Location, Location, Location

How often have we heard the old real estate adage that the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location. This adage can be used in business as well, and not just for the location of a brick and mortar store location, although that works as well, but in all aspect of marketing and branding. In today’s competitive markets location is defined as how well you are represented on social media sites and the location on these. A newer saying goes something like this “where is the best place to hide a dead body, on the second page of Google, no one will ever find it.”

If you have a marketing plan how old is it and when was the last time it was reviewed and updated? If you do not have a plan, try reading Marketing and Branding. The need to have an effective marketing effort is more important today than ever. What dominated marketing trends in 2015 were, among many things. “less is more marketing”, “personalization”, “multi-cultural marketing”, and “content.” What is trending in 2016 is audience “connection.” In other words, bonding with your customer. You need to create a customer experience. Much of this can be achieved through Video and Imagery Explosion. According to Forbes 80% of global internet traffic will be video by 2019. This does not mean just showing exploding cars, content remains king, it’s how you present your content that counts and to whom. Multi-Cultural Marketing is taking over generic marketing. In the United States 93% of the population growth is multi-cultural. Let us not forget that growing market segment “MILLENNIALS.” While there is wide discussion as to what a millennial is, the consensus is those born between 1977 to 1995.

Since millennials will outnumber baby boomers by 22 million by the year 2030 it not too soon to work on that marketing plan. Millennial’s look at life a little different then past generation. They look for authenticity and look for a more personal experience than their parents. They do much of their shopping on line and discuss openly all aspects of their life on social media.

It is important for today’s business owner to understand the ever-changing face of this new way of marketing and branding. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the new king of getting the message out. Do you have the right key words to attract the spiders as they respond to the customers (or potential customers) search? Do you understand buyer persona? Customer service is still in paly but is now headed as great customer experience. Are you prepared to provide a great customer experience with your online sales platforms? Waiting line theory is still used but now you must keep your customer online not just inline. Ask yourself how often you have had a bad experience while trying to make a purchase on line. How often have you wanted to contact a company but could not find a way to do it other than through email or an online chat. If you did find a number how long where you on hold. How often can you hear the same “we are experiencing unusually high call volume”. Your current customers have little patience for this and the new up and coming customer just don’t bother. If your competitors make it easier your customer will not come back.

This article is just an idea. I would like to thank Melina Sigal of The Sales and Marketing Connection for supply a lot of the information used here.  At JANUSThink we can help you with your marketing. Just give us a call at 703-314-2964 or contact us through our website at janusthink.com

Business is hard, if it wasn’t everyone would open a business and be their own boss. Recently I did just that, but only after nearly 40 years learning the craft. I decided to offer my experience and education to help businesses grow and prosper, having seen a far share flounder and fail. I have seen good businesses prosper and grow only to be destroyed by a new generation of bad management. Business is hard, and it needs to be tended to at all levels.

In the beginning a person or a group of people have a great idea like let’s bring all the merchandise that’s sold by several stores and sell them in one big store. But what happens when a good idea goes bad or stops evolving. Many of the department stores of old are gone, either failed to adjust to a changing consumer or were mismanaged until they were swallowed up by a better run competitor. In the past year investors abandoned the largest retail department store chain, Walmart, in droves. On the day Walmart announced it would not meet it sales projection stocks tumbled 10% and have yet to recover. Two reasons for this were late entry into and a low financial commitment to the e-commerce realm, and an across the board salary increase to accommodate political pressure.

The questions to be asked would be why so late to the e-commerce arena, it is not a shock that is where a lot of people today are shopping. As to the salary increase it was a good idea to help invigorate a demoralized work force but back fired when hours and personnel were cut. There is a lot more wrong with Walmart, but the point is that a company with the resources available to Walmart should not make such basic mistakes. It also serves as a warning to the little guy that things can go wrong and you may need help to avoid them or recover from them. The help may come from a friend a neighbor or your Uncle Sal.

There is however another possibility, a consultant.There are likely as many opinions about consultants as there are consultants, many are not good. To dispel the worst of these, consultants are not people who just take your money and give you worthless advice. In fact, we are as passionate about our business as you are about yours. What a consultant can do is see past the emotion you bring to your business and look at the business with fresh eyes.

We also provide other services such as working as the Business Development office for those companies too small to maintain a full time staff. We write business plans and proposals and fill in other back office requirements as needed.Consultants have backgrounds and knowledge that business owners do not, nor do they have a need for. Brand building and brand protection are important to every business and sometime passion overtakes reason.

A good story for this goes back to the 1970’s when a famous designer, Bill Blass, lent his name to a line of designer chocolate. If you have never heard of Bill Blass Chocolate, it’s because it was a dismal failure. Blass had little to do with the actual company other than lending his name, one of the first celebrities to do so. The venture went so bad it nearly destroyed the Bill Blass brand and it never fully recovered.

Today with the economy recovering many businesses look to grow. Others are just starting up and are looking for help or at least direction. If you are in need of help, advice or just a suggestion or two, seek out a consultant. Your business will thank you for it.

If you do seek out and pay a consultant the first lesson to learn is to listen to them. An example of not listening I can give from my own past, while working for a small manufacture out of Southern California. The owner and founder of the company was a very good engineer who designed a unique way of doing something and the business grow rapidly. Unfortunately, after a few years, the product was copied in ways that bypassed the patent and made his unique design a basic commodity item, a fact he was reluctant to accept. The business continued to grow but much slower. He called in a group of consultants who in the end gave him advice he did not want to hear so he dismissed them. He merged the business with his largest competitor and lost it to his new partner who sold it to a large multinational. The moral is consultants do know what they are talking about, so don’t waste your money and listen.

I will end by reminding you what your teacher, professor and Mother have told you, if you need help, ask.

Janus think is a consulting company that works with small to medium size businesses to help them operate more efficiently. Janus think becomes the COO of the companies that are too small to have a dedicated operations officer. So what is a COO

A chief operating officer (COO) is the senior manager who is responsible for managing the company’s day-to-day operations and reporting them to the owner, President or CEO, which ever title is preferred . A company needs a chief operating officer (COO) because the CEO is usually too busy to monitor production quotas and other factors on a daily basis.
The COO is responsible for practical goal-setting and establishing strategies and objectives. Depending in part on the size of the company, the COO often plays a significant role in handling the actual operation of the company and makes sure that the company is meeting its short-term and long-term goals.

Janus Think works in conjunction with the CEO/President/Owner of a small to medium size business to help guide a business and support business functions in a number of areas that the owner does   

not want to get involved. This is what Janus Think is all about. With over forty years of experience in retail, wholesale manufacturing and government contracting we understand the needs of business and how to grow them. While there are a number of consultants for a large range of interests from Financial to HR, hiring, training etc. our experience has taught us that it is in the area of operations that most companies falter.

An example of this is: A young man has a passion for bike racing. He saw the tour d ’France at a young age and know this is what he wanted to do. He found out that there was such a thing as Olympic racing, and would love to win a gold medal. He worked on his dream for years only to realize he just was not good enough to compete at the level that would bring him to the Tour d’ France or win a spot on the Olympic team. He had however, over the years made friends with the owners of bike shops that helped support the racers as well as the amateur racer and small children who wanted to ride around the neighborhood.

He found a shop that was in a good location and doing good business and the owner was ready to retire. He bought the business and got to work. The business was doing ok but was not growing, in fact he was losing business and did not know why. He was smart enough to know he needed help so he called on a consultant. When we walked in we found old inventory that was not moving, a purchasing system that was out of date and no marketing plan. The accounting system was barely adequate and the business was just above breakeven.

Within 6 months old inventory had been disposed of through sale or salvage, non-moving inventory was like wise returned to the vendor or auctioned off, all of this provided much needed cash that allowed the other changes to move on. The purchasing system, which was a card file was replaced by a new automatic min/max system. The cash basis accounting system was replaced by an accrual system, since a portion of his sales were to racing teams and schools which would place orders for future delivery, were now carried as assets increasing the value of the company. The owner was introduced to the concept of FIFO vs LIFO accounting. Modern marketing was introduced including Social Media as well as an increase in traditional marketing which included local print, radio and cable ads. Good citizen campaigns were launched which included trail maintenance and funding bike lanes on the local roads There were other problems, such as payroll and taxes that were taken care of but all in all the business was put back on track.

In small business operations sometimes the setting of goals is a problem with the owner. They are passionate about the business and sometimes are overly optimistic on the numbers. This is when we involve the owner in SWOT analysis, which is strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. That is all that will be said about the process other then it is a way of taking the emotion out of the decision.   

Janus Think zeros in on the most pressing problems and works out the solutions. We don’t always do it on our own and do work with other consultants as problems are identified. We can bring in CFO’s, CMO’s, CIO’s or any number of people to fill in the virtual c-suite of a small business. We work with a very diverse group of clients, from Benefits brokers to startup AIRBNP type companies to being on stand-by for a private equity company who uses us to run business they buy if the current management is not up to the job or, as in most cases are ready to retire on the sale of the company. We are also currently helping a Health and Beauty boutique expand and to begin franchise its brand