Be A Salmon During Re-Branding

With the impending downturn of the global economy, how will you be re-branding yourself? How would you redefine your business, your profession and yourself?

In negotiations, will you continue to negotiate downwards instead of upwards? The contemporary approach would be slide down and meet the client in the perceived ‘middle’. What about the other way around? Can’t we lead the client to a higher price point? If you provide high actual and perceived value, then pricing becomes less of an issue.

In other words, would you buck the trend and defy gravity, challenging the rapids like salmon fish are wont to do. Their naturally strong homing instinct lead them back to the exact place where they were born to spawn. Returning to one’s roots can be a useful exercise in resilience, perseverance, and determination. Most salmon are born in fresh water, move to the sea, then return to fresh water.

The principles of marketing are Price, Place, Product and Promotion (Philip Kotler). To this, I add Positioning and Purpose. What is the relevance and purpose of your business? Which need does it fill? How is your business positioned?

According to Forbes Magazine’s, one of the top-earning musical entertainers of 2010 was the eccentric/eclectic Lady Gaga (just behind Beyonce). These are the marketing strategies of Lady Gaga. Go mainstream or stream off?

Do you wish to up-scale or down-scale? Become bigger, or play it down? Down-sizing is the favourite strategy of mega-corporations and even Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). When the market is flooded with available, skillful and experienced staff – wouldn’t this be the best time to hire? Instead of slowing down your business rate, generate more power and momentum in your selling and marketing. Go for expansion instead of reduction. Be dynamic instead of static. Be uncomfortable, not comfortable.

Swim upstream!

Never Frown on the Small Business

A new business startup can be a hairy and hoary proposition. There are many indicators to consider, and there are countless variables that can jeopardize any creative attempts. You may have heard about painful and disappointing close downs of businesses that began with an optimistic premise. Animated conversations revolved about supporting a cause, a purpose – altruism and philanthropy as part of the company’s philosophy for business – however faded into obscurity and oblivion. The market seems intolerant of fly-by-night operations, and businesses that are built around hyperbole and multi-tiered promise of wealth and prosperity but require your 16-digit credit card number to proceed with your training kit.

Statistically, more than 90 percent of small businesses do not make it through the first year. It gets progressively harder to stay afloat in the subsequent, unless the new business-owner integrates strategic thinking, partnerships and alliances. Partnerships entrenched in shared assets and capital, invariably, end on a sour note with conflict over financial states and approach to business. Business built on a premise of failed promise, false evidence, falsified research, and a quagmire of confusion lead many down the path of the dismayed and disillusioned. Employment seems like a better choice than being your own boss.

Here are some considerations on how Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can rejuvenate and re-energise industries in an ailing economy. SMEs can still act local, and think global. As I bantered with a friend today, if you were to scale up your retail business would you build another branch, or increase your existing floor space? Each is a different decision with different outcomes and challenges.

Having said these, the SME is a testing ground of wits, creativity, courage, and true grit. When you are self-employed, and even employ others, your mindset takes an enormous shift towards the future, possibilities, relevance, and connectivity. Every ounce of skill, iota of experience, dollop of influence, and bushel of potential in the fibres of your body will be called into action.

Even when things don’t go your way, there should not be any shame. It takes a lot to marry the conditions of book-smart with street-smart. You learn to turn a win-lose situation into a win-learn situation. Leaders from adversity sprout!

Reading Resource: Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start.