No doubt that many avoid any kind of research, let alone market research, like the plague for a lot of reasons. This undoubtedly means your business culture suffers greatly due to a great fear in the office. A cloaked figure of darkness and a scythe, waiting to envelope you in the shadows of despair as you’re engulfed in never-ending data, statistics, and reading. It’s not fun!
Hence Why Your Business Culture Tends to Be More About Action and Results, Not the Preparation That Ensures You Get There
We want results — without a whole lot of work to get there. And don’t get us wrong: there are many things we do on a daily basis, best practices to optimize your business planning with the proven model that gives you the most minimal time crunch and maximum output and results. But hear us on this: you never, ever discount the preparation and planning, meaning the market research!
Fear is a funny thing, honestly. It’s only as terrifying as we make it out to be, but thankfully when you’re in on the trends of today and the power of the Internet, and other best practices you make second nature — there’s no doubt you make this grim reaper of market research more like a puppy dog!
Here are the best reasons for doing market research without breaking a sweat (or fearing death):
Google’s Marketer’s Almanac — How easy it is to just click the link and get all the information you need right at your fingertips on consumer behavior changes, especially during the seasons, holidays and special events. Yep, Google has the ability to give you that information in just minutes.
American Fact Finder — There’s no better research space than the U.S. census, but holy COW would it take forever for you to research that mile-long book. Thankfully, this website allows you to research all of it with a few button clicks and filters by age, income, year, race and location. Oh, and it’s free to use.
County Business Patterns — When was the last time you scouted businesses clear across the country? Probably never. Travel’s expensive, but this site makes it easy as it provides info on the areas and regions for large numbers of all sorts of businesses. Check it out for yourself.
Business Dynamics Statistics — Remember all that census data you just found? Guess what: now you can use this site to view the economic data on job creation, startups, openings, expansions, shutdowns, and even closures.
FedStats — The best part about finding information on certain industries is getting the info from all sorts of federal agencies. What’s hard is finding that info from those agencies as quickly as you’d like. This site accesses all that info for you immediately, for such verticals as agriculture, education, transportation, and energy.
MyBestSegments — This is next-level campaign research stuff when you think about it. We don’t know of any other tool out there that can review any region’s demographics in terms of lifestyle and habits. In other word, click on this site, and you can start researching your locale immediately to determine how your consumer base will react to any campaign you launch and even what competitors are near you.
SurveyMonkey — Surveys are the weapon to use, but for many people, they’re hard to create. Unless you use this site.
Loop11 — Even sicker and futuristic is this crazy site allowing you to actually test the websites of your competitors secretly. Simply create a form and recruit people. You have to see it for yourself!
Userlytics — Definitely last, but most certainly not least, is Userlytics, which does the uncanny. This platform actually allows you to webcam and screen-shot a user testing your mobile apps, videos, display ads, and much more. Talk about real-time and verifiable research….
And you better believe this trend-setting business planning stratosphere will continually evolving. Perhaps even avoiding death and achieving immortality.
That’s Why You Have to No Doubt Shut Off the Fear Due to the Tools. Fear NOT Market Research.
For these days it’s plenty easier getting all the data you need to ensure you have all the information you could get your hands on. And that cloaked demon over there ends up not as scary. Just a guy with bad skin, looking for a corn field to harvest.
Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of The Startup Connection, directs all small business clients toward maximum sales and profit thanks to his 40 years of high-quality experience. He does this through technological, social, and online integration, supercharging your business success into the next level, so don’t hesitate to sign up for a free consultation RIGHT NOW.
Anyone needs to read the The Path of Least Resistance as a way to drive them toward creative growth, authored by Robert Fritz and the master of one of the best quotes ever outlining true business risk and what it does to many a company: “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”
Robert Fritz Said That, and to This Day, It’s the Mantra of Any Entrepreneur Looking to Take on Business Risk
In a nutshell, never limit yourself to what you’re comfortable with — or you’ll deny yourself the possibilities. Risk can do that, and here’s the clincher: sometimes that’s a good thing! But don’t fall into the trap of believing that you should just stick with what ‘works’.
Yes, it sounds smart. Go with what works. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Common adages that make plenty of sense, especially in business. We’re not knocking that at all! But what we are saying is that while these sayings are true, they’re only true in the right situations.
After all…it doesn’t say “go only with what works.” So go with what works in your business according to the risks you commonly take, but don’t be afraid to go above and beyond that on occasion. Test the waters. Research the trends. Grow.
Now if it “ain’t broke, don’t fix it” makes perfect sense, but only if you’re planning on having something operate on its own and works just fine as it is without adding anything to it. What if you want to build something else along with it? Something that’ll make that perfect machine run even better?
In that case, you’re not fixing anything. You’re simply improving. Advancing. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
The Challenge Is Looking at Business Risk as NOT a Realist Factor, But an Opportunity to Have Ideas
So don’t be afraid of taking it. Risk is there for a reason. But it’s not to stymie you. It’s to enrich you. That being said, you can’t be enriched if you don’t have that creativity to reach beyond that business box and find out what’s outside of the cardboard.
In summary, you want to tackle business risk? Don’t be safe. Be creative!
Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of The Startup Connection, directs all small business clients toward maximum sales and profit thanks to his 40 years of high-quality experience. He does this through technological, social, and online integration, supercharging your business success into the next level, so don’t hesitate to sign up for a free consultation RIGHT NOW.
Say what you want about trademarks and logos. They have their place. But if you’re really looking for brand development, making sure it’s successful in the market you’re targeting, there are three aspects you have to focus on the most:
You Simply Ask Yourself These Three Questions About Brand Development: What Are the FEATURES, What Are the BENEFITS, and What Are the ADVANTAGES?
Real quick, if you don’t know the answers to those questions, simply start researching. Get them. Without them, your brand isn’t a brand. But just a name. And there are a lot of names out there!
The thing is when you’re building your brand, educating your consumer base about the “holy trinity” does a few things — it lets your customers know what the product/service is, why it’s great, and why it’s better than the rest of the competition. We’re talking about a 1-2-3 combo, and if you were a boxer, that’s a knockdown on the 3rd round for the championship belt without breaking a sweat! You’re, of course, asking just why these three together make so much of a difference in your brand development.
Features — The “features” of your product and service happen to be exactly what it is. The specs. What your product/service does and provides. This is the nuts and bolts. The basic understanding. After all, customers may know what a fork does, but they had to have that explained to them when the fork was first introduced into the consumer market, right? These days, though, features don’t come across as that simple, hence why aspects like warranties, ease of use and distribution return privileges (the added “features”) make a difference as well.
Benefits — Here’s where we get a little tricky. The benefits are like the “features” except now we’re going above and beyond what the product/service does. Why does it do what it does? That’s the question. We now know what a fork does. But why do we need one? To effectively eat our chicken Caesar salad, of course, without any of the lettuce falling off! Now that’s a benefit. But it’s only a benefit if the customer believes he/she needs it and sees it as valuable.
Advantages — And, of course, lastly, it’s pretty obvious why a fork would be better than, say, a SPOON when eating chicken Caesar salad. This is where you have to explain what the advantages are. Target your competition. Set yourself apart. Sure, the spoon’s great for cereal, but when was the last time you successfully ate a salad with a ladle? These days selling the advantages of a product or service has been getting much more cutthroat and vicious with the shorter attention spans and seamless Internet communication capability.
Hence why more now than ever we focus on these three even heavier than before as part of branding. Packaging your product/service in this way along with that name and logo gets you started on the right foot. Plain and simple.
Now Get Started With Your Brand, Ring the Bell, and Make It Happen
Of course, I can help you with everything you need in propelling your small business, all the nuts and bolts. But you need the vehicle first. Here are the parts. Start building. And I’ll see you soon.
Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of The Startup Connection, directs all small business clients toward maximum sales and profit thanks to his 40 years of high-quality experience. He does this through technological, social, and online integration, supercharging your business success into the next level, so don’t hesitate to sign up for a free consultation RIGHT NOW.
These days business just isn’t about playing it safe or going with the status quo. Chances need to be taken. Such is the case for what is commonly called the business outlier, or in other words a professional who doesn’t follow the standard model of business in any given industry or market. Some might even call them trendsetters, whistle blowers, or even “contrarians.” I, of course, call them the hidden gems. The ones who might have an idea that’s never been tried before — and you never know, you just might be the first person to score a new niche, tap into a new market, or penetrate a brand-new revenue source no one ever thought existed.
So Here’s Some Strong Advice for You: Listen to That Business Outlier. And Take Some Chances.
The challenge, though, is the fact that oftentimes the outlier or contrarian might push a few buttons or ruffle a few feathers, because let’s face it: going against the grain can cause issues. And sometimes going against the grain means you’ve got that loud voice that yells out into the crowd that the old way of working just doesn’t work anymore, and you’re all stupid, when that’s also not true.
So exercise caution — and listen to that enthusiastic business outlier. You might pull some really clever golden nuggets out of that business networking conversation.
Think of the landscape we’re currently in. Changes are aplenty. Think of the fact that we have so many ways of borrowing money at 2% to 5% or even no interest on 6-month credit cards, but even now companies are going with 12-20% requirement for returns while passing on other opportunities.
I implore you: don’t. Never assume, especially on outdated stuff. Try something new. You never know if it’ll work if you’re not testing it in your business model.
So Are You, In Fact, Testing Out Any New Business Ideas and Challenges?
If so, fantastic. If not, please reconsider. Chances are pretty darn good that even if it doesn’t work, you just knocked another low card in the deck, which gets you to that ace in there. After all, good business is like a deck of cards. A numbers game. Keep going through all of them until you land the full house.
Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of The Startup Connection, directs all small business clients toward maximum sales and profit thanks to his 40 years of high-quality experience. He does this through technological, social, and online integration, supercharging your business success into the next level, so don’t hesitate to sign up for a free consultation RIGHT NOW.
Business risk happens to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. However, if you give all the sheep hockey sticks and a puck like Wayne Gretzky, that wolf will likely hide behind the goal’s net. No one likes getting hit by the puck several dozen times! But we get it, though: we’re afraid of ticking off that wolf, and lo and behold: the wolf might come out from behind that net and start really nasty grunge fights with each sheep, and instead of a hockey game, we have a slaughter on our hands.
Honestly, Business Risk Is a Lot Like That: an Angry Wolf
But here we have the key to taming that wolf — we mentioned Wayne Gretzky.
It turned out he had quite the quote that makes perfect sense in hockey —
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
When you think about it, that makes perfect sense! And there’s no way around it. Truthfully, if you’re running a business, you have to accept the fact that you’re always going to be facing risk. And if you run away from it, the risk is even greater.
The key to managing risk is to take those chances — and learn from the historical data. Part of the problem is that we think risk is a lot bigger than it actually is. That wolf does look a lot bigger on the ice rink — until you start chucking pucks at him.
Sadly we’re creatures of habit, and before the innovation of technology — the Internet, mobile, Google, Amazon — we didn’t have a lot of “pucks” to chuck at the wolf like Wayne Gretzky would. So we were stuck on the old methods and didn’t want to try something new. And it’s understandable! — after all, we can’t predict much results with new programs or methods, because there’s nothing as far as historical data for us to analyze.
Thankfully, I Have the Goods Here About How to “Take All the Shots” Like Wayne Gretzky and Manage Risk Without Failure:
Here are some tools to keep in mind as you manage risk head-on while moving forward in your small business:
Measure, Estimate, Prioritize, and Adapt — Testing and experimenting are the keys to taming that wolf. In fact, we once had a client simply focus on key inventory items, eliminating unproductive factors by just looking at the clicks and monitoring the Google Analytics data. It’s simple. That’s one slap shot you can take like Wayne Gretzky.
Follow the 80/20 and 90/30 Rules — Develop your business methodology down to these numbers, and it’ll be a lot easier to forecast results. The 80/20 rule is how you’ll expect 80% of your sales coming from 20% of the offerings you make. So do the math. Likewise, 90% of all perceptions of your product will be realized in your customers’ heads within 30 seconds. So, in other words — make enough shots at the goalie in a short period of time, and you’ll definitely expect a lot of scores.
Lastly…. You Will Make Some Mistakes, and That’s OKAY — Why? Because that gives you the opportunity to adapt. After all, the longer you keep making those shots, the more hits you’ll make over time.
In other words: the more business risk you take, the less risk there will be.
It’s Not Easy, and You Need to Exercise Caution, Obviously
Simply be strategic. Don’t go all out. But balance your efforts. After all, Wayne Gretzky didn’t win on sheer will and tenacity alone; he had the skill.
Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of The Startup Connection, directs all small business clients toward maximum sales and profit thanks to his 40 years of high-quality experience. He does this through technological, social, and online integration, supercharging your business success into the next level, so don’t hesitate to sign up for a free consultation RIGHT NOW.
When you want to stand out, reach out to Bert for the tools that will build your “sticky” brand. My focus is on understanding and analyzing your dilemmas and challenges, so your company becomes profitable faster.
Call (914) 632-6977 or email me at bshlensky@startupconnection.net. Don’t leave without signing up for our useful free eBook!
Feeling stumped or overwhelmed? Contact Bert at (914) 632-6977 or Email to start the process. Thanks!
book. Thankfully, this website allows you to research all of it with a few button clicks and filters by age, income, year, race and location. Oh, and it’s free to use.
possibilities. Risk can do that, and here’s the clincher: sometimes that’s a good thing! But don’t fall into the trap of believing that you should just stick with what ‘works’.
them, your brand isn’t a brand. But just a name. And there are a lot of names out there!
niche, tap into a new market, or penetrate a brand-new revenue source no one ever thought existed.