• Innovative Strategies That Create More Profits

Category: Blog Post

Are You Open To New Ideas?

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

 

Since the industrial revolution, the business model of companies has been to build a “hit” product and then sell as many units as possible. The more product you sold, the more you reduced fixed costs (the factory was key), so you could compete on margin and maximize profits. The goal was profits this quarter and this year.

In Tien Tzuo’s book, “Subscribed,” he outlines how everything has changed since the internet, the cloud, and the platform.

Now, we can have a direct relationship with the customer, and consequently, the business model must change as well. Today, we have to start with the needs and wants of customers and create a service that delivers ongoing value to those customers.  

Companies need to turn customers into subscribers and develop recurring revenues rather than a one time or occasional buy. Financial attitudes have changed, as well. Because of scalability, rather than quarterly or yearly profits being the measure (looking backward), today’s financials are forward-looking. Use “profits” to scale the business and focus on growth. 

Customers have changed also. Today’s digital customers are also moving from products to services. They want to buy what the product does when they need it, not necessarily the product. They prefer outcomes over ownership. Think Uber. About 30 percent of millennials do not own a car but use Uber. Even Catipiller has a subscription option.

This internet-of-things (IoT) or Subscriber Economy is just beginning. If you want to be successful at it, you have to start with the customer, not the product,

 

 

How To Begin Preparing Your Story For Presentation

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

Anyone who has sat through a presentation knows what a data dump is. The presenter goes on and on in infinite detail until you want to cry or check your email. However, there is a time you will want to do a data dump, and its when you are preparing your story for a presentation.

Jerry Weissman, the author of “Presenting To Win,” has better use for all of this data. Instead of using it in your presentation, get out your whiteboard and set up a brainstorming session, and do your data dump there. You want to identify as much pertinent data as you can so you can create a story that will get your audience to yes.

First, start with the significant points that need to be covered. Then the supporting data for these significant points and connect the supporting data to the significant data points. When you run out of new data, you can begin to cluster the data around each major point.

You should end up with no more than 4 or 5 clusters for any presentation. Then evaluate and prioritize the data attached to each cluster. These four or five significant clusters and their supporting data form the basis and structure for your presentation. But, remember every point needs a benefit for the audience.

This approach will help keep your audiences off their cell phones.

 

Reverse How You Develop Your Business Model For Better Results

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

In contrast to the usual product development model, Steve Blank, in his book, “The Four Steps To The Epiphany,” describes his new approach to developing an efficient and effective path to developing a startup with a real chance of success.

The Customer-Centered  Development Model

Most startups lack a process to create, develop, and validate their business. They start by developing the product first because they know its such a great idea. They don’t realize that there are millions of needs and wants in the market, and their view of a need may not match the market’s view of a need or a want.

If you are going to succeed, you can’t be founder-centered; you must be customer-centered.

 

His model has four steps:

  1. Customer Discovery. Focuses on finding product-market fit by determining if the product solves the customer’s needs and wants.

  2. Customer Validation: Develops a sales model that is repeatable.

  3. Customer Creation: Creates and motivates end-user demand,

  4. Company Building: The move from the learning phase to the business execution phase.

 

This model flips the “development model” on its head. Rather than developing the product and then finding the market, you do the opposite because it takes several iterations to get it right.. Plus, it’s a frugal way to find out if you have a viable, sellable product. It also keeps you from hiring sales, marketing, and other company development people too early.

Are you preparing your company to meet today’s customer Needs Wants?

What’s The Shape Of Your Pipeline?

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

 

Jeff Hoffman wrote an article where he talks about the shape of your pipeline. Individual salespeople generally have a good handle on their pipeline. But management does not, Management needs to keep watching the shape of the sales funnel as a metric in order to get a better understanding of the pipeline and the status of the people in that pipeline, 

What is the shape of your pipeline? 

Do you use the traditional funnel, broad at the top and then gets continuously more narrow as it gets closer to closing? Let’s say there is a  statistical relationship of 3x the number of leads to closes. Therefore, salespeople need to get 3x the number of leads to closes if they are going to meet their quota.  

However, a better-looking funnel is shaped like a  champaign glass, which is wide at the top and narrows quickly down the stem to the base. Thie idea, of course, is to qualify prospects quickly so you can get rid of poor-prospects and have more time to work on real prospects. Naturally, this requires a well-designed qualifying system, But, it would be well worth the time an effort it takes to get that qualifying system. Then multiply that by the amount of  quality sales time gained,

The real prospects are in the stem of the champagne glass. These prospects have a 1.25 statistical probability of closing. Therefore, in the lower stem, you need 1.25 real pre-close prospects to meet a closing sale. And, much more time for the salesman to work on these potential prospects to meet his quota.  

Make an illustration of your pipeline because it’s an easy way to see where you are, and then keep track of the numbers (leads vs. closes) over time so you can plan your sales forecast more accurately and with less consternation.

If you know someone who needs to change the shape of their funnel, forward this post to them. Maybe it will help. 

 

 

Do you want to make the right decision or be right? 

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

 

When you are working in a startup, decision making is difficult because there are so many unknowns. And you can’t get enough information to decide in a reasonable time frame.

Often, others will disagree wholly or partially with the founder’s “facts.” However, unless we are talking about physical objects, “facts” are simply one person or one group’s aggregated opinions. That implies there can be many different facts about the same fact,  

However, some founders believe that every decision they make must be right. But what is more important than being right, is making the right decision. You can only do that if you believe you are fallible. 

If your decision doesn’t work out, admit it. You can quickly change course and think about why you made that decision. Study your decision-making process. Learn from it. That’s how you gain the knowledge that will help you when it’s time to make the next decision.

 If you know someone who has to always be right, only send this to them anonymously. 

Jim Zitek/ https://https://harborcapitalgroupinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Braintopview-1.jpg.com 

 

 

Persuasion Requires Understanding And Empathy

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

To be persuasive, you have to spend a considerable amount of time getting to know your audience. What is it that they want to hear, not what you want to tell them. 

A key element of persuasion is empathy (the feelings desires. wishes, fears, and passion of the audience). Persuasion comes when you stir their emotions. The best way to achieve empathy is with a story that relates to their situation. 

Everything you say and do must serve the needs of the audience and if you are guided by the audience, you will be successful. An important way to achieve understanding and empathy is to change your focus from features to benefits. 

A feature is a fact about you or your product or service and may not be relevant, but a benefit is always relevant. People need a reason to act and that reason must be theirs, not yours.

Think about this. Give the audience a fact and some context as to why that fact is important. Then, give them the benefit of that fact. If you don’t have a benefit, you don’t need that fact. 

If you know someone who needs to turn skeptics into believers, tell them about this post. Maybe it will help. 

Maybe Your Product Is Great

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

Maybe your product is excellent, but your message is not. Instead of focusing on features and functions, focus on what the customer wants.  

If you are talking to people who are interested in listening to you, Maybe you should stop selling and start giving information that will help the customer do his job, solve his problem, fulfill his “want”.

Most buyers have a budget. Maybe they don’t want to spend their budget on your product, but the result of buying your product?

If you know someone with a flat sales curve, tell them about his blog. Maybe it will help. 

 

Great Temptations

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 Don’t Be Tempted

When you tell your story to prospects who want to hear it, you are tempted to “stretch” the story a little to improve it.

Peter Theil, the Venture Capitalist, assumes most people say their product performs 20% better than it does.

So he wants to invest in companies with ten times better products than the competitors.  

We don’t know if 20% is the right amount of exaggeration, but it does bring up an important point.

We are exposed to so many competing stories 24/7 that this “standard” exaggeration may no longer work.

Today, you will get caught, your audience will tell others about your overkill, and you will end up the loser.

Remember, a story that resonates with people who want to hear your story are likely to believe it is true.

They will find instances that reinforce this truth, called cognitive bias, and tell others.

How can you prove your product, service, or value proposition is true (metrics, testimonials, studies, case studies, referrals, etc.)?

How Do We Know What To Believe

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

In his book, All Marketers Tell Stories, Seth Godin talks about understanding why people buy the goods and services they do, He states that: We believe things that aren’t true …or many things that are true, are true because we believe them. 

In other words, we believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulling truth. For example, why do people buy bottled water when they can get it for free?

One reason is that we have moved beyond buying things we need and have moved to buy things based on our complexity of wants. If you believe that bottled water is better and you want better water, you happily buy it and also enjoy the statement the product makes to others.