Projecting Success: Forecasting the Year Ahead
December 28, 2008
So, you’ve finished 2008 with great success. 2009 is almost here – have you completed your marketing forecast yet?
It may sound like an ominous exercise – and for large businesses, it usually is. But even for small businesses, creating a market forecast – which aligns with your overall sales and business goals – is a necessary part of the planning process. It ensures that you’ll stay on track, noting the tactical steps you’ll need to implement to get there.
In most situations, the best way to create a market forecast estimate is to find an expert forecast, estimate from past data, find parallel data or apply a model. Yet, we know that these forecasts can be expensive and may not truly apply to the small business industry you’re in.
To help guide you, we’ve compiled some key sources that will help you create your marketing forecast, based on your own individual industry drivers and the exact nature of your business.
Industry Overview Reports & Forecasts You can look for these forecasts in published news reports, on the Internet, in library reference materials, and in trade association publications. Industry magazines usually have the latest detailed forecasted statistics and research on customer trends and market penetration. Business Week and the Economist have a weekly column on business outlooks, and quarterly surveys of industry outlooks.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) If you’re a services provider, this might be the key resource for you. The BLS regularly publishes job outlooks that include forecasts of the numbers of certain kinds of jobs into the future. If your marketing plan needed to project growth in the number of accountants or heavy machinery operators, you could find that at the BLS site. You could also find a projection showing projected growth of computer industry jobs, or growth in specific employee categories.
Past Data Estimates
While the past doesn’t always predict the future, it can indicate trends. Sometimes you can find past data on a market and use that to project into the future. The principle of using past data as a guideline for the future is one of the fundamentals of forecasting. Using past data will give you a good starting point and a sense of reality for your forecast.
Educated Guessing You should apply a level of educated guessing to your data-driven plan, based on your own – and others’ – expertise. Association data (or even your local Chamber of Commerce) could give you expert opinions on past and future trends and growth rates. In the qualitative part of your plan, you could explain how these trends are affecting the level of sales you predict or the marketing tactics you plan to use to grow your customer base.
For extra inspiration, we’ve also included a examples of how a few successful entrepreneurs created clear, actionable plans on where they wanted to go. The examples are varied in terms of strategy and risk threshold, but they’re comprehensive all the same. Check out http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080101/new-years-resolutions.html.
While no one has a crystal ball, there are always ways to glean enough insight to get you going down your path of profitable success.
5 Tips to Structuring Your Personal Time
December 21, 2008
For those of us that work for ourselves, it’s extremely tempting to check e-mail on the weekends, between commercials or during your kid’s soccer game. Just as enticing is taking that client phone call on the way to a Saturday night movie. In your mind, it makes things more efficient and lessens the amount of work you’ll need to face on Monday. Right?
Wrong. Surely, you may have a shorter list (but something usually finds its way on there). What you may not realize is that those actions actually have an effect on you being present to your family and personal life. And when we’re not present and focused, we miss something.
Time is a valuable commodity, especially when your days are filled with presentations, prospecting for new business, following up on pending contracts, and contacting existing clients. Not to mention the need to pay bills, manage employees, field phone calls, plus much more. With this deluge of activity, sometimes our most important asset—family and personal life—gets placed on the back burner.
In fact, studies have shown that having balance and support with and from those in your personal life will actually make you more productive.
The key: structure your family life as you do your work life. Give the proper time and investment to watching that soccer game as you would launching a marketing campaign. Trust us, the ROI will be enormous.
We’ve compiled some key tips and strategies to effectively structure your personal life in balance with your work life, learned from those who have been there and done it.
More…
The Juggling Act: Tips for Really Balancing Work and Family
So how do you effectively manage family and work responsibilities in your fast-paced life? Here are 5 tried and true ways to bring structure balance into your life:
1. Put your family first. Regardless of what else comes our way on a daily basis, you need to make time for your family, the No. 1 priority. If it’s just you, make you your family. Just as you would schedule an appointment with a client, it’s essential to set aside time for your family and self. When you work in an office you are, in essence, already doing this. You “schedule” in your family for the waking hours of the day that you are not at work. The same holds true when your
business is run from home.
2. It’s your schedule—not your clients’. One of the great values of running your own business is being flexible with your own hours. Don’t be afraid to tell a client or a customer that you have a commitment on this day or at that time. If it’s a school choir concert or a Little League ballgame, that is a commitment on your schedule and you should try and arrange another time to work with the
customer.
3. Plan your day in advance. Planning your day allows you to create a road map for the day’s work and helps you avoid wasting many productive minutes throughout the day. Make sure your planning includes time with your spouse and family. It’s also important that you take your planning to another level: planning your week in advance. Spending 15 minutes to plan out your week will make a big difference in setting time aside for your family and other important commitments without sacrificing the work that needs to get done.
4. Turn off your mobile phone from time to time. Don’t be afraid to turn off your mobile phone or Blackberry when spending time or eating a meal with your family. Society has become so “wired” with portable devices and communication aids that you often use your equipment without noticing how disruptive it can be to a family outing. Check your voicemail at your first opportunity and return calls later, and change your voice message to indicate you will be unavailable until a
certain time.
5. Give yourself a daily reminder. Remind yourself on a daily basis – on your calendar or through an e-mail alert, perhaps – how valuable the time is that you spend with your spouse and family. Remember the initial point: if you aren’t successful at home, your work achievements likely won’t matter too much. The key to running a successful business is the support of your family.
It’s never too late to make a change. What’s important is that you identify what needs to change and make a decision to move forward in a positive new approach to balancing your work and family. Today’s the day.
10 Cool Ideas for Free Market Research…
December 11, 2008
All smart business people know the value of good market and customer research. Yet as a small business owner, conducting expensive focus groups or buying comprehensive industry studies is likely out of your price range.
Good news is that there are plenty of free services for you to find the things you need to know.
We recommend first starting with a simple matrix outline. What do you need to know about your customers, your industry and your competitors? From there, you have a basic template you can update at regular intervals, as you need it.
Based on our own research, the following are some of the best Internet-based free sources to help you complete your research matrix.
CorporateInformation.com The site features research reports on over 31,000 companies from over 55 countries. There are basic free service and premium upgrade options available.
Hoovers.com Similar to CorporateInformation.com, Hoovers offers a free option and a premium subscription service. Hoovers has everything from SEC filings and company snapshots to industry overviews and people profiles.
Newspaper Publications Many publications, particularly newspapers, allow free access to their stories for a short period of time. Check it out at: http://www.knowthis.com/stories/71/566.htm
Syndicated Research Reports Actual research firms often offer free snippets of their research reports (or the actual reports themselves) in various industries. Visit: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Market+research+services-s1950
This site has every statistic for small business covered by industry, market size, profitability and debt to equity ratios, to name a few.
This is a useful site to stay current on your industry and competitors, large and small. PRNewswire covers some 40,000 global organizations media releases. Another handy link on the home page is trade shows for all the coverage you may need for shows you didn’t attend but wish you did.
No market research would be complete without data from the U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov). Be sure to check out the gateway page to the 2000 census for tons of facts on all markets.
CensusScope (http://www.censusscope.org/) provides simple-to-use charts, maps and graphs for demographic information from the University of Michigan’s Social Science Data Analysis Network. The site has solid data charts and graphs to click and paste into your business plans or presentations.
ResearchWikis is the latest online library of free market research. The goal is to share market research with the global community. ResearchWikis is written collaboratively by contributors from all around the world – and can be added to or edited by anyone in the world. Here, there’s a wiki for every industry, from adhesives to orthopedic care. Market definitions, metrics and industry players are included in each industry overview. Check it out at http://www.researchwikis.com/Main_Page.
One last consideration:
Most of the above resources hold the factual, quantitative market data critical for business planning. However, another popular and free way to obtain valuable qualitative research is through blogs. Since blogs are naturally a two-way street, they’re a perfect forum for you to find out what your prospects and customers think, know and want. Consider launching a blog on your site. (Free blog service include http://blogspot.com & WordPress.com).
Whichever sources you choose, don’t underestimate the power of market research and data in your business planning process. Rest assured that your competitors aren’t skimping on it either.
photo credit: Okko Pyykkö
Interview with Akron Businessman Marty Lyman
December 10, 2008
Marty is president and founder of Compass Solutions based in Akron, Ohio. Compass designs and implements telecommunication and internet solutions for businesses. He is also on the board of trustees for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (www.umdf.org).
Marty founded his business six years ago in a time when the communications industry itself was in a tailspin. However, with good planning and a disciplined approach Marty has been able to grow Compass into a thriving business. Marty offers us some sage advice as someone who’s built his business from the ground up.
Some take away points:
- Know why you’re getting into business in the first place
- In order to reach long term goals, you need to keep them in your face on a daily basis. You also need to break them down into incremental steps you can take each day, each month, each year to finally achieve them.
- In planning your first year, you need to be prepared both mentally and financially.
- Building a long term relationship with customers cannot happen overnight. But when you get to a certain point the payoff can be BIG, because when they grow, you grow.
I learned a lot from my discussion with Marty. I hope you’ll find it as powerful and motivating as I have.
My Morning Checklist
December 7, 2008
A little while ago I wrote some articles on the importance of standardized process and one on the importance of planning your day.
In discussing this topic with a friend here in Akron, he asked to see the checklist I use as well as an example of my morning work plan.
So, I decided to record the process I use for preparing my daily work plan. You can view this with the video below. I’ve also attached a copy of my morning checklist as well as an example of a daily work plan both of these are at the bottom of this post.
Going It Alone
April 2, 2008
In a recent poll by Small Business Guru, 66% of small business owners said they were not involved in any sort of peer group.
It’s all too easy for small business owners to feel isolated.
For those of us working out of our homes it’s just the reality of our environment. But even for those who work in an office environment and maybe even have employees, that sense of isolation is still there.
You spend so much of your time putting up a strong front for customers, employees, and family that eventually you realize you have no one to turn to for help.
And let’s face it, asking for help — it can feel like admitting failure. While completely irrational, it’s a very real dynamic.
We invest so much of ourselves into our businesses that any outside involvement can feel like a personal attack.
Our usual response to someone giving us advice? We get defensive. What does he know? They don’t understand.
We just don’t want to open ourselves up to the possibility that we need help.
Why It’s A Problem
In The Wisdom of Crowds, James Suroweicki showed statistically what many of us may find to be counterintuitive: An average group of moderately intelligent people, working together, will make better decisions than one brilliant mastermind.
Now granted there are exceptions to the rule. But if you have diversity of opinions, independence, decentralization, and a trusted model to aggregate opinions into a consensus, you will make better decisions.
Put it this way - if you’ve ever been amazed at the accuracy and relevance of a search returned on Google, well you’re witnessing the theory of the Wisdom of Crowds in action.
In the simplest of terms, talking with others helps us work through a problem.
We only have the benefit of our world view. But when you open yourself up to different view points you r introduced to a whole new world of ideas.
You’d be surprised at what new ideas will come from unexpected sources.
While the answer may not spill out of the conversations directly, you’ll find one idea leads to another which leads to another which THEN to the answer.
Coming out of a discussion with a group of people you respect, you’ll be stimulated and energized. You’ll have the courage to move forward on new ideas.
