Business Strategy Archives – Page 27 of 38

19 Oct 2009

Fear of Buying – Software

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:21:54-06:00October 19th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

In Seth's recent post (Fear of Apples) he talks about how fear impacts buying. People don't want to do things that scare them and for some the threshold is low (buying the wrong apples).

He says:

"Whatever you sell, there are two big reasons people aren't buying it:

1. They don't know about it.

2. They're afraid of it."

Unfortunately, software development (one of the things we do) fits into this category big time. This is why business people often want to bring their IT people with them to a meeting… what if you say something they don't understand and make […]

15 Oct 2009

Honesty in the Real World

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:21:58-06:00October 15th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

In the last few days I have personally witnessed 2 companies (other than ourselves) deal with annoyed customers.

Honesty

In the first case (no names, my blog is not about embarrassing others), the owner of the company had to deal with a customer that was upset about a missed deliverable. This occurred while we were meeting with him. What impressed me about it was his attitude. Yes, he was genuinely upset about his company's process failure… but he was not embarrassed about it or trying to cover it up with the client or with us. Honesty goes a long way.

Too Much Success

The […]

7 Oct 2009

Measuring Success

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:22:19-06:00October 7th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

To succeed in business, common thinking says you need a vision of where you want to go, then you need a strategy (plan) for getting there, and then you need to take action over the short-term (goals, projects, tactics).

One part missing from this is measurement.

If you make a change to improve on the execution of your strategy, how do you know it has the right impact?

Gut feel or intuition? Anecdotal evidence? Or do you measure the key factors before and after?

For small to mid-size businesses, who often don't have access to a host of expert analysts, this is a difficult […]

5 Oct 2009

Your Web Presence

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:22:25-06:00October 5th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales, Technology|

Every business should have a web presence… it is a no brainer right? Maybe.

Actually, the first thing you need to decide is what you want to accomplish on the web. Whether your goal is: marketing, sales, connecting with customers, or something else….

You need to align your web presence with your company vision and strategies if you want to be sure you are not just throwing money out the window (and as a small business owner that is your money).

Don't spend any time or money developing a web site until you know what you want to accomplish.

3 Oct 2009

Knowledge Is Power

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:22:34-06:00October 3rd, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Technology|

Knowledge is power if you can use it to make better business decisions. The trick is to get the right knowledge in front of the right people at the right time.

Inside a business there are normally three key sources of knowledge:

Data,
Information or Document Repositories, and
People.

Chances are you have a lot invested already in each of these islands of knowledge… but they may not be connected or otherwise delivering the value you want. If the data does not already exist in a usable format, you may need to capture it.

Relying on Bob

Too many small businesses have critical functions that only one person has […]

2 Oct 2009

The Future Is Small and Big

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:22:43-06:00October 2nd, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

Over the next few months we will be launching a number of software products and services aimed specifically at small to mid-size businesses (depends on how you measure size).

In most cases, small businesses (should) behave and operate differently then their much larger counterparts.

We are very good at certain aspects of technology and understand how small business is different. Working with small business owners is potentially very satisfying… you get to see significant results from your work. Our work with larger corporations is interesting too… it is just harder to see the bottom line impacts.

We are also aligning ourselves with several […]

28 Sep 2009

Creating Lasting Business Partnerships

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:23:01-06:00September 28th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

Over the past couple of years we decided to start partnering with other companies to broaden our market reach and increase our ability to provide a comprehensive suite of services and products.

There are two keys to forming any lasting relationship; trust and communication. This is especially true in business.

Trust

Trust is built on a foundation of strong ethics. You then have to be genuinely committed to the success of the relationship and for that to happen, both parties need to give. The final component is that you need to be trustworthy… do what you say you will do in a way […]

21 Sep 2009

Our Company Purpose

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:23:11-06:00September 21st, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Software Development, Technology|

As I have mentioned before, we have been working on our corporate web site. It is always hardest to work on your own stuff for some reason. Client projects, proposals and hundreds of other things get in the way.

We've been looking at what we are good at, our past projects for clients and where we want to be. I also wanted something strong that we can get excited about, fits in with where we are going right now with our products and goes with my strong interest in what makes a business succeed. In the end, we have come up with the […]

18 Sep 2009

Employee Share Ownership – Alignment of Goals

By Doug Wagner|2017-07-26T21:26:37-06:00September 18th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Dream Teams|Tags: business strategy, employee engagement, Employee Share Ownership Program, ESOP, ESOP Builders, leadership, Perry Philips, small business, small business owner|

In my previous post on Strategy and Corporate Governance for Small Business, I talked about aligning Shareholder goals with the running of the company. This applies to employee share ownership as well.

When offering employees ownership you are making them shareholders.

Companies sometimes do this in an attempt to retain employees as the primary motive. However, there are issues:

Shares in a privately held company are not the same as a cash bonus. They are a paper benefit until they can be sold.
The goals of employee shareholders need to be in alignment with majority shareholders. If they are not then it might […]

15 Sep 2009

Strategy and Corporate Governance for Small Business

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-06T12:43:02-06:00September 15th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|Tags: business, corporate, doug, execution, goals, governance, planning, solutions, strategy, sunwapta, wagner|

Corporate structure goes something like this:

Shareholders – The owners of the business or enterprise
Board of Directors – The elected representatives of the shareholders whose function is twofold: provide strategic guidance to the corporate officers (management team) and make sure the interests of the shareholders are protected.
Corporate Officer or Management Team – The senior person (and sometimes some of the key subordinates) are be appointed (approved or hired) by the board of directors to carry out the will of the Board of Directors and Shareholders.
Other employees and contractors – Are hired by the management team or their representatives […]