What Is Your Brand Worth?

The Perception of Value

Your product is not your brand. Your company name is not your brand. According to Vistage branding experts Tryg Jacobson and Duane Knapp, a brand grows out of a set of tangible or intangible benefits that consumers associate with your product. The stronger this association, the greater the loyalty among your customers and the more willing they are to pay for it. The brand represents the consumer’s perception of its value.

As a result, everything a company offers should be designed to support the brand, or increase its value (”brand equity”) in the marketplace. Nothing else matters.

“Brand equity is the totality of the consumer’s perceptions,” says Knapp. “This includes the quality of products and services, the company’s financial performance, customer loyalty and satisfaction. It’s all about how consumers, employees and other stakeholders feel about a brand.”

Adds Jacobson: “A brand equals trust. To build trust, you need a perception of value and a promise of quality. First you create value, then you deliver on it.”

How does a business develop the perception of value? Start with quality. Of course, all businesses claim that their products and services have quality. But in the rigors and demanding circumstances of the marketplace, consumers quickly learn which products have genuine value and which ones don’t.

“A business must understand what quality means to the customer, and develop a culture and quality improvement process that supports this understanding,” Knapp says.

Jacobson agrees. “Quality, like beauty, resides in the eye of the beholder. To generate brand equity, a business differentiates its products from others in terms of customer benefits. Then it aligns all of its marketing and advertising efforts with what it actually delivers. Over time, a relationship grows between the company’s brand and the customer’s experience of that brand.”

In other words, the brand serves as a valuable tool for consumers forced to choose among the bewildering array of products and services in the marketplace. Consumers depend on “signals” that a brand sends out — those intangible associations with quality that it represents. Therefore, it’s up to the company to carefully influence and manage those signals at all times, in all encounters with their target markets.

“Customers develop their perception of value through a subjective process based strictly on their own needs, preferences, buying behaviors and habits,” Knapp says. “A company’s brand promises to meet those needs and deliver each and every time. Growth comes from serving customers better — not bigger — and concentrating on the brand’s unique area of competence.”

Sometimes, businesses attempt to create a perception of value by competing on price alone. Both Vistage experts consider this to be a foolhardy and misguided approach.

“Any time you lower your price to sell more, you devalue the brand,” Jacobson says. “When people place their trust in your brand, lowering prices sends the message, ‘You can still have that trust, but you can have it cheaper.’ This may capture some additional price-sensitive customers at first, but in the long run you’ll likely alienate those who have been paying your premium price.”

Companies that continually discount their products never achieve the depth of brand equity that can be gained through other strategies, he adds. “Rather than attract customers by lowering price, aim for larger markets (and even charging more) by creating new benefits and differences for your product. Invest in protecting, growing and preserving the value of your brand.”

A Capital Asset

“Part of a brand’s equity lies in the capacity of the organization to provide added value to its products and services,” Knapp points out. “An established brand enables a business to lower marketing costs, charge price premiums and expand opportunities for customer purchase.”

On the other hand, mishandled brands can result in negative brand equity — a situation where potential customers perceive less value in the product, regardless of any objective assessment of its benefits and features. The result? Diminished sales and the need to increase already-costly marketing campaigns.

What other advantages come with brand equity?

Easier consumer choices. Brand equity makes the purchasing process easier for customers.

Assurance. From the consumer’s point of view, an established brand represents a decision with less risk than “unknown” commodities.

Awareness. Brand equity equals top-of-mind customer awareness.

Leverage. Brand equity can be a strong foundation on which to launch new products and/or services.

Associations. In the minds of consumers, the company’s brand is associated with quality, dependability and a host of other positive, intangible attributes. Advertising dollars alone can never buy these associations.

Defense. Competitors hoping to encroach on an established brand face a difficult, often intimidating challenge.

“For all these reasons,” Jacobson says, “companies should consider their brand as no less important than capital assets like equipment and plant purchases. Invest in the brand. Protect it and nurture it with a long-term view of its maximum value to the organization.”

Tryg Jacobson and Duane Knapp

Linkedin Tips to Build Your Brand and Find Prospects

Have you ever wondered how you can use the popular site LinkedIn to grow your business? These tricks will help you get the most out of it.

• Join groups: Find some groups that relate to your industry or to the industry of your prospects/clients. Once you join a group you can begin posting news and discussions within it (see below).

• Post questions to your group: Start a discussion that involves your area of expertise. As people respond to the question, post comments with additional information or your opinions. Hint: never post a discussion that’s simply a solicitation or a link to your site.

• Answer questions in your groups that fall in your area of expertise. Showing off your knowledge and expertise helps build your reputation and credibility, and position yourself as an industry expert. Give genuine and detailed answers; don’t post links back to your products unless it truly relates to the discussion.

• Post news in your groups. You can call attention to a recent blog post, press release or article by (or about) your company by posting the URL of that content as a “news item” in groups that you belong to. These news items will drive traffic to your blog or article.

• Update your status often. Try to update your status daily with information that relates to your business. Use a headline of your latest blog post/article and link to it. Or link to recent company news, a press release or an article online about your company or products. You can also describe what you’re working on at the moment. When you update your status, you stay “top of mind” to everyone in your network—they can all see your update.

• Add URLs to your profile. Put the URL of your blog in your profile (under tag “my website”) and the URL of your company (under the tag “my company”). People browsing Linkedin click on these links and search engines find them which improves your overall search rankings.

• Create a “Full View” public profile. After completing your profile, make sure you make it public with the “Full View” setting enabled. Search engines will find your public profile as will people searching online. Linkedin allows you to customize the URL of your public profile. For the best search engine exposure put your company name in the URL of your public profile. Your public profile URL should look like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/company-name-here

4 Linkedin prospecting tips

Why use Linkedin to prospect? Guy Kawasaki (social media/content guru), answered this question well on a recent blog post, “Most people use LinkedIn to ‘get to someone’ in order to make a sale, form a partnership, or get a job. It works well for this because it is an online network of more than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries.”

• Send invitations to connect. Every time you meet a new prospect, customer, vendor or others, send them an invitation to join your network. Your business will remain highly visible to the people in your network.

• Conduct a search of prospect within 25 miles of your business. Use the location box in the “advanced search” function along with other search parameters to find likely prospects close by your office or within a certain geography. Once you find the prospects you can either send them a message via Linkedin or you can just look up their company phone number on Google and give them a call.

• Rewrite your profile, making it client focused: Sales coach Ian Brodie says on his blog: “When you first meet potential clients, don’t rattle off a huge list of companies you’ve worked for and the responsibilities you’ve had – that would bore the pants off them. Most effective introductions focus on who you help, and what problems you help them solve or results you help them achieve. Then if asked more, say a bit more about what you do – and give a little “backstory” as to why you are uniquely qualified to help.” In other words, instead of making your profile about you, make it about how you help your clients.

• Check out who views your profile. On the right side of your LinkedIn homepage you’ll see a blue bar that says “Who’s Viewed My Profile.” Under the bar you can see how many people have viewed your profile recently. Click on the text under the bar for names of those who viewed your profile in the last 24 hours. Check in daily to see if prospects you have reached out to have viewed your profile, and follow-up with those who have.

Linkedin Tips to Build Your Brand and Find Prospects by Paul Diamond

Travel Tip

This so simple, anyone could be caught.

You arrive at your hotel and check in at the front desk. When checking in, you give the front desk your credit card (for all the charges for your room). You get to your room and settle in. Someone calls the front desk and asked for (example) Room 620 (which happens to be your room). Your phone rings in your room. You answer and the person on the other end says the following, ‘This is the front desk. When checking in, we came across a problem with your charge card information. Please re-read me your credit card number and verify the last 3 digits numbers at the reverse side of your charge card.’ Not thinking anything you might give this person your information, since the call seems to come from the front desk. But actually, it is a scam of someone calling from outside the hotel/front desk. They ask for a random room number. Then, ask you for credit card information and address information. Sounding so professional that you do think you are talking to the front desk.

If you ever encounter this problem on your vacation, tell the caller that you will be down at the front desk to clear up any problems. Then, go to the front desk and ask if there was a problem. If there was none, inform the manager of the hotel that someone called to scam you of your credit card information acting like a front desk employee.

Bank Lending - an interesting opinion

Here are the views of a former banker now based in Dubai. Dave McGee regularly comments on a number of issues through his http://www.homethoughtsfromdubai.com blog.

Some of you have asked me WHY I think the Irish Banking system will not be able to lend money for many years. Let me try to simplify the situation.

Let us take a fictitious country where there is £100 million of borrowings from banks across the personal and business sectors. Additionally there is another £30 million of unutilised credit approved by banks (in overdrafts and other ‘fall back’ credit). The numbers are far far greater than this (nearly 5,000 times larger) but let us work with these numbers.

The financial crisis hits the economy. The banks realise that much of their loans are not capable of being repaid by the borrowers – hence the £100m has to be reduced and the economically crucial unutilised credit lines immediately cancelled. Driving this response is the banking system’s balance sheet capital (this is the key number in bank balance sheets which determines how much each bank can lend to the market and is usually set by the Financial Services Regulator or Central Bank). So if a bank previously had £1 million of ‘capital’ and the Rules were that it could lend £10 for every £1 of capital, this bank could lend up to £10 million. So let’s assume it does (and probably had many undrawn commitments including overdrafts to customers which would technically have brought it over its maximum allowable/regulatory limit) and that £3 million of these loans were not capable of being repaid. Now the lending bank has ‘negative capital’ and must restore this and more to ‘put it back in the lending game’.

Let’s assume our bank raises £3 million of new capital (with enormous dilutive impacts on its existing shareholders – but that is not relevant in the point I wish to make) and in doing so restores its £1m of capital. So it can now lend up to £10 m again.

Well not really. The Regulator has now responded to the crisis by only allowing banks lend £7 against every £1 of capital. So the bank has £1 million of capital and it can now lend £7 million – which is exactly what the current written down value of its loan assets are (ie £10 m minus the write down of £ 3m). So no room for new lending – except if there is still further new capital or the current loans get repaid.

BUT we need to negatively adjust the Irish bank numbers by some other factors;

a) the loans that are being ‘bought’ by ‘bad bank’ (NAMA) exclude smaller corporate and personal loans/credit cards etc. –where with unemployment at 13% + the losses here could be as high as the current market valuations of Irelands two largest quoted banks – remember the capital/lending impact of such write off’s

b) a number of foreign banks based in Ireland are now withdrawing. Much of their loan books will, after being adjusted for sizeable write-downs, find themselves refinanced in some way in Ireland

c) so many of the companies/individuals who would like access to borrowing, will have been too weakened by the last 18 months of financial meltdown, that they will not meet the credit approval standards of the banks that will now be even more cautious not to repeat the lending mistakes of the past and finally

d) overdrafts and short working capital loans will be a product of the past.

So Ireland will be without a working banking system for many years to come. Trust me. This is my profession. My area of knowledge. The country is screaming out for a new bank. A new lending source. But the Government is not listening. Again.

Google search basics: More search help

The Basic search help article covers all the most common issues, but sometimes you need a little bit more power. This document will highlight the more advanced features of Google Web Search. Have in mind though that even very advanced searchers, such as the members of the search group at Google, use these features less than 5% of the time. Basic simple search is often enough. As always, we use square brackets [ ] to denote queries, so [ to be or not to be ] is an example of a query; [ to be ] or [ not to be ] are two examples of queries.

Phrase search (”")

By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling Google to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change. Google already uses the order and the fact that the words are together as a very strong signal and will stray from it only for a good reason, so quotes are usually unnecessary. By insisting on phrase search you might be missing good results accidentally. For example, a search for [ "Alexander Bell" ] (with quotes) will miss the pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.

Search within a specific website (site:)

Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a given website. For example, the query [ iraq site:nytimes.com ] will return pages about Iraq but only from nytimes.com. The simpler queries [ iraq nytimes.com ] or [ iraq New York Times ] will usually be just as good, though they might return results from other sites that mention the New York Times. You can also specify a whole class of sites, for example [ iraq site:.gov ] will return results only from a .gov domain and [ iraq site:.iq ] will return results only from Iraqi sites.

Terms you want to exclude (-)

Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space. For example, in the query [ anti-virus software ], the minus sign is used as a hyphen and will not be interpreted as an exclusion symbol; whereas the query [ anti-virus -software ] will search for the words ‘anti-virus’ but exclude references to software. You can exclude as many words as you want by using the - sign in front of all of them, for example [ jaguar -cars -football -os ]. The - sign can be used to exclude more than just words. For example, place a hyphen before the ’site:’ operator (without a space) to exclude a specific site from your search results.

Fill in the blanks (*)

The *, or wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful. If you include * within a query, it tells Google to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the search [ Google * ] will give you results about many of Google’s products (go to next page and next page — we have many products). The query [ Obama voted * on the * bill ] will give you stories about different votes on different bills. Note that the * operator works only on whole words, not parts of words.

Search exactly as is (+)

Google employs synonyms automatically, so that it finds pages that mention, for example, childcare for the query [ child care ] (with a space), or California history for the query [ ca history ]. But sometimes Google helps out a little too much and gives you a synonym when you don’t really want it. By attaching a + immediately before a word (remember, don’t add a space after the +), you are telling Google to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around a single word will do the same thing.

The OR operator

Google’s default behavior is to consider all the words in a search. If you want to specifically allow either one of several words, you can use the OR operator (note that you have to type ‘OR’ in ALL CAPS). For example, [ San Francisco Giants 2004 OR 2005 ] will give you results about either one of these years, whereas [ San Francisco Giants 2004 2005 ] (without the OR) will show pages that include both years on the same page. The symbol | can be substituted for OR. (The AND operator, by the way, is the default, so it is not needed.)

Exceptions

Search is rarely absolute. Search engines use a variety of techniques to imitate how people think and to approximate their behavior. As a result, most rules have exceptions. For example, the query [ for better or for worse ] will not be interpreted by Google as an OR query, but as a phrase that matches a (very popular) comic strip. Google will show calculator results for the query [ 34 * 87 ] rather than use the ‘Fill in the blanks’ operator. Both cases follow the obvious intent of the query. Here is a list of exceptions to some of the rules and guidelines that were mentioned in this and the Basic Search Help article:

Exceptions to ‘Every word matters’

Words that are commonly used, like ‘the,’ ‘a,’ and ‘for,’ are usually ignored (these are called stop words). But there are even exceptions to this exception. The search [ the who ] likely refers to the band; the query [ who ] probably refers to the World Health Organization — Google will not ignore the word ‘the’ in the first query.

Synonyms might replace some words in your original query. (Adding + before a word disables synonyms.)

A particular word might not appear on a page in your results if there is sufficient other evidence that the page is relevant. The evidence might come from language analysis that Google has done or many other sources. For example, the query [ overhead view of the bellagio pool ] will give you nice overhead pictures from pages that do not include the word ‘overhead.’

Punctuation that is not ignored

Punctuation in popular terms that have particular meanings, like [ C++ ] or [ C# ] (both are names of programming languages), are not ignored.

The dollar sign ($) is used to indicate prices. [ nikon 400 ] and [ nikon $400 ] will give different results.

The hyphen - is sometimes used as a signal that the two words around it are very strongly connected. (Unless there is no space after the - and a space before it, in which case it is a negative sign.)

The underscore symbol _ is not ignored when it connects two words, e.g. [ quick_sort ].

10 Tips for Creating an Engaging Blog by John Lincoln

There’s no one secret to a creating a great blog that promotes your brand and makes your customer more loyal. Building a great blog requires incremental steps. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your company blog:

Determine the purpose of your blog
What do you want to get out of your blog? Do you want to get press coverage, get other bloggers to notice you, build your brand, add keywords to your site, get potential customers involved in what you are doing or just vent about a topic? Do you want your blog to go viral on social media? It’s not easy to accomplish all of those goals with one blog. First determine your goal, then create a blog strategy that helps you achieve that goal.

Keep your audience in mind
Keep the blog focused on subjects that your readers care about. Write on the topics they like. Write in a voice they like to read. Engage them as you would in a real-world situation.

Comment on hot topics in your industry
Comment on other articles or industry topics of interest to your readers. There are always hot items in the news that relate to your industry or niche. By commenting on those topics, your make your posts more inviting to readers.

Don’t be afraid to have an opinion
Make strong points and put your opinion out there. This doesn’t mean that you should formulate a ridiculous opinion just to drive traffic and get noticed. Say what you really think. Be yourself and your blog will shine.

Write like you talk
Blogs tend to be informal, which is nice. No one wants to decode incredibly elaborate and dense vocabulary. Make your points easy to understand, give your writing a natural flow, and don’t be afraid to crack a joke every now and then.

Add keywords
If you infuse your blog with keywords it will help your SEO efforts and help people find the blog online. If you use an online blog hosting solution, place your keywords in the “meta keyword” area, in “title” box and throughout the text. Don’t go keyword crazy. Too much repetition of keywords can diminish the quality of your content.

Add pictures or video
Everyone likes to look at pictures or watch videos, so why not put a few in your blog? Spend a few dollars on an istock image or throw a quick video on your site. Not only will your users like it, so will the search engines.

Let your readers add comments
Make sure to have comments area where your readers can share their thoughts and engage with you and your brand. Always respond quickly and positively to your reader’s comments.

Promote your blog
After you write each blog post, don’t expect people to find it on their own. Google will most likely index it in a few days and send a visitor or two. But there’s plenty you can do on your own.

Promote your blog in social media outlets like Twitter, Linkedin, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Technorati, etc. Or draft a press release based on the blog post and send that release to free press release distribution sites. Just remember to link the release back to the blog. Let other bloggers know about your blog. Promote, promote, promote! That’s how people find your content.

Use strong titles
In today’s online space people’s attention span is shorter than ever. Make sure your title is eye catching and gives a good indication of what the post will be about. Also, if you write a longer blog, make sure to title each individual section so readers can quickly navigate to the area they are interested in.

Blogging is an art and becoming a good blogger can take time. Not every post becomes viral or gets great traffic. Keep at it and you’ll accomplish your blogging goals.

John Lincoln is an Internet marketer, writer and creative consultant based in San Diego. You can find more info at www.jlinecreative.com.

Six Keys to Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences by Robert L. Moment

Customers of every kind of business imaginable these days bemoan the state of customer service. While the global economy and the Internet have given businesses the opportunity to serve more clients than ever before, the trend has also given way to impersonal, lackluster customer service. It’s unfortunate that most businesses today don’t realize that they are regularly losing valuable customers if they don’t focus on providing an exceptional customer service experience.

In most businesses, once a customer begins dealing with the customer service department, he or she is already in a negative mindset. The best customer service representatives aren’t those that simply neutralize the problem. Outstanding customer service representatives take a negative and turn it into a positive that ensures the customer is not only happy, but is convinced he or she has had an outstanding experience – the Wow Factor – that he would not have gotten with any other company.

The key ingredients of the Wow experience are:

• Seamless Service

• Trustworthy Service

• Attentiveness

• Resourcefulness

• Courtesy

• Pro-active Service

Seamless Service means providing everything the customer needs, not just what is required to meet the minimum standards. It’s about making sure that they don’t have to wait and wonder. Customers will appreciate a smooth, seamless process for addressing their needs. If there are several steps needed to take care of their concerns, keep them in the loop – update them by email or with a quick phone call so that they know you are working on the situation and progress is being made. By keeping them abreast of what is going on, you are letting them know you haven’t forgotten about them and that you understand their concerns – reassurance and communication are powerful customer service tools.

Trustworthy Service is essential to retaining customers. Promising a customer anything and delivering nothing is the surest way to not only lose a customer, but get the kind of “word of mouth” bad press that can ruin you. Under-promise and over-deliver – If you promise a satisfactory solution and then go the extra mile to not only satisfy the customer, but gain their appreciation and “Wow” them, you will get word of mouth that will bring new customers to you.

Attentive Service means paying attention during and after the initial contact. How many times have you contacted customer service and been subjected to an obviously scripted response from the customer service representative? Does it give you the feeling they aren’t really listening, but just trying to get to the end of their canned presentation?

Attentiveness should run through every customer service experience, from listening carefully to the customer’s concerns to following up after the exchange is over to make sure their needs have been met. Listening isn’t just about hearing – it is about understanding what is really being said. The words are just the beginning –what about the customer’s tone of voice? Her mood? Is she disappointed, angry or frustrated? Keying in to the customer’s mood and responding appropriately is essential, and it means not following a script.

Resourcefulness means finding solutions when there appear to be none. Many companies have iron-clad policies that must be followed whenever a problem arises; however, sometimes a customer won’t be satisfied by the “company line” approach. Resourceful customer service representatives know that there is always a way to move beyond the standard procedures in order to make a customer happy. Resourcefulness involves finding a solution when a solution isn’t apparent. This may mean moving up the chain of command before the customer demands to talk to your superior. Companies with excellent customer service also give their representatives some leeway so that they can come up with creative solutions on their own. When a customer senses that you are going beyond the norm to help them, they will feel valued and respected.

Courtesy is a commodity that is becoming rarer every day. It takes so little to be polite but it is becoming a lost art. Say please when you ask a customer a question, thank them for their information and take your time talking to them. Nothing makes a customer feel more devalued than being treated like a number. Use the person’s name, make requests rather than demands and know when to apologize. When something goes wrong for a customer, they want to hear that you understand their frustration and that you are genuinely sorry that they are being inconvenienced. It takes nothing to say, “I’m so sorry you aren’t satisfied and I hope we can do something to correct this.”

Pro-active Service means not waiting for the customer to come up with a solution that you simply follow through on. A pro-active customer service representative anticipates the needs of the customer and follows through. Don’t wait for the customer to ask you what you are willing to do – anticipate the question and answer it before they can ask. If they call and say they aren’t satisfied, apologize and immediately suggest some solutions. Customers want you to take the lead – acknowledge their unhappiness, offer a solution or solutions and explain to them how you are going to follow through. Pro-active service means taking the lead, which will reassure your customers that you know what you are doing and that you will follow through.

If you keep these six keys in mind – seamless service, trustworthiness, attentiveness, resourcefulness, courtesy and pro-active service – you will be able to offer every customer the Wow Customer Service Experience that inspires loyalty and keeps customers coming back for more.

Goals: 7 Top Steps on Goal Setting by John Stone

The following guidelines will help you to set effective goals:

1 Declare each goal as a decisive statement: Express your goals positively – ‘Implement this procedure well’ is a much better goal than ‘Don’t make this stupid misstep.’

2 Be clear-cut: Set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can gauge achievement. If you do this, you will know spot on when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.

3 Set priorities: When you have a number of goals, give each one a priority. This helps you to prevent feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most significant ones.

4 Write goals down: This magnifies them and gives them more force.

5 Keep operational goals small: Keep the low-level goals you are working towards small and realistic. If a goal is too heavy, then it can seem that you are not making development towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Develop today’s goals from larger ones.

6 Set performance goals, not outcome goals: You should take care to set goals over which you have as much power as possible. There is nothing more disappointing than failing to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your rule. In business, these could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, for illustration, these reasons could include feeble judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on personal accomplishment, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals and pull satisfaction from them.

7 Set realistic goals: It is crucial to set goals that you can reach. All sorts of people, employers, parents, media, society can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own requirements and ambitions. Then again, you may set goals that are too high, because you may not realize either the obstacles in the way or recognize quite how much aptitudeyou need to develop to achieve a precise level of performance.

Achieving Goals

When you have achieved a goal, take the time to benefit from the satisfaction of having done so. Bask in the implications of the goal achievement, and survey the progress you have made towards other goals. If the goal was a considerable one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you create the self-confidence you deserve!

With the skill of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goals harder.

If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goals a little easier.

If you learned something that would guide you to change other goals, do so.

If you noticed a discrepancy in your skills in spite of achieving the goal, determine whether to set goals to resolve this.

Failure to meet goals does not matter much, as long as you can be trained from it. Supply lessons learned back into your goal setting program.

Remember, too, that your goals will transform as time goes on. Fiddle with them systematically to reveal growth in your learning and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, then let them go.

Reference: Some material used from MindTools.com

Deliver the Right Results - On Time and Within Budget

Deliver the Right Results - On Time and Within Budget - by Frank Scarpaci, President at Vianova

As forward thinking leaders, you know that your success depends on your ability to adapt to change while delivering the right results - on time and within budget. Not an easy task in today’s fast-paced, competitive business environment, with evolving customer demands, new competitors, and pressure to do more with less.

Do any of these experiences sound familiar?

- You spent time and money on what you thought was a great idea, only to realize it’s not what your customers wanted.

- You spend too much of your time putting out fires rather than preventing them.

- Your competitor comes up with a brilliant idea – one you have been contemplating for a while. Ouch!

- You spend all your time “in” your business rather than “on” your business.

If so, you are not alone. These are a few examples of common frustrations business owners experience at one time or another. They can zap the passion, creativity and profitability out of owning a business. So, the question is: How can you eliminate these frustrations and keep up with all the demands?

Even if you can’t afford to hire a professional project manager, you can learn project management tools and integrate them into the way you run your business. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that project management is cumbersome, time consuming, and irrelevant. On the contrary, principles of project management include valuable and effective tools that yield exceptional results that are simple and easy to use.

The first important tool of project management is the simple “Project Plan.” Before you take another step, you must have a Project Plan that includes the following elements:

- Goals: Define the opportunity to be seized or problem to be solved. Write your goals using the SMART method. (Are your goals specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound?) Be sure to clearly identify all your stakeholders’ needs and expectations (i.e. customers, employees, etc.)

- Deliverables: Create a list of things (items, features, services, etc.) the project needs to deliver to meet these goals. Specify how and when each deliverable must be achieved. Assess whether each deliverable is absolutely necessary to achieve your project goals.

- Tasks and Schedule: Identify the specific tasks required, estimate the time required to complete, and who will carry out each task. Be sure to include your project team in estimating the work effort required to complete each task.

- Resources: Define the roles and responsibilities of the individuals on your team.

- Reporting: Define how you will report and track your progress and establish a mechanism to ensure your team is aware of all key milestones and work planned.

- Risks: Identify the risks that may impact your project and how you plan to deal with them.

Words of wisdom for 2010 and beyond

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

~Max Ehrmann c.1920