Posts tagged "innovation"

Advice Marketing

What is Your Marketing Strategy?

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“Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” Milan Kundera

I remember the time I was asked this question by a mentor some years ago. My answer included our website, brochures, name cards and some events planned out for our prospect market. He didn’t look too pleased with the answer, probed further, asking whether we had outlined our strategy in the form of a plan to help crystalize our concepts and ideas. Unfortunately, our marketing plan was limited to a couple of pages in our brief business plan. He then quoted the above statement, and said it was a serious error to not having devoted more time in thinking through this critical segment of business strategy. Since that day, I  place a lot more emphasis on marketing and have begun to fully comprehend it’s importance.

Rewinding back a bit, prior to this conversation, I realized, I had gravely confused sales with marketing. As such, there had never been a major emphasis on developing a dedicated plan around it. Marketing strategies were discussed on a very sporadic basis. We had thought that by developing a website, brochures and some name cards we were doing pretty well in the marketing department. Being a startup, we thought marketing strategies would be developed when we finally made it “big”. Once I got a reality check into this, I understood how skewed my thinking had been. It finally started to make sense. I realized why demand did not scale up as projected, as also why the perception of the product in the market place was contrary to how it was meant to be perceived. We had completely ignored and bypassed one of the major functions of any business.

The following series will be one of many, where I will begin outlining a basic marketing plan for startup development. It will give you a bird’s eye view of major components which will be discussed in greater detail in the following weeks. I hope that through the information provided, you will be able to answer the above question with more confidence. I would also really like to learn about some of the marketing strategies which you may have used at your startup. This will help create a pool of ideas which can become an invaluable resource to entrepreneurs all around the world.

Ideas

Innovation Champions

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“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ”Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Muhammad Ali

This week we have talked about some pretty serious matters. I feel I have not really done justice to the idea conceptualizing exercise. As you can tell from prior posts, it is a complicated and difficult process. From the outside, the entrepreneurial world looks like a boat load of fun and to tell you the truth sometimes it isn’t all that it is hyped up to be. In the end it all depends on how badly you want to succeed and why? Having what it takes to be a champion for your idea is what it is all about. If you have ever been part of a project, group or business venture where everyone in the group didn’t want to change the world in one way or the other then you weren’t surrounded by champions. From my own experience, when I float an idea and truly become passionate about it…..there is no stopping me. Innovation champions are those individuals who spread their concept and idea to the rest of the world with such passion and enthusiasm that it becomes contagious.

For every idea to succeed I feel there has to be one or more idea champions. They are the individuals who hold their ground when things get shaky, are there for team members who may be losing hope and are committed to the project a 110%. Champions surround themselves with similar partners. Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak and Bill Hewlett had Dave Packard to name some very famous ones. So this leads us back to the post where I talked about how critical it is to partner correctly. The process of just throwing a bunch of people together and wishing for the best isn’t a very effective strategy. There needs to be a disciplined process, put into place by the team champion to ensure that everyone works effectively. This is something which I have recently started to do myself and it has got some great results. Make sure that when you get together with your team there is a purpose. Document it and reach some clear action steps and results when concluded.

To sum it all up, innovation champions are not out there only to make money. That is not the primary motivator for them to come to work everyday. They come because they believe in what they are doing, they believe it has the capability to bring about change for the better. Passion and enthusiasm is their driving force. Successful startups have a bigger vision as to where they see themselves. They are not afraid to fail, at the same time, they never give up. They relentlessly pursue their goals and objectives through successful partnerships and constant feedback. So if you are thinking about taking an idea from concept to realization make sure you have what it takes. If you think you do, and believe me everyone does, make a decision to become a champion today!

Ideas

Eureka!

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“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” George Bernard Shaw

A lot of people usually ask the question “How did you ever think of this concept?” or sometimes you are the one wondering “I wonder what the guys who created YOUtube were thinking about?”. These are very good questions to be asking, in fact if you are  part of a group of people asking questions like this you are already well ahead of most of the population. The reason being, that you are beginning to question the world around you. I feel this was a major breakthrough for me, when I started questioning things and not just accepting them for what they were.

All ideas usually address a certain customer need or add value to a certain process to make it better. This is how I remember starting up my first business in university. I had a friend who was part of the student union and talking about a tender which he needed to get quotes for. It was for the basic printing of name cards. My partner and I decided that if we could get the basic machinery necessary we could provide a much greater value added service. This led to the launch of our first design and print company. In the years to come we helped them with a range of projects and being physically on campus we started to get orders from a lot of other student-based organizations. If you have identified a customer which has a current need you can fill and add extra value to it, you are well on your way to developing something which has great potential.

Open your eyes to the world around and be on the constant look out as to where there is a need and value can be created. Once you have got a vague idea that is the part which separates the doers from the talkers. This week I am going to take your through my thought process of how you can take a simple concept and rigorously test it to see if it can be made into reality. The process which I use is a mix of experience and lots of helpful tips I have got from books such as Innovation – Curtis Carlson, Purpose – Nikos Mourkagiannis and Execution – Bossidy Charan and Burk.

However the most important part of the process is the one discussed in this post. Identification of the idea and a deep commitment with enthusiasm about it is a defining part of this process. Without it I feel the spark is not there, so if you have come up with an idea then you should seek to discuss with as many people as possible. Talking with individuals with experience in that industry gets you insight which is priceless. Enthusiasm, passion & a constant interaction with others about this idea is vital to its success.If you are asked to join a team and be part of developing a concept then do as much research into the idea as possible. Think about different angles and permutations that it could work in. You have to be excited enough and  get your blood flowing, then  get your team together and………………now you are ready!