Drive More Business To Your Doorstep

Growing and maintaining your business in today’s challenging economy takes more than just effective sales and marketing techniques. Today, it is more about differentiating and messaging your value-added in powerful ways so as to create a compelling reason for buyers to buy.

Here are some of the ways to invest in prosperity, and seek opportunity in today’s changing times:   

1. Make strategy before offering and targeting customer :
   Strategise before offering to those target-markets where there is potential for greater profitability. Provide alternate to customer so that they have more choice in which package to purchase. Think through the various packages you can create that will give customers choice and meet their needs.
   
   
2.  Effectively Seek, Create and Acquire New Business Opportunities :
   Are there new, creative opportunities available to you even in an economic downturn? Another service firm, specializing in employee recruiting services, began offering outplacement services for times of economic downturn. By offering multiple services that fit well together, they could thrive under any economic condition.
   
   
3.  Build network, contacts and collaboration :
   Make more contacts, build a network of intermediaries who freely refer you to customers because they don’t compete with you and complement what you offer. Especially in tough economic times, planting seeds with a network of business people ensures your company staying "top of mind" when things start turning around, thereby attracting more business to you and your firm.
   
   
4.  Cultivate Quality, Profitable Customer Relationships :
   Invest only in those customer relationships that are lucrative for your business. Too often companies chase after "bad" business where they bend over backwards to acquire and retain customers that return little to the business’ bottom line. Go after the "wheat," but not the "chaff."
   
   
5.  Get your True Core Self-Confidence and Certainty :
   If you have a vision of greatness for yourself and your business, then you will walk tall and find the energy it takes to make it through the tougher times. Holding onto your optimism and business vision will propel you forward with enthusiasm, allowing any roadblocks to be just things to deal with along your path towards success.
   
   
6.  Maintain Professional Presence with Customers and Colleagues :
   How you and your company representatives "show up" in the world will cause customers to be attracted or not attracted to your business. Clients are attracted to this firm because of the personalities of its senior partners, who project confidence, capability, creativity and humour in everything they do, not only with customers but with their staff.
   
   These are some of the strategies, if you do this right, you will actually drive potential business to your doorstep by being accessible, and by having the tools that other businesses want in their communications with their partners and service providers. People will be coming to you, asking to be your customers! That type of return is definitely worth the time investment.
   
   

Leading vs. Managing : Different traits yet both are important

Are you a manager or a leader?

"Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things."

Management is more about efficiency, whereas leadership is more about effectiveness. Nothing will increase your effectiveness as much as raising your leadership ability. When you focus on your leadership ability, you encourage others in your organization to do the same. The result is that the effectiveness of your entire firm improves.

Leadership is not management, technical ability or a title. Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible. Leadership is both art and science. Some people have natural leadership characteristics. Others have learned to lead.

The most important difference between a great manager and a great leader is one of focus. Great managers look inward. They look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style, goals, needs and motivation of each person. These differences are small, subtle, but great managers need to pay attention to them. These subtle differences guide them toward the right way to release each person's unique talents into performance.

Great leaders, by contrast, look outward. They look out at the competition, out at the future, out at alternative routes forward. They focus on broad patterns, finding connections, cracks, and then press home their advantage where the resistance is weakest. They must be visionaries, strategic thinkers, activators. When played well, this is, without doubt, a critical role. But it doesn't have much to do with the challenge of turning one individual's talents into performance.

Great managers are not mini-executives waiting for leadership to be thrust upon them. Great leaders are not simply managers who have developed sophistication. The core activities of a manager and a leader are simply different. It is entirely possible for a person to be a brilliant manager and a terrible leader. But it is just as possible for a person to excel as a leader and fail as a manager. And, of course, a few exceptionally talented individuals excel at both.

Management is not about the future;it is about what has to be done in the present.

Executing is based on discovering what works and then replicating it. That becomes the standard for how we do something.

Leading and managing are the same when it comes to sustaining employees by providing encouragement. We all need to hear that we are making a difference and that we are appreciated. Also, those who are in positions of responsibility have to realize they set the example for how employees are expected to behave.

Which is more important – management or leadership?

Of course both are. You can't continue to grow without being willing to change and innovate, but you can't keep people connected and engaged without some level of structure and clarity about what is needed.

The challenge for our client is to not lose his entrepreneurial spirit as he introduces the structural components described. He needs to both manage and lead as circumstances will dictate.

Missed the bus? Five tips for retirement planning 
Vivek Sharma, Financial Planner and Trainer

You are now 40 plus but have done very little or nothing for your retirement planning. With limited number earning years left, you are now worried and don’t know what to do for your retirement planning. Your small corpus for retirement that you have built till now has started haunting you. You are clueless on what to do for your retirement planning.

Don’t worry! As they say, it is never too late to mend. You can start your retirement planning in your 40s as well and make it successful. But please remember that it cannot be same retirement planning that can be done for a 20 plus individual as you have lost out the benefit of starting early. So you need to adopt an approach which should be not just strategic but also more productive and result oriented.

Here are five easy steps that you need to follow:  

1. Explore all avenues for saving and invest aggressively :
   You need to explore all avenues of savings that you may have but you have either failed to notice it or are oblivious of it. So draw a statement your income and expense and find out where you spend and how can you reduce it. Once income and expense statement is ready, you are ready with your potential savings areas. After this start investing aggressively this means that your savings should convert into investments which are productive.
    
2.  Befriend Equity :
   Since have missed the bus, equity can help you bridge the gap. So the need for you is to befriend equity. At this stage of retirement planning, you need to trust only blue chip stocks. No speculations which may reduce the value of investments because of high volatility factor. You can also select low beta stocks like ITC. Check out for large cap mutual funds and invest in them. Only a small portion of total investment can be made in small cap funds.
    
3.  Defer your consumption needs and shun demonstration effect :
   Do not plan to invest in huge consumption need at this stage. Typically you should not plan for buying an expensive car as your retirement corpus is yet to be built. Also you should forget that you have credit card that generally encourages people to get influenced by demonstration effect. By leading a life which is not influenced by what others do, you can create a corpus that will help you lead a successful life post retirement.
    
4.  Create a shield of life and health insurance :
   You need to not just take a cover of life insurance for yourself but buy a health insurance protection especially when you are approaching 45. While buying life insurance, you can think of buying a decreasing insurance coverage product as you approach your retirement need for insurance may diminish as you would have achieved many of your financial goals. But please remember no investments in insurance.
    
5.  Do not buy retirement plans, focus on corpus creation :
   Retirement planning products may not be best solution for you. You need to build a portfolio which will help you post retirement, hence focus on wealth creation. Retirement planning products are not equal to retirement planning solutions. One exception in National Pension System in case you wish to contribute regularly in the scheme.