Hit the Bulls Eye!

As I deal with small businesses in northeast Oklahoma, I find myself constantly overcoming misconceptions about marketing. Marketing is everything a business does to attract, retain and satisfy customers. This includes every point of contact a business has with potential or current customers - from the storefront, to the delivery guy, to the receptionist, to the product, to the price. In other words, marketing is so much more than just advertising. Advertising is a tiny piece of the puzzle and is actually more of a tactic. It's important to first look at the strategy behind the tactic. An advertising campaign can be very well put together, but a strong tactic built on a weak strategy will fail every time. So much more can be done to advertise or market than an expensive media blitz. In fact, certain forms of advertising should be illegal, but I will save that rant for my next blog post.

As shown above, advertising falls within media exposure and jumps straight to the tactic approach, which is backwards. It compares to deciding how to send a gift to someone before deciding who or what to send. Despite this fact, the majority of small business owners think an advertising campaign will solve all cash flow problems. We just need to create more awareness, right? My job is to explain how false this misconception really is.  Sure, awareness of your business or product could be why your business isn’t doing as well as it should. However, what about your current and past customers? I stress the importance of customers for life for this very reason.

It’s like having a bulls eye target in front of you. Are you going to aim for the outer ring? No, you want to hit the bulls eye. Did you know at least 60% of your marketing budget should be spent on current customers? That’s the bulls eye. The next ring outside of that is customers just like your current customers (clone your perfect customer). After that is the general public, but not just anybody - only those within your identified target market (again, another blog post).  Spoiler alert: your product or service is not ideal for everyone!

By developing a marketing strategy, your business is far more apt to succeed than by just picking and choosing advertising as funds allow.  Develop a strategy today to ensure a future tomorrow. 

Cash is King

I recently put my family on a strict budget.  I've been forced to do this in the past for financial reasons, but this time it's different.  We are trying to be better stewards of the resources we've been blessed with.  We were blowing money like nobody's business and didn't have a thing to show for it other than expanding waist lines.  For whatever reason, at my house the majority of extra cash always goes toward eating out.  However, things will be different (for a while at least, until I get tired of budgeting).  So here we are balancing our checkbook, paying ourselves 'allowances' and keeping the kids' spending habits in check.  It feels good to have a plan of attack, with the ultimate goal of having the ability to give more back to those in need. 

So having to budget for oil changes, tire repairs, doctors visits, etc. has left me thinking about my glory days as a small business owner. I knew every penny that was to enter or leave my business, because I had to. Cash flow was the sustainer of all things business (still is).

This leads me to my point of cash flow is king (not collateral).  It's great to have a nice house, and dependable vehicles, but those don't help pay the electric bill or buy the groceries.  Assets can only go so far.  Sure I could walk into a bank and throw my house and cars down as collateral for a loan, but without a steady income, I wouldn't get the loan.  Same concept applies for business.  Getting a loan for lawn equipment or a steel building will require more than the collateral down.  A banker doesn't want a cappuccino maker or weed eater in their portfolio, they want the loan payment in on time.  When it comes to small business loans, a strong down payment and a secure cash flow are the deciding factors. 

Is cash flow a struggle for your business?  Maybe the real question should be what is your business doing to innovate and grow?  What can you do about that?  A few ideas are to cut expenses, increase income by expanding into new markets or improving your product or service.  Do a situational analysis of the market you serve.  How is your product or service newer, better, faster or cheaper?  There are so many ways to improve the customer experience, without breaking the bank.  My co-worker, Lynn Wilson and I occasionally teach a workshop focused on marketing on a shoe string budget.  The main point of the workshop has nothing to do with advertising or increased exposure, it's all about improving the customer experience.  So if cash flow is struggle for you, give us a call and let us help out.

Know it to Grow it

The Innovation Center has been following the concept of Economic Gardening for many years now.  The idea is based on growing your own economy instead of recruiting and retaining.  While we're not suggesting a replacement for traditional economic development theories, we are suggesting an add-on to the work already done by economic developers in the area.  In fact, we've invested in economic gardening resources since 2008 to assist entrepreneurs in the area through competitive business intelligence. 

I recently attended a conference hosted by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce titled Energizing Entrepreneurship.  The idea behind the conference was to spread the idea of entrepreneurial economic development strategies to small communities across Oklahoma.  The attendees included chamber directors, main street directors, economic development officials, mayors, college faculty and entrepreneurs.  The presenters gave an overview of the importance of entrepreneurship to the economy. 

The conference spanned over three 12-hour working days followed up with group presentations on what we learned.  Our group decided to skip the usual power point and do a game show, modeled after the hit show 'Minute to Win It'.  Our game show was titled 'Know it to Grow it'.  The contestants (myself and a lovely lady from Norman) had to perform a multitude of challenges with limited supplies and time.  The point behind the challenges was to paint a picture of how difficult it can be to get an entire community on board with a new idea.  Our first challenge was to gather the members of the community together.  This was represented by whisking cotton balls into a corral.  After getting everyone together, we had to get everyone on board the 'E-ship'.  This was done by sucking the cotton balls up with a straw and dropping them in the boat.  We then proceeded to develop goals and objectives with the team on the E-ship to propel entrepreneurship into our communities. 

The most amazing part of the experience is I now have an opportunity to take the game show and turn it into a reality through the Innovation Center.  Our center is proposing to go out into the communities of northeast Oklahoma and create an entrepreneurship corridor, one community at a time.  This will be accomplished through strategic planning sessions with community leaders to develop work plans which promote entrepreneurship.  The Innovation Center services won't change drastically, but current business intelligence resources will be used to teach communities 'how to fish' so to speak. 

Needless to say, cotton balls and straws will not be involved!  So many amazing opportunities can come from this entrepreneurship corridor and I look forward to the possibilities.

Giving Back

In business, if a production machine costs more to run than the outputs are worth, what happens? People lose money and if this occurs for a long enough period of time, the system fails. For example, I have a marshmallow machine that makes 10,000 marshmallows a day. It costs me $20,000 a day to run the machine and I sell the daily marshmallow batch for $5,000. How long can I run the machine before I go out of business? Depends on how long I can stand to lose $15k a day. I could borrow money to continue to run the machine, but that's not a solution either because eventually a loan payment will be due.

Much like the marshmallow machine, if you take in more services than you produce, you are a failure to the system. However, there are so many opportunities to serve. I know of eight non-profits in my community alone that desperately need board members and volunteers. When deciding where to serve, it's very important to look at what you have passion for. Maybe it's cancer, or the homeless, or children. Whatever your passion, there is surely a cause you can join to support. Also, check out the validity of the cause. Are the dollars raised going to support local impact? Is that impact measurable or is it unknown? If you help raise dollars for medical research, do the dollars go toward a high-paid celebrity to represent the campaign or do the dollars go toward the actual research?

The same is true with our society in general, but ultimately the communities we serve. You may say to yourself, 'communities we serve, I don't serve any communities'. That's my point exactly. Some people consider themselves 'residents' or 'employees' in a community, while I submit that we should all consider ourselves servants in the community! If you have an opinion about your child's school system, step up and take action - join the school board, go to PTO meetings, stay in touch with the needs of the teachers and students. Unless you're willing to step up and help, don't complain.

A machine has value only as it produces more than it consumes — so check your value to the community.

Quote by: Martin H. Fischer

Making a Plan

With the new year comes new resolutions or commitments such as losing weight, staying more organized, worrying less, or spending more time with the family. These are all great resolutions but are void without a plan. They are more of a hope than a resolution unless there is a specific plan for implementation.

Have you ever thought about how many things in our day-to-day life require a plan? These are things that you do all the time. Here are a few examples:

• Brushing your teeth: Dentists recommend brushing for at least two minutes after every meal. Two minutes can be a very long time without a plan of action. An example is to brush your teeth in a pattern. Do this by segmenting your mouth into four segments and brushing for 30 seconds each segment. If you do, it makes your brushing far more effective than just randomness which leaves certain teeth out.
• Laundry: If you took all your dirty laundry and just started throwing it into the washer, what would happen? Your colors would be bleached, your pants would have towel lint all over them and your underwear would turn pink most likely. I know because my kids do the laundry most of the time. However, if you sort your laundry in advance (plan it out), then you will have all the whites together, all the towels together and all the colors together, which makes for a much more successful turnout.

Another important part of a plan is measuring it. My daughter recently informed me she was dieting with her friends to see who could lose the most weight. I asked, “Did everyone weight themselves in front of each other”. She replied, “No, we don’t need to weigh ourselves to see who loses the most weight, we’ll just be able to tell by looking at each other”. Little does she know, that’s not quite how it works. If she doesn’t know where she started, she won’t know where she’s going to end up.

The same concept applies in business. We must set reasonable, achievable goals with due dates and people in charge. You’ve probably heard of keeping goals SMART – which is an acronym for:

S – specific

M – measurable

A – attainable

R – realistic

T – timely

So many times, small businesses want to make more money or grow their customer base, but don’t plan to do so. Instead of proactively marketing based on a plan, they react to industry slow-downs and economic downturns. Business drops down or the economy takes a hit and the business is ready to market. It’s tough to market when times are good because your time is limited. A well thought out plan will take care of your business whether times are good or bad.

Tulsa Spirit Awards

RSU Innovation Center Client Wins Tulsa Entrepreneur Award

The first place winner of the third annual Tulsa Mayor's Entrepreneurial Spirit Award is a Claremore resident and a Rogers State University Innovation Center incubator client.

Jeremy Green, founder of Real Time Rehab, a DVD-based physical therapy program, received the $30,000 grand prize at the award program held Tuesday night.

The third-annual contest began in April and included more than 85 entries before being narrowed down to seven finalists and then to three winners and a single grand prize recipient.

“Winning the Spirit Award gives us immediate funding for some new opportunities and a little bit of breathing room,” Green said.

His RSU Innovation Center office is full of DVDs, notebooks, computers and lots of energy. A graduate of Sequoyah High School and Oklahoma State University, Green lives in Claremore and enjoys working close to home.

Green said he came up with the idea for the company when he was in school for physical therapy and decided to defer his education to create Real Time Rehab.

Instead of giving patients a piece of paper with descriptions of prescribed exercises to be completed at home, Real Time Rehab allows physical therapists to design a DVD for each patient. The patient can then watch someone demonstrate the required exercises in the comfort of their own home.

“If I am a therapist I might be able to help 30 or 40 people a week, this way I could help millions,” Green said.

With the help of his brother-in-law Jason Reed, who owns Martini Shot Productions, Green was able to record demonstrations of many of the exercises commonly prescribed by physical therapists.

He consults with several physical therapists as well as an occupational therapist to create a product to fit the industry and the patient’s needs.

Green, age 30, has been an RSU Innovation Center client for more than three years and a part of the incubator program since the spring. Jeri Koehler, RSU Innovation Center business development specialist, helped Green with a business plan several years ago and continues to work with him as an incubator client.

“Jeremy Green has worked tenaciously to get Real Time Rehab where it is today. He is an ideal client because he is passionate about his business and does whatever it takes in order to succeed,” Koehler said. “With his success in the Tulsa Spirit Awards, his business is geared to grow exponentially as he provides solutions to physical therapists and physicians throughout the United States.”

Green said the staff and resources at the RSU Innovation Center helped him succeed with his business.

“They are smart and good to work with,” he said.

RSU established the Innovation Center in 2002 to foster economic development and address the educational needs of business and industry in northeastern Oklahoma. The Innovation Center does this by focusing on business and technology incubator services, entrepreneurial training and business counseling.

The Innovation Center features a business and technology incubator program geared toward growing early stage technology, light manufacturing, and professional service-based companies.

Real Time Rehab was a perfect fit for the Innovation Center incubator program because of the nature of Green’s technology-focused business, Koehler said.

Clients play a fee each month to lease the space and have access to services and support. The monthly fee is often less than it would be for other commercial office space.

“Jeremy is an outstanding entrepreneur with a very promising business model. The Innovation Center is very proud to have an incubator client recognized for its achievements and potential,” said Dr. Ray Brown, RSU vice president for economic and community development.

For more information contact the Innovation Center at (918) 343-7533 or e-mail innovation@rsu.edu.

More information about Real Time Rehab is available by visiting the company’s web site http://www.realtimerehab.com/.

Giving a Gift vs. Marketing

The basics of marketing are comparable to giving a gift. Here's a breakdown.

When you are sending a gift, you must decide who to send a gift to. In marketing, this is called your Market. It's answering the questions of who’s your ideal customer, who are you trying to reach, who is the most profitable?

When sending a gift, you must then decide what you're going to send a gift for: birthday, anniversary, graduation, holiday. In marketing, this is called your Message. It's communicating how your product or service is newer, better, faster and/or cheaper than the competition.

The next step in gift giving is deciding how to send the gift? Will it be a card, flowers, cookie bouquet or balloons? In marketing, this is called Media. It's deciding how to deliver the message such as direct mail, advertising or direct sales.

Of course, when you send a gift, you want to make sure you get the most bang for your buck, so you may add a hand-written sentiment telling the recipient why they deserve the gift or throw in an extra box of chocolates. In marketing this is called Maximization. It's finding ways to entice each customer to spend more money, more often. This can be done by using referrals and add-on sales to get the most from each customer.

So when you look at your marketing strategy and tactics, don't think you're bothering people with your message, product or service. Think of it more like you're giving them a gift. So make sure it's good! I prefer chocolates myself!