In my recent blog post in the optics and photonics magazine OptoIQ, I cover a business strategy process and how to write a business plan your team can execute. Learn how here. The following are examples for a small precision manufacturing company.
Elements of a Simple Business Plan
Too many businesses operate without a business plan, leading to opportunistic growth, high risk from out-of-balance revenue (too much revenue from any one customer or industry), and wasted resources. The simplicity and speed of the one-page business plan may help. Here are definitions and guidance for each element of the one page business plan:
Vision: What your business looks and feels like in 3-5 years.
Position: Your "sweet spot"-who you serve, what you offer them, and why you're different.
Mission: Why you exist, with a focus on the benefit to the customer.
Objectives: Specific, measurable, actionable, timed goals. (Max 6-8)
Strategies: How you'll achieve those objectives. (4-6 statements that set direction and methodology for building and managing business growth.)
Plans: Actions necessary to implement those strategies
Business Strategy Process in Action
Here's some examples for a precision manufacturing company:
Vision: COMPANY will be the global leader in glass optics manufacturing, helping enable disruptive and life-changing new technologies. Our people will be known as forward-thinking innovators internationally. The company will continue to be a family run, successfully handing the reigns to the next generation, with new ideas and honoring our heritage of technology innovation and collaboration.
Mission: COMPANY serves its customers as a key partner in enabling new technologies. It serves its employees and community as a growing, family-focused employer.
Positioning: To program managers of life sciences and entertainment companies, COMPANY is the leading provider of flat optics who helps its customers create innovative technologies because of its unique development partnerships and high tech engineering services.
Objectives:
- Increase sales from $xxM to $xxM by end of 2013 fiscal year
- Improve profitability to xx% EBITA by end of 2013 fiscal year
- Position for more sophisticated solutions, improving average per-unit cost to $xx and average per customer spend to $xxxxx
- Replace at-risk Defense revenue (est. 10% drop) with increase in Life Sciences revenue by end of year
- Create succession plan and communicate continuity to customers.
Strategies:
- Launch European dealer channel
- Increase Life Sciences sales by increasing thought leadership and the use of digital marketing channels
- Improve metrology and quality assurance department with capital equipment and key new hires to increase tolerances and systems capability
- Explore and potentially pursue emerging standards for Life Sciences customers
- Create cross-training development plan for key high-potential managers.
Strategies should be set in a way that your key managers can break into actions for their teams. They are not gospel-write in a way that you can assess, test, and decide if you should move forward or replace as the year progresses and you learn more.
These are just examples or thought starters. What are you looking to achieve? Want to discuss? Contact us.
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Each year, Fortune magazine announces their list of the 5000 fastest growing companies in the US. It is a privilege to work with some of these companies and their insightful leaders who frequently share their keys to entrepreneurial success with us.
Whether you aspire to make the Inc. 5000 list or just achieve this kind of revenue growth and sustainable business model, their lessons learned have a place in any business leader's resource library.
For emerging growth companies in a crowded, often commoditized marketplace, these companies narrowly position themselves to be a market leader in newly defined space.
Willingness to play the long game
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James Sydor, CEO of Sydor Optics, guides this 68-year old business in a way that would make his father proud. He believes his investments in people, equipment and partnerships are "the right thing to do"—and they've paid off in triple digit growth for the last five years they've made the list. Sydor makes careful investment in R&D, starting small and stepping up volume with customer growth. Their structure for this allows them to keep revenue growth and capital investment in step.
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Big fish in a small pond
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John Carney, leader of Carney, number 557 on the list, speaks to our B4C customers about repositioning their businesses: by changing the message, he changed the market's perception, won more contracts, expanded relationships with existing customers, and attracted top talent. The result: higher margins and higher revenues from the customers who value you the most. The hardest part? Saying no to an "everything to everyone" opportunistic approach.
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Monkey-free corner office
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For Michael Pavia, President of Sydor Instruments, two time winner, positioning has helped him focus lean resources (R&D, marketing and sales) on best-bet markets. His linear, deliberate approach is to make a plan, do the work, and take what the market will give you.
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Even in these small, fast-paced, resource-constrained companies, their leaders don't try to do it all. They recognize their team's core capabilities, and hire for or outsource the rest. The best CEOs count on their skills to recognize opportunity and build key relationships, trusting and empowering their teams and partners to deliver on the strategies and tactics that will grow their revenue.
Want to make the list? Set a strategy, be specific, and get the right help to execute it.
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Reposition for Change: Color Printers in Focus
Reading a recent Xerox blog post on the color print opportunity, I was struck by how similar the business challenges of the color printers are to their "sister" industry of AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) printers (a.k.a. reprographers or blueprinters).
Having worked with AEC printers over the years and most recently with a group of CEOs who participated in our Blueprint For Change (B4C) program, there are learnings from the AEC print community that color printers may find useful and relevant.
Let's start with the key business challenges. In the recent Xerox survey of Xerox Premier Partners, digital color graphics business leaders listed their top three business challenges as:
- Differentiating the business
- Establishing new services
- Meeting demand without sacrificing quality
For the AEC printers it was:
- Operating in a depressed customer base [construction industry]
- Repositioning for growth [differentiating the business]
- Launching new digital services
Two out the three business challenges draw strong parallels between the two communities.
First Reactions
Naturally, the first reaction is to shift the business where the print demand is. Even though InfoTrends forecasts a healthy color volume increase through 2015, resting on printing laurels may be short-sighted. Just like in the Xerox survey in which 71% of color digital printing business leaders believe that “Graphic communications providers will go out of business if they offer only print and distribution,” many AEC print leaders recognize the same for their market segment.
Here the services might diverge, but most will be high-value digital and technology based professional services. For the color printer, it might be the PURL and digital marketing services; for the AEC printers who participated in the B4C program, it is Construction Information Management (CIM). CIM are digital services and tools that accelerate construction processes historically reliant on engineering drawings. These digital services come with a print less message.
Redefining the Business
Most in the AEC print space have diversified services to include wide format color graphics (e.g., signage, trade show booths, banners, etc.) with some offering narrow format too. Some offer digital marketing services creating a smorgasbord of products, services, and customer needs.
The AEC print leaders who graduated from our Blueprint for Change program, learned that overcoming their business challenges goes beyond "tacking on" another service offering or rebranding your website. These approaches can help but "a more fundamental transformation of the business is necessary for continued prosperity," as cited in the Xerox findings.
These AEC print leaders wanted to remain relevant to AEC customers as the AEC workflows transformed from paper to digital. These leaders needed to shift from print services to technology services; changing not just their brand, but the way they look, sell, deliver and think. The B4C program led company leaders through a defined change process that included a sales and marketing assessment of what's working and what isn't today, brand positioning, marketing strategy, and development of a marketing roadmap to reach their newly-defined customers. Individual company coaching and monthly group webinars kept CEOs accountable and facilitated sharing of new business approaches.
Blueprint for Change Process
Position for Success
If you're a business leader who's faced with the need to shift the business for long term success and growth, consider that diversifying into new markets with new offerings poses new challenges, including:
- Selling to a completely different customer – different pain points, different expectations, different value proposition.
- Being seen as a printer only – what you sell and how you sell it must change to move up the value chain.
- Pricing risks – new pricing models introduce risk with unknown or unproven reward.
- Alienating or confusing customers – diversity of products, services, and customers can dilute your brand and risk alienating current customers.
- Addressing a competency gap – Current staff challenged to shift; there may not be a place for all as you scale up digital services.
- Creating operational disruption / confusion – new products, new services, and new customers challenge all.
Your strategy for change can be performed as an individual company or like in the B4C program, as a group. In either case, having trusted advisors inside and outside your company, to bounce ideas, talk through scenarios and gain perspective, is vital to staying on track as you lead your company through change.
Sustainable growth demands real change: to your business model, brand, even people. Find out how, and learn from others who've been there.
For a fresh perspective on your strategy for change or to discuss your business challenges the are driving your need to change, contact us for a FREE no-obligation 30-minute consultation with one of our principals.
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How Do Benchmark High Tech Companies Allocate their Marketing Budgets?
In recent B2B Marketing Mix studies from Forrester, IDC, and others we can see how B2B high tech companies allocate their marketing dollars to fuel business growth. While these studies have strong representation by large high tech firms, the general trends and many of the specific findings are spot-on for small and midsize businesses alike.
The Squeeze Continues
Finding 1: Budgets remain flat, but mix is shifting
It’s no surprise that the protracted challenging economy has caused high tech marketers to figure out how to do more with less. While the economic data and sentiment are improving, budget pressure remains. This is not a bad thing when it increases rigor and measurability. Flat budgets and increasing demands on the marketing function forces leaders to reexamine marketing goals, strategies, tactics, and activities.
Every company’s situation is different. A marketing assessment is a great place to start. An assessment will help identify marketing building blocks and priorities to address, based on your current situation and business goals. An objective assessment can help you get out of the rut of doing what you’ve always done and instead focus on what works.
Integrated Marketing Mix: Digital Channels Grow
Finding 2: Digital spend up to 60% of budget and growing.
In a 2011 Marketing Sherpa survey, we discover how other B2B companies allocate marketing budgets (not including personnel). We clearly see that digital marketing activities garner strong attention with about 60% of the total budget (not including personnel).
Other studies in which personnel is included, reveal that digital marketing channels represent 20% to 30% of the total marketing budget with the remainder allocated to traditional marketing activities. Although overall marketing budgets are expected to be flat to low single digit growth in 2012, digital marketing budgets are expected to grow 20% year over year for the foreseeable future, primarily through the reallocation of resources from traditional marketing activities.
Digital & Traditional Examples
| Digital |
Traditional |
| Email marketing |
Direct mail |
| Mobile apps |
Print, radio, TV advertising |
| Website, SEO |
Trade shows |
| Social media |
Collateral |
Position For Success
Finding 3: Improving lead generation is the top priority for 2012 - target prospect to qualified lead takes over 10 months.
What's the right mix of marketing channels and activities for best results? How does your allocation compare to the averages? For most of our customers, a balanced marketing mix drives the greatest ROI and business results. Your customer is changing, and so is the way they buy. How and where you engage with prospective customers becomes more diverse each year, making it imperative to stay up on the latest trends, such as mobile marketing.
Not sure where to start?
- Understand what’s working and what’s not.
- Stop immediately those activities that do not work.
- Reallocate budget to activities with the greatest payback.
- Expand into a new marketing medium - experiment and measure. Not yet in social media? Introduced webinars?
Need an objective eye or some guidance in getting started? Give us a call or sign up for a free 30 minute advisory call to discuss your situation.
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Keys to Entrepreneurial Success
The best part of my job is working with straight-shooting CEOs of entrepreneurial tech companies. The conversations that develop cover vast topics - from marketing for business growth to favorite restaurants in San Francisco. Regardless of topic, these leaders provide valuable insights for my business and are worthy of sharing with you.
Following a recent lunch with Robert Mendenhall, Founder of American Aerogel, I'm compelled to share his keys to entrepreneurial success:
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 Before You've Proven "It"
1. Only go into business with someone you'd marry if the sex was good.
2. Believe in yourself and tell everyone else to *#$% themselves.
3. Remember that money comes from other people buying "it."
After You've Proven "It"
4. Know what you don't know
5. Listen to others and ask yourself "could they be right?"
6. Remember that money STILL comes from other people buying "it."
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We ultimately have the opportunity to work with guys like Robert because of rules 4 & 6. In our work with technologist-turned-entrepreneur CEOs, we find their greatest business growth is achieved when the leader recognizes that customers drive their success, that reaching the customer is a science and art, and that they can objectively assess whether or not they need help reaching that customer.
What are your keys to Entrepreneurial Success?
Have a question? We're
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If you are new to trade show exhibiting, haven’t exhibited in awhile, or want to validate your trade show planning approach, read our practical Trade show ROI Guide which is based on best practices of our high technology clients.
Booth Training and Planning Activities Improve Trade show ROI
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"We had 8 guys in a 10 foot booth at the last show-mostly for training.
Nobody knew what to do." - GM, Optics manufacturer
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"We organized our first-ever all-hands meeting to coordinate with a major tradeshow.
A lot of those guys had never been to a tradeshow before. It was great education
and told our prospects and competitors that we were a force to be reckoned with." -
President, Electromagnetic technology manufacturer
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Like these two companies, many are maintaining their tradeshow spend while rethinking the strategy and broadening goals to include new employee orientation/training and competitive research.
It's expensive and risky: how do you help new employees confidently portray your brand, in the booth and on the floor? Here's what you, their leader, need to do:
- Perfect the elevator pitch: Identify, communicate, and practice. An elevator pitch is your company's key message and value proposition delivered in 15 seconds. Write it, video tape yourself delivering it, and share it with your staff. Ask them to practice and present it to you.
- Set expectations: Communicate the company's goals. Will there be downtime? What is the mix of business and pleasure? Completed the goal-setting prep sheet in our Event and Trade show Toolkit.
- Provide clear guidance: From bad-mouthing competitors on the crowded shuttle to smartphone abuse in the booth, trade show faux pas are common and avoidable. Download and share our trade show training guide. Feel free use this as a starting point for you to customize and make part of your standard documentation.
- Give them the tools: Ensure consistency and a great first impression with some basics:
- Business cards: Consider an audience/show-specific card with QR code to a landing page on your website.
- Branded shirts: Eliminate a trouble spot and increase brand visibility by providing "uniforms". Please, do not make women wear polo shirts. Even in a male dominated industry like engineering, optics and technology –there are better women-appropriate alternatives.
- Ipad-friendly collateral and capabilities presentation. More engaging and cost effective than hardcopy collateral.
If you want to be a "force to be reckoned with", not just "8 guys in a 10 foot booth", do the prep work. Download our Free Marketing Resource Kit: Maximize Event and Trade show ROI, which includes:
- Goal-setting and event planning worksheet
- Training guide for booth staff
- Packing list for your next event
Need help setting an appropriate message, strategy and goals?
Call us.
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FREE Marketing Resource Kit:
Maximize Event and Trade show ROI
Learn planning basics and best practices for stellar business returns from your next event or trade show.
Kit includes: Trades show Planner, Event Staff Training Presentation, & Packing list.
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Download this free toolkit for to ensure your next trade show or event achieves the business results you desire.
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Last week in a press release, we announced signing an agreement with HubSpot, Inc., to resell their online marketing software platform and provide inbound marketing services to interested customers looking to increase qualified leads.
For those who are not familiar with Inbound Marketing, we thought we’d weigh in on what it is and how it fits in your marketing mix.
Background
Many of our clients are in high technology industries such as optics, advanced manufacturing and engineering services in which their competitive advantage comes from innovation. In these specialized industries, finding and educating the right buyers can be a challenge, but a content-driven inbound marketing strategy is a very effective way to increase revenue.
Most clients practice some form of inbound marketing – from website SEO, or social media prospecting, or email campaigns. The HubSpot platform provides a better way to measure the impact and ROI of marketing on their businesses. HubSpot’s integrated suite of tools to generate, track, and convert leads from the web and its tight integration with Salesforce and other popular CRMs, makes HubSpot a key component to creating a sustainable sales pipeline.
PLS Launch Solutions Becomes HubSpot Partner
| In January 2012, we began using the HubSpot platform for our own inbound marketing efforts and effective immediately, HubSpot is available to current and prospective clients.With the addition of the HubSpot platform and PLS’ industry and technical expertise, we are able to further improve the effectiveness of the marketing strategies we create and execute for our clients. |
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Inbound Marketing Defined
Inbound Marketing is a strategy to attract qualified prospects by earning their attention and trust. You do that by offering helpful and valuable information to the prospective customer and engaging them through their buy cycle - to ultimately convert them to customers when they are ready to buy. An inbound marketing engagement leverages online marketing tactics including SEO, email campaigns, landing pages, and social media interactions to be found on the web.Inbound Marketing Defined
Inbound marketing platforms like HubSpot makes it easy to perform the activities that really impact sales.
Integrated Marketing Mix & Inbound Marketing
For an integrated marketing mix, Inbound Marketing is a critical part of growing your business. Why?
Being in front of prospects before a sales rep ever talks to them is essential: In a recent Forrester Research study of more than 1,000 technology businesses, the corporate website was ranked first in determining whether a purchase would be made. That means that prospects are researching your company and solutions before they ever communicate with you. This B2B purchase behavior raises the importance of targeted messaging and reaching out to prospective customers where they hang out online -- with relevant content. When they do come to your website, you want to offer an engagement that supports their research with valuable content.
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Converting a website visitor to a customer requires multiple touches and according to the National Sales Executive Association, 80% of sales are made on the 5th through 12th contact. An Inbound Marketing platform can help manage touches through nurturing campaign outreach, tracking leads, and helping determine which leads are hot and ready for sales to pursuit.
For most of our clients, we find an integrated marketing approach that includes inbound marketing practices and other marketing activities such as tradeshows, PR, and paid media provide the appropriate mix of activity and marketing channels to attract, nurture, and convert prospects into customers.
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Intrigued or have questions?
Contact me or my business partner Michele for more information on inbound marketing or HubSpot.
About the HubSpot Platform
The HubSpot platform improves website traffic and its conversion to sales, and provides real-time metrics and recommendations to improve marketing ROI. HubSpot software is used by over 5000 companies to generate, track, and convert leads from the web.
Have a question? We're
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Does email marketing still work?
It's a recurring question we hear from our customers and the short answer is YES, if done well. An effective email campaign starts with:
1. Database: To a solid, tightly targeted house list.
2. Content: We segment emails into one of three categories.
- Newsletter - educational
- Special offer - targeted, date sensitive
- Invitiation/appointment - 1:1 sales outreach
3. Hook / Call to Action: Email marketing should drive the reader to your website. If there isn't a clear Call to Action in the email - for the reader to want to investigate more, then the email will not be successful.
Email is part of your overall marketing roadmap
As this graphic shows, Email marketing is one element of an online marketing strategy. Too often clients believe that employing one or two marketing tactics is good enough. It usually isn't.
We advise our clients to use email marketing to bolster other marketing efforts. For example, a newsletter style email is great to stay in front of your customers with company, product, and industry relevant news. For events such as trade shows, use email marketing to generate pre-show interest & post-show follow-up with those who visited the booth and those who didn't.
How to tell what's working
How do you know your email marketing is working? First, test:
1. Database: Test the validity of each list, clean it up before the start of a major campaign.
2. Content: Run A/B testing on the subject line, content and graphics.
3. Hook: Which call to action graphic, words and placement work best?
High tech marketing - email metrics
For Optics and Technology companies' email campaigns, here's some rough numbers we expect to see:
1. Database: Under 6% of your house list should bounce (soft + hard bounces combined)
2. Content: Expect an open rate over 21%
3. Hook: Expect click-through rate in the range of 10-15%
Want more in-depth but broader findings? Check out this excellent report containing key takeaways from Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit 2012.
Want to discuss your email marketing efforts? Call us.
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Sales Pipeline Under Pressure?
In a recent MarketingSherpa research article, we learn that the average deal size for B2B companies declined in 2011 compared to 2010. The following chart from the article shows clearly that deals less than $10,000 increased substantially while deals over $10,000 dropped accordingly.
Q. Please select the range that best represents your organization’s AVERAGE SALE AMOUNT, or average deal size per customer.
What's driving the decline?
Growing your business starts with creating awareness and need. You succeed when customers see the need, know of your solution and take action. For many we work with, that's not a given — the greater the innovation, the bigger the challenge in finding and educating the right buyers.
In a tough economy, the push to close deals fast trumps selling more complex deals that take longer to close. Many B2B companies use promotions and other price-related incentives to convert leads in the pipeline-fast. The problem with this approach is that competing on price rather than value will continue to undermine average deal size even when the economy improves.
The use of promotion can be an effective tool however we advise our B2B clients to use price incentives very sparingly. We prefer offering extra service such as accelerated delivery instead of a price incentive.
Even though a promotion can move an "easy" sale to a close quickly, the larger and more complex deals must be planned for on a longer sales time line. This is where a well crafted marketing strategy that synchs up with your sales efforts can help.
Sales funnel best practices
The larger deals will be in the funnel longer and you need to have a process for moving them along. Through regular touches, your funnel process must engage and qualify / re-qualify leads through each pipeline stage. The process includes having a lead scoring or lead prioritization approach so that your sales people are focusing on the deals at a point the prospective customer is ready to buy.
Does your funnel process consider these best practices?
- Target highest value prospects / projects – this is obvious however many clients do not have a clear definition of the most valuable prospect or a system to score prospects.
- Focus on the entire funnel. Here we are referring to three areas of the funnel – at the top of the funnel marketing’s role is to target and attract the right prospects to your company. The middle of the funnel nurtures them with regular and frequent touches. The bottom of the funnel supports the sales conversion.
- Regular touches. Do you regularly touch customers and prospective customers across multiple channels or touch points? Prospective customers hang out in several different places. At the top and middle of the funnel in particular, it’s important to span your reach across several places (e.g., web, social, associations, etc).
Please weigh in with your comments. If you have questions on your sales pipeline or moving deals through it, don't hesitate contacting us for a free, no-obligation consultation.
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Booth Review: From the Trade Show Floor
Industry tradeshows are a lot like a trip to the mall: it's an assault on the senses, and the difference in sales between the best and worst merchandisers is a huge split. The people watching is fun and scary, too. What were they thinking? What exactly are they trying to sell me?
Each year we head to California for the annual SPIE Optics and Photonics and Photonics West trade shows. We are always struck by the diversity of the way exhibiting companies present themselves.
Examples
At PLS, we're a pretty positive group, so this photo roundup is of approaches that we believe worked.
First: New Scale & D3 Engineering co-exhibiting with a Pirates of the Caribbean and Spongebob diorama to showcase their auto-focus camera system. Drew a nice crowd and created an interactive experience.
Next up: A simple, flexible and very portable tabletop booth. The "hook" makes this booth effective - a simple but relevant giveaway (lens cloth from a lens designer) to stop traffic and start a conversation. The old-school viewmasters with project images are also memorable.
Another portable and audience-relevant booth that uses a series of banner stands to create impact:
Finally, the most "controversial" of the bunch. Many were upset by the "cheap ploy" of hollywood pin-ups. At least people were talking. Better would be a tie-in to the company's key message, technology and value proposition. Last year they wore berets. Improvement?
Maximize Tradeshow ROI
Tradeshows are under pressure from a budget allocation perspective, so it's important to demonstrate ROI. For tips on increasing tradeshow ROI, download our Tip Sheet here.
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