6 Category Management ideas for small business at Christmas
The third in the series outlining the 10 ways small businesses can beat the supermarket gorillas at their own game, by aggressively executing on category management. Read the first here, the second here. What better time is there for small businesses trying to...
4 quadrants for comprehensive customer definition
One of the absolute foundations of successful commercial activity is to be able to define your primary "customer" in considerable detail. The more the better. Years ago I watched as market researcher asked a group to define the brand we were researching as if it was a...
Quantifying “Value”
I bang on about "Value" a lot, in all sorts of contexts, and using all sorts of examples and metaphors. Defining the components of value is challenging, as value to every individual is different in differing contexts. Value can be described as the difference between...
5 ideas for SME’s to compete using data.
The second of 10 ways to beat the supermarket gorillas at their own game, after understanding the way the supermarket business model works, is to be savvy with data. Supermarket retailing is heavily data intensive. These days, any retailing beyond the archetypical...
Our most valuable personal resource.
Time, as is often pointed out, is our most valuable and non renewable resource. Using what we have productively is a challenge we all undertake in our own way. We all have exactly the same amount of it available to us, the differences emerge when we examine what we do...
3 essential pieces of the supermarket business model
A short while ago, I posted "10 strategies for SME's to beat the supermarket gorillas at their own game" which generated quite a bit of comment and feedback. Amongst the feedback were a number of requests to go into more detail on each of the strategies, and so this...
4 essential questions for small business survival
I talk to small businesses all the time, have done for 20 years, and it makes me cry how many of them do a great job at their passion, the reason they stated the business, but a lousy job of making money from it. A simple analogy. When you drive around a bit,...
5 tips for business planners
Planning is a fundamental building block of success, but planning like everything can be done well, and done poorly. Poor planning is probably worse than no planning, as having done the planning, the expectation is that the "do-do" will not hit the fan, so when it...
3 “shares” vital to success.
Success these days is hard won, how do you go about winning your share? Most progress of a sales prospect through the sales funnel happens with some sort of design in mind, rather than accident, even though the actual process is usually chaotic. As the one setting...
A simple tool to increase productivity 25%
About the most common management advice I have both had, and been given over 40 years goes something like: "Have a To Do list, update daily, and stick to it" Many variations, but basically make a list, ensure the list is up to date, relevant, and helps manage your...