“Just keep in mind there is nothing more common than unrewarded potential.”

Ideas are powerful. So are people with a dedicated mission, purpose, and values. Bring them into Focus with a precisely defined AIM and you will impact the world in meaningful ways —whether your world is local, regional, national, or spans the globe.

But great ideas don’t always translate into big profits. Just ask the inventors of Next Computer, New Coke, and the Ford Edsel. Ideas inspired by legendary business minds with hundreds of millions of dollars in product development, market research, advertising, world- class sales teams, and unrivaled distribution channels.

Yet all three failed miserably.

All three also made one fatal flaw — they ignored customer behaviors and demands. If the objective of any business is to acquire and keep customers — and it is — that’s where you better begin.

Your products and services have tremendous inherent value. The kind of value that inspires people in extraordinary ways. Unfortunately, more often than not that value goes unrecognized, unappreciated, and unrewarded.

There are three disciplines that will help you FOCUS your business/brand in extraordinary ways, motivating and exciting customers, clients, channel partners, and team members with equal enthusiasm. Doing so, you will achieve levels of organizational and client FOCUS that ensure your brand will not suffer the fate of the Edsel, Next, or New Coke.

ANALYSIS:

1. Express your vision in simple, uncomplicated terms. I recommend you start by trying to define the core value of what you do — and what clients will experience — using only a noun and a verb.
2. Define your organization’s worldview. Start with a statement of purpose: we believe…
3. Enumerate and describe your values. Be honest not obvious. What are the real values, not platitudes that sound good. Then define those terms as they relate to your business/brand.
4. Detail methodologies. How will you deliver your core value (use of a Value Chain Analyzer is particularly useful).
5. Construct a working growth model for the entire business/brand/ product/service lifecycle. Provide detail on how you will deal with major inflection points along the way.
6. Perform a competitive analysis. You don’t need (or want) to focus on or necessarily respond to what the competition is doing, but you better be aware of what threats it represents.
7. Complete a comprehensive Client Equity Model. This will help you understand the true value of a client relationship and how to optimize that value while targeting “look alike” clients.

OUTCOME OF ANALYSIS: Unified vision and focus across the organization.

INSPIRATION:

1. Forget about, avoid, and do not even consider Management By Objective as a viable means of goal-setting and defining desired business outcomes. MBO is designed to fail.
2. Use your Value Chain Analysis to map-out the client journey.
3. Optimize resources based on customer/client point-of-view, NOT what works best for internal purposes.
4. Define a Go-To-Market strategy based on the Vision/Mission, Worldview, Values, and Methodologies developed in the Analysis phase.
5. Design, develop, and deploy a Creative Communications and Content strategy for sharing Value.
6. Value Engineer processes, methodologies, content, and GTM.
7. Tie team member performance metrics to your enumerated Values using both qualitative and quantitative measures.

OUTCOME OF INSPIRATION: Resources (technology—capital—people—processes) aligned with defined business outcomes and customer/client expectations, aspirations, and demands.

MAXIMIZATION:

1. Define what needs to be measured, who will do the measuring, and how metrics will be gathered, shared, and reported. Only measure what matters.
2. Maintain FOCUS by keeping your simplified value proposition top-of-mind with customers/clients, channel partners, and team members.
3. Be consistent. Consistency in messaging and the way you do things is far more important than any other aspect of business building.
4. Recalibrate and fine-tune based on what you learn from the measurements in place. But make sure you have adequate data to review before acting. Otherwise you will destroy any shot at consistency.
5. Remember, remind, emphasize, and reemphasize your organization exists to SERVE your customers and clients, not be served.

OUTCOME OF MAXIMIZATION: Customer success and loyalty flows naturally. System for continuous improvement and brand asset optimization is fully integrated and operational at all levels of the organization.

Follow the disciplines outlined in the above framework and you will elevate performance across your organization and enjoy these measurable and verifiable results:

1. Shortened sales cycles
2. Increased margins
3. Consistent, repeatable performance
4. Lower cost of client acquisition and retention
5. Significantly higher business valuations

MindMeld provides business leaders with a logical, proven, and exceedingly effective tool for developing, defining, communicating, and capitalizing on Value — equal parts Art and Science and 100% effective. To learn more contact Doug Knuth at doug.knuth@mindmeldmarketing.com.