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One business and leadership strategy, if you have not adopted it already, is to establish strategic partnerships or alliances with other business leaders that compliment your business, and could help you co-brand, market, advertise, and drive business to both of you, in a collaborative, cooperative partnership.
Establishing these relationships is not only smart for your business but is a key determining characteristic of both a leader and an entrepreneur.
What strategic partnerships or alliances have you established for your business this year? And what results have you received as a result?
Something to think about prior to answering for yourself or for the audience here, then I will definitely provide more detail behind this question later.
Do you approach your business Cooperatively or Competitively and what advantages do you get from the approach you take?
This past week at CEO Space emphasized cooperative actions, relationships, and every day attitude toward business and personal development activities. Basically meaning that pursuing business deals, partnerships, networking, prospecting, etc. in competitive manner is evidence that one may be desperate, insecure and inferior. And others see it. Think about it: do you rush to prospects in fear that the competition will get to them first, when your income is low or not even flowing do you pursue your sales calls in a desperate, emotional manner. Do you keep your ideas, strategies and plans to yourself in fear that if you were to share or partner with someone, your ideas would be stolen by others. Therefore you don’t collaborate with others, let alone partner with them so you can leverage their expertise?
I have learned over the years, and believe me it took a while to do so, that there is enough business and opportunities for all of us. That to approach our business, relationships, and overall lives in a competitive nature, that is it harder if not impossible to reach the true goals that we want. We would definitely not be having fun doing it, since we are always in fear or feeling desperate. Those emotions are much to draining and destructive to be happy, let alone to productively accomplish what we want.
A bit of coaching as well as a challenge for you then is to: if you have those feelings of approaching life or business competitively, spend one full day or week removing all of those feelings and just breathe and sit back to allow yourself to approach your activities cooperatively, trusting, open, and collaboratively. What results do you accomplish with that approach vs the competitive approach?
What are you willing to do, willing to risk, step out and do in order to guarantee success in your business?
Think about it, really think about it.
Write it out on a piece of paper. Then just scribble without thinking, judging, assessing, the things you are willing to do in order to succeed in your business, i.e. are you willing to go and ask family/friends/peers for money, are you willing to spend money where needed, can you bring on a partner, could you acquire another business to expand, etc..
What are you willing to do and risk in order to guarantee your success? Your question of the day
Store fronts are shuttered and strip malls are vacant. Cities throughout the country are becoming deserted as businesses close therefore residents move out to where the jobs are.
What could owners have done to prevent and preserve their business? Input needed!
RANDI - you are absolutely right, ensuring high levels of customer service is critical for any and all businesses these days. There are so many choices out there for someone to choose from that loyalty is hard to come by. However those businesses that make it a core part of their business do earn it, and their customers reward them with referrals, praise, and ongoing business.
I want to also share the following article that is very timely; provided by Tim Berkesch….how business rivals are banding together to survive recession http://tinyurl.com/lg6qpb.
I need to also add some other options to the above 2 options:
Consider new or additional products and services that could compliment the core business offering
Pricing and packaging: bundles, incentives, multiples, etc. (this does NOT mean to discount)
Reward, loyalty, or customer appreciation programs
Market and advertise to new or different customers (and yes, that does mean spending money)
Would you business benefit from a salesperson (even if it is 100% commission. Remember, a lot of people are looking for work and are willing to work on commission, even for experience)
Does your products or services translate for online sales
Are there partners that you can co-brand, market and sell with
Just some ideas……..
COACHING TIP: if you find yourself struggling to move your business forward, before you give up, try this one thing:
Recruit 3-5 people you respect, find to be creative, and are supportive of you and your business.
Get them into a room with no distractions (phones, interruptions, noise), and with notepads, or whiteboards, or flip charts, simply strategize without much discussion, challenge or defense all of the ideas or thoughts each of you have for new customers, products/services, promotions, pricing, etc..
Once you have dumped all of the ideas out without discussion, then go and discuss briefly how you can leverage the idea
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One business and leadership strategy, if you have not adopted it already, is to establish strategic partnerships or alliances with other business leaders that compliment your business, and could help you co-brand, market, advertise, and drive business to both of you, in a collaborative, cooperative partnership.
