You Must See This Movie - IOUSA

We typically don't involve these blogs into the world of politics. However, occasionally there are issues that transcend politics because of its potential impact on the economy. As entrepreneurs, there are 26 million solopreneurs and small business (under $50m in revenue) in the United States representing 40% of the jobs, there are issues that cannot go unnoticed. We have been on this story for quite awhile and used these projections into our growth plans - our editorial board this information should be shared.

Review and let me know your thoughts.

Growth in a down cycle?

I just finished a long road trip meeting with clients and our guild members in the MidWest. One thing is becoming very clear, it doesn't matter what the FED says, most our network believes we are at the beginning stages of a recession. There is an obvious fear about discretionary spending. The common theme of the discussion with our guild members is: should we change our message away from growth to cutting costs?

My answer was no and here is why: economic downturns are the time to prepare for rapid growth and here is how I got there.

Using the Business Life Cycle Model and matching it to the economic cycle leads to the following 4 tactics:

1. Begin to look for operational efficiencies. Take a hard look at your processes for delivering products and services and determine if you are currently operating @90% capacity. In other words if everything works as it should, are you building, selling, servicing at a level that is 90% of the businesses capability? If you're not (the right answer 99% of the time) then look to remove all non-value added activities; those things you do to produce, sell, deliver, service that you couldn't add to the invoice. Identifying those gaps between todays efficiencies and what is possible will reduce cycle time and waste, and most importantly improve margins. Imagine if you could charge for everything required to exceed customer expectations!
   
2. Determine which of your competitors that will be hit the hardest by the economic downturn. Who will go out of business or will be so seriously damaged that when the economic trends begins its upward cycle, they will be just hanging on. Look closely at the specifics of their offer: the features of their products and services, and the prime accounts you would like to own.
3. Asses your offer and capacity to deliver on these future sales. Since you have already upgraded your operations (Tactic 1), what additional capacity do you need to add. Use some the money gained from increased margins with existing accounts and build the capacity to sprint out of the blocks.
4. Launch and create buzz. Ready your marketing campaign, you don't need to spend allot of money - just have some in reserve to raise your exposure to the targeted accounts you seek to steal. Most company's who use this tactic upgraded their marketing materials, enhanced their packaging, and bought limited but effective media - like radio or local publications.

When we first built our library of best practices for fast growth, it was apparent the best of the best timed their operational improvements with a downturn in the economy and where ready to sprint when the cycle upturned and drove new sales from their weakened competitor.

Your thoughts?

Our Unique Offer

We have moved our successful big business consulting practice to the mid-market and start-ups where high growth companies live. We grew weary of trying to “boil the ocean” which is common to all large corporations. We decided to stop fighting bureaucracy and work with clients who shared our sense of urgency for getting things done. Our offer is equal to the large consulting firms with one significant difference; we have eliminated price point as a legitimate objection.

After two years of development by researchers with over a half-century of delivering results to the Fortune 1000, we have created a new business model for delivering knowledge to business.

Our extended team represents recognized thought leaders in the issues essential to growth: Market Intelligence (competitive advantage), Brand Superiority (core competence), Talent (discretionary performance), and Operations (productive capacity).

Where do we look to achieve Optimum Growth for our clients?

• Core Measures – Measuring to Manage: what are the most significant (and few) measurements in your business that will determine success and failure?
• Leading Indicators – Predicting the Future: based on core measures, which metrics identify barriers and opportunities for growth, and drive this yearÂ’s strategy?
• Real Time Indicators – Leading in Real Time: based on leading indicators, what can be measured daily (weekly) to indicate progress?
• Trailing Indicators – Evaluating to Learn: what was the impact of the business strategy on financial performance, and what can we take forward to next year?

The team members at AKL all have long-standing reputations for achieving results, helping clients reach the next level. Each member has years of industry experience within specific areas of consulting practice:

• Strategy and Optimum Growth
• Product and Service Quality
• Human Capital

Given the nature of the consulting business, the challenge of measurement presented us with two problems. Starting inside our company, how do we effectively measure performance in a labor-intensive business? Then transferring our attention to clients, how do we measure the impact of partnerships? In both cases, our added value was the application of knowledge. Since you cannot manage what is not measured, how do you measure the application of knowledge internally to become the lowest cost provider? How do you manage the application of knowledge externally to create a return on performance for clients? These concerns have occupied our best minds for years.

Our journey brought us to a simple understanding of the role of measurement in business and the demands of management.

The application of business measures has just three objectives:

• Predict: based on a set of Leading Indicators, if nothing changed - what will happen, if we make change – what should happen
• Describe: based on a set of Real-Time Indicators, how do we measure performance daily and weekly to ensure progress is being made or obstacles identified
• Evaluate: based on a set of Trailing Indicators, the ability to match the cost of actions taken against the return achieved

The AKL has collected an extensive list of best practices over our half-century of driving business results. Our organizational assessment FORECAST measures the best practices in four critical strategic elements of growth.

• Competitive Advantage
• Core Competence
• Productive Capacity
• Discretionary Performance