Get Profits | Garr Barr Group

March 11, 2010 By Susan Barr 1 Comment

PREPARE FOR THE RECOVERY: RESEARCH COMPETITORS

This is the fourth post in a monthly series dedicated to preparing your business for the upcoming economic recovery. Today, I discuss gathering competitive intelligence, one form of market research which can easily be performed by the small business owner in preparation for business growth.

Market research is the foundation of business strategy. Good market research validates assumptions, informs strategy, and inspires business vision.

What do you want to know about your competitors?

1. Product assortment
2. Services and how they are delivered
3. Locations and Distribution methods
4. Company reputation among suppliers and partners
5. Marketing plans and strategy
6. Management strategies
7. Executive changes
8. Promotion and pricing strategies
9. Customer service strengths and weaknesses
10. Positive or negative public relations
11. Customer buzz: Identify advocates and naysayers
12. Financial position
13. Credit policies
14. Advertising : Appearance and content
15. Website analytics

This is just a starting point for your research as each business will have different list â€“ the imperative is to begin your research with purpose. Create a spreadsheet to make notes of your observations and analysis for each key factor.

Where can you find competitive intelligence?

A competitorâ€™s website is the natural starting point for research. Web presence (or lack thereof) points to opportunities and threats based upon the products and services defined and the marketing message encapsulating the company brand. However, the competitorâ€™s website does not tell the full story so use the following websites to gather more intelligence on your rivals:

1. Do a Google search on your target and see where your competitor has an active online presence. Do they have a Facebook page? A Twitter presence? A branded community? Check out where your competition is most active and assess the engagement level of their customers.

2. Compete.com and Alexa.com can be used to evaluate web traffic to your competitorsâ€™ site vis-Ã -vis your website and can also determine the search keywords visitors use to locate their site.

3. Have your competitors recently changed their website? Are you interested in seeing the web archives of their website? Check out http://web.archive.org to see all archived web pages of your competitors. A product such as Copernic Tracker is worth the nominal fee as a way to gather timely future content changes on your competitorâ€™s website â€“ all you need to know from new products to promotions to new customer recommendations.

4. Where do customers and experts in your industry add ratings and reviews? If you are a restaurant, check Yelp and Urban Spoon to see what is being said about your rival. If you are a contractor, check Angieâ€™s List. Are you looking for consumer product reviews? Check epinions.com or pissedconsumer.com. Consumers are increasing their participation both as critics and brand ambassadors so you will likely find real consumer feedback about most businesses.

5. PRNewswire.com provides a history of news releases relevant to a company or products in the business of creating press releases over a period of time.

6. Check the buzz about your competitors on social networking sights using www.search.twitter.com, www.boardtracker.com , www.boardreader.com , and www.socialmention.com. You will be able to read comments, assess sentiment about your competitors, and identify their issues which can become your opportunities. Using social networking intelligence, you can also determine who your competitors critics and evangelists are and why.

Who should you include in your competitive intelligence search? Obviously direct competitors in your target market are included but donâ€™t stop there. Broaden your research to include similar businesses in other markets â€“ you may gain inspiration from their marketing practices. Donâ€™t forget related businesses that may be expanding product lines in response to the recession. For example, many home construction companies are now actively pursuing the remodeling market as the new home market declines.

Combining competitive intelligence with customer research and market trends will help you craft business strategy to propel you out of the recession and into growth. Using inexpensive web-based tools, there is no excuse for the small business owner not to have access to high quality research that used to be the sole bastion of large organizations. In the next few posts, we will discuss tools and methods for researching customers and trends.

What are you using to keep track of your competitors?

February 11, 2010 By Susan Barr 1 Comment

Don’t Go It Alone – Partners Help You Climb Higher!

If you run a business, you know how essential it is to regularly monitor and measure the vital signs of your business, such as sales, profits, and project milestones. No matter your size, very simple processes can be put into place in a few key operational areas which can scale and grow in complexity as your business grows. But for me, it is not just the structure of processes which creates the framework for accountability â€“ it is the key people and partnerships which keep me on track and help give life to the creative ideas that may otherwise be stuck in the â€œwhat if?â€ file in my mind.

Mastermind Team: I am in a group of 6 fellow business owners (4 original members) which has been meeting semi-monthly for almost 10 years. Initially begun as a group of ex-colleagues meeting to stay in touch, we became a formalized group with a structured agenda. All of us are entrepreneurial moms who work from home and have found that meeting regularly, declaring our goals, sharing our successes and struggles helps us to develop and maintain strong individual businesses (and balanced lives). Each of us began this journey with different corporate and life experiences only adding to the richness of the collective â€“ synergy, if you will.

Coach/Mentor: Anne is a powerhouse sales executive who I was lucky enough to meet in my early 20â€™s when she took me under her wing. Initially supporting me as I navigated the corporate rat race, she was the first person to encourage me to become a coach and consultant and remains the person I can call for counsel with â€œI have this idea. What do you think?â€ Anytime, any day, she gives it to me straight.

Virtual Communities: I have been joining online communities and forums since the start of my business. There are so many amazing communities focused on small business and niche topics. Recently, I joined two new membership forums (ProBlogger and Third Tribe) focused on blogging and internet marketing, communities focused upon skills I am developing in support of my business strategy. In both cases, I was looking for the support of others who have â€œbeen there, done thatâ€ because I wanted to learn from the best. Communities provide a place of mutual support for entrepreneurs like me to declare tactical goals and check back with progress and feedback on work in progress in a positive learning community.

Each Accountability Partners fills a different place in my life and business and I take the responsibility for my role in the partnership very seriously.
My short list for making these partnerships successful:

1. Respect time. Whether paying a fee or not, show up when you say you are going to show up.

2. Respect the commitment. Do homework and follow through on your promises. Respect yourself and the process enough to invest time outside of the scheduled meetings.

3. Give â€“ as much and as often as you can. Everyone wants to know you value their contribution to your business. Even in a mentor partnership, the mentor appreciates a word, a card, a written recommendation, a referral, a small token of appreciation. Yes, even the truly altruistic are grateful for appreciation â€“ we all want to know our lives mean something to others.

Do you have Accountability Partners? How do you make the relationships successful?

November 3, 2009 By Susan Barr 1 Comment

101+1 Small Business Marketing Questions…With a Sense of Humor

woman at desk laughing uid 1053967 This is the time of year when I encourage entrepreneurs to begin planning for the New Year. Planning can be a positive and reflective process. It can be inspiring to look back over the mountains you have climbed in the past year and look ahead with optimism to the journey ahead.

Thanks to Scott Blitstein of eSeMBe, I found 101+1 Small Business Marketing Questions For People Who Donâ€™t Speak Marketing which is a humorous twist on serious marketing questions every small business owner should ask. I agree with Naomi Dunfordâ€™s suggestion to choose 25-50 questions and come back to the list periodically. I generally suggest every entrepreneur block off one full day to create a plan for the coming year. If you are unable (or resistant?) to give yourself the gift of a day to reflect and plan for the upcoming year, give yourself the gift of an hour a week for the next 8 weeks as we head into 2010.

Begin with your vision, this list, and a sense of humorâ€¦entrepreneurship can be fun!

September 4, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

20 Questions to Improve Team Performance

Is your team struggling or are they performing at peak levels? Are they mired in conflict and gossip? Are they competing or are they collaborating?

Henry Ford said â€œComing together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.â€

Whether your team works remotely from virtual offices or together in the same office, the group will function better when you take steps together to answer the following:

1. Why does this organization exist?
2. Who do we serve?
3. What are our shared objectives?
4. What do we believe in?
5. What is our team contribution to our organization, community, customers, owners, employees?
6. What is our individual contribution to the team, community, customers, owners, employees?
7. What values direct our decisions and inform our business practices?
8. What principles guide our interactions with customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders?
9. What do we expect of one another?
10. How will we communicate with one another?
11. What methods will we use to communicate?
12. How often will formal communication take place?
13. How will we handle conflict?
14. How will we utilize the chain of command?
15. How will we resolve differences?
16. How will we challenge one another?
17. What does each individual contribute to the objectives?
18. Who needs to be involved in decisions?
19. Who makes final decisions?
20. How will we hold each other accountable?

Shared commitment to common purpose, core values, communication norms, defined roles and responsibilities, and a culture of mutual respect, accountability and responsibility can turn a dysfunctional team into a high performance team. Achieving buy-in to the above questions accelerates the progression of a team from the formative stages with a strong foundation upon which team synergy and peak performance can be built.

August 20, 2009 By Susan Barr 1 Comment

Five Tasks in the Morning

Last week, I read an article by Chris Brogan entitled â€œFive Tasks in the Morningâ€ which has me thinking about the importance of self-discipline for business and personal success. Chris Broganâ€™s article is a description of the 5 social media actions he takes every morning to begin his work day. Itâ€™s a great starting point for those who want to learn from the best on how to manage social media for their business. Chris is unquestionably one the real â€œexpertsâ€ in a world overrun by â€œsocial media expertsâ€. However, what strikes me about this post has nothing to do with social media.

For me, the real meaning in Chrisâ€™ post has to do with discipline, being successful, being the best, and achieving your goals. As Jim Rohn says, â€œDiscipline is the bridge between goals and achievementsâ€.

When I think about the truly successful people I know, they all have one thing in common. They have a short list of daily habits that they execute every day. Their personal lives are framed by a handful of daily habits such as: 1. Prayer; 2. Exercise; 3. Healthy meals; 4. Dinner with family; 5. 8 hours sleep, to name a few. In their work lives, successful people can describe a structure of habits such as: 1. Reading newspapers; 2. contacting sales leads; 3. checking sales numbers; 4. reviewing goals; 5. measuring progress, and so on.

For another reflection on the subject David Campbell offers, â€œDiscipline is remembering what you want.â€ In running your business, are you focusing your time and energy on what you want? If someone asked you the keys to your success, could you author an article entitled â€œFive Tasks in the Morningâ€?

If not, spend some time with your business mission and vision. Brainstorm a list and narrow it down to a top five for your business. If you start every day with those â€œ5 Tasks in the Morningâ€, imagine the difference it will make to your business.