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 Development by Richard Gourlay

Strategic Planning Workshop is the model for successful Business Planning

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, business planning, Business Values, Dumfries and Galloway, Exit Strategy, Innovation, start-up advice, Strategy, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

Strategic planning is the process of defining your business’s key priorities as a business. Successful business’s have clear priorities which their business as a whole unit focuses on to achieve. Each of these key priorities are defined within a business as a strategy. A strategy, a course of action which will deliver a pre-determined business goal. For leaders undertaking a Strategic Planning Workshop is the model for successful business planning, putting leaders in the driving seat of their business.

Successful business planning is about developing your strategic plan for your business based upon proven business development tools. The Strategic Planning Workshop pulls these together into a single process. This process takes the guesswork out of your business success.

Maximising Opportunity: Reducing Risk

Taking the guess work out of your business success is a step-by-step process which develops business owners skills to strategically plan their business.  Good strategic planning enables businesses to take advantage of emerging markets, emerging trends, develop and launch new products. Strategic planning also enables companies to make structurally improvements to their business to improve its profitability, reduce costs and enhance productivity.

Strategic planning workshop is a proven method of developing and implementing success see www.cowdenconsulting.com.

Strategy: Leadership Skills

Strategic planning creates a clear direction for a business take. Working on your business, not just another day in it, crating a sense of direction, for the whole team to take. Working on your business, from developing your WHY (Simon Sinek, the power of why) through to creating a strong sense of purpose and direction. Where you are going and why is a powerful outcome from a s strategic planning workshop.

Secondly for leaders the ability to discuss their personals goals and ambitions in an environment which allows open discussion and development of those linked to their business is a real focus for personal leadership skill development.

The third leadership outcome from a  strategic planning workshop is the forward plan of where the business is going. That creating of a clear focus supported by detailed action plans moves the whole team forward as one.

Strategic Planning Workshop (Slideshare about Strategic Planning Workshop)

Click the link below to begin the slideshow to learn the fundamental skills and how to undertake a strategic planning workshop.

Strategic Planning Workshop from Richard Gourlay

Strategic Planning Workshop

Like to learn more about what a strategic planning workshop delivers to business owners in creating growth, focus and direction then get in touch  and learn more. Enquries@cowdenconsulting.com or contact Cowden Strategy.

Successful Leadership starts with a clear VISION

by Richard GourlayInnovation, Strategy, VisionPosted on Comments are Disabled

Successful leadership starts with a clear vision.  A vision is a is a mental picture of what you want your business to be at some point in the future. It is a realistic aspiration. That vision gives the leader and leadership team a clear focus and a long-term direction they want to take their business towards. If communicated well to the whole business it creates a common direction and purpose which pulls tams together and drives them towards that vision.. So primarily leadership is all about creating, believing and communicating a clear VISION, and certainly (but not exclusively), because it stops a business heading in the wrong direction, that’s why successful leadership starts with a clear vision. 

Great leadership is about planning your business using business planning tools to match their ambitions to the opportunities in their market. Without a vision, businesses often fall into short-term annual plan, rather than long-term sustainable entities.

Clear Vision

Successful business owners step back to work on their business not in their business. Looking at where they are going and why. A vision is an essential element in a leaders toolkit. It creates a purpose and must be communicated with all stakeholders and employees effectively. It is about being more than just a product or turnover. A good vision must combine not only an aspiration but elude to the values of the business.

Clarity is a powerful skill for any leader to possess. Clarity of purpose and direction creates not only certainty but also enables a wide range of stakeholders to be able to focus their personal objectives towards the leaders vision. Clarity is not simplicity, but quite the opposite in leadership. Being able to create a simplicity from complexity is the art leadership brings to a complex rapidly changing world.  A good leader simplifies problems down through having a clear vision of where they want to go and can explain the why they are doing it in a few clear and effective messages.   

Leaders Vision Must Identify Growth

A leaders vision is about todays business in tomorrows market. It is about demonstrating that they know where they are taking the business and its people within the emerging market within which they wish to compete. Identifying growth is at the heart of why leaders create a vision for their business. The market will look like this, due to these macro factors and that will create opportunities for us within these cohorts to which we have core competencies to deliver real value to existing or new customers. 

Growth is vital for all companies in every sector. That can be organic natural growth in pure numbers, or growth through cross / upsell as well as growth from diversification or acquisition as markets grow, evolve or mature. Growth can be through transformation of the business into a new entity as markets evolve and develop or the introduction of new products and service offerings. Growth is a wide ranging topic but at the core of all leaders role is looking for defining and developing plans to win that growth.   

Leadership Skills

Good visions also aspire to where the business will provide value to customers in the future. What are the opportunities within your market and sector over the next few years. Business Planning is a process of assessing options using tried and tested business planning tools, which provide robust and accurate options for business owners to grow their business successful.

For leaders to develop those skills they need to learn how to be strategic in their thinking which is why leaders often use 3rd parties to support them through a Strategic Planning Workshop.   

Leadership is all about VISION by Richard Gourlay

 
Strategy The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay

The way forward in business, clear vision and direction supported by a supportive culture and a clear business plan, by Richard Gourlay

Content Strategy: The future of marketing

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, competitive advantage, content strategy marketing, Innovation, Marketing, opportunity, StrategyPosted on Comments are Disabled

In a world of continual change seeing what is happening is often difficult to understand until the paradigm shift has occurred. Many companies are struggling to stay ahead or even in the game of online marketing. Many companies are moving towards online marketing content strategy or as marketing people call it inbound marketing. This major shift in culture and one needs to be fully understood. The importance of content as a strategy is the future of marketing.

Content Matters

I have just had an old-fashioned marketing communication from a well-known brand, asking me to make an immediate purchase offering me a FREE upgrade for a new phone. My automatic response is not to be interested, at all because they have not demonstrated that they understand my specific needs. That made me thinks and write this article to explain why in today’s online world that old marketing technique is now as un-effective as a double glazing salesman offering me 50% off! 

Content Strategy: It’s a complete shift not just an add-on

In a world where everyone is online all the time, the amount of information is drowning people, from Linkedin to Facebook and Twitter the rise of smart phone connectivity has promised much change to marketing but until recently only early adopters, high value and niche players could see what it meant to the marketing process.
Like many changes, it is not until the change becomes tangible does its impact become visual to many marketing departments that enables them to successfully influence a company’s marketing policy. This is considerably harder to convey when there is no tangible evidence of marketing results attributable to hard to track invisible marketing shift. Unlike the shift to direct marketing where direct connectivity between outcome and result can be seen through a transparent return on investment, online inbound marketing is struggling to demonstrate its effectiveness.

Content Marketing: Pace of change is outstripping current understanding

Currently content marketing relies heavily upon invisible and poorly understood online activities. Simply put, the rate of change is outstripping the knowledge base of the marketing industry, creating a gap between the understandings of marketing by decision makers. The routes causes of this is that not only are customers sourcing information in newer ways but the platform they are using, the Internet indexing is also changing ever faster, Goggle will make over 600 changes to way it scores content. Rapidly changing customer preferences, coupled with changing technologies and an ever changing platform results in the lack of certainty of what is working and why. By the time you’ve worked out what works it has already changed.
Content Strategy can create confusion.   
Content strategy marketing process, one that now focuses on creating online and open platform engagement, online PULL; rather than internally controlled PUSH marketing methods, traditional marketers often struggle to understand the process let alone feel uncomfortable with the concept. This is not unreasonable, given the history of marketing in the last 50 years has always focused on the traditional pipeline of generating and then controlling customer decision-making, content marketing turns that on its head. People investing in inbound marketing are asked to spend money on losing control of the potential customer by letting them make an open decision about how and when they engage with your brand.
In the mid 1990’s I remember designing a website to support a brand. No one was interested until it was live and people could see something online. A director then said, “That’s great let’s print it off and send it to all our customers”    

Dialogue NOT monologue

The inbound marketing process is about generating an open dialogue, rather than a structured marketing process. It lets potentials, prospects and suspects move in and out of your control while they select you, rather than being controlled by you.
The Content Strategy Process
  1. Listening – Online is now the first port of call for 78% of web users.
  2. Creating – Great content that answers need and demonstrates expertise.
  3. Engaging – Is about being talked about and developing a dialogue with audiences
  4. Transforming – Is about continual engagement, moving them from suspects to purchasers
  5. Growing – Requires creating perpetual momentum developing new and developing loyalty
Traditional marketing models of developing engagement such as AIDA are still highly valid but instead of just focusing on a immediate winning proposition through a grabbing hook, attach a liner and sink them in a simple linear model for winning customers. Content strategy marketing demands  multiple engagement tools which include cross referencing other parties creating competitive collaborative working to generate awareness, giving away FREE content in white papers coupled with fast and slow acquisition tools in decision making.
Content strategy needs to be explained better
Moving to a content strategy is about moving from PUSH to PULL, not about the Internet platform, it is about understanding the importance of open unrestricted dialogue rather than material generation and in reality it is not just about the Internet although this is where its impact is being seen today, but equally will encompass every marketing platform and process. The growth of mobile technology will further the pace and realisation of content strategy.
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