Finding balance – with 6 lists

~ dan

 

6lists1.png

I’m a bit of a fan of lists and if you are too this might be of intrest.
There is nothing so satisfying of making a list and checking off the jobs as you get them done. There is a trick and an art to lists to make them work for you rather than against you, but this article isn’t about that. Its about an idea I read in 18 minutes by Peter Bregman which suggests you use lists instead to manage you life for balance. The rub of the idea is create a number lists for yourself each assigned to particular topic with an other 5% box as a catchall.
Here are my favourites Work, A work project, Career, Family, Hobbies. OK thats not quite 6 lists but you get the idea. Now fill out these lists with your todo’s and ask yourself , is it balanced? Your answer depends on your choices and you can use this list to make sure you are making time for yourself, that you are looking after your career rather than just your work. That family and hobbies are given appropriate space. of course these are just my headings, yours may be quite different but hopefully you get the idea.

 

Epilogue: I use this list strategy like any tool in the toolbox. Its not on my ‘work bench’ every day, but instead comes out for a period of time when i am aware i need to do some rebalancing – then its back in the tool box again

actually Getting Things Done

~ dan

getting things doneOne of my favourite books of all time, in the productivity space is Getting Things Done by David Allen. Its a great read and i was able to take away a few key things that enhanced my ability to get things done! Probably the most important one is his process for looking at emails which can easily become the scourge and time eater of your day, but its also really handy for the short jobs that crop up during the day. If its quick then just Do it on the spot, if its going to take a bit longer then Defer it (but make sure you capture than in some system like flagging it a list or calendar entry or just Delete it. These days with email being what it is I don’t tend to delete , I just let it run off the bottom of the screen..it’s pretty much the same thing.

One of the important things I learnt from his book is the importance of getting rid of ‘psychic baggage’, that is anything that stops you focusing on what you should be doing right now…but more on that later!

 

 

Finding your centre

~ dan

porters five forces1.jpgWhere ever you are in your business chances are you want to make it a grow a bit or a least make it a bit easier on yourself in the trenches. This is where Porters fives competitive forces can come in really handy. Just by asking yourself these 5 simple questions you can get a better idea of your competitive landscape no matter what kind of business you are running.

New Entrants: How likely are new people likely to enter your business? Are their barriers that stop them entering

Substitutes: Is their a substitute that can replace your product or service? Sometimes this is a completely new product or technology?

Customers: What is the bargaining power of your customers? Are they price sensative

Suppliers: Are you dependant on any suppliers, How much power do they have?

Your Rivals: How competitive is the industry you are in? How many other options are there

Usually at least one of these forces is dominant. Just by identifying this force and doing something about it is a key to improving your competitiveness and overall success! For example with hind sight we can see that the digital camera was a substitute that eventually did in Kodak, who ironically were the inventor of the digital camera.

Whats your most powerful force and what can you do about it? Once you know it, it’s important to let your customers and potential customer know about it!

Academic idea to entreprise

~ dan

product market fit in university researchI still do quite a bit of work in the university sector. (I guess you get that when you come from a research background). Universities are full of amazing and very capable people with great ideas. These ideas are often well tested in the laboratory too!

The real challenge is getting them out to the ‘Real World’,. To help get ideas out along this path Universities often get in consultants. Its here that it can come a bit unstuck, as the consultant is looking to cherry pick a ready to go product and take it out to industry to get some backing. I think there are a couple of challenges with this approach. Firstly it assumes that a great idea in the lab is equivalent to a product and secondly it really limits the scope of the opportunity that exists within the capabilities in the university.

Instead its important to work together on the whole process. Rather than start with a a laboratory outcome,  start with the capabilities that exist therein. And at the other end of the process rather than looking at a particular market, start at the industry level and look at their needs and pain points. Use then the Capabilities and Industry needs to drive the process of developing a product and a market opportunity together. Where they intersect is the product-market fit and it is at this spot that the real opportunity exists.

Knocking on an academics door and asking for a “value proposition” is unlikely to achieve a result, start with the relationship and the whole picture, build a great value proposition together!

 

The Fat Smoker

~ dan

StrategyFatSmokerDavidMaister.jpgThere is a great strategy book about a fat smoke (Strategy and the Fat Smoker” by D. Maister). You can read the whole book if you like but the Itty Bitty take on it is this: The fat smoker knows he has to give up the cigars, the booze and start exercising to lose some weight…but nothing actually happens until the heart attack. Then and only then does he take action and do something about it. Then once the crisis is over its probably not long till he’s back on the booze and the fags. 

Its a lot like this for businesses too don’t you think?

Real change is hard, (thats what the book is about) but the rewards that can come with it can be unqualified success! What do you need to change before the crisis hits?

Consumer decision making process

~ dan

Consumer-decision-making-websites-2.pngIt takes a long time for a prospect to actually make the decision to buy a product or service. There are several processes they go through, and at each step there is a funnelling, or more correctly a loss, of prospects. This is called the consumer decision making process. If you understand your customer you can help them through each of these stages by embedding information and values that will aid a successful conversion.

Depending on who you ask there are a different number of stages, but most agree on these three main ones: Awareness, Evaluation and finally Decision. One of the goals of marketing is to make sure the input (Awareness) attracts as many as possible. Also at each step as you progress through Evaluation (does this product or service suit my needs?) and Decision (I’m going to pickup the phone right now) you want to retain as many as possible.

Pretty simple in theory. Understanding these elements and incorporating them into your website and and brand are really critical!

Data Security is in the news…again

~ dan

Mark Zuckerberg has recently fronted a senate comitee in the US to explain the use of personalised data by a third party organisation. While probably this is more of a direct concern to personal users than businesses, it certainly highlights the important of data security and who your sharing it with. Users of dropbox, google drive and iCloud should be aware their data is subject to an EULA licence agreements. There are often differences between the free and paid plans too.

Dial forward to a week or two and state sponsored cyber terrosism of Australian sites is reported. If your business depends on the cloud (and probably it does) then this is realy big news.

Some simple steps are to :
1. Backups everywhere. Ensure your have local off line backups and make sure its a bit more sophisticated than to thumb drives when you remember
2. The weakest link.You data security is only as strong as your weakest password. Get all your staff to review their passwords.
3. Contain the breach. Ensure that you are not using the same password across multiple sites.

 

Turing your hobby into a business

~ dan

doing what you don't like1.jpgIt’s an attractive idea isn’t it?, take something you really enjoy doing and turn it into your career. The trouble is a dream turned into reality can sometime become a nightmare. Somewhere in the process it could also takes away the very thing you love,  by taking al the fun out of it…but this need not be the case.

Your hobby and probably your passion is probably your key competitive advantage, perhaps you are already making some income out of it already. The challenge to making it viable is finding the key things people willing to pay for.  For many just thinking about turning a dollar somehow cheapens their endeavour, but it the secret of making a successful go of it.

Finding customers and developing channels (ways of reaching them) are then the vital key ingredient for sustainable. This involves doing and developing a whole new range of activities that will work hand in hand with your passion to bring it to realisation. 

The trouble for the newly converted hobbyist is that where passion fuels the business activity itself, but finding customers and reaching them through channels is well not nearly as exciting. Some of it you won’t mind, but some of it you really won’t want to do This is where discipline comes it, doing the need to do the activities that aren’t very exciting. For the activities that you don’t want to do, you cannot fuel these will passion…they need something else.. a discipline and a will to succeed!

3 things you need to succeed in business

~ dan

3 things to succeed in business.pngThere are only 3 things you need to succeed in business.

1. A product or service

2. A market ie customers

3. A way to reach customers 

First up you need a product and that someone wants (and is willing to pay for). Steve Blank calls this the product-market fit and its pretty much Startup 101. 

The third thing are your channels these are what connect to two and without these you are likely to make it as a business. Most businesses start with a few customers and grow a bit by word of mouth referrals. Getting beyond this understanding your channels is critical to making your business grow, will you /do you advertise for example to who and how do you do it

A digital shop front (i.e. a website)  can super charge your word of mouth by acting as a ‘confirmation page’ as one of the first things customers do is look you up and check you out. Its also an important bit of glue linking your other channels and funnelling them back to you.

 

Shopfronts for the 21st Century

~ dan ~ 1 Comment

 

Brisbane websites

We are well into the 21st century now and many things have changed. One of those is the good old shop front. Once the principle way of telling people about your business, it wasn’t uncommon for shop fronts to be considerably larger than the actually business, as is the case for this little west end corner store (its still there today actually), with the business itself occupying only a small part of the building but the signage and the building itself suggesting a much bigger enterprise.

So what does todays shop front entail? Well for many, especially those without a physical shop its your website. And just like the shop fronts of old you can project a big presence, but this time its as big as you like. Here the canny sole trader can compete with much larger businesses through the presence they project.