Monday, October 23, 2006

Got Data? Not Much!

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Monday Morning Motivators – October 23, 2006 ============================================================
Espresso business tips are designed to "caffeinate" your mind while your java gets you going. Subscribing and Unsubscribing at
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"Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” -- Paul Tournier

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Table of Contents ============================================================
1. Got Data? Not Much. – Linda Fayerweather
2. Marketing Monstrosity #3 – Not Targeting a Niche - Rebecca Booth
3. Become a Great Storyteller - John Meyer
4. Fine Print

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1. Got Data? Not Much.
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What data do you collect on your administrative processes? If you are like many companies limited data, if any, is collected on those internal processes. For support and administrative operations, determining what data to include depends on what questions you’re trying to answer about your value stream and how you define the “product” produced by these operations.

For example, if your goal is to reduce days waiting for receivables, it would be helpful to define “invoices” as the product and identify the
• Total number of invoices issued,
• Cycle time and queue time for processing, and
• Total cycle time including collection.
From this information, you can determine where bottlenecks most likely occur and eliminate areas of waste in your “future state” process.

Copyright 2006 Linda Fayerweather
Changing Lanes LLC
www.ChangingLanes.biz

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2. Marketing Monstrosity #3 – Not Targeting a Niche Market ============================================================
If your target market is “everybody,” then your target market is really “nobody!”
Most small businesses want to sell their products to any person on the street.
The truly successful entrepreneur knows that they won’t lose money by niche-ing down. Instead, clients outside the target market are perceived as being “icing on the cake.”
You can avoid this marketing monstrosity by:
• Looking at a niche as being inclusive versus exclusive. Think of it as that cake.
• Spending the majority of your marketing dollars trying to get your niche market to recognize you, versus having you spend money willy-nilly in all sorts of publications to market to “everybody.”
• Remembering customers outside your niche are “icing on that cake.”
• Thinking specifically to receive more!

Copyright 2006 Rebecca Booth
Marketing GoddessImagine That!
http://www.marketingsolutioneers.com/
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3. Become a Great Storyteller
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One sure fire way to help people remember who you are and what kind of business you are looking for is to be a great storyteller. People will remember how you helped others if you tell powerful stories about the situation or circumstances. What was the problem the person had? How did you help them? What were the results?

Copyright 2006 John R. Meyer
District Director, BNI Ohio
http://www.bni-ohio.com/