Mentoring Services by Richard Gourlay

In Business Growth is not always Good Growth!

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business ValuesPosted on No Comments

Business Growth is not always Good Growth, it can be Bad!

For every business owner growth is the ultimate measure of success, except it isn’t! Not all growth is good growth, and bad growth can have significant negative consequences. 

Growth is seen as THE measure of success in business. Leaders are measured by what they deliver in results, and growth is the simplest measurement to communicate. Headline results of increased turnover are always eye-catching news but may not be good growth.  Turnover, for turnovers sake, is often the most dangerous result a leader can deliver.  Growth sounds like a good result but not all growth is good. 

When growth at any cost becomes the sole focus, then leaders open the pandori’s box for the wrong types of growth.  Growth for growth’s sake is a high-risk business move. It sounds great as a headline but often masks what is really going on. The short-term benefits of rapid growth often come with long term consequences for any business. This is the difference between good growth and bad growth, which need to be clearly understood by owners and directors.

So, what is Bad Growth?

Bad growth is unsustainable. It’s a short-term grab that looks good but does significant long-term damage.  Bad growth comes in many shapes such as:-

  1. In grabbing market share: buying a low value contract to win a new customer, which reduces margin sets a trend to lower margins.
  2. In opening the wrong type of customer: which pulls the business to somewhere outside its marketplace, stretching the brand into different unprofitable places.
  3. Over rapid growth by buying market share: with a low-cost entry offer or product which stretches the company’s resources, from financial causing unnecessary debt, to brand stretch damaging brand value to customer and channel trust breakdown.

The outcome of bad growth is that it stretches and pulls the company in wrong direction. Pulling a company in a wrong direction, is short-term thinking. If it is recoverable will take time, money are human resources to correct short-term bad growth. But here’s the other key problem that bad growth creates. If we incentives and measure only the growth, then we reward the people who created that bad growth. By giving them rewards and incentives to do more of the same, feeding the bad behaviour.  That creates an empowerment and acceleration off driving growth at any cost and at all costs.    

Growth at any Cost

That growth at any, and all cost, becomes a mantra which often overriders all other business and brand metrics. The first casualty is margins which become eroded, followed by key areas such as investment in new innovative product is sacrificed for cash cows. That in turn leads to brand position erosion as the brand moves from where it was. Which is where its existing valuable customers want it to be. To a new market position, which results in its former customers moving away to new brands. 

Causes and Solutions of Bad Growth

Bad growth is an outcome of poor leadership decision making. When directors, press the green button to go for growth at any cost they are the fundamental root cause of bad growth. Instead they should be developing a clear strategic plan for the business. Identifying a company’s its true value and long-term aspiration must to be laid out by its leadership team.  

Clear guidelines of what the business and brand stand for is a must be defined. and protected Growth has impacts and good assessment of the full impact should always be made. If a business outgrows a market growth rate, then how is that being achieved, and what is the long-term impact on the company must be fully understood.  

Bad growth is often cheap and easy, but destructive and expensive in the long-term. The classic phrase ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’ should always be at the forefront of leaders minds. Bad growth takes the company in the wrong direction, moving it away from its market position, and most importantly away its existing loyal and valued customers.

Bad Growth Business Impact

As well as driving the company into wrong markets or short-term grab growth, bad growth often also has severe and significant internal impacts. Firstly, on the company’s values and its people motivators. Bad growth does not feel right to employees, demotivating good people and putting strains and stresses on systems and people as they are pulled in the wrong direction. 

Often bad growth creates internal conflict as people and systems are set up for good growth in product development, operating systems and customer focused activities. Challenging these, or short circuiting them to override them for bad growth goals creates tension and disappointment, demoting and demotivating even the most loyal employees.

Growth is a complicated goal and rarely one where there is easy low hanging fruit. It’s not just about increasing sales or market size; it’s about building a resilient, sustainable, and innovative enterprise. 

So What is Good Growth?

In business good growth is inextricably linked to a sustainable expansion strategy. It must be beneficial to all stakeholders within the business and to its external stakeholders especially its customers and channel partners. This holistic approach that considers the long-term impacts on the company, its employees, and customers. Good growth is led by a clear long-term strategy planning. It creates a steady increase in turnover and profit reflected in market impact of new product and brand position retention and enhancement.

Defining Good Growth

We can all see good growth after it has happened. We see more of the right type of customer for the business. They are spending more and are happy to buy more and more frequently. Happy customers come back and want more of both the same but also products and services which they want to a company to supply. 

Good growth is where: –

  1. Alignment is strong between all stakeholders: with shared values and brand perceptions work hand in hand in growth planning and delivery.
  2. Good growth is sustainable: it is both manageable and self-sufficient in generating products and services which sustain the growth of the business.
  3. Ultimately it creates long-term profitability: throughout the business, not short-term growth but long-term profits, such as shareholder value.      

The signature of good growth are therefore sustainability, profitability, and alignment with the company’s core values and mission. Good growth reflects the inter-relationship of all these three factors. It’s a type of growth that supports and is supported by the company’s overall strategic plan.

Benefits of Good Growth

Good growth benefits the whole business. Not only does it support long-term sustainability It supports brand reputation, builds and develops customer loyalty, and motivates employees. Good growth is enhancing the businesses whole value as it fits within the brand values and adds to the whole of the business offering. Each off these three elements protects the business from bad growth drivers and practices.  

Strategic Thinking

All decision making starts with leaders focusing on long-term strategic positioning, which comes from a clear vision and strategy.  Good growth requires good leadership decision making skills, focused on looking at the whole picture and incentivising and motivating people on long-term strategic thinking. Typically, this is thinking out the business over timescales such as 3 to 5 years, depending upon market rate changes. This contrast with short-term grab thinking, which is often led by short-term grab bad growth habits of one year or less with motivators that reward or override big picture thinking.  

Leaders who foster good growth are adaptable and responsive to market changes. Good growth leaders are open to innovation and learning. In bad growth situations, leadership are often rigid, do not listen to feedback from customers and employees that could prevent negative outcomes. The outcome is more important than how they got there.

Conclusion

Good growth balances opportunities with threats to the business. It focuses on the three key elements of alignment, sustainability and profitability. A good growth culture ensures it is aligned with all stakeholder and company needs. It is sustainable so it can be replicated without damage to the brand, its customers and its future and finally it makes money for the business and enhances shareholder value.  

Don’t be led by people who over promise to grow your business, especially if they come from outside your sector or culture. If they don’t understand the sector and your market, they don’t understand good growth.

Richard Gourlay, experienced management consultant, leadership development and strategic advisor, director and NED to high growth companies. Author of book:- Strategy: The Leader’s Role by Richard Gourlay builds the skills which makes leaders successful in their business. #dumfries #galloway #scotland, #mentor, #castledouglas, #leadershipskills, #NED, #Director.

Great brand by Richard Gourlay leadership and strategy

What makes a great BRAND

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, Dumfries and Galloway, opportunity, Strategy, Uncategorized, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

What makes a great BRAND?

Despite what marketing people passionately believe most people don’t think about brands, they just get on with their lives. The coffee they buy, the supermarket they go to and petrol station they visit happen almost by accident. In Britain today we are too busy to think through these everyday inconsequential purchases, focused on saving time, not forgetting something or rushing from place to place on a tight deadline. So do brands matter as much as they used to and if so why and how?  Brands matter where consumers can value them.  In today’s wealthy world every product or service perceives itself as a brand, even if it is just a label. So what makes a great brand?

Consumer Choice 

Let’s start with the basics, the consumer has choices. Endless choices if they choose to use them. But in many everyday cases as in my examples above, the consumer sacrifices those choices for simple expedience. The inability to see (or value) brand differentiation, between Starbucks and Costa, between Tesco and Morrisons between BP and Shell, and yet they each fight for space in consumers minds through tiny differences which if we stop and think about do actually exist and we the consumer do actively value.

So much more than First Impressions 

So in today’s Britain, what is important about a brand? Is it the halo effect, the first impression, like the smile on the front of a car or is it something more, something deeper and more tangible? Ask the owners of Sunny D (the 90’s orange juice lookalike) and you will find that the halo effect does not last if your brand is not true to itself and to its consumers. Customers have to believe in a brand, it must tell the truth, be transparent and honest if it is to be successful. Gerald Ratner (former MD of Ratners the jewellers who said about his products “because it’s total crap”) also found out that in today’s world everyone must truly believe in the brand, not just the marketing department but the whole company has to believe it and most importantly practice the brands beliefs.

Clear Brand Strategy 

Being clear and precise is also important in the company’s messages for a brand to succeed, a strong undiluted brand message must enthuse internally but must also consistently connect with customers through touch points, look at Innocent, Dorset Cereals or Apple as classic examples of touch point. They also demonstrate a clear story delivered with passion about who they are what they do and why they matter. This focused and consistent message is not just a marketing message but an ingrained set of values which consumers buy into with passion. These brands not only position themselves as premium players in their fields and earn more but they also continuously find new ways to spread their key messages to customers, they have a clear brand strategy to achieve it.

Everyone Lives the Brand

Another vital aspect of any brand success is that the people within that brand demonstrate what they preach, they live that lifestyle, support that brand and contribute to its success. It is their lifestyle, it is a part of the way they and their brand do business.

Great brands go beyond the brand to understand its real value to existing customers but also to tomorrow’s customers.  Whether it is a family run local shop or a global supermarket chain great brands position themselves so they develop and hold a market position to develop long-term success.

Vision and Purpose

Great brands create, sustain and evangelise a culture which supports and drives their brand. Creating a culture which underpins an organisations vision and purpose is a key prerequisite for ensuring sustainability of a great brand. Sustainability of a vision can only be achieved if the organisation is supported by an underlying culture which fits with the brands ethos.

Great brands can only transpose from the innovative visionary founder if they create a supportive culture to sustain the brand. An effective and appropriate culture is one which supports the brand and ensures it is can sustain its market position over time.  Great brands sustain themselves through a great culture.

The culture of a brand, otherwise seen as the handwriting of the organisation, enables sustainability of the brand over time. Culture today matters from how people work together through to acquisition of appropriate talent. The right people are drawn to a brand they aspire to be part. Business partners focus on brands with likeminded cultures andante to be part of a great brand. In the exact same way customers aspire to be associated with a great brand.

Great Brands are not Labels

Great brands drive markets. By challenging them through innovation and changing perceptions. Labels on the other hand feed off brands by picking of successful innovations for downstream ‘me too’ market following customers. Great brands invest high proportions of their resources in driving markets forward, through innovative products and services. Great brands are seen to out invest other players more double the the market average.

Creating innovative pipeline cultures thinking long-term make positions rather than short-term tactical single product successes. Labels focus on creating  market winning season products, they act as followers often being low-cost alternatives to the brand leaders in any sector.  Brands focus on the longterm innovation which shift the paradigm of relationship with the customer through the brand.

Great Brands Add Value

Great brands also develop their own uniqueness, not just the product or service but the whole package is how we do it around here. There needs to be not only consistency but the brand hand writing and value on how they do it. The best brands always develop singular simple signals for customers, cutting through jargon to create clarity without patronisation.

For brands to succeed in today’s global markets these golden rules have never been more important as consumers have never had so much information, but if you follow these simple rules of brand success you can develop and maintain a great brand.

Looking for Advice  

If you want to develop your company’s brand and are looking for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden  to see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at Cowden

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Cowden Consulting is a strategic planning and implementation business which works in partnership with customers to grow and develop their business, contact us to learn more.

Posted 1st December 2011 by Richard Gourlay

Location: Old Glenstocken, Colvend, Stewarty of Kirkcudbright, Galloway

Labels: brand brand identity brand strategy brand strength branding business success marketing strategy strategic direction strategy sustainable companies values vision

Leadership Development by Richard Gourlay

Great LEADERSHIP starts with your VISION

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, Dumfries and Galloway, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

Great LEADERSHIP starts with your VISION 

Having a Vision for your business is the most important leadership trait for a successful leader to have. For leaders to lead they must have a strategic vision for their business. A clear future state they want to achieve. One which provides not only an optimum place within their market they want to be; but one which inspires, motivates and drives the organisation to achieve. Heres is why Great leadership starts with your vision.

Great leaders may be charismatic, they may even be likeable, but for them to be successful they must be able to communicate and inspire others through their vision. A vision is a future place within tomorrow’s market.

Leadership Vision

Leader’s must create a vision which is not only aspirational for themselves but motivational for the all stakeholders.

A recent survey of 1,439 chief executives and senior HR people from 707 organizations across the globe, found that the outstanding trait of successful leadership is the ability to create and communicate a VISION.

This is the single most important characteristic for success.  Amongst those interviewed a clear vision scored an impressive 92% amongst such high level people in business. This demonstrates just how important a characteristic this is in creating a successful leader.

Vision to make change in business by Richard Gourlay in this article: Great LEADERSHIP starts with your VISION

 

“Without a clear vision no leader can succeed today in business”

Creating a VISION

Creating a vision is not easy. Leaders are busy people fighting to keep their business on track, dealing with day-to-day issues and making decisions based upon facts and figures. That last point is therefore a real challenge for leaders in developing a vision. This is because there are no facts and figures about the future. The future, by definition is unknown. Instead leaders must rely upon a range of forecasting tools, from gut feel or by benchmarking agianst others, to develop their vision of what the future might look like.

Each of these options in forecasting the future are fraught with danger and risk. Both in terms of making decisions based upon inaccurate perceptions or the damage to their credibility as a leader. Following others through benchmarking is always the safest option for leaders. But this limits leaders to be a follower within any market sector, rather than to lead it from the front in their sector.

Great Leadership deals with Change

For leaders to lead, they must be able to deal with change. Change happens in-perceivably until it is obvious. Every day we grow older but it is only when we look back we see how we have aged. The same is true for a business in any market. Even when change is driven by disruptive new entrants, the change that enables new players to enter a market is caused by subtle sometimes in-perceptivable changes within a market. Change is everything and is happening all the time.  Subtle innocuous and minor alterations in a market can become future key drivers of change which create new opportunities are areas which leaders need to keep aware of and proactively respond too.

Change is the only constant in any business. The market is always moving either through Macro market factors or through Micro market factors. Good leaders need to be continually scanning and monitoring both and assessing likely positive and negative  impacts upon their business, their customers and their channels to market and value perceptions of their brand.

Great LEADERSHIP starts with your VISION using McKinsey7-S-Model to assess a company structure for leaders by Richard Gourlay

Challenges for Leaders Vision

Failing to validate and then alter a business model to reflect changes in the market towards the delivery of a vision. This is the single biggest single reason chief executives fail to succeed. 

Leaders have to carry people with them for their vision to be live. Poor communication skills are at the heart of why visions and therefore leaders fail to succeed. Leaders must be able to create, verbalise and rationalise to others their vision to generate buy-in and carry their senior people with them. Being able to visualise their vision and communicate it to a wide range of stakeholders often stalls or causes failure in strategy delivery.

For a vision to succeed leaders have to build relationships. This starts in developing trust in their future and develop a team culture all working towards that vision. The inability for leaders to invest in developing their vision often results in the lack of trust and development within the senior team.  This failure to develop leadership soft skills, is a major area leaders must invest in to improve their effectiveness as a leader.

Leadership is both Science and Art

Leadership is a balance between science and art. Creating a vision is often seen as an art, but for a vision to connect with senior stakeholders visions require a scientific rationale. It is the old adage we buy with the heart and justify with our head. A solid vision is both a visual message but one backed up with both direct and indirect evidence of that future state in which the leader’s vision sits. A successful vision pulls people together through shred valued values across the organisation what creates and sustains those values.

Great Leadership requires Communication Skills

The importance of being financial and operationally literate to the CEO role is always seen as core leadership skills. These hard skills are often key drivers of leadership assessment. Which is why so many CEO’s come from finance and operations leadership backgrounds. Today these competencies are seen as important for any CEO role.

In todays’ business environment CEO’s are being selected based upon having a demonstrated track record of delivering strategic vision. The ability to inspire others through delivering a strategic vision is now being seen as the most important track record for successful leadership.

Succession Planning 

The importance of succession and smooth transition is becoming more important element for successful leadership. Companies today are investing time and effort in succession planning. Well planned succession planning ensures long-term shareholder value and the ability of avoiding the football management culture of overnight change. Poor leadership choice often leads to cultural conflict and short-term reactionary thinking leads to rapid and unsustainable change. Both these mentalities damage the long-term sustainability of a successful business.  The leadership teams ability to develop successors who are able to support and follow through a vision is becoming an integral part of the CEO role.

Business leaders all recognise that talent management plans, including succession management have become essential for sustained performance in today’s organisations.

If you want to develop your company’s position then there needs to be a clear vision for it. Vitally answering the questions where it is going and why? If your are looking for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden.  Let us see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at Cowden.

Or learn how to plan your business successfully see our video to learn more:-  http://www.richardgourlay.com

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Strategy The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay

Cowden is a strategic planning and implementation business which enables customers to grow and develop their business.

values in business matter to customers and employees

Values matter in BUSINESS more than ever before as Ikea have just found out

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, competitive advantage, Dumfries and Galloway, Strategy, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

In today’s information driven world, how you do business matters as much as the business you do, as Ikea the iconic Swedish furniture retailer, has just found out. Ikea’s green credentials have been dealt a massive blow in consumer’s minds. Ikea’s failure to support sustainability in its products leaves customers questioning its real values as a business. Heres, why values matter in BUSINESS more than ever before as Ikea have just found out to their cost!  Here’s why you cannot just talk about values, you must live them! 

Ikea only uses 16% sustainable wood! 

Ikea’s failure to achieve its own most modest target of 30% of its wood products to be from certified sustainable wood, will damage it its credibility heavily with its key audiences. The fact that it only hit 16%, has a massive blow on the values it professes as promoting sustainably sourced materials and to its environmental positioning.  Compare that with Homebase (78%) and B&Q (77%), which won the best green award 2010.

The excuse given in its defensive press statement is that it has sacrificed the values of sustainability for rapid growth and protecting its profitability (£2.3billion). But short term greed like this can cost dearly on both growth and profitability over the long term.

 

Ikea’s staff not telling the truth 

This corporate failure was made worse by staff telling customers in store that its products are from sustainable sources. When in fact they are from illegal logging in places such as Russia. This insatiable drive for growth, which so often undermines trusted names, may damage the Swedish brand’s position as the leader in the flat pack market significantly.  This expose means that Ikea will now undergo microscopic environmental and customer scrutiny.

 

Greenwash Marketing is NOT acceptable

Ikea’s soft “long term” aspirational statements on their website with links to the Rainforest Alliance are unlikely to be seen as enough in the modern world where green wash marketing such as this are quickly exposed and penalised. When the spotlight of the green world is turned on, it is difficult to hide in the shade.

The World Bank suddenly in the late 1980’s promoted its ‘green credentials’ by promoting itself as having employed ‘an environmentalist’, to offset its image of chopping down forests for cash crops.  This green wash story was quickly exposed when it was pointed out the World Bank employed some 5,000 economists, what difference would/could one environmentalist make?

Values matter in business by Richard Gourlay

 

Business Values must be transparent

The way you provide your product or service and to whom, says more about you than how much business you do. Being a big turnover company in a highly segmented world is no longer the determinator of success.  How you do your business now determines your current credibility and future success.  Credibility is as much about your values in becoming successful as about the success you have.  The question of size as measured by turnover raises questions about how you do business.

 

Real Business Values Recognise Real Carbon Footprints

Too often businesses have slick marketing messages, from slogans and statements, rather than understanding what impact they are making on the world in everything they do, their carbon footprint. As Carbon footprint becomes clearer so businesses must adapt to reducing it throughout their entire impact upon the planet and reflecting that in the values they actually demonstrate.

Your values as an organisation as demonstrated by everyone inside your organisation matter to both existing and potential customers in choosing to do business with you. People have choices and they can now exercise them more freely than ever before, and that means customers can access information instantly to make choices that are more informed. Ikea’s staff misinforming undercover Times reporters about their sustainable and certified sourced products at a number of shops are one symptom of Ikea’s rapid growth boardroom culture.

Vision Mission and Values in business Strategic Planning Workshop by Richard Gourlay

 

Values Must Live In The Moment 

Almost everything in life is in real time and instantly communicated to circles of influence and beyond. A restaurant having  bad night can have a poor reputation before the starter has even been cleared away as customers post live feed back to sites such as Qype or Trip Advisor . Therefore, before the waiter, maitre d’ or chef knows what’s happening the world outside already does by Twitter and Facebook and are cancelling their reservations in their droves.

 

Why clean lavatories matter?

The old adage that if you want to know how clean the restaurant kitchen is, inspect the lavatories. This is because they tell you how the restaurant values cleanliness, is a great example of modern customer awareness. Do you live your values or just post them on your website? Is the question customers want to know in establishing and experiencing trust with you and your brand.

You can spend as much as you like on your website, Google reviews and trip Advisor comments, but simple first impressions such as the state of lavatories matter more to customers.

 

Rail companies are learning fast

The recent story of the man on the train talking too loudly causing enraged customers to Tweet  complaints about his behaviour which was picked up by a duty manager hundreds of miles away who then contacted staff on the train to track down the loud caller and asked him to quieten down.

This story is very much testimony to the growing demands of customer expectations, immediate online response, not waiting for passing train staff to react. This story is part of the reputation shift that train companies are actively pursuing.

 

 

Values are in the detail

Values matter, they define the real differences between companies. How British Airways treats its customers through the values it embeds in its entire organisation is what makes it different to other premium airlines and distinguishes it from them, and from the bucket providers such as Ryanair.

However, as everyone de-layers in response to changing business models, cost and modernisation requirements, values can be lost in the rush to modernise and compete in new ways. BA’s changes to its premium dinner menu, introducing exotic main courses such as crocodile and ostrich sounded good but simultaneously cutting the After Eights, so there was not to go around 1st class passengers was a classic example of getting its values wrong in its customer’s eyes.

 

 

Values Must Involve Everyone in the organisation

If you value your customers then remember everyone needs to smile in their role, if you believe in providing excellent customer service then don’t cut your front of house staff numbers.

Too many companies’ ideas of communicating values are to place a statement on a website, brochure, at reception and on the induction training programme. How many companies look at the strategic advantage of values and embed it into people’s roles, asking staff to define their role by those values by redefining their role to live those values?  How many companies review those values as outcomes in winning and retaining customers?

 

Business Values as seen by Employees and Customers

Customers, potential and existing, are drowning in choice.  What makes you stand out to them is the values you own and can demonstrate as a business. Statements on walls and websites always sound good, (possibly, because they are written by marketing people who do not work there) but unless the company lives them, then they do more damage than good. Over promising and under delivering is a growing experience for everyone today.

Whether it is a London hotel, stating it’s exclusiveness, as evidenced by its 5 star, pretty pictures on the website of its presidential suite and over the top statements such as “sumptuous 5 star accommodation” the jaw dropping price tag. When you turn up and find a broom cupboard with not enough space to turn around in let alone swing a cat, and you are one of 500+ rooms filled with bus loads of tourist on a package holiday then company values are under pressure.

The same is equally true for staff. Why should people stay loyal to you if you don’t live those values and enshrine them in every one of your people. Do they live it or lip service it?

 

New company’s leadership must create and live their true values 

New companies have the unbridled opportunity to define their values from the start. By building them into their business model throughout the entire process from the beginning, providing value and clarity with every new role and new person, they can use their values to maximum leverage for attracting their chosen customers and staff.

So Googles’ “DO NO HARM” value won many plaudits, breaking down the concern about the is was then rightly questioned by their policy in China of being seen to be supporting censorship (try typing Tienanmen Square Massacre into Google in China it never happened!).  Now there is a good argument that rightly says any Google is better than no Google, but the contradiction against their stated values upset many Google Supporters elsewhere in the world.

Your values should come from within. What do you stand for? What does your company do? How should everyone do it? What does excellence look like? Some classic questions to understand the values you offer. I often ask people to think of an animal or car which best describes there organisation

 

Keeping Values Alive       

Established companies inherit values, often without realising they have them in place, “its how we do it around here” type phrases are often values hidden inside everyday activity. Keeping values alive is often hard in rapidly changing under-pressure environments. Changes in leadership, particularly when cross industry leadership is introduced or when new pressures are introduced from changing ownership for example often end up throwing out the hidden value of a brand in the race to achieve short-term results.

Everyone entering a company, particularly top executives, must understand the core heritage values any organisation has, how they are owned and expressed. The best way to achieve that is for new people to present those values back under peer group review and add to them with the changes they intend to introduce. New products / services need to incorporate core values and learn to demonstrate them in new ways as new channels of communication are opened up. Here is a simple checklist for business leaders to use to answer honestly and thoroughly about where you are with your business values.

 

Values Check List 

  1. Are your values visual to your team and customers? 
  2. Does everyone know your core values, have you checked?
  3. Can all your people translate them into their daily role?
  4. Do people see the company values in other people’s roles within the organisation?
  5. Do customers comment on those values in their dealings with your company in formal and informal feedback channels? 

If you can only answer confidently to points one and two then you are not living your values as a business. If you cannot hand on heart even answer those two, them it’s probably time to look at your values in a lot more detail.  Spend time to think through what you and your business stands for and get in touch if you need any assistance in creating values which matter to you.

 

Leadership Strategy

Learn more about strategy and leadership and how as a leader to create your strategy, with all the steps to build your own strategy, click here to buy the book now:-

Values matter in business more than ever before, red more in Strategy The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay is a book about business strategy for leaders to grow and develop their strategic plan for their business.
Learn more about business values and cultural impact in Strategy: The Leader’s Role by Richard Gourlay .
Mentoring using teh GROW model to mentor directors

Leading with a Vision to create long-term successful business?

by Richard GourlayBusiness Identity, Innovation, sheffield, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

Vision statement by Brian Tracy

Leadership starts with a Vision

No matter how big or small your business is without a clear vision of where you are going owners and directors often fall into the classic trap of just managing from day-to-day.  Do you have a vision or are you just a dreamer? Is a simple question which I ask leaders, and for many it is just a work in progress, in their head. But every business needs great leadership, and for that they need to create a clear business vision, which will make and deliver long term leadership success.

Creating a vision of the Future

Leadership is about investing time to create a clear vision the future. Putting in the effort and resources to see into the future and imagine how things could be. This is as important for success as having real passion for the business today and the determination to create something new for the future. These three personal qualities of leaders are vital for successful companies and a vision statement, sometimes called “a picture of your company in the future”, but it’s so much more than that.

 

Vision Statement

Your vision statement is your inspiration, the framework for all your strategic planning. A vision statement may apply to an entire company or to a single division within that company.

The vision statement answers the question, “Where do we want to go?” What you are doing when creating a vision statement is articulating your dreams and hopes for your business. It reminds you of what you are trying to build. A vision statement is for you and the other members of your company, not just for your customers or clients.

Visionary goals should be longer term and more challenging than strategic goals. Collins and Porras describe these lofty objectives as “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals.” These goals should be challenging enough so that people nearly gasp when they learn of them and realize the effort that will be required to reach them.

Most visionary statements fall into one of the following four categories:

  1. Targeted – quantitative or qualitative goals such as Nike: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” “If you have a body, you are an athlete.”
  2. Common enemy – focused on overtaking a specific firm, becoming the number one in that sector, such as Amazon: “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
  3. Role model – to become like another in a different industry or market, the mirror role, Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) “Right from the beginning, I said I wanted to be more famous than Persil Automatic”.
  4. Internal transformation – creating internal vision, GE set the goal of “Becoming number one or number two in every market it serves”

While visionary goals may require significant stretching to achieve, many visionary companies have succeeded in reaching them. Once such a goal is achieved, it needs to be replaced; otherwise, it is unlikely that the organization will continue to be successful. The second most dangerous place for a company is to have achieved its only goal, the most dangerous place is never to have had one.

 

Creating Your Business Vision

Simple steps to creating your vision, ask some simple questions:

  • What will our business look like in 3 to 5 years from now?
  • What new things do we intend to pursue and how?
  • What future customer needs do we want to satisfy?

Write the answers down and focus on developing them into a coherent, motivational and purposeful message which can connect with everyone.

Then Question:

  • Does our vision statement provide a powerful picture of what our business will look like in 3 to 5 years from now?
  • Is your vision statement a picture of your company’s future, which everyone can interpret into their role?
  • Does it clarify the business activities to pursue, the desired market position and capabilities you will need

If your statement answers these questions then you have a vision worth owning and sharing. A vision must be motivational to everyone inside an organisation.

The classic apocryphal story to demonstrate the effectiveness of great visions is about the time President Kennedy visited NASA. During one trip he came across a cleaner sweeping the warehouse floor, and asked him what his job at NASA was. The cleaner replied “My Job is to put a man on the moon, Sir.”

Now I don’t know if the story is true, but it’s inspiring. In a facility full of high-powered individuals and great minds, even the cleaner was completely on board with the strategy. While you may not be planning to put a person on the moon, we can learn a lot from the story. It may sound ridiculous, but every business needs to be a little like NASA.

 

A great VISION can create an unstoppable company

Every organisation needs to have a clear vision, owned by everyone inside and outside it. An owned and shared vision creates and sustains great morale and internal strength for companies, which can become a powerful and unstoppable force in any market no matter how competitive.

At Cowden we focus on ensuring companies can successfully compete in their chosen or desired market.

Like to learn more? Then get in touch with us at Cowden.

Or learn more about creating your vision and how to lead your organisation with a clear strategy, but my book: click this link or the book cover below 

Strategy The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay available from Amazon click this link

Business mission or just a dreamer in business by Richard Gourlay #Sheffield, #Chesterfield, UK

Are you on a MISSION or just a dreamer as a Business Leader?

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business ValuesPosted on Comments are Disabled

One of the most important pieces of any good business plan is to define what you do and where you are going as a business. If you do not define what you do and where you are going then why should people work with you or for you? Defining your purpose as a business is the clearest statement of intent any director or owner of a business can make, and yet one of the most misunderstood and avoided pieces of any business plan. This is the mission statement which everyone in a company should be able to relate to and believe in.

Why is it avoided? In my experience directors are most often frightened of making a commitment of what they stand for so as not to alienate any existing or potential customers who may not fit the proposed mission statement. This contradiction, not wanting to say what the primary goal of a business or organisation is, means that many company’s try to be everything to everyone, ending up being meaningless to everyone.

Mission Failure

This failure to define a mission is also one of the biggest limitations companies and organizations have in creating clear blue water between them and other players in their market. It is why so many companies struggle to stand out and then expect someone in marketing to try to answer that question sometime later. Marketing does not define the purpose of any business or organization, they may influence it, but it takes leadership from the top for a mission statement to be successful.

Missions fail if they are not believed in by the employees and customers, or experienced in how an organisation looks to deliver its products and services. They are not just slogan on a wall or a website.

Mission Statement

A good mission statement is clear, unambiguous, engaging and relevant to all its key audiences: namely its leadership, senior management, employees, shareholders and customers. A mission and a vision (but more of that later) provides a central definition of what a business or organization delivers.

Creating a Successful Mission Statement

Here’s a quick-step guide to creating a mission statement.

  1. First identify your organization’s “strategic advantage” what makes you successful. This is the idea or approach that makes your organization stand out from its competitors; the reason that customers prefer you and not your competitors, what makes you unique, what are your core competencies?
  2. Secondly, identify the key measures of your success. Key success measures by which you can measure, Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), typically pick 3 to 5 headline measures of performance.
  3. Thirdly combine your strategic advantage and success measures (KPI’s) into tangible and measurable goal.
  4. Define the wording, using clear language, until you have a concise and precise statement of your mission, which expresses your ideas, measures, and desired result.
  5. Now communicate the mission statement effectively so everyone owns the mission statement within the company, make it public and ensure it is owned from the top with passion.

Communicating mission statements effectively to everyone is a defining piece of making the mission live. After all the hard work in having one so often they are filed away, or framed and stuck on the wall and forgotten. Instead successful Mission statements are launched to everyone and owned.

I’ve run embedding program within companies to ensure that everyone inside businesses and organizations “own” the Mission and build it into their everyday activity.

If you don’t follow through then all the effort is wasted and the opportunity is lost, so remember to focus on making your mission statement memorable and relevant. The leadership also needs to own the mission statement and make it live throughout the company.

A Mission Creates Focus and Loyalty

If you do this businesses and companies can achieve significant improvements which can include: building higher loyalty from staff, higher levels of customer service; improved stakeholder and channel support and lower costs for winning new higher value customers. These are just some examples of the benefits from having and using a mission statement successfully at the front end, one other major advantage is that you have a foundation upon which to build your business plan.

Good Luck: Want to develop your growth plan, use my business planning tool kit, click here to Take the guess work out of your business success   or click this link to learn how to greta your own business strategy:-

Strategy The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay

Business success in business supported by Richard Gourlay

WHY really matters in influencing consumers buying habits

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business Values, InnovationPosted on Comments are Disabled

WHY Customers’ BUY 

WHY really matters in influencing consumers buying habits in today markets. Back in the early 1980’s customers used to buy what companies made, went where they sold it ,and bought what they promoted.  That was the age of big marketing and sales budgets, when big adverts worked.  Driving demand through pushing products down channels, offering promotion and celebrity endorsement to generate business.

By the late 1980’s the age of the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) dominated: we are special because….. so you will buy’! So the world did as it was told: “we make what you want because we tell you want you want because we know about your needs”.  This relied upon trust in a brand by the public, which in a pre-internet world gave complete control to the brand and the consumer relied on marketing messages coming out.

People buy if they trust the brand they are buying from. In the 1980’s people trusted brands because no-one questioned them. A lack of information coupled with a belief in household names meant that people’s buying decisions were based upon a limited width of information upon which all buying decisions were made.

Today the world has changed. The sources of information have increased dramatically. The transparency required by companies is now at a level of how the organisation operates. Every aspect of what and how a company operates is under total scrutiny from a whole range of pressure and interest groups. Every aspect of ever action is recorded, analysed and evaluated. Business leaders today live in a totally transparent world, and the measures of trust are now very different.

Trust, the intangible combination of character and competence which all successful brands must develop and sustain is mad cup of a whole series of complex elements.  The importance of ethics in today’s business is an essential characteristic which purchasers expect their brand to portray in envy aspect of its behaviour. That makes it a key priority for leaders’ to focus on within their role.

Honest is Essential in WHY Consumers Buy.

Ethics came play such an important element of purchase decisions at the same time as the age of information changed what people could find out about a brand. As the internet began its infancy, the power of globalisation was laid bare by the internet. People asked as much about how companies did things as well as what those products did for the buyer?

Where products were sourced, made, shipped and by whom now became important. Why were the premium footballs, such as those which David Beckham kicked, being made by blind children in India for a few rupees. Why were the clothes models wore being made in sweat shops where workers earned less than for a dollar a day? Honest is now essential not just in how a brand portrays itself but in its complete supply chain, marketing activity and in its contribution to the world it operates within.

A Business Cannot Hide its Activities

The internet changed how the media could communicate, explaining how household names operated and could afford those huge marketing budgets. This forced companies to change their practises (and their internal policies) by educating and fighting back against the likes of Naomi Wolfs’ No Logo expose for example.  The brands who recognised that they could no longer hide their activities became more open and honest and developed trust, while those which did not, suffered public shaming and demise.

How business operated mattered, and so in response companies upped their awareness of their social impact and visibility through corporate social responsibility. How people did things mattered not just when the likes of Bhopal and Exxon Valdez disasters struck, but in everyday life.

Fair-trade has become a household name in consumer goods, with high street stores vying for credibility of having an ethical policy, supporting local goods and having transparent policies of how they operate. This gives more confidence but leaves companies open to further scrutiny and often to unsatisfactory answers to vital key questions, not at least within developing countries, who are now the fastest growing emerging markets for many brands.

Ethically; WHY should I buy from you?

The biggest question which consumers and business now asks people is why businesses are doing these things.  Everyone has become so empowered with information sources that people want to buy the WHY, not the what. Buyers want to understand the ethics of the company and importantly the people behind the decisions it takes. Customers want to know that these decisions accurately reflect the real cultural and values that company has, not just the marketing hype, which the brand portrays. Today this is the real power of the internet.

What’s the real purpose of the company, who and what is driving it and what does it really believe in and stand for. No longer is a small donation to a local charity enough to say it supports the community, customers want to know how much, who gets involved, is it company wide and deep or just a year-end tax saving. In today’s world the importance of ethics in today’s business cannot be understated for leaders to focus upon in their role.

Ethical Values Being Lived

In fact the world has changed completely, confidence comes not from what you say but why you are saying it. The educated and informed world means that it’s not just politicians who have seen their reputation tarnished but any business in any sector who does not explain it why factor.

It’s not just whistle blowers who expose mal-practice in today’s world, everyone is communicating through so many channels, from traditional word of mouth, through social media and beyond into a connected world, where reputations must be transparent. As everyone’s voice matters, being ethically transparent, open and honest is now essential if a brand is to be trusted.

Winning Life-Long Customers Requires Integrity

Winning customers is no longer all leaders have to focus on. Finding talented staff, channels partners and customers is now a multifaceted challenge for leaders to deal with. Ethical short-cuts damage brands reputation and those damaging allegations now stick, and become magnified to stakeholders as statements are now online, like a bad trip advisor review, it never goes. A tarnished reputation is exactly that.

No matter what sector you are in, understanding the  power of the internet in sustaining your reputation is essential and never more so than in explaining why you are in business and why you matter. The importance of ethics in today’s business has never been so important to establish and maintain.

So does WHY still matter. YES more than every before in a global world honesty, transparency and integrity matter in building and retaining trust with consumers more than every before.

Like to learn more, then contact us at Cowden or see our website or social media channels for more about Cowden Consulting:-

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Cowden services: business planning, strategic planning, business development, strategic marketing, Return on Investment, director development, director mentoring.

Cowden works with business leaders throughout the UK to improve their business.

To become successful think differently from your competitors

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, business planningPosted on Comments are Disabled

Richard Gourlay’s recommended TED talks to make you think.

If you want to develop strategy you need to step out of where you are at this moment to work ON your business not IN your business, one of the best ways to do this is to step away from the here and now and to think of something different, for just a few minutes.

 

TED Talks Worth Reading

So if you are looking for great ideas to motivate your creative thought from some of the world’s current leading thinkers, each for just a few minutes long and are my selection from recent TED talks:-

A. Steve Jobs – Stanford Address click to see

The unique Steve Jobs speaking at his Stanford University graduation ceremony, (not TED). He recounts three different parts of his life each offering at least one important message but beyond that these episodes provide a fascinating insight into what made the great man tick. One of the most memorable talks you’ll ever see and one I recommend to everyone.

B. Seth Godin  – How to get ideas to spread 

Seth Godin, one of the greatest thinkers of our age explains how ideas spread, which ones do it well and why. Starting with Bread he explains how the paradigm shift of what makes some ideas successful and which ones don’t. Sell to people who are listening is the answer we are all looking for, he explains how and why to stand out and why.     

C. Kevin Slavin – How algorithms shape the world 

Kevin Slavin argues that we’re living in a world designed for, and increasingly controlled by algorithms. He shows how these complex computer programs determine: espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. Where are we going because we are writing code we can’t understand, with implications we can’t control.

D. Simon Sinek – why do people buy from you 

Simon Sinek, a great thinker, recounts some real-life examples of how people buy what you believe above all else. If you have to persuade people or sell to them as part of your job this brief clip WILL make a difference. I changed the way I present what I do after I watched it.

E. Sir Ken Robinson – Killing creativity click to see

Sir Ken Robinson, always entertaining, educational and informative thought provoking. Here he is talking about creativity and how education is killing it. With personal and real-life examples that will touch you he explains how to see the talent and find creativity in people.

F. Derek Sivers – Starting a movement click to see 

Derek Sivers narrates a video clip of somebody who starts an extraordinary movement at a pop festival, of all places, and then draws lessons that anybody who wants to be a wow on the internet will want to learn. Want to grow a community? Well check this out. Also it really is fascinating to watch the community form before your eyes.

 

G. Malcom Gladwell Explaining why Spaghetti Sauce 

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and Tipping Point etc, one of the world’s great observers explains why some people prefer one product over another? Could this help you to promote your offering to better effect? I think so and the way Gladwell achieves it is by recounting how the perfect spaghetti sauce was developed; or not as the case may be.

H. Sheena Iyengar – How to make choices easier click to see 

When I watched this clip for the first time I was struck by the simplicity of Iyengar’s argument: put some effort into the way you build features and choices into your offerings and the way you present them to your clients. Love it!

I. Niall Ferguson – the 6 killer apps of prosperity – 

You may have seen the TV programme but either way this is a great talk which explores a) why the west was so successful in growing powerful and rich nations even though it started later than the east and b) why the east is now overtaking the west. Very thought-provoking and ingeniously presented by using the modern concept of Apps but for nations.

J. Nigel Marsh – how to make work-life balance work click to see 

One of the biggest challenges we face in the modern world is getting balance in our lives: how much time for work; how much for our friends and families and how much special time do we need for ourselves? A relatively easy question to answer you’d think but if you can’t seem to get there (you’re definitely not alone if you can’t) then try this talk by Nigel Marsh for size.

K. Paul Gilding – the Earth is Full click to see 

I don’t want to get into the whole green debate but wherever you stand on the subject this talk will certainly make you think. Gilding avoids the easy targets of lonely polar bears, shrinking icecaps and unusual weather patterns and comes from an angle that even made me sit up and think. If you watch it do so with an open mind – the logic behind his arguments is sound and irrefutable.

So here’s some thinking, just 10 ideas from TED in video format, short high impact thought provoking learning, if you have others let me know?

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Posted by  strategist consultant for Business entrepreneurs

Labels: leadership culture vision business vision business strategy leadership success people strategy leadership skillssuccessful business succession planning
strategy, leadership and vision in business by Steve Jobs

Values matter in BUSINESS more than ever

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, competitive advantage, Dumfries and Galloway, Marketing, Strategy, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

Values in Business must be transparent

Business leaders face many challenges, some immediate and others which are not so obvious but can be far more dramatic to business success.  In today’s business world the way you provide your product or service and to whom, says more about you than how much business you do.  How you do your business now determines your current credibility and future success. Credibility is as much about your values in becoming successful as about the success you have. Values in BUSINESS must be transparent and lived by everyone inside the organisation.

Values matter in business like never before, by Richard Gourlay leadership consultant

For longterm success your values as an organisation as demonstrated by everyone inside your organisation matter to both existing, and potential customers, in choosing to do future business with your ad your brand. People have choices and they can now exercise them more freely than ever before, that means customers can access information instantly and make choices that are more informed. Examples such as Ikea’s staff misinforming undercover Times reporters about their sustainable and certified sourced products at a number of shops are one symptom of Ikea’s rapid growth and its underlying boardroom culture, allowing the core values to erode and trust in its reputation suffer. The damage to brand reputation from such as activities such as “greenwashing” create longterm brand damage as brands jump on popularity wagons.

Values Must Live in the Moment

Almost everything in life is in today’s world is in real-time and instantly communicated to circles of ever increasing influence and far beyond. A restaurant having  bad night can have a poor reputation before the starter has even been cleared away, as customers post live feed back to sites such as Qype or Trip Advisor. Therefore, before the waiter, maitre d’ or chef knows what’s happening the world outside, potential customers already do, through instant social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook, and are cancelling their reservations in droves. Live experiences matter when they happen not in the apology afterwards.
Leadership teams must ensure that their business values are being lived ever day in what is called real time. The real experiences customers face every moment are the living touch points of a brand experience.  Asking employees to make decisions and to own the decisions they make is vital for  brand to live in the moment, but they have to be supported by the leadership team and not criticised for making the calls they make. If the call they make is in the best intentions to support the customer but is outside the experience you wanted to give the customer then that is not the employees fault it is leadership teams in designing the experience.

Why clean lavatories matter?

The old adage that if you want to know how clean the restaurant kitchen is, inspect the lavatories! This is because they tell you how the restaurant values cleanliness, is a great example of modern customer awareness of living values. Do you live your values or just post them on your website? Is the question customers want to know in establishing and experiencing trust with you, and your brand.
Seeing under the skin of a brand, or behind the marketing facade a brand promotes is now easy due to transparency in legislation, global media sources and a digital world. There are few places to hide as a brand in what and how they undertake their operations. From sweat shop labour, to brown paper envelopes down to paying influencers there are no places to hide, that’s why clean lavatories matter to customers.

Rail companies learning fast

A recent story of the man on the train talking too loudly causing enraged customers to Tweet complaints about his behaviour which was picked up by a duty manager hundreds of miles away who then contacted train’s conductor to track down the loud caller and asked him to quieted down.
This story is very much testimony to the growing demands of customer expectations, immediate online response, not waiting for passing train staff to react. This story is part of the reputation shift that train companies are actively pursuing to listen and understand customer’s real needs and expectations.
Values in Business must be owned and lived from the top.
The values that a business lives really matter to customers and to the brand reputation. Values are not bland statements in brochures, websites or company walls, but living attributes in how people behave (even when no-one is looking). Values start at the top, and must be owned, lived and driven by the leadership of an organisation. It is no-one else’s responsibility but the leadership’s to ensure they establish, spread and re-enforce those values throughout their people.
Learn more about strategy and how to build yours in your business, click here or on the book below.

Strategy The Leader's Role By Richard Gourlay
Strategy: The Leader’s Role by Richard Gourlay

Richard Gourlay strategic leadership consultant

What Makes a Great Brand (Part 2)

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, Marketing, StrategyPosted on Comments are Disabled

A Clear Brand Strategy

 In what makes a great brand (part 2, click here to read part 1 if you missed it), we will look at what makes great brands’ stand out from others. Being clear and precise is vitally important in the company’s messages for a brand to succeed. A strong undiluted brand message must enthuse internally but must also consistently connect with customers through all touch points. For great examples look at Innocent, Dorset Cereals or Apple as classic examples of touch point engagement. They also demonstrate a clear story delivered with passion about who they are what they do and why they matter. This focused and consistent message is not just a marketing message but an ingrained set of values which consumers buy into with passion. These brands not only position themselves as premium players in their fields and earn more but they also continuously find new ways to spread their key messages to customers, they have a clear brand strategy to achieve it.  

Everyone Must Live The Brand

 Another vital aspect of any brand success is that the people within that brand demonstrate what they preach.  They live that lifestyle, support the values and aspirations associated with a brand and contribute to its success. It is their lifestyle, it is a part of the way they and their brand do business. This is something I learned at my first full time job at the then privately owned outdoor clothing brand Berghaus. Everyone lived and loved the brand.  Great brands go beyond the logo, to understand its real value to existing customers and also to tomorrow’s customers.  Whether it is a family run local shop or a global supermarket chain, great brands position themselves so they develop and hold a market position to develop long-term success. What makes a great brand part 2 Business success in business supported by Richard Gourlay 

 

Great Brands Create Uniqueness

 Great brands also develop their own uniqueness. Not just in the product or service but the whole package in how they do business. There needs to be not only consistency but the brand hand writing and value on how they do it. The best brands always develop singular simple signals for customers, cutting through jargon to create clarity without patronisation their audiences. That strategy creates and supports a strong company culture, which the leadership team must then sustain. Successful leadership teams revitalise that culture by refreshing their vision to focus on where they are taking their organisation. Vision to make change n business by Richard Gourlay For brands to succeed in today’s global markets then these golden rules have never been more important to businesses, as consumers have never had so much information, but if you follow these simple rules of brand success you can develop and maintain a great business. 

Looking for Advice ?

 If you want to develop your company’s brand and are looking for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden  to see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at @richardgourlay or contact Richard Gourlay 

Richard Gourlay strategic leadership consultant

What Makes a Great Brand?

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, MarketingPosted on Comments are Disabled

A Great Brand is not about marketing

Despite what marketing people passionately believe most people don’t think about brands, they just get on with their lives. The coffee they buy, the supermarket they go to and petrol station they visit happen almost by accident. In Britain today we are too busy to think through these everyday inconsequential purchases, focused on saving time, not forgetting something or rushing from place to place on a tight deadline. So what makes great brand? Lets see.     What makes a great brand by Richard Gourlay  

Customer Choice

Let’s start with the basics, the customer has choices, endless choices if they choose to use them.  But, in many everyday cases as in my examples above, the consumer sacrifices those choices for simple expedience. The inability to see (or value) brand differentiation, between Starbucks and Costa, between Tesco and Morrisons, between BP and Shell, and yet they each fight for space in consumers minds through tiny differences which if we stop and think about do actually exist and we the consumer do actively value.   Despite what marketing people passionately believe most people don’t think about brands, they just get on with their lives. The coffee they buy, the supermarket they go to and petrol station they visit happen almost by accident. In life today we are too busy to think through these everyday inconsequential purchases, focused on saving time, not forgetting something or rushing from place to place on a tight deadline. So do brands matter and if so why and how?      

Brand Perception is Everything

Consumer choice is therefore the perception of the brand we hold at the time of making that purchasing choice. It is the conscious decision consumers make based upon how they feel about the brand at the time they choose to consume that product or service. So a brand needs to be more than just an image, more than just a recognisable label and more than just a mission statement. What makes a great brand is the sustained feelings which it provides its customers.  That brand presence, the perception in someone’s mind is an accumulation of all the marketing elements which are planned into the deliver of that product and service to the customer.  Often just called the extended marketing mix (the 7P’s) which define the areas of proactive marketing which integrate together and support any brand from Poundland to Rolls Royce.   Vision creates light                                            A brand through is also more than cold marketing elements pulled together, it is also the feeling and values which underpin any brand. A brand invests its existence through it products/services. That R&D element often defines the brand and its position. A brand that does little to know investment in its R&D is often what is called a label, a company that sites within a market sector (player) but does not drive the growth of that market. This key element of a brand creates and sustains a brands culture. Its culture and ethos coupled, codified and defined by its leadership are essential elements in creating and sustaining any brand. When you are thinking about a brand, it’s not just the branding, it is so much more and it must all start with the customer.   Read on in part 2

Taking strategic action to improve your business startup success

Where Does Tomorrow’s Business Growth Come From?

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, competitive advantage, Innovation, Marketing, Strategy, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

Business growth is not an accident. Why some businesses succeed and others do not is not by chance. Business growth requires leadership to plan out where they are going within there market.  All markets change through both evolution and revolution (think of those disruptive players in any market and the impact they have).  This slideshow explains why it is important for leadership to use business planning tools to effectively plan their growth. So where does tomorrow’s business growth come from?

Tomorrow’s Business Growth

In every market there is always new opportunities always arising. Markets do not go up (or down) equally. Some segments and individual customers grow faster than others due to their strategic or tactical successes. Knowing where external and or internal market factors are influencing or driving segments within any market is the vital strategic insight which leadership teams need to understand.  Even markets declining do not do so at equal rates. Change happens in every market so knowing where to look for positive changes within any market is a key skill for leaders to learn.

Growth and development of every market happens at different rates, in different parts of markets around the world. Looking out and at tomorrow is a vital element for leaders to undertake as part of their role.

Leadership is About Looking for Growth

Being successful in business is all about seeing the bigger picture and understanding future growth. For a business to grow and develop, the leadership team must invest time building it. That requires the leadership to step back from the day-to-day operations of the business and focus on working on the business. Like to learn more, click the slide presentation below to learn successful leaders work on their business to find growth.

If leaders aren’t looking for growth and the development of their business within the market then they need to develop these skills for success. The slideshow below will show you more or get in touch with Cowden today to discuss your business needs today, click here.

Where does tomorrow’s growth come from by Richard Gourlay Leadership must think strategically if it is to be successful in growing its business. If you want to develop your strategic thinking then why not start by reading my step-by-step guide on how to think strategically.
Strategy The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay
Leadership in business is a challenge we can help with.

Have you felt the full power of the Internet Tsunami Yet?

by Richard GourlayBusiness Identity, competitive advantage, content strategy marketing, Innovation, Marketing, opportunity, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled
Has the world moved for you, or did you miss it? The world of business has shifted but many businesses don’t seem to have noticed the great shift in power away from companies to the customer. The internet is not a fixed service, it is growing and evolving rapidly and with it so are the tools and uses it delivers. What was once a way to replace your Yellow Pages has become the most powerful source of information the world has ever seen.  Have you felt the full power of the internet tsunami yet?
We all see the impact of the Internet in every market sector.  We see the growth of online shopping or the growth of smart phones and the online move of insurance and music online.  That shift and the corresponding growths of new consumers are just beginning to be understood, this is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The next stage of the internet revolution has yet to be felt.

The Great Paradigm Shift: Internet Tsunami

As our understanding of this shifting paradigm slowly emerges and evolves.  It takes time for its impact to be fully understood and its impacts to be really appreciated. In the same way as the impact of the introduction of domestic electricity which subsequently facilitated the introduction of the radio, which spread communication did in previous generations. So the rise in power of the Internet is more than just our ability to look stuff up and buy consumer goods online.
This paradigm shift has certain key features, which makes the rise of the Internet generation far more dramatic in its impact to business today.
Unlike many previous innovations, the move online has been done in an infinitely scalable way.  Making markets financially accessible to company’s of any size and dimension using low cost everyday technology. The whole plethora of internet software platforms provide total engagement opportunities for businesses to reach specialist or global markets. Rather than being a premium service only open to the super rich, such as the introduction of the car, airline or a global consumer product range. A good idea, service or product can now be provided through the internet instantly. The availability of multiple open software technology platforms, has lowered cost and created universal access by braking down barriers across all areas of a global market.

The Internet is a Global Movement

This global shift, supported by governments and industry to reach and penetrate all and every strata of society and on an almost global reach is a new global phenomenon creating a universal shift.
Whether in New Guinea or Newfoundland, you can get a 3G signal.  Many countries like India and China just leapfrogged the copper wire landline systems of the 20th century through large parts of their country’s moving straight into the 21st century, avoiding unnecessary cost and rapidly accelerating progress throughout their country.  The Arab spring was not achieved by any three letter acronym news agency or Rupert Murdock’s media empire, but by new young mobile online generation who created, sustained and drove the rolling revolutions.

The POWER of the Internet Tsunami

The result of the internet revolution is that the world has made a huge step forward almost overnight.  That has changed more than just the way we buy some products, it has in fact changed the way we think, and act.  This universal overnight movement has also solved the adoption dilemma for new technology.  For companies to achieve a launch of a new product or service they had to achieve a critical volume and this can now be achieved without geographic boundaries.  The internet creates multiple new routes to market, bypassing traditional routes to market, achieving profit without having to invest huge amounts of capital in awareness marketing.
The sign you've been looking for that values matter in business

Internet Empowered Intelligence

This paradigm shift has moved the way we think to such an extent that everything has changed. When in 1906 Admiral Sir John Fisher invented the Dreadnought battleship in 1906, he changed naval world overnight. At the time the Royal navy had 1,000 ships of the line, the introduction of the Dreadnought made them all redundant overnight. Suddenly, to be a superpower it was not the number of ships you had but how many Dreadnoughts you had and a new arms race had begun as every other battleship become redundant.
In the same way, the introduction of always available high speed broadband has made so much of business thinking redundant, not just in the collapse of use of directories such as yellow pages, dictionaries or our communication. Today people have empowered intelligence, the ability to become informed by scanning a QR code, or connecting to a highly rated source they can become more than informed, they can become actively empowered.

Internet Tsunami Continually Evolves 

The internet is now driving people to think and do things in different ways across many age and economic cohorts. Its not just the young buying music or consumers doing their shopping online, although both have delivered huge shifts in culture to these markets.  People’s first mental response to knowledge and decision making is now to click, look-up and become informed.
No-longer relying on our embedded historical mental heritage or through experts’ advice, people are now researching and networking their knowledge and our learning, widening knowledge and creating expert communities on almost every subject matter possible. For example to become an expert on social media you could do an online course or you could click onto Mashable and become an expert within hours. Anyone and everyone can become an expert, exposing consumer and business choice to new forces and opportunities.
You may have heard the old adage that there is more computer power in a simple watch today than on the Apollo 11 spacecraft which took man to the moon. People have at their finger tips more knowledge about companies than even the most informed company is aware off. Users groups, expert forums and review sites empower and drive decisions, in a far more effective way than traditional marketing channels can persuade customers.
In just in the same way that the Arctic Monkeys pioneered the music online community following, rather than through the plugging and playlist approval to get on the radio. Today the same today is true of consumer both in consumer and business markets.
The power of the internet is yet to be fully understood. For some it has been like a Tsunami, just as a record shop or an insurance salesman. To many others though it is an unseen force, they know its there but not what or how it operates and effects their business. But it is and it will. The sooner business wakes up to these changes the better placed they will be to compete without feeling they have one hand behind their back.
Vision to make change n business by Richard Gourlay

A good business has clear objectives and goals to achieve.

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, competitive advantage, Exit Strategy, Strategy, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled
For leadership teams planning a business is focused around the annual exercise of business planning.  Reviewing what went well and what did not, reviewing the overall performance of the organisation, its profits (or losses) and deciding what to do differently and what to keep the same for the forthcoming year. That’s why a good business has clear objectives and goals to achieve.
One key area which good leadership teams consistently get right is in rolling out the right measures, both soft and hard measures of performance inside a business plan. Cascading business plan objectives down to department and down to personal performance objectives are the vital element in implementing a business plan successfully. The key ones include refreshing the vision and connecting clear objectives and soft and hard metrics together to all levels of the organisation.

Business Goals

Having a vision is vital to be successful in the long term, but having objectives will ensure you get you there. Clear milestones for everyone inside your company, top to bottom are the essential component of a successful company. Every successful company has clear goals, strategic ones the outrageous ones (global domination) through to achievable tactical objectives.

Without clear (SMART, see below) objectives a company will loose focus on its goals. Poor or non-specific objectives companies can fall victim to strategic drift, this month’s whim and next month’s quick idea.  The failure to cascaded objectives at every level allows good people’s morale and confidence to fall. This is because they cannot see where how they are contributing to the company’s success. Everyone should know how they contribute to the business plan’s success. Failing to set clear objectives in a business plan creates a path to failure in execution and devalues the process of business planning and it becomes a waste of paper, time and effort.

Business Objectives

Objectives should be like a pyramid, with the big objectives at the top, but at every layer underneath there should be the sub objectives that make the bigger one happen. A well run organisation should therefore look like a pyramid, in terms of objectives, with everyone working on their goals which build up together to achieve the big picture goals. This form of management managing by objectives MBO, (not to be confused with a management buy-out MBO), allows people to focus on their objectives, which are aligned to higher goals.
Try not to have too many objectives to achieve. I always recommend no more than 5 per person. The reason why 5? Because it keeps people focused and not drowned in statistics. Even at the company level remember the old KISS concept of simplicity, if you have page after page of objectives some will suffer unless you can resource them. Focus on what really matters to the business, what drives performance and how are they made up. For people think about their Key Performance Indicators, KPI’s they are doing a good job if… Classical KPI’s usually include: revenue, margin, customer numbers, retention, growth, production, saving, are amongst the most common.

Setting Business Objectives

High performance companies often drive all their goals by setting team objectives which are then broken down into Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each individual employee. Try not to give any individual or manager too many. An easy way to achieve that is to ensure they can remember and recall them with ease when you meet them.

The benefits of setting good objectives:

1.       Objectives define the entire purpose of your business (or unit) in a couple of sentences or bullet points or set of numbers.
2.       Objectives are often identified as key performance indicators at the individual persons performance.
3.       The objectives that you set determine the quality of the strategy or tactics that you will adopt.
4.       Goals allow leaders to Manage By Objectives MBO. This avoids time in argument and also helps in introducing a more participative management culture where employees are encouraged to set their own objectives.
5.       Clear KPI’s per person is a successful way to evaluate performance as long as the KPI’s are numerate or translatable into a numerate language.
Remember SMART criteria to define attributes of good objectives:
That is:
·         Specific
·         Measurable
·         Achievable
·         Realistic
·         Timely

Achievable Goals

If goals and objectives are not SMART then they are unlikely to be achievable.  Being better or good for example is too often quoted as a goal or objective, and while that is a statement of direction it is not a clear viable goal or objective. SMART goals and objectives are tangible they are a defined quantifiable number or a supported qualitative measure compared to an existing one.
Goals must be achievable. But for that to happen they must be quantifiable, either numerate or benchmarked compared to a previous number and deliverable within the timeframe to the standard required.

SMART criteria include:
1.       Both short range and long range targets should be set.
2.       Both quantitative and qualitative
3.       Clear. Put them in writing, to be achieved within a specified time frame.
4.       Measurable. So that they can be compared with actual results.
5.       Challenging. This is so that staff will put greater effort and be more motivated.
6.       Achievable. Avoid overly optimistic goals as this might be counter productive due to their demotivating nature.
Goals should be realistic, reasonable, reachable and beatable. Avoid hidden goals and don’t be over specific.
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