a sense of humor or optimism. His approach publicly has been extremely serious, probably befitting the situation. But this has made many feel like there is nothing but gloom and doom about the land. Then that attitude feeds on itself to create more gloom and doom. The press seems to play this game well, too. This economic malaise will eventually pass. Soon there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. Except that when we come out of the tunnel the landscape will be different from what we were looking at when we went into the tunnel. It Is What It Is. Sorry.

You can educate your employees by both talking and by example. You need to make sure your business is wisely using cash and when borrowing is doing so with due care for how the money will be used to generate a return that pays the debt back promptly. For employees you can make sure they understand your cautious attitude towards debt and particularly credit cards. To the greatest extent possible, credit cards should be paid off ASAP, hopefully monthly. Encourage your employees to do this; you do this, too. And everyone should be living on a budget that they monitor regularly.

It Is What It Is. Like it or not, the world is different. It is probably not possible to stop this fast moving train leading to more government interference in the free market. While you may grimace at the thought, perhaps it is better to hop on for a while, and see where it will take you. After a time, the train will slow and you can hop off. In the meantime we might as well enjoy the scenery along the way!

The buzzword in the White House these days is “transparency.” Should it be a buzzword in business, too? Is it preferable to be transparent as a business leader? Can a small business owner be transparent to employees? Is transparency the same as honesty?

I’ve been mulling these questions over in my mind and recalling the times in business when I was too transparent and the times when I failed to be as open as I should have been. Have you been on both sides of the fence on this matter, too?

Being transparent is characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices says the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The word “frank” is listed as a synonym and defined as talk that is marked by free, forthright, and sincere expression. The dictionary also defines honesty as fairness and straightforwardness of conduct and implies a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way.

Whew! As a business owner I admit that it was hard to live up to those definitions, even though I considered myself to be trustworthy and respected ahead of the need to be liked. Are we in a new environment where absolute transparency is going to be expected by our employees? Is total honesty at all times a requirement? I hope not!

Let’s face it. Not everybody in a business needs to know everything about the business, nor can everyone “handle” being aware of “everything.” Of course I’m excluding from this “mulling over” anything that could be considered private information about individuals. That aside, how much do you share with employees about revenue goals, other employees, profitability, pay increase plans, year-to-date performance, etc.?

Recognize that the rumor mill exists in any business, and it’s pretty hard to hide troublesome issues or deliberations for too long. At some point employees need to be kept informed. There are, however, ways to be a bit circumspect without being misleading. And this often is necessary, especially with situations that are fluid or unsettled.

You may need to update your employees to prevent misinformation from impacting business operations. In such circumstances, it’s important accurately to convey the situation without embellishing it with unnecessary facts or aspects that are not settled. In such instances use of the words: currently, at present, at this time, etc. will fairly “hedge” your comments. Unfortunately, people often don’t hear these words and jump to premature conclusions. It’s then a “damned if you do; damned if you don’t’ situation.

Departure of a key employee can often create the need for some form of transparent, honest communication to employees and some customers. Try to deal with facts and not be insincere, especially if the employee was involuntarily separated from the business. First, you can remind the others that you have a responsibility to respect the privacy of the employee and therefore cannot say more than the fact that the employee is no longer with the business. Perhaps you will feel comfortable in saying that you appreciated the employee’s contributions to the business in the past. But don’t be hypocritical about this. Employees will know if you let someone go because of poor performance, so you cannot then say much else without getting into deep water. If the situation is touchy, it is best to contact a labor law attorney and get advice on how to handle the situation both with the departing individual and afterwards with the other employees.

Another area of transparency that can help or hurt is sharing financial goals and performance information. Goals are good to share if they can be seen as reasonable and if you can explain what everyone needs to do to make them happen. Expense goals can also be shared carefully. There is little benefit in sharing expense goals over which employees have no control; but costs they can help manage should be shared. Profitability is another matter all together. Most uninformed employees think businesses make huge amounts of money. They fail to understand all the expenses of running a business. I think it is safe to “sanitize” the expenses by lumping them together perhaps in lines that total general and administrative expenses and operating expenses.

The objective here is to present cost numbers the employees can affect and avoid exposing details that can lead to questions you would have trouble answering in a way they would accept. An example of such a question might be “Why do we have those car lease expenses?” Of course you, as the owner, may use the car yourself and the “perk” is part of your overall compensation, where your compensation is adjusted downward because of the “perk.” There are lots of other individual expense lines not relevant to most employees that are better left lumped together with a generic line item description.

With all your presentations remember that what you are telling them, even though you remind them it is confidential, may well find its way out of your business. Certainly you can remind employees of the harm that can come to their company if such information is relayed to competitors. But it may still get out. That’s a tradeoff you need to consider.

Business is a teamwork activity in 2009. There is no room for non-performers in the current economic environment. You need to treat the team members with respect and this means being transparent and, of course, honest, to the greatest extent possible. Because this can mean walking a tightrope in what you say and don’t say, the best advice is to avoid off the cuff comments and winging it. Before communicating with employees or customers about any difficult issue jot down your remarks and let them “mature” for a day. Revisit your notes with an objective view and see how they might be misunderstood. Correct any ambiguities, and then be sure you are being truthful, frank, and complete.

That’s the best you can do. Your most experienced, reliable team members will appreciate your position and support you and the others will take their cue from these “floor leaders.”

It’s one thing to make decisions that affect others more than yourself; it’s another thing altogether to make a decision that has a profound effect on your own life. That’s the kind of decision my wife and I made in November 2006.

That fall we became the only members of our family remaining in the Philadelphia suburbs. We were living in the home we had occupied 27 years. For the first time since 1979 we had no family nearby—after always having live-in kids, parents in life care communities, or an adult child close. Our son and his family had recently moved from near us to Sudbury, Massachusetts, and our daughter lived with her family in Broomfield, Colorado. Both our parents had died and we found ourselves “home alone.”

We decided that it was time to move closer to our kids. But which one? Which of the two is least likely to move in the future? That’s a key question. The “winner” was our son and his family: our daughter-in-law, a 10 year-old granddaughter and a 5 year-old grandson in Sudbury.

Thus began a two-year process during which we projected a winter 2008-09 move-in date to a newly built home in a 55+ community in Sudbury. But it didn’t work out quite as planned.

In September 2007 while we were on vacation, a water pipe burst in our home ruining much of the first floor hardwood and causing extensive water damage to 28 years of “bits and pieces” stored in the basement where it had literally rained for 24 hours. The move decision time had arrived more dramatically and much sooner than I could have imagined! The flood precipitated (no pun intended) the Herculean task of cleaning out and dumping a lot of our accumulated stuff. Suddenly a year had been removed from our previously sedate schedule for downsizing.

The professionally done cleanup produced a home that, with a little more work and staging, would be ready to sell in the spring of 2008. So we moved our relocation schedule up, and in October 2007 picked a different home in the Sudbury 55+ community, one that was scheduled for March 2008 occupancy.

March 2008 proved to be only a guesstimate, however. With a horrendous 2007-08 winter in Sudbury, the closing date was slipped and slipped, but never more than for a few weeks at a time. And never with a true “date certain.” But we decided to put our house on the market in March 2008 and hope to sell it before we were forced to close in Sudbury.

Another decision was to price our house competitively, because the housing market was already softening. We were given excellent “intelligence” from our realtor, and set an attractive, but not a distress level price. We had about 20 showings in the first 8 days, received three offers, and ended up accepting an excellent one from very responsible buyers. We closed on the sale June 27. This seemed a positive omen regarding the decision to move to Sudbury.

But now we were homeless! The Sudbury closing date was vague—sometime in July. So we decided to store the furniture and live in a residence hotel in the Sudbury area. This gave us time to watch the progress on our home, plead for an earlier closing date, and finally occupy it July 23, 2008.

None of these many decisions really affected our lives as much as the actuality of leaving a familiar place after 29 years and making a fresh start in a lovely old New England town about 25 miles west of Boston.

My wife always has been more comfortable adapting to a new community than I have. We had moved 6 times before and I acquired a built-in set of relationships, since each time the move had been to take a different IBM job. I walked right into relationships at work. But I took a while to develop other relationships within the new community. My wife had to develop a new set of relationships in an unfamiliar community after each move and she learned how to do that.

This move has been different for me. No built-in relationships. Even though retired, I had been working part time as a group facilitator and executive coach in the Philadelphia area and had a string of connections a mile long. This kept me active and out of the house a good deal. But none of those relationships offered a built-in set of connections in Sudbury.

Of course one of the relationships we cherish most has now been restored: our grandchildren are 15 minutes away. Our grandson, now 7 and growing taller every day, had spent the first three years of his life literally in our arms several times a week. Then he moved with his parents and older sister to Sudbury. Only 3 years old at the time, he could not understand why he could not see Grammy and Granddad each week. He never got past that and so our move here has been a good thing for him and for the others as well. Tommy visits a couple of times a week after school and stays for dinner. I’m not sure who likes it more: Tommy or his grandparents. We have a lot of fun together.

Fortunately my hobbies and interests have helped me meet folks in the Sudbury area. Contrary to what you might expect in a traditional New England town, the people are warm and welcoming, and happy to include us in their community activities. As an experienced choral singer blessed with a first tenor range, my voice is appreciated in a 90-member chorus and in a small church choir. As a photographer, I enjoy the opportunity to have my work judged in one camera club, and show my work in another. Field trips with photographers also have proved enjoyable and educational. I also have continued as a Crown Financial Ministries Money Map Coach helping financially stressed families develop spending plans and pay down debt so they can become financially free. The calls for help come from people almost daily.

I am still looking, though, for something more that will take me out of the home during the day. While I maintain a telephone coaching role I greatly enjoy with company owners, I would also like to find a reason to be out of the house more in the daytime.

The question now is just how serious am I about that? Joining a chamber of commerce is a possibility, but that assumes a commitment to build a coaching/consulting business here, and I’m not sure I want to make that “investment.” A volunteer role that can use me effectively is another possibility and I need to explore that more seriously.

I must admit, however, that I enjoy the luxury of consuming two cups of coffee, the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal each morning. And I am shooting some interesting outdoor images around New England. But that is not the same as developing something self-challenging outside the house.

A string of decisions have led us here to a great home where I no longer concern myself with snow removal, leaf raking, lawn mowing, etc. I could accept this new status quo and enjoy a low pressure life—that’s one decision. But those who know me understand it would not suit me for long.

Decisions, decisions. I still need to make more of them. It’s certainly a do-over time for me after 29 years in one place. And it’s a significant change. But change seems to be in the wind in 2009. And I like change. Stay tuned!

PS: Any suggestions?

Some readers have asked me to write a more personal blog—to write more about my activities, etc. So these blogs fit that genre. Perhaps these entries, which are about my life and activities, may be of use to readers. If not, please don't waste your time reading them!

After you have identified your target market niches for 2009 (concentrating on revenue retention from current customers and seeking new revenue in all the right places) it is time to decide what steps to take to bring in the revenue.

Marketing and sales differ, of course. Marketing activities are to generate qualified leads, and sales activities are to take the leads to a successful, prompt conclusion (i.e. get an order from good leads, and quickly drop leads that have limited potential to close.)

Here are some areas to consider in developing 2009 sales and marketing activities that do not cost a fortune to implement.

More B2B sales are made through referrals than any other way these days. Prospects are more willing to give you a chance if they know someone who has used your product or service. The problem is most of us are afraid to ask for a referral. It’s awkward, isn’t it? Well, if someone is really happy with what you do for them, they are probably comfortable giving you the name of someone they think might want to use your product or service too. Asking is the only way this will happen. And what’s the worst response you will get? Probably nothing more than a polite “can’t think of anyone right now.” Here’s a website with a useful article “7 Sure Fire Ways to Build Your Referral Business.” Check it out at http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/advertising/a/aa020203a.htm

A close second in using customer help in building business is getting testimonials. These endorsements for your business can be used on your website, in marketing collateral material, and in your sales presentation portfolio.

I’ve asked customers to provide testimonials and it usually has been a difficult process to complete. They took forever and when it showed up, it was not as good as I would have liked. But then it's awkward to go back to get an improved one.

A better way to go about it is to tell the customer that you know he has found your product/service valuable. Tell the person your understanding of the specific value you believe he has experienced. Explain that your company likes to use testimonials. Next ask him if you could send him a draft of a testimonial for his review and approval. Follow through promptly with a draft and be sure to include his name and company at the bottom as part of the testimonial. Unsigned testimonials are not too effective. If there is a confidentiality problem with this, suggest his title and a generic industry description be used at the bottom, e.g. Chief Financial Officer, Large Eastern Manufacturer. If someone later questions this, you can, with the CFO’s permission, identify the company specifically. You can find a useful article on testimonials at http://www.sitepoint.com/article/testimonials-increase-sales/

There is another way to find prospects/suspects. Consider using an online lead provider, like Salesgenie. You can slice and dice the lead search a number of ways and to give it a try, you can get 200 leaders free. Check it out at http://www.salesgenie.com.

Improve your sales productivity by using contact management software. Google the term and you will get a good list to consider. Most popular is ACT by Sage. Good contact management software gives you a complete, integrated view of your contact relationships. It promotes the follow-up that can make a difference between winning and losing a sale.

The Internet is more important than ever in generating leads. Everyone turns first to a search engine to find a supplier. So if your website needs freshening, this is the time to do it. Look at your website with an objective, critical eye. (Or get someone else whose judgment you trust to look at it with you.) Does it have a look that matches your collateral material? Is there a call to action on each page links to an email form? Can a visitor sign up for your newsletter?

But even more important is the need to be sure your website address comes up on the first page of a relevant search. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is now an arcane science that should be outsourced. Costs can range from a couple of thousand dollars for a six month program to four or five times that. Selecting an SEO provider can also be tricky. Perhaps a referral is the best way to go. But you could also use a search engine to find one. If an SEO provider can come up at the top of the page maybe the company can do the same for you. But certainly ask for references and check them out before committing. SEO needs to be redone periodically. Google offers some helpful guidance at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

Have you thought about using Webinars to educate prospects and customers about your product or service offering? It can beat the cost of in-person sales calls by a lot. Yes, it takes some preparation and not everyone is a skilled presenter, but once the Webinar presentation is developed, it is easily reusable. I’ve known some small companies that service the whole country and use Webinars to make individual sales calls. It’s an easy way to present a complex product or service.

Webinars services come in various “flavors” and you need to do a little online research before signing up with any particular provider. Here’s one article on running a successful Webinar: http://www.buyerzone.com/telecom_services/web_conferencing/webinar.html. I’m not endorsing this provider because I know nothing about him. The article is a quick overview of the process, however. There is also a white paper from Citrix Online “How to Present Effectively Online” at http://www.webbuyersguide.com/resource/white-paper/8803/How-to-Present-Effectively-Online. However, you do need to register to download the paper.

Stories in the trade press have always appealed to me as a way to promote a business. While they are not easy to get placed, they provide an implied third party endorsement of your product or service, and they are excellent reprints to use as a “leave behind.” The stories usually are about applications of your product or service, and involve interviews with users, as well as a description of the product or service and perhaps a few paragraphs about your business plus contact information. If you advertise in a trade publication, ask your ad rep for the editorial calendar. Or else go to the publication’s website and look for the calendar there. Check three months and more out from the current month and note what subjects are featured in future issues. When your product or service application fits into one of the featured subjects you have the potential for a story.

Finally, you need to contact the editor to see if there is interest in your story, and if so would the editor assign a writer to work with you on it. Or you can offer to hire your own writer to do the story for the editor, if that is acceptable. Remember that editors need to find material to fill every issue, and they need to have stories that would be of interest to readers. So think like a reader when you are pitching your story idea to the editor. In the trade press, by the way, the traditional wall between the advertising and editorial departments is a lot lower than in regular publications. So if you advertise, you may have a built in favorable bias.

This blog has gone on too long! Sorry, but I kept thinking of ideas and adding them. I have still more, e.g. writing press releases that get printed, low cost postcard direct mail lead generation, and using email newsletters. But I’ll cover these in a later blog.