FORECAST - 34 Best Practices of Fast Growth

Market Intelligence (Competitive Advantage)

The essence of understanding market leadership, it identifies where the organization can excel and is the matched set for Core Competency. Competitive Advantage exist in both real time and the future, understanding the under or unserved needs with significant financial gain of a targeted niche.
Competitive Landscape	Creating an accurate and complete picture of the entire marketplace, used to identify current and future customer value
Targeted Industries	Based upon Competitive Landscape, the selection of specific industries with un or underserved needs and high economic return
Product to Knowledge	Understanding how the customer uses your products and services to drive continuous improvement of your existing offer and development of new products and services

Brand (Core Competence)

It starts with brand, and what makes your brand superior in the eyes of the customer. Not just a marketing campaign, it is about perceived customer benefits of your end product and the experience of buying and using, it must be difficult for competitors to imitate, and finally creates uniqueness from anyone else.
Stakeholder Contribution	Creating a clear and compelling picture of the companyÂ’s future that enables everyone: employees, suppliers, and shareholders to contribute
Resource Alignment	Given your companyÂ’s strategy and processes, the most efficient method of organizing to ensure coordination without bureaucracy
Cultural Adaptability	Based upon your companyÂ’s history and traditions, the ease or difficulty for using all of its resources to conduct on-going change
Goal Integration	The blending of diverse goals (business objectives, job demands, professional development) to align people with strategy, processes with customers
Resource Deployment	Given the restrictions on available resources (money, time, people, focus), a process that maximizes results from current budget
Intellectual Leadership	Your companyÂ’s ability to establish thought leadership in its industry by being first to take advantage of new opportunities
Migration Management	Based upon trends identified in your companyÂ’s Targeted Industries, the ability to move into new markets while the opportunity exists
Change Readiness	The ability of your organization (strategy, processes, resources, people) to tackle change as part of how business is done
Strategic Response	The creation and execution of business strategy that creates a competitive advantage by making your brand superior in its niche
Targeted Accounts	Based upon your Targeted Industries, selecting customers that match the companyÂ’s core competence

Talent (Discretionary Performance)

The amount of performance the organization can capture beyond what is required. Typically, standards are set artificially low. No business is able to sustain itself when people do the minimum. Every successful company has a competitive advantage through people who work harder then required or compensated.
Knowledge Development	A future focus on the skills required to meet the performance demands as the company moves into new business opportunities
Motivating Work	A work environment where the barriers are removed and the factors that multiply performance enhanced
Employer of Choice	The processes for attracting, developing, and keeping the right talent to become the Employer of Choice in your niche
Work Organization	The informal and social relationships between members of a group and between other groups that support or hinder overall performance
Group Performance	The creation of synergy from teamwork where to results are greater than the sum of the parts
Performance Feedback	Formal and informal communications on organizational, departmental, group and individual performance
Behavioral Boundaries	The establishment of operating limits that define acceptable behaviors and enable independent decision-making.
Objective Setting	A clear and concise picture for individual and group performance that serves as the basis for performance management, succession planning, and compensation
Role Clarity	Specific and documented requirements of a job or task, linked to a process, and with real-time measurements.
Skills Training	A present focus; bringing the skill levels up to meet current role demands.

Operations (Productive Capacity)

The essence of your business model, it measures the organization's ability to provide products, services, and customer enthusiasm to specified markets. It is the delivery component for Core Competency.
Information Acquisition	The availability of multiple methods of storing information (quantitative and qualitative) from business operations for future use.
Development & Research	Reversal of traditional R&D, new ideas are developed in collaboration with suppliers and customers; bringing products and services to the market faster and at lower cost.
Process Design	An established process for designing and building product, service, sales, and support processes that ensures right first time delivery.
Knowledge Dissemination	The availability of multiple methods for retrieving information (quantitative and qualitative) used in problem solving and decision-making.
Production Equipment	Reliable and robust applications (machinery, computers, pagers, phones, etc.) that are user friendly and dependable.
Inventory Management	An established and ongoing process for managing inventory using JIT (just in time) methods to reduce costs and ensure quality.
Preventive Maintenance	An established and ongoing process for ensuring equipment is managed through its lifecycle, not run to destruction.
Process Reengineering	An established and ongoing process that ensures every component of the business is continuously improved using the tools of quality.
Project Management	A core competency of change, the ability to manage the process of change is determined by the ability to manage large and complex projects.
Beta Testing	Based on research & development initiatives, a methodology that tests processes, products, and services with end users prior to launch.
Operations to Knowledge	The lessons learned from internal operations to R&D and continuous improvement initiatives.

Consulting - The Rules of Engagement

This is not an exhaustive essay on the history or components of consultative selling. My goal is to address the challenges of this sales model in the virtual medium; it is hard enough to make it work face to face, building consultative relationships online is even more challenging.

Building a Professional Relationship with your ‘Pilot’

Consulting is very similar to being a harbour pilot who guides ships through the narrow, shallow and dangerous coastal waters between a harbour and the open sea.

A highly coveted and potentially dangerous position, a pilot is a master mariner with many years of experience in the harbor that (s)he is licensed to operate in.

Pilots specifically use the pilotage techniques relying on nearby visual reference points and local knowledge of tides, swells, currents, depths and shoals that might not be readily identifiable on the nautical charts without first hand experience in the harbor in question.

I thought this analogy would help in describing how we do business. Our team at Applied Knowledge Labs offer than same expertise. Smaller companies suffer the same set of obstacles to growth - the owner operator. Those things that made you successful up to now are the obstacles to further growth; it is called the 'Founder Trap'. It can be overcome, but the challenge is you are the business and the business is you - so any criticism or improvement suggestions are personal. Given our years of experience dealing with this dynamic, let me offer you some insights on how we can work through it by working together.

The assumptions we operate under:
1. I am hired to be fired!? In other words, my job is not to tell you what you want to hear, my job is to tell you what you need to hear. When selling expertise I must be brave enough to risk losing the sale. You have people on salary to reinforce your opinion.

2. Usually, I am presented with both the problem and a solution. If I accept this as the truth, then it becomes a relationship sale. Clients typically do not have a handle on the real situation because of issues beyond this commentary. They need the expertise we bring plus a new and unbiased set of eyes to move upstream until the real source of the pain is identified.

3. The essence of consultative selling is collaboratively assessing and diagnosing the situation. The sale is really made when you and I become convinced that the true problem has been identified. Solutions now become simple.

4. Argue against my own interest!? First, my analysis must be independent of recommendations otherwise it is tainted. You (the client) must believe the results represent the truth without agenda. If my work can achieve this end, sufficient credibility exists to compete for the next stage in the sale. Also, if I am not the best provider – I must pass it up and/or help you find someone else. Delivering where I am incompetent is a recipe for death (margins and reputation).

Now for the online challenge, without an ongoing relationship where clients know you, questioning their decisions will lead to the end of the opportunity. I must create the perception of credibility and integrity; I mean you no harm and I am your number one advocate.

Next Step – Building a Relationship that allows for truth.