Turning Point Strategy

This Week: Challenge Your Vision

by

I just finished reading Elon Musk, a biography by Ashlee Vance. I was fascinated by Elon’s ability to dream up big, audacious visions, that often challenged long-held industry assumptions.  I imagine him creating these visions by continuously asking, and them refining a set of questions that pushes the edges of what we think is possible.

For Tesla, he seemed to have asked, “Why can’t an electric car be THE best car on the road, not just the best electric car?” (157). And then Consumer Reports gave the Tesla Model S the highest score of all cars on the market.  

For SpaceX, he asked, “Why can’t we fire rockets into space and then have them land back on earth? This way we can reuse them to not only dramatically reduce costs, but to also increase the frequency of rocket launches to increase learning and innovation” (12).  Here is a video of them doing exactly that. The result? They have come from nowhere to take business from Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Big visions, the ones that emotionally connect to you, your employees, and your customers often start with asking good questions. They come from challenging the status quo. And they come from trial and error until you get it right.

What questions are you asking that challenges a long-held view of the future of your organization?

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

This Week: Don’t be for Everyone

by

This blog? It’s not for everyone. My strategy practice? It’s also not for everyone.

If you are not looking to drive changes in your business model or strategy, I might not be for you.

If doing things the same way that you’ve always performed them is fine with you, and you wanted to work with me, I would gently say no.

The mistake that I made, early in my business career, was trying to be all things to all people. I never quite said it that way, but I didn’t have the courage to build a market position around a narrowly defined segment. It felt risky. So the services or products that I provided did not do anything extremely well. And the results I got were the results that I deserved: anemic margins commensurate with average products.

This Week: Go look at your website, marketing material, and selling scripts. Who is it for? (Hint: It should be for a very specific person, in a very specific role, trying to solve a very specific problem—and doing so extremely well.)

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

This Week: Be Negative

by

‘Via negativa’ is a fancy Latin phrase that, among other things, is a way of describing something by focusing on what it is not. Instead of focusing on what you do, you shift your focus on what you don’t do.

As a business owner, defining what your business is not helps you stop doing the things that are hindering your business or helps you avoid them altogether.  Similarly, Michael Porter felt that the most important part of a company’s strategy is choosing what not to do.

As a business professional, concentrating on what you do not do helps you see and then remove the bad habits and situations in your life. Removing the bad things gives you the time and energy to focus on what helps you get more of what you want.

So, this week, start making a list.

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

This week: Get Started!

by

Said simply, progress makes more progress easier.

In Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, he called it a giant flywheel. Once it starts to move, it’s easier to get behind and help it move faster (p.14).

So, that idea you have for a new product? Or an innovative approach to improve customer service? Or that new and different way to organize your company?  How might you get started today without fear that you might be wrong? Odds are you will be wrong. But, being wrong gets us closer to being right.

This week: End it smarter than you began it. Try something more, better, and different that teaches you something new.

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

 Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

~Tony

This Week: Help Your Customers with Their Taxes

by

That’s what Warren Buffet did as an early twenty-something, stockbroker, right out of school.

Why? No one wanted to meet with a young guy with no stock-picking track record. So, he shifted his approach by asking for a meeting to help them discover money-saving tax strategies. Suddenly, he was rarely turned down for a meeting.

The lesson is simple–as Warren Buffet’s lessons often are. Offer to help your potential customer do something more, better, or different, that will improve them and their company. Do this before you ask for their business. When done right, your lead generation becomes less of a chore. More enjoyable. And much more effective.

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

This Week: Answer this One Question

by

In this week’s leadership team meeting, have everyone bring their answers to this question:

What is the one thing that our company is laser focused on?

Put your team’s answers up on a whiteboard, then collapse and combine the ideas into one thing.  Or, as an alternative, have everyone pick their top one from the list.

Then, rate your one thing against the following criteria on a scale of 1 to 10. If not a “10”, ask what would it take to make it a “10”?

  • Does it center around our ideal customer?
  • Is it meaningfully different from our competitors?
  • Is it important and meaningful when viewed through our customer’s eyes?

Remember that there are no facts inside your four walls, so get out of the office and test your team’s answers with current and prospective customers.  Keep editing and testing your answers until you hit the bullseye. Then, align all your outside communications and internal processes to focus on this one thing.

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

 

~Tony

This Week: De-Risk Your Ideas

by

Companies often shoot expensive cannon balls and miss when they could have first shot inexpensive bullets to determine if a new idea would hit the intended target.  When our cannon-ball shots miss, it makes us more risk averse. It makes us go back to the status quo.

Ideas that can be tested with a calibrating bullet not only includes new products, but also new strategies and new processes.

What might a calibrating bullet look like?

  • An email that asks customers if they want to be notified of a potential new product (before you shift resources to build the product.)

  • A temporary landing page to get people to tell you what they think.

  • A prototype of a brochure to see if a prospect will buy.

  • A survey that causes prospects to force rank the relative desirability of new product features.

  • A prototype of a new product to get feedback

  • A manual paper prototype of a new process before it’s automated.

In the end, using calibrating bullets gives you more courage to try new things. It allows you to be different than your closet rivals and to find new ways to serve your customers like never before.

Do you have a Big Strategy?

Our three-minute Big Strategy Assessment is designed to get you thinking. To get your team talking. To begin to answer the question “How do we create better growth?” Take it here and get the conversation going.

 

~Tony

This Week: Stay Small to Go Big

by

Everything big started out small and focused.

Iam’s Pet Food focused on a small segment of pet owners who valued highly nutritious food. And was then sold to P&G for several billion dollars.

Many times, a seemingly small market becomes more than enough. Members of a small market are easy to find and market to. It’s easy to understand their unique needs. It’s more efficient to serve them as they have similar jobs that they are trying to get done. And new growth engines are more apparent because you can clearly identify more important jobs that aren’t getting done to your segment’s satisfaction.

But all too often, companies begin to expand past their core market. And the resulting growth creates complexity. And complexity eats away at your margin (and your quality of life).

Imagine what your business would look like if you focused on your most satisfied and most profitable customer segment.

Do you have a Big Strategy?

Our three-minute Big Strategy Assessment is designed to get you thinking. To get your team talking. To begin to answer the question “How do we create better growth?” Take it here and get the conversation going.

~Tony

This Week: Stop Trying to Grow

by

Efforts to grow tend to take you off course.

You work hard to add new target markets, broaden your offerings or chase new opportunities. And, over time, your uniqueness becomes blurred. Your answers to  “why should I buy from you?” become generic and less than compelling: “We have great customer service!” or “We focus on quality!”

Growth is not a strategy, it’s a result. It’s a result of focusing what you can be best at and then targeting that “best at” on the smallest viable market.

What are you best at? And for whom?

Do you have a Big Strategy?

Our three-minute Big Strategy Assessment is designed to get you thinking. To get your team talking. To begin to answer the question “How do we create better growth?” Take it here and get the conversation going.

~Tony

This Week: Be Uncomfortable

by

Often times a really good strategy makes you uncomfortable. It forces you to make choices. And making choices is the opposite of keeping our options open. It’s the opposite of serving many different markets each wanting our value proposition delivered in different ways.

Good strategy forces you to say no to some opportunities while, at the same time, making bets on a new delivery approach, a new pricing structure, a new business model. All of which just might not work.

Good strategy–the kind that allows you to acquire and keep more profitable customers–starts off a little scary. It makes you uncomfortable.

So, this week, identify the small group of customers that deliver 80% of your profits. And then imagine a strategy that only focuses on serving them more and better. What might your company look like if you shift resources to double-down on your best customers? Does it feel a little uncomfortable?

Often times, the fear we feel is just a signal that something is worth pursuing.

To help you determine if your strategy might need to change, please take this Big Strategy Assessment.

~Tony