Federal business grants are made available for the promotion of small business growth. They are usually granted on the basis of geographical location, the type of business or social activity, and whether there is a potential to create economic growth. Obtaining a federal business grant does not depend on any one factor; rather it is a combination of the items listed here along with availability, hard work, and a good grant proposal.

Before you begin writing a federal business grant proposal you should identify all of the federal business grants that are available to you. The Government's Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CDFA) provides a listing of federal business grants and other types of assistance for funding businesses. You can also search the internet for possible federal business grants that you may be eligible for. Be careful though when taking this route. There have been plenty of fraud cases where people are promised free money just for an application. If you come across a website promising to help you find federal business grants make sure to look and see if they back their product with a money back guarantee of free trial period. Any reputable business will have no problem doing this. If they don't move on.

After you have identified the federal business grants you wish to apply for you must provide the funding agency with an elaborate and accurate proposal. In this written proposal you need to state your goals and a plan of operation for your business. Furthermore you should be able to come up with a ballpark figure for the amount of money you will need for your activities.

Keep in mind that not all federal business grants are available throughout the year. That means as an applicant you need to be aware of any deadlines for a federal business grant you are interested in obtaining. This information is made available to the public when the government agency supplying the federal business grant makes an announcement of funds in the Federal Register. The Federal Register is published daily.

The government is more than willing to award federal business grants especially with an economic condition that still remains unpredictable and has a need for more development.

Writing a business plan can be intimidating. It is however a necessary step towards earning a business loan for the launch or expansion of a professional practice or small to mid size business. Gaining an understanding about the expectations that the bank, government or other type of investor have about the contents of your business plan can help you to get started.

The following is a comprehensive list of the basic components of a business plan focused on securing financing:

1. Executive summary
* The executive summary of your business plan should be a short paragraph that summarizes: Core strengths and point of difference business offers
* Projected sales and profitability
* Details with regards to financing request

2. Mission and vision statements
A mission statement is a single sentence that communicates the core values of the practice or business. It establishes the reason for being for the organization. A vision statement is a single statement that communicates business goals for the next 3-5 years in terms of the most appropriate benchmarks whether they are market share, reputation or financial.

3. Human resources:
The objectives of this section of your business plan are to present the strengths of the core management team as well as the projected costs of the employees:
* Biography of the founding team members and relevance
* Staffing requirements
* Core strategies to manage team

4. Business environment:
A discussion on the business environment in your business plan demonstrates expertise as well as comprehension of the changing dynamics of the marketplace:
* Industry overview
* Positioning statement
* An analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
* Competitive grid
* Barriers to entry

5. Marketing:
A marketing plan is relevant to a business plan whether it accounts for traditional or non-traditional promotional types of activities:
* Consumer insight
* Description of service, promotional activity, location, fees
* Core strategies to market practice

6. Operations:
Outlining the operations of your business may account for standard, special or proprietary processes:
* Core strategies to operate practice

7. Finance:
Financial statements enclosed within your business plan need to be achievable rather than overly optimistic:
* 3 year detailed sales projection
* 3 year detailed profit and loss statement

8. Risks & conclusion:
Your business plan should identify which risks you consider to be inherent to the business and how you expect to handle them. It should detail the core strategies you plan to employ in order to mitigate risks.

Remember that the objective of your business plan is to communicate why you are a good candidate for this business loan. Ideally your business plan will have demonstrated expertise accompanied by achievable sales projections, key ingredients to developing the perception that your business is a low risk investment to a bank, government or other type of investor.

Are you ready to have a manager?

"Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out."

— Ronald Reagan

It is said that if a business fails it is not because of a poor product or because of an unproven market. Nine out of ten businesses fail because of management incompetence. Hear that again. A business fails because of management incompetence! Remember, if you choose leadership as your path you must become a musician and a business person all wrapped in one. The same way a person would fail at his instrument of choice if he did not practice, a leader can fail without following basic laws of business. I’m asked so many times by young groups to be their manager. The first thing I ask them is "Can you afford me"? Then I ask them, “how many times a week are you playing and how much do you make?” “How much money would you like to be making?” “What is the long term goal of your group?” These are questions to ask yourself before you decide to hire a manager. It always amazes me at how little thought goes into the career goals of a musical group. Usually the answers are ambiguous. Something like, “we want to make it to the top!”

The “top?” The “top” of what?? The “top” spot in a police line-up?! The “top” of the list at the I.R.S. for income tax evasion???

You need to clearly define your goals. You might first set the amount of gigs you wish to play each month, increasing that number as time goes by. Perhaps you can set the same sort of goal for CD sales. But goals are achieved one step at a time. A good manager can help you set attainable (and realistic) goals.

You should hire a manager whenever the business end of your career is becoming too much to handle – when the business side of the group interferes with the quality of your performance - or when you feel someone with connections and energy could help take it to the next level. Managers at this stage can get involved in everything from booking local shows for you, shopping for a record deal, getting attention from the press - to booking studio or rehearsal time. They basically execute and handle all those aspects of your career. You should DEFINITELY have a manager at the point in your career when any kind of recording contract is being considered. And your manager must have some legal savvy or have a colleague who is an attorney.

There are several different types of management responsibilities. It might be possible to find a super-talented individual to do everything but the breakdown is as follows:

1. A Personal Manager - represents the artist, renders to your personal needs, and seeks out contracts for the group.

2. An Attorney - a crucial member of your team who will review any kind of contracts you are asked to sign, and should understand the music business and the entertainment laws.

3. A Business Manager - responsible for planning, organizing and controlling all of the accounting, budgeting and financial needs.

4. The Booking Agent - organizes and arranges appointments such as T.V talk shows, concerts, radio interviews, and telephone interviews.

5. A Press agent – gets the group the much needed publicity to

keep them in the public eye - hence enhancing CD sales and

live-booking possibilities.

All of the aforementioned serve in a different capacity, but are vital members of your team. Do not let them take over your business because they all work for you!

Many students struggle with academic work in today’s education institutions. The root of the problems may stem from larger class sizes, lack of individual attention or difficulty keeping up with fellow students. Give these students hope, and earn extra income, by starting a home-based tutoring business.

While professors and those with highly-regarded degrees are often top picks for tutors, expertise doesn’t necessarily guarantee patience with struggling pupils and applications of commendable teaching methods. Those who have backgrounds in child care, experience working with special education students, or even patient moms who have certainly put their time in helping their children with after school homework sessions would also be exceptional candidates for establishing a home based tutoring business.

Concentrate your coaching specialty in an area in which you excelled at school, like history or science, or a life-long passion that relates to curriculums such as English, writing, home economics, current events, or consumer budgeting. Develop methods to explain difficult subject matters in a simple yet effective manner.

If you do have prior involvement in a teaching setting such as a professional instructor, cadet teacher or classroom aid, it may be feasible to establish a home based tutoring business which offers help in a variety of subjects.

Restrict appointments for your home based tutoring business to after school hours when the minds of students are still in learning mode. Completing homework first thing will allow for playing with friends and wind-down time the remainder of the day. It is your choice as to whether your want to aid in a more one-on-one atmosphere or allow for two or three students to join in on sessions. Keep the number of pupils to a minimum to ensure individual attention. Perhaps schedule an hour for each client on a daily basis or designate certain days for individual students to receive homework help.

Not only will a home based tutoring business provide extra guidance to the student who may be lagging behind other classmate’s progress or failing a course completely, a comfortable setting like a house will project a more relaxed environment and enable an easy-going atmosphere in which the student feels he or she can comfortably communicate with you.

Setting the fees for your home based tutoring business is in your hands. You could charge by the hour, by the tutoring session or request weekly payments. Advertise services in your local newspaper, on business billboards or pass the word onto school administrators and teachers.

What You Need To Know for Building a Home Internet Business

Building your very own home internet business is not going to be a walk in the park. Essentially, building such a business is not much different from doing so in the real world. The steps outlined here will help you get started with your online business.

First, you must think on why you want to start an online business. What are the reasons behind you decision? What are the advantages; what are the disadvantages? What is the price, in time, money, and energy? Are you willing to pay that price? And what do you hope to gain and achieve from your venture?

It is important that you take the time to honestly answer these questions. You must clarify them in your mind, because the less confusion you have, the faster you will get somewhere. If you rush in blindly, you might find that weeks, months, or years later that you made costly mistake. If you can spare a little time to ponder over what you want to achieve, it will save you a lot of grueling hard work in the long run.

Second, take personal inventory. You’ll want to ask a few more questions, such as, “What do I really like doing?” or better yet, “What do I love doing?” Ideally, any business should be a reflection of the interests of its founder. If you have something that you are truly passionate about, something you can really lose yourself in, consider converting that hobby or activity into a moneymaking venture. Not only will you enjoy yourself enormously in that line of work, chances are that you will get a good amount of money from it as well, because you will tend to perform well in the things that you love. Don’t forget to take note of your talents, skills, and abilities.

Third, use a great idea. If you have any of your own, use them; if not, use someone else’s. All achievement, all wealth, have their roots in ideas. If you are confident in yours, try it out! You never know if it will work, unless you try. People who have achieved noteworthy success are, almost without exception, those who have had the courage to use their own ideas.

Ideas are everywhere, and if you have something you truly love doing, you probably have a few thoughts on how it can be improved. If you love gardening for example, you might get the idea of selling a rare plant variety in your locality, especially if it is not commonly available. You might have specialized knowledge in how to grow this particular plant. Use it! You may not know how to use your ideas perfectly, but simply get started, and you will find that you will be able to refine your methods along the way. You will be worse off if you wait for the “best” time to implement your plans. There is no better time than now!

Starting a home internet business is not unlike starting a business in the physical world. It requires a lot of planning, a lot of strategy, and a lot of accurate thinking. If you are really serious about starting a home internet business, make sure that you get your brain working first! This will save you time and money in the long run.

Strategic planning is all about creating specific strategic (thoughts). The more your people think about the possibilities, the greater likelihood that you will reach farther than you have ever gone before. So what is stopping you?

Maybe you always have had the same people at your strategic planning table. These are good performers who are comfortable with how the company is currently performing. Possibly, they have a belief that "If it ain’t broke, why fix it?" The ability to think outside of the box is not their strength.

Or you may have different people, but they all reaffirm what you believe, think and do. These individuals are the "Yes, boss! You are right boss!"

However today, you look out your corner office window or read the economic trends in your daily business journal. Suddenly, you realize that the company is not growing given the DOW is over 13,000 and has reached historical highs in the first six months of 2007. You now know that you are not where you want to be for your company or even yourself.

You sit down and take out your strategic plan that is somewhat dusty. As you read its fresh pages, you see that you have been doing the same things over and over again and getting the same, safe results. However, you have just finished Blue Ocean Strategy and realize that you are in the red ocean. Now you think:

"To go where we have never gone before (the Blue Ocean) and get what we have never got before (incredible results), we must do what we have never done before (take risks, look for possibilities, opportunities)."

You recognize that your Strategic Planning process is lacking people who think outside of the box. Who are possibility thinkers. These people think in terms of Yes, it can be done! and So what if we fail, we just regroup and try another approach. Possibility thinkers are not afraid of taking risks because they know that success comes from failure. To try is better than to not try at all.

Suddenly, you look at your executive team and your employees with a new lens, a new filter. You are now actively seeking individuals who will challenge the status quo, but who have the leadership skills to work with your existing executive team.

Possibility thinking is the vehicle to drive your strategic plan to that next level of success. And you have now learned that possibility thinking begins within the leadership of each individual, starting with you!

This article would let you choose and implement the method to get you out of the foreclosure problem by either stopping it and living in your house or by getting out of the foreclosure problem while still retaining your financial stability. A number of options are available to choose from in the pursuit to escape the hard times.

Start saving as soon as possible once the problem that caused the instability is solved. Come to current mortgage at the earliest by paying all dues due to missed payments, interests, various fees like that of attorney etc. Failure to meet the current mortgage soon would see the dues increasing once the lender hires a lawyer. The lawyer can discover thousands of extra payments to be made.

Restructure the payment plan with the lender such that you can pay a part of due payment now and the rest can be paid over a specified period of time while you still continue paying the monthly installment. The loss mitigation department of the lender reworks the plan generally and the victim might have to pay anything up to double the original mortgage per month. Such payment would help catch up with the missed payments in the same months as those due till then.

The mortgage or loan can be modified in discussion with the lender such that the missed payments can be adjusted to be distributed over the remaining loan life or can be considered at the loan's back end. This is difficult, as most lenders cannot modify it as they do not own the loan but are just collecting the money and servicing loans.

Look for a source for refinancing foreclosure loans. But apply for the same only if you have high income and large equity as the interest rates for such loans is over 10%. The new lender -traditional or hard money one would charge high monthly payments and might be difficult to meet but ensures the homeowner starts afresh.

Partial claim: Applicable for those homeowners who have FHA loan. They should contact FHA for a one-time loan to catch back on mortgage. The loan lives as a lien and if the property is sold or refinanced, the amount needs to be paid back to the FHA.

Renting back the house after selling to some private investor or a family member/friend. The foreclosed loan is cleared off and new loan can be received under the investor's credit while allowing the owner to stay in his house. The investor can short sell the property as well to make quick profit.

Bankruptcy declaration can ensure stopping foreclosure but even being bankrupt is an expensive practice due to the costs involved of attorney, trustee, court etc. This is a viable option for those who want to retain their house desperately and can afford some disposable income to be bankrupt.

If you owe more than your property's worth. short sales are worth consideration. Short sale frees you from the loan though the bank gets less than what you owed to the bank. In this practice, they are compensating the balance due amount themselves and lets you free.

You can choose to improve your credit scene by selling the house yourself by hiring some broker. Find a willing buyer, vacant the house, stop foreclosure and if luck and planning helps, busy a new affordable house in some years.

On failure to find a valid solution from among the previously listed methods, the bank can be offered a deed instead of the foreclosure. According to the deed, to avoid eviction process, the owner offers the property by himself to the bank. The bank will accept the payment in lieu of the loan and cannot ask for more money from the debtor as they are accepting the deed according to their satisfaction.

Last resort, forget you ever had any property. Walk out of the house and be prepared to put up with the hardship instead of running around lenders and banks for loans. But is you can try any of the above mentioned methods, nothing is better than holding on to your property.

A few other options exist as well like legal case against the bank, or complaints to agencies for regulation acts but the cost is very high and the foreclosure might be delayed but would still take place. Information about such methods can be collected online. Based on the home owner's situation, a combination of these methods can also be used after rounds of review.

Just about every business would like to improve their cash flow. Below are ten ways which may help your business achieve that objective rather quickly:

Bill Promptly; Take Advantage of Payment Terms
The faster you can invoice a client, the quicker the clock starts to tick for the customer to pay in order to meet the terms of the contract you both agreed upon at the beginning of the relationship. Conversely, if you’ve agreed to terms of Net 30 with one of your suppliers or vendors, don’t pay the bill immediately; wait a little bit to take advantage of those terms and keep the cash in your (hopefully) interest bearing account a little longer.

Offer Payment Incentives; Penalize Late Payers
Many times businesses set forth payment terms of Net 15 or Net 30, but they neither offer any incentives to beat those terms nor penalties if the terms aren’t met. Consider adding both to your invoices to decrease your accounts receivable days outstanding. Chances are most of your customers will pay promptly if there is an incentive involved.

Run Credit Checks on Potential Customers
While this sounds like a no-brainer suggestion, many businesses today take whatever business they can acquire and run checks only when problems arise. Often times it is too late to run a check after issues surface. It’s better for your business over the long haul to reject a customer immediately that slow pays or is consistently delinquent. Slow payers are frequently troublesome clients aside from their propensity to get behind on paying you—they are typically the impossible to please variety that will nitpick your organization and sap its resources.

Sell off Under Utilized Assets and Fully Depreciated Assets
Once an asset has run through its useful life and is no longer a depreciable asset, consider selling it off if you can get good value for it. You’ll get an influx of cash that can help you replace that asset or upgrade to a new technology or model and possibly reduce your debt in the process. Many assets will last well beyond their useful life so you may be able to fetch top dollar from a smaller business looking to improve their operation by adding used equipment.

Encourage Partial Payments
If your business is in a bit of a cash crunch, try encouraging your clients to make partial payments on the front end of projects or working arrangements. Most will be agreeable to such provided you make some concessions on your end such as small pricing incentive or discount to do so. This helps you improve your cash on hand while helping your client spread payments out so that everything doesn’t hit all at once in one lump sum.

Comparison Shop Suppliers Online
The Internet makes comparison shopping a breeze, and some of your vendors and suppliers may take you for granted by not adjusting their pricing to reflect current market and competitive pricing. By checking the competitive landscape every quarter or so, you can gain some leverage by knowing how much you should be paying for particular items especially those that are more commoditized.

Stick to Budgets
This is another suggestion that may seem rather obvious, but there are several projects that suffer budget creep throughout a fiscal year. A couple hundred bucks here or there may not seem like much for a particular project, but it will quickly add up if there are multiple projects going on across an organization.

Spread Out Payments; Don’t Pay All at Once
Spreading out payments through a month versus paying everything on one day can really alleviate a cash crunch due to the natural flow of business and customers’ payment preferences. All of the money due to you in a given month doesn’t come in on one day so why should all of the money going out? This little tip can save a lot of headaches even though the temptation to pay everything on one specific day to get it out of the way may seem logical at times.

Add a Shift Versus Taking on More Space
A lot of small to medium businesses are quick to add office or production space when it may be more cost effective to simply add another shift. If your business is a morning shift only operation, how much could you save by simply adding a second shift versus adding production capacity? Chances are you could save quite a bit of development and rental costs by better utilizing the space you have today.

Pay by Credit When Possible
Paying by credit seems to have a stigma attached to it, but it can buy you some extra time to stockpile more cash to pay things off if you play the terms correctly. Since there are also some low rate credit options available, it may be more cost effective to take on a little interest expense until the cash reserves are built up enough to pay things completely off.

Cash flow problems don’t have to cripple your business if you take a step back and evaluate your options objectively. Implementing a few of the tips above can improve things almost immediately and put you back on the right track to a positive cash flow.

You may have heard this before - that you get what you measure. In business, this is definitely, true. However, in certain types of business there is SO MUCH being measured that it's sometimes difficult for employees to decide which measurements are really important. One rule of thumb that guides all of my thinking about using data in strategic planning is that most reasonably intelligent people can keep 6-8 things straight in their heads at any give time. Not 10, not 20, and certainly not 40.

So why do we ask people to keep track of so many numbers?

Well, first, we don't want to miss anything. Of course, this is a complete fallacy, since the easiest way to get people to miss a number is to hide it among 39 other numbers.

Second, we want to preserve the complexities of managing a business - oversimplifying might lead us to ignore some critical detail. This is true, but we shouldn't rely on a mass of numbers to convey the richness of our business. Rather, we should give human beings the ability to pick this richness out for themselves - which they surely won't do if they are overwhelmed with too many numbers.

Finally, numbers are often seen as the lifeblood of management. Now, I have a slightly different theory about this - I think customers and employees are the real lifeblood. But numbers, in many ways, are really the product or service that we provide our customers, so it's easy to see where this idea comes from.

I'm not at all suggesting you shouldn't look at numbers in managing your business. They are vital, and you will have trouble succeeding without them. But you should aim to get a "feel" for a few critical numbers that relate to your effectiveness as a manage before venturing off into oceans of data.

As an example, consider your customer retention numbers. Pretty important stuff. So, how many do you need? One. The only time you should be looking deeper than that is when there are customer retention issues and you need to explain WHY customer retention is changing. At that point, "retention of customers with less than 1 year of experience with us" might help you understand exactly what is going on. But putting both customer retention AND new customer retention on a report simply makes it longer with data that is redundant a significant part of the time. And - this is the key point - a longer report will get less focused attention from the people who really need to use it to understand what is going on.

You may have heard this before - that you get what you measure. In business, this is definitely, true. However, in certain types of business there is SO MUCH being measured that it's sometimes difficult for employees to decide which measurements are really important. One rule of thumb that guides all of my thinking about using data in strategic planning is that most reasonably intelligent people can keep 6-8 things straight in their heads at any give time. Not 10, not 20, and certainly not 40.

So why do we ask people to keep track of so many numbers?

Well, first, we don't want to miss anything. Of course, this is a complete fallacy, since the easiest way to get people to miss a number is to hide it among 39 other numbers.

Second, we want to preserve the complexities of managing a business - oversimplifying might lead us to ignore some critical detail. This is true, but we shouldn't rely on a mass of numbers to convey the richness of our business. Rather, we should give human beings the ability to pick this richness out for themselves - which they surely won't do if they are overwhelmed with too many numbers.

Finally, numbers are often seen as the lifeblood of management. Now, I have a slightly different theory about this - I think customers and employees are the real lifeblood. But numbers, in many ways, are really the product or service that we provide our customers, so it's easy to see where this idea comes from.

I'm not at all suggesting you shouldn't look at numbers in managing your business. They are vital, and you will have trouble succeeding without them. But you should aim to get a "feel" for a few critical numbers that relate to your effectiveness as a manage before venturing off into oceans of data.

As an example, consider your customer retention numbers. Pretty important stuff. So, how many do you need? One. The only time you should be looking deeper than that is when there are customer retention issues and you need to explain WHY customer retention is changing. At that point, "retention of customers with less than 1 year of experience with us" might help you understand exactly what is going on. But putting both customer retention AND new customer retention on a report simply makes it longer with data that is redundant a significant part of the time. And - this is the key point - a longer report will get less focused attention from the people who really need to use it to understand what is going on.

Strategic planning is truly about executing a continuous process improvement plan. Ideally, specific strategies (thoughts) and tactics (actions) usually created within the C-Level Executive Team cascade down throughout the organization touching each and every department and employee.

Within most executive business management teams, there are the following individuals (in smaller companies these roles maybe combined):

* CEO – Chief Executive Officer
* CFO – Chief Financial Officer
* COO – Chief Operating Officer
* CIO – Chief Information Officer
* CTO – Chief Technology Officer

These C Level Executives are responsible for managing the strategic plan and answerable to the Board of Directors, the shareholders and their employees.

What is consistently missing from the C-Level Executive team is the CPO or the Chief People Officer. Robert H. Waterman wrote that "Organizations exist for only one purpose: to help people reach ends together that they couldn't achieve individually." Since organization are comprised of people and people are needed to execute the strategic plan, does it not make sense to have a Chief People Officer?

The exclusion of the Chief People Officer from the C-Level business management team and overall operations truly reinforces that the things within the business are more important than the people. During the last 20 years as technology exploded in the business world, companies were quick to identify a CIO (Chief Information Officer) and a CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Now in the 21st Century almost every company has someone in these roles.

Yet, people, the mainstay of any organization, are still not given the same recognition as bits of information or pieces of hardware. Is it a wonder that the execution of the strategic plan still foils many organizations?

Human capital is a far greater asset than information and hardware. Without people, the need for all the currently identified C-Level executives would not exist. For it is the people who market, sell, make and deliver the products and services.

If you are a CEO, maybe now is the time to reconstruct your C-Level Executive team to reserve a place at your management table for your Chief People Officer (CPO). Who knows, you may find executing your strategic plan just a tad easier?

Are you where you want to be? Are you experiencing repetitive challenges? If you could overcome those challenges, what would that mean to your bottom line, your daily productivity or sense of personal achievement?

The word “strategic” is often mis-used, mostly because it implies both importance and intelligent analysis. There is a great deal more to strategy than these two connotations. Strategy is about the overall course and direction of an enterprise. In military use, strategic targets are not just important targets, they are targets that affect the enemy’s ability to wage war. In strategic planning for business, strategic objectives always drive at one of three questions:

1. What do we do?
2. For whom do we do it?
3. How do we beat our competition?

For example, introducing a major new product line is usually strategic because it changes (1) and possibly (3), while requiring an excellent understanding of (2). Improving employee benefits, while almost always important, is only strategic if it is closely tied with (3). (I could write an entire book on why treating employees well is almost always part of competitiveness in the best companies, but that is a topic for another time).

So, despite the fact that such things might be important, it’s really rare to encounter “strategic interviewing”, “strategic facility management” or “strategic communications”. Naturally, if you are in the facility business, perhaps operating apartment buildings, you do have “strategic facility management”. For a typical widget manufacturer, however, this idea is just an attempt to puff up the importance of a crucial, but non-strategic issue.

“But”, some of you are surely saying, “won’t facility management cause us to lose customers if we do it poorly?”. Absolutely. And - at that point - the issue does become strategic. A good analogy is to think of your business as a ship. Anything that helps get you from where you are to where you want to go can be strategic. A tiny leak in the hull that won’t get any worse won’t affect your ability to get where you are going - but a huge hole that threatens to sink the ship will. One is not strategic, the other is. On most ships - and in most companies - your strategic level management and resources should be not be focused on the little holes, but rather steering to avoid the rocks so that you get where you want to go without getting a big hole in your ship.

The next time someone says “strategic this” or “strategic that”, ask yourself - is this person really talking about something that affects the course of my company? It may help you focus on the things that will truly get you where you want to go.

Strategic planning is a process that has many tangible elements such as a vision statement to specific unit goals. Yet, from my experiences as a business coach, strategic plan implementation continues to be an ongoing challenge.

One of the unstated qualities necessary for implementing a strategic plan is enthusiasm. Do your people embrace your strategic plan with enthusiasm or with dreaded thoughts like "this is a waste of time,"or "let's work on today's problems and not think about what hasn't happened," or "if the wheel ain't broke why fix it?

Enthusiasm is necessary, but this quality demonstrates the buy in from your people or what some may call "What't in it for me ( WIIFM )." Unless your people believe that there is something tangible for them, their attitudes as demonstrated through their behaviors may become critical obstacles to the success of your plan.

Another result of having enthusiasm is that teamwork is greatly increased. People are more willing to work with fellow team members who are happy compared to working with fellow employees who are unhappy. The more people work together positively, the greater opportunity for successful implementation of the strategic plan.

Enthusiasm will also increase customer loyalty. A recent report showed that the 68% of the customers who no longer frequent a business do so because of negative attitudes. Would you shop or do business with a bunch of grouches? I don't think so. So, why would your customers stay around if your people have bad attitudes?

Without enthusiasm, implementing a strategic plan is far more difficult. And remember, the executive team sets the tone. If you executive team is not on board with incredible enthusiasm, how can you expect more from your other employees?

Brand IS a competitive advantage

One of the most commonly overlooked sources of competitive advantage is brand. Branding is not just advertising, nor is it simply a catchy name for a company or product. The most important value in a brand is the value that it holds for actual customers. This value is very difficult and expensive to build - and fragile and easy to destroy. The difficulty of building and maintaining a brand is one reason why managers the world over tend to avoid spending much time or money on branding - especially in smaller companies. This is a shame, because a well-managed brand is so powerful that it can overcome almost any other competitive advantage. This one fact is the reason why larger companies with lots of managerial horsepower tend to spend a lot of time and money on branding.

What makes a brand valuable?

Brands are valuable simply because they cause customers to be inclined to purchase your product rather than someone else's. In a way, a brand is shorthand for the things the customer can expect from your product. In products that hold little meaning for the customer, this might be worth less, but in markets where the customer invests his or her ego in the purchase of a particular brand, that meaning can be priceless. Let's look at some examples to see where branding may or may not be important.

First of all, let's look at some examples of brands with tremendous pull. These brands will sell well just about anywhere they show up, because the customer associates the brand with qualities they prefer. Examples include:

Disney Nintendo Sony Harley Davidson Apple

Interestingly, none of these brands has universal appeal, in that not every possible customer will prefer the attributes of the brand over their alternatives. For example, the Disney brand is applied to many products:

Theme Parks Movies Licensed products such as clothing and toys Computer games Time shares Cruise line Broadway shows Television programming

In each of these very different product areas, the Disney brand means something a little different. For example, in theme parks, Disney means clean, family-oriented, creatively designed, expensive and (to many) crowded. The negative elements of the Disney branding in their theme park business are inevitable - you always have to accept the negative with the positive. But the positive elements are so compelling that millions of people from around the world spend a significant portion of their income to travel to a Disney theme park.

The Apple brand has a similar story. Apple carries a number of meanings, including well designed, easy to use, less popular and expensive. As with any great brand, this brand has a lot of ego invested in it for some people. This aspect of branding is more visible in computers because it is significantly more difficult and time consuming to use a computer operating system that isn't the most popular (in other words, Microsoft). Despite this difficulty, Apple has a hard core of fans who wouldn't think of using another brand, given a choice. Clearly, this doesn't translate into top market share for Apple, but it is a significant advantage that has clearly kept the Apple name alive when others have fallen by the wayside. Apple's newer products - notable the iPod - have drawn upon the positive elements of the Apple brand. The negative elements of the Apple brand have been far less problematic for the iPod because it is competing in a new product area where niche status has not been seen as a drawback. This is an excellent example of using a brand to grow beyond the core product line.

Why branding is important in the global marketplace

In an increasingly global market, branding can serve two distinct functions that may be useful to you: first, a "local" brand gives you and entrenched customer base that is more difficult (and expensive) to displace, and second, a "global" brand can give you a foot in the door when seeking to enter new geographic areas. Be forewarned: building a "global" brand is expensive, and often a "local" brand can be just as costly. Even so, the brand can be a useful offensive tool and defensive tool when you are competing with non-local companies.

There is one reason why "local" brands can be more cost-effective, and a good tool for defending your home turf from foreign competition: brand success is built upon three critical factors: 1. Understanding the key values in the mind of your customer 2. Knowing how to put the customer's values into your product or service 3. Effectively associating your brand with those values

Two of these factors, understanding your customer and associating your brand with values, are very much defined by culture. Thus, someone from outside your culture - and this could even be someone who speaks the same language from a different region - will find it much more difficult to get an accurate read on what your customer's key values are, and how to convince the customer that his product or service embodies those values. This is not saying that a foreign competitor cannot do this - just that it's a lot more expensive and difficult.

How to evaluate your brand

Objectively evaluating your brand is difficult, especially if you want to put an exact dollar number on it. Fortunately, this is usually not required for good strategic decision making. Still, it's a good idea to have at least a general concept of the value of your brand when you are considering strategic options.

The most objective way to evaluate your brand is to measure the outcomes that occur with and without the use of your brand. Sometimes this is simple, because the way you market may well lend itself to testing different hypothesis about your brand. For example, a seminar company might test mailing brochures that feature (or don't feature) specific brands, to find out the extent to which one of those brands is pulling in attendees at the seminars. Likewise, if you have the wherewithal, you might go so far as to test selling a "generic" version of your product in the marketplace to see if it can carry the same price as your current brand - at acceptable volumes. This is a little more difficult with retail products, as some retailers will insist on only stocking brand name products on their shelves. In addition, retail stores - especially large chains - typically demand some kind of compensation for the use of their shelf space, which makes retail brand testing quite expensive.

If testing is out of the question, you can also approximate brand value by looking at the popularity and price of competing brands with little or no brand power. If you don't have an absolutely generic "no-name" competitor, it can be difficult to be objective about this - after all, how do you decide which competitor has the least brand power? Also, there may be some confusion about value because there are several components to the success of a brand:

Brand Sales = (Cost + Margin) * Volume

If you were to attempt a calculation of brand value, you would be faced with extracting non-brand factors which affect these three numbers. For example, cost can go up or down depending on operation skills, management, underlying cost structure, and purchasing skills. Margin may be driven by brand power, pricing skill, and power in the distribution/retail channels. And volume can be affected by both cost and margin, brand power, and distribution network, as well as underlying demand for the products or services being offered.

Even so, at the end of the day your brand gets you one of two measurable outcomes: margin or volume. Comparing your margins to the competition is one way to assess the value of your brand, if you take heed of the caveat about other factors which may change margin. Comparing volume is less likely to yield a good estimate of brand value, because you can - in many markets - drive higher volumes with no brand value at all by charging lower prices. This, by the way, is a terrible strategy to be following if you are concerned about cheaper foreign competition, because there are significant costs that you simply will not be able to beat your foreign competitors on.

So your brand isn't that valuable - is there hope?

In some cases, companies run into a "brick wall" when they objectively evaluate their own brand. This can be caused by a number of factors, but the outcome is the same: some brands just don't mean anything to the customer, and so do not carry any premium in the marketplace. Naturally, such brands offer little defense against inexpensive foreign competition, and companies that rely too heavily on brand power that doesn't really exist inevitably get into hot water as foreign competition uses its compelling power - the lower price - to erode the market share of domestic competitors.

Is there a "crash course" way to build brand? Yes - but it's inherently risky and not for the faint of heart. This is because branding is driven by the brains of our customers, not our desires. In order to build a strong, positive awareness of your brand in a hurry, you will have to do something that stands out. By "stands out" we don't mean "is a bit better" - we mean something that is truly remarkable, or, in other words "worthy of remark". Customers don't make remarks about brands that are a little better - they remark on differences that they find really interesting.

An excellent example of something remarkable is the Honda Element. This is a truly distinctive design in the overcrowded sport utility vehicle market. The design is, in fact, so unusual that it almost never made it into production. Marketing people at Honda were extremely uncomfortable that the design was so different from any other brand in the SUV market that they wanted to scrap it. The designers won the fight to manufacture a small number of Elements as a "niche" product, along with a more mainstream design. By the end of the first year of production, the Element was outselling the "safe" design by five to one!

International business plans require additional study compared to domestic ones. These require additional expense and time to resolve. Here we will discuss four critical ones for a business plan.

First, we must decide on the business structure. Countries have favorite structures that evolve slowly. When considering international companies, different structures might be required. Typically, the type of business structure must be discussed with a business consultant in the country itself. This will most often be a lawyer from that country. It's possible that a lawyer in your home country would know the laws of another, but it's not very common. This information is critical for the correct filing of papers, company organization and other important details. As we are deciding which structure to use for a foreign country, the decision on how to control it is also important. Will the foreign company be a stand-alone? Will it be a subsidiary of another company? These questions can only be answered after much consultation. The research answers will heavily influence the resulting business plan and the resulting company.

Next, we must evaluate the government and legal environment in our home country and the new country. Our business plan must account for and demonstrate an understanding of challenges. It is common for countries to place severe restrictions on how foreign companies are organized, operated and owned. Some require a resident citizen to be involved in a company, while others require varying amounts of capital and social spending to operate. Too, the tax structure of the country may place restrictions on how capital flows into and out of the company and country. Also, taxes must be levied, collected and remitted according to laws of all the countries involved.

Some countries allow capital to flow in freely but don't allow capital to flow out. Another concern is the stability and freedom that the country enjoys. Many countries have whimsical or tyrannical dictators that change policy at their leisure. This can create an atmosphere where investment is encouraged and then after all the hard work is done, they nationalize or repatriate the company. This is very common place in third world countries and should be factored into any decision for the business plan. Too, there are many other financial facets in operating internationally, such as: currency valuation and devaluation; import and export taxes; inflation and deflation; and world economic changes.

Third, we have the movement of funds. Earlier we touched on it in relation to putting capital into the company or moving it out. All countries have laws related to the movement of funds. Most also track fund movements and force financial institutions to collect and supply information concerning funds moving across international borders. Some of this has happened because of the fight against world terror, but most as evolved over time with the terror struggle being an excuse to collect information. These laws may restrict the amount, form and the timeliness of funds transfers. It is proper to discuss fund acquisition in the business plan; but for an international company, fund transfers and currency concerns must also be covered items.

Finally, extended control of an alien company must be determined and discussed in the business plan. It costs time, money and other resources to control a company far from the normal environment. People must often travel there to evaluate and monitor progress. Personnel must do accounting and reporting within the guidelines of the country where the business is located. This control and monitoring function is daunting for international companies because it brings together differing ideals, cultures, laws and experiences plus often there is a language barrier to be traversed. This leads to a challenging business environment. It's not one that is impossible, but it is one to be scrutinized and considered carefully during the business plan development and feasibility reviews.

However, in this new Internet age, strategic alliances between companies that are direct competitors are taking place. In such cases, one company agrees to buy services from the 2nd company to resell at a higher cost to company one’s end customers. In such a case, a company located in a low cost country (like India, China, etc.) or that has offices in a low cost country, forms an alliance with a company located in a high cost country (like the US, UK, etc).

In such cases, both companies are selling the same services. But they are bound by an agreement that prevents the company selling the services (from a low cost country) to directly interact with clients of the company buying the services (in a high cost country like the US).

The company that is buying the services also has the added benefit of getting diversity in skill set and flexibility to add or reduce resources without the disadvantages associated with hiring and firing people to accommodate peaks and valleys in business.

Why form Strategic Alliances?

Regardless of the type of strategic alliances that are formed, there are many advantages to both companies involved in an alliance. Strategic alliances allow businesses to gain a competitive edge by leveraging partner resources such as marketing, technology, capital investments, and people. It also benefits both companies by allowing them to brainstorm ideas, leverage skills, and leverage connections to take the business to the next level. By forming strategic alliances, companies can add complementary skills to diversify offerings without the added cost of finding talent with new skills, ongoing training, and the need to maintain employee overhead costs.

All these allow companies to boost productivity while saving time and effort due to the ready set of skills that are available at their disposal. The company selling the services can benefit from the alliance due to the fact that it opens the door for ongoing work thus allowing them to focus on employee development and retention.

Both companies benefit from having strategic discussions on what to focus on next, from brainstorming ideas together, conducting joint marketing, and in general from using resources that are readily available through the alliance.

The internet has created a global marketplace but it has also brought more competition that if the market place had been geographically limiting. Therefore, companies need to be more and more creative in terms of how to grow and gain an edge over their competition. Strategic alliances help them do just that.

How to form a successful Strategic Alliance?

From experience I’ll tell you that it’s tough entering into a strategic alliance. Generally I’ve found that companies that lack a strategic plan and vision don’t necessarily get the concept of what a strategic alliance means. They also perceive the requesting company as a threat and in general shy away from even discussing

Sometimes, you may proceed along fine until you begin to discuss revenue sharing or commission structures. This derails a nicely progressing relationship when both companies cannot agree to the commercial arrangement proposed by one or the other.

Therefore, before approaching a strategic alliance, here are some steps that may help you:

Ø Define goals and objectives for both companies

Ø Define success measures – that means that both companies should list what they would consider a successful outcome from that strategic alliance

Ø Clarify what each company will do and clearly document roles and responsibilities

Ø Define or create an operating agreement to plan what needs to be done, by whom, by when, etc.

Ø Document commercial agreement related to individual costs, revenue sharing, commission structures, operational overruns, marketing costs, etc.

Ø Define exit clauses in the event that the strategic alliance just doesn’t work out for any reason

Ø Make sure you never operate on just a verbal agreement, document everything to protect both parties

Ø Lastly, protect intellectual property because lets face it, we’re dealing with human beings and although a relationship can begin with trust, it takes no time for that trust to change into betrayal.

In summary, we know that most large companies have understood and successfully created strategic alliances. What amazes me is that small companies and mid sized companies are still moons behind embracing this philosophy and thus are ill-equipped to sustain growth in the face of rising competition.

Last week I had an interesting discussion with a director of Mary Kay, one of the most successful companies in the cosmetics industry. She wanted to know why it would be important for her sales reps to understand strategy.

Classically, we've just asked sales reps to sell, and nothing else. The ideal salesperson was someone who could sell ice to Eskimos, a kind of glorified snake-oil salesman in a plaid jacket. This approach has done one big thing for American business: it has taught us to expect lies and misdirection from salespeople. Long-term success cannot, however, depend upon this kind of "burn the bridges" mentality. With a "scorched earth" sales strategy, you can maximize your sales in the short run, but there will be no second sale. As the cost of sales has risen, the need for customer retention has made that second sale a mandatory prerequisite for profitability.

The best way to get at the second sale - or better yet, having a customer for life - is (and this is not rocket science) to sell the customer what the customer wants to buy. The rocket science comes in when you try to figure out exactly what it is the customer wants to buy. Strategy guru Peter Drucker said it best: "The customer rarely thinks he is buying what you think you are selling". In other words, you are all wrapped up in your company while your customer is all wrapped up in his life, and the amazing thing is that you manage to get any sales at all!

My response to the Mary Kay director was along those lines. I asked "When customers buy from you, what are they getting?", to which she replied "Makeup...no, wait, they are buying beauty." She was on the right track, but we took it a step farther. Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, so you can't really sell it (and you'd have a lot of returns if you tried). You can, however, sell certain aspects of cosmetic performance. Some people buy cosmetics that promise to make them look more professional. Others want to attract a mate. And teenagers want to look cool and trendy. Those are things Mary Kay can sell - but each has a very different meaning.

This meaning is the key to efficient sales. In the Mary Kay example, they developed a product line which targeted the high school and college crowd. In marketing this line - called "Velocity" - they emphasized the hipness of the cosmetics. This extended to the packaging, colors, fragrances, and selection of reps, as well as the marketing materials. Interestingly, Mary Kay management did not insist on emphasizing the Mary Kay name - because they knew that Mary Kay meant something unhip to their target market.

There are six key things to remember about meaning. First, useful meaning is found in the brains of your customers, not in your operation. Second, meaning is a valuable strategic tool only when it is distinctive. Third, for the distinctiveness to last, meaning must require serious commitment and focus. Fourth, meaning must be difficult to copy casually. Fifth, meaning must be driven into your sales, finances and operations so that it won't unravel. Sixth, meaning is difficult to create, and difficult to erase.

Let's look at some examples for each of these to understand why they are important for organizations:

1. Meaning is in your customers' heads. I asked a friend in mortgage banking what his company meant. He answered, "My company means great customer service, before, during and after you get your mortgage." Now, this is a great answer, but let's look very closely at what is going on in the customer's head. When people go to get a mortgage, they are wondering a lot of things - "Will I be approved?", "Will it take a lot of time?", "Am I going to make a mistake that costs me a lot of money?". Notice that - while it relates directly to some of the most common questions - "Will I get good customer service?" is not likely to be one of those questions. Thus, "Great Customer Service" is a useful value if in the mind of the customer it links directly to one of his or her top concerns, such as "Will it take a lot of time?". Otherwise, prospective customers are likely to react to your meaning by saying something like "OK, you have great customer service, but will it take a lot of my time?".

2. Meaning must be distinctive. "Great Customer Service" is a great example here. We can all see that great customer service is valuable. For it to be a valuable meaning, it must set you apart from your competitors. Again, looking at what is happening in the brains of your customers, it is easier to do this credibly if one of two things is true: A) No one else makes the claim or B) You have some concrete evidence that you are the very best at what you are claiming. If these are not true, the claim will not become meaning. For example, think of car dealers who claim they have the lowest prices, or car manufacturers who claim to make a high quality product.

3. Meaning must be backed by serious commitment and focus. There is nothing more damaging to meaning than occasional lapses in performance - and these are bound to happen without serious commitment. For example, there is a very popular and successful "mom and pop" grocery store on a corner near my house. I've always found this intriguing, since there is a big, low price competitor just down the street - only three blocks away. The "mom and pop" store has a very loyal following because (unlike at the big competitor) there is never a line at the cash register. Does this require commitment? You bet - think about what it costs to staff a store so well that customers never wait in line. What is the payoff? Much higher profit margins, and a clientele that returns time and again regardless of the difference in price. Notice that any store could try to have this meaning - "You'll Never Wait in Line" - but only a store that backs this up with commitment will be able to create success from it.

4. Meaning must be difficult to copy casually. Meaning cannot come from things that are easy. The best meanings come from focus and commitment that others will be unwilling to undertake. The meaning of the Mary Kay story to that company's representatives is a huge motivator, and it's the kind of thing that can only come from years of dedication to a concept that lies outside of the competition's comfort zone. For example, a hotel chain I frequent set itself apart years ago by offering fresh-baked cookies to guests as they checked in. While that's a nice distinction, it's also a comfortable one, so now at least a couple of competing hotels have started doing the exact same thing. End of distinction.

5. Meaning must be part of the fabric of your organization. It must be driven into your sales, finances and operations so that it stays real even after the ad campaign is over and the buzzwords have moved on. This is why the dozens of wannabes who imitate the most successful innovators - from Mary Kay to Southwest Airlines - usually fail miserably. It's not enough to copy the superficial aspects of the business model - you have to get the meaning, too. One of the least understood reasons for the often-hyped "first mover advantage" is that meaning creates its own momentum over time as it is woven into the very structure of an organization.

6. Meaning is difficult to create, and difficult to erase. To get ideas into customers' heads, you have to do very expensive things with hard-to-measure outcomes, like advertising, PR, and customer service. Being first (like Yahoo!) will get you some mental real estate, too, but you usually only get to do that once, or maybe once per generation. What's worse, changing meaning is a nearly impossible task. If you like Southwest Airlines because of their fun flight attendants, you are unlikely to change your beliefs about this without a good reason. Likewise, if you think of Mercedes-Benz as a luxury automobile brand, a low-priced economy car offering with that brand on it is likely to fail.

Now that we understand the importance of meaning, how can we use it to make your company more successful? First, you must find the meaning that works for you. Second, make sure you target customers and segments that will reward you for having this meaning. Third, be deadly serious about your commitment to the meaning your company has. Fourth, take a close look at the relationships between meaning and your operations and finances. Fifth, create useful comparisons for your customers that demonstrate why you have the meaning and your competitors do not (and never will). Sixth, challenge your organization to define the next level of performance relating to your meaning.

1. Find the meaning that works for you. In the Simplified Strategic Planning process, we like to focus attention of strategic competencies. If you have a good strategic competency, this is a fine starting point. If you do not, you need to find meaning that fits two criteria: A) None of your competitors could (or would) claim it and B) You have strengths that would enable you to claim this meaning and back it up. As with strategic competencies, you should also pay close attention to the value of this meaning to your customers, and the size of the market that would prefer your company as a result of this meaning.

2. Target customers and segments that will reward you for having this meaning. This can be a tough task, especially if you have spent the last 20 years selling to a market that has stopped valuing your meaning. In extreme cases, this may mean your company must be much smaller than it is today to be successful. On the other hand, remember that customers will tend to lie to you about what they value - until they place and order. The truth we are looking for lies in those orders. Pay special attention to customers who have a real choice and decide to buy from you despite your competition. They are the most likely candidates, and, in the long run, their reasons for selecting you are the most likely to be the reasons why your company succeeds.

3. Be deadly serious about your commitment to the meaning your company has. The difference between sustained success and a flash in the pan here is commitment. Management gurus like to point at companies that are successful today and talk about their success as something that can be copied overnight (with the help of a management guru, of course). The reality behind all successful companies boils down to one of two things: A) Luck or B) Sustained commitment to a vision with meaning. Until someone creates a reliable process for creating luck, we should focus our attention on commitment. In your own company, this means you must back up your commitment - sometimes unprofitably. Does this mean you should sometimes show customers how to get good results by spending less money with us? You bet. Remember, part of making money off of what we mean to our customers is a two-way street - they need to feel they can trust us to deliver on that meaning every time they come back to us.

4. Examine the relationships between meaning and your operations and finances. Operations and finances - the "non-market" realities of our businesses - have a funny way of defining meaning. For example, airlines pack their planes with people because the planes are incredibly expensive. Because of this, "You'll be Comfortable" is a meaning you won't encounter outside of first class on most airlines. As a result, a company like Midwest Express, whose aircraft fleet is configured for comfortable seating through the whole plane, can claim "You'll be Comfortable" as a meaning with strategic benefit. A very important point here is that you must find unique ways to make your operations and (possibly) your financial structure to support the meaning your company has. This is why you will see the meaning of organizations like Disney and Southwest Airlines woven into every part of their operations. When such companies have tough times, it would be very appealing to management to unravel this fabric and destroy the meaning. Because the meaning exists in all parts of the organization - and not just sales and marketing - it is virtually impossible to cut costs this way without dismantling the whole company.

5. Create useful comparisons for your customers that demonstrate why you have the meaning and your competitors do not (and never will). Look at your competitors through your customers eyes - why do they not seek the meaning that you have for your customers? Are they unable to, or unwilling to? Those are great starting points for ad campaigns and sale conversations. As an added bonus, your sales team can become much more efficient by steering customers who don't value your meaning away.

6. Third, challenge your organization to define the next level of performance relating to your meaning. If customers buy from you because your company means quality, what is the next level? Can you offer the first lifetime warranty in your industry? If your company means service, can you reach a 24-hour turnaround level on orders? How can you take what your customers love about you and turn it up a notch? How would you do it if money was no object? The process of pushing the envelope on performance can take your company to a place that is miles ahead of anyone who might be so foolish as to attempt to compete in your "space" - the space defined by your company's meaning.

I recently met the president of a company called University Living, which runs a local retirement community. Calling it a retirement community is technically correct, but the meaning of the company is quite different. The president said "We have a unique and active community because we firmly believe that your brain doesn't go just because you're old - you go only when you treat your brain like it's old". Now, I have worked with retirement communities before, so I asked what portion of his clientele was private pay. When he said "All of it", I was really impressed. I was led to believe that this was impossible - that you just have to have public money to make out in his industry. When I thought about it, I realized that he was doing exactly the right thing, because the reliance on Medicare has a profound effect on the operations, financing, and, in fact, the very meaning of organizations that provide living space for the elderly. University Living is able to efficiently provide an intellectually stimulating environment for their residents specifically because they are not hampered by the operational overhead imposed by public funding. This kind of organization is a great example of how you can mean something for your customers - and create a market you can dominate in the bargain. So what does your company mean?