This week we presented an inspiring talk on how to create a functional sales funnel and pipeline into your business that will feed constant customers and cash into your business.
The talk was graphically narrated by Colin Horner. Thanks, Colin for the pic.
Listen to the whole talk here:
Next week we bring our focus on Internal processes.
Join us on Wednesday at 12:00 Noon: https://zoom.us/j/723567165
Come and join your fellow members at our monthly Coffee Club event with Colin Hall as guest speaker. Colin will share his experience of 60 years of business and professional knowledge from a deep study of history, our own African heritage, nature and science.
Speaker bio:
Colin Hall earned his honours degree in Law from Pretoria University. He was a corporate man for 60 years, serving on many company boards. On that journey, Colin’s passion became people – as individuals, in teams and as part of society. He visited the Covey Institute in Utah where he acquired the rights to Covey’s work and introduced the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” to South Africa.
Since 1992, Colin has conducted programs that are changing corporate culture. Through the “Learning to Lead” program, he hopes to create a new simpler picture of leadership relevant to the Quantum Age and appropriate to South Africa and Africa.
The Coffee Club provides guests with the ideal opportunity to meet fellow members, make valuable new connections and informally network while enjoying breakfast.
Event Details: Date: Tuesday, 06 March 2018 Venue: Southern Sun Cape Sun 23 Strand Street Cape Town
Time:07:45 for 08:00-10:00 Cost P/P: Members: Free Non-members: R100
Register Now: Register now Or call at Linda Roopen 021 402 4300
One of the key functions of a successful engaging marketing campaign is a well-defined customer or target profile. In this week’s webinar, we unpack this a little and begin to look at the various tools on social media that make this process a little easier.
As we see social media, in particular, FaceBook, mature in this aspect, we will need to understand and access these tools to add to our business intelligence processes to maximise the access to market using these tools.
We plan to unpack these tools in more detail in order to assist both ourselves and our clients to gain the advantage in our marketing profiles. If you want to be on the list of attendees for such a workshop, then please contact us and we will schedule you for the next available programme.
Marketing seems to be on everyone’s lips as we start 2018. This is because of the assumption of “if you do marketing, you will get money”. But this is not always true.
Marketing is no longer an academic exercise of numbers and shuffling people through a predefined sales process in order to scoop up a percentage of sales.
Marketing today is all about developing profitable relationships. Relationships with contacts, customers and suppliers and then creating a strategic process to ensure every person within the system is handled with care and appreciation in order to develop high levels of trust: very different to the old numbers game.
Our current series of Weekly Wednesday Webinars at One covers different aspects of marketing as we take time to unpack the theory as well as some examples and implementation of the ideas.
The first master class covered the Sales Cycle:
We followed this up with a look at the new functional, trust developing sales funnel:
This week we unpack some of these in practical examples in discussion with those online at the time. Join us on Wednesday at one: https://zoom.us/j/9071494212
As we continue this series of Intellectual Property, today we look at the registrations of designs. This has to be one of the tricky ones, as it seems to be vague at best as to what can be registered and how it is registered. So let’s unpack some of the details:
A registered design can either be for aesthetics or for function.
The aesthetics design are granted for the appearance as seen by the eye: colour, shape and pattern. This covers items such as a new shape of the vase or a chair design with a high back and long flowing armrests. The form (shape) and colours are both covered in the aesthetic design. This can be registered and will give you protection for 15 years.
The function design covers the features that are described by the function of the item: the movement and working parts of a product. This includes items such as a lock mechanism, a clutch pencil or a window opener. A functional design once registered will give you cover for 10 years.
Both these forms of IP give you the protection from others being able to copy or use the registered designs without your permission. The obvious question is how closely do they have to copy your item for it to be an infringement? This is the big issue and comes down to the way your design is described in the registration. Your application should be well written by a legal professional with experience in design registrations and include drawings, cad designs, photos and 3D renders of the product.
All registered designs need to be filed in the country that you require protection in. This obviously raises the cost of registration and should be considered carefully when applying to balance the cost to reward for your required protection.
We have a team on hand to assist you with this process and to answer any questions you may have about your new invention. Do not get caught without the required protection, it could end up costing you your future income.
Entrepreneurs are often great at the technical things and getting the detail done well. But when it comes to developing that all important online social media brand footprints for both themselves and the developed products…. well let’s just say it needs some work.
We understand Entrepreneur and the issues we face. We also understand Social Media and marketing and how important it is to build a business. So over the next 5 weeks, we will unpack some of the mysteries of the social media platforms and share some secrets that will help automate, improve and deliver awesome content that matters and help you get the right things done right.
The weeks will be split into lessons pertaining to the different platforms. So save the following dates and follow the links to book your spots on the social media webinars and workshops and get yourself added to the mailing list to get the regular blogs on this subject.
30 Aug – Social media introduction – BOOK HERE
6 Sept – LinkedIn – BOOK HERE
13 Sept – Blogging – BOOK HERE
20 Sept – FaceBook – BOOK HERE
27 Sept – YouTube – BOOK HERE
By the end of September, you could have all this social media stuff for you and your business sorted, mostly automated and geared up to start building your business.
Over the last 2 months, we have dissected and digested the methodology of storytelling in a business. Through this process, we have created a deck of story cards that are used in our workshops and can be used together with our workbooks and business strategy worksheets to develop a fully functional and sustainable business plan.
We also unpacked the joy of telling marketing stories and making what is traditionally boring stories come to life and invoke emotion and intrigue leading to better referrals and a wider online footprint for your business.
Please review the last of these webinars (just 28 minutes) in the video below and follow the links to the other webinars on our community page in the series if you missed them:
Narrative business strategy workshops are run at our venue in Woodstock, Cape Town or online via Skype or Expertise. We deal with helping business owners develop a narrative approach to their business development and planning as well as create well defined functional sales funnel and marketing strategy. Through this process, we work through our business development roadmap and identify gaps, assumptions and develop a risk mitigation strategy as we go.
If you are interested in starting or growing a business then please give us a call or complete the form HERE and we will be in contact with you.
This is week 8 in the 90-day business sprint and this week we speak all things sales and marketing. Last week we chatted a bit about the internal marketing and getting the message right inside your business before going outside to customers. So let’s go out and see what you need to create a solid offering to your potential customers.
Your Sales funnel is key: this is the defined and refined process that drives people from initial interest down to that all important first invoice stage. We will define this in more detail later in the week, but it all starts with having Captivating Content on your website, blog and social media platforms. This is what initially attracts your clients.
All marketing processes need to follow the sales cycle of Inform, Educated and then Sell in order to not lose people along the way. But one aspect of selling that a lot of people fall short on is the ability to close the deal and get that all important confirmation from the customer. We opt out and look for discounts and other ways to close because we lack the confidence in our product and self-ability. We will chat about this one too.
We have an awesome web assessment tool that we use and we have 10 vouchers on offer this week for free. If you want your website assessed for how effective it is as a marketing tool, then email us to claim one of the 10 vouchers.
What do you do to market your business internally?
Marketing your business always starts from the internal. It always starts with how you view yourself and how you view your business. Your business starts with you and then it flow onto your staff. If you market your business well to your staff they would be the best and most effective people to start building brand awareness for your business. The idea is to treat your staff as though they were your first customers. Internal marketing sells your business to your employees.
Internal marketing will help you find out where you are as a business. Why don’t you do some research. How is your business doing? Is everything you are doing still in line with your vision and goals of your business? Are your office staff members aware of your goals and vision for your business?
How effective is your internal marketing? Why don’t you do some internal marketing research within your business and find out how much your staff knows about what the vision of the business is, the products you have and all the service you offer. If you have a website, what is your website like? How do does your offices look and do they represent you brand well? Do you use social media to market you business? If you do, how are your ratings like? All questions will help your business get ready and geared up for marketing.
Spend some time this week analyzing your internal marketing and use the about questions as a starting point.
Delivering a well-presented product offering to your customer base is key to business sustainability. This seems basic but so many business owners do not understand the importance of this and get it wrong in so many ways.
Your product should be not only well designed but also well described. Described in terms of features, benefits, and related supply chain. All these attributes define your product and should be used in the correct way in the correct place to communicate the correct message.
Getting this right is what this week is all about and should prove informative and business changing for you.
Join us on this 90-day business sprint this week as we speak all thing product. #90DayBizSprint
