Posts Tagged ‘growth’

Winning through Certifications

Friday, November 30th, 2012

Dr. Renae Sanders

For many small businesses becoming a certified vendor at the local, state, or federal government level is an important step toward diversifying the client base and income stream. Certification is recommended for all eligible businesses, but pursuit of any government contract should be a strategic move for businesses. As you prepare, the following will help you avoid wasting your time and resources:

Establish Clear Sales Goals

Businesses should have clear goals for the types of business they are pursuing and which certifications are needed to achieve stated goals. Only pursue certifications that are most recognized by the organizations or entities with which you wish to do business.

There are several certifying agencies at each level of government, but businesses must also investigate which entities accept certifications by other agencies. For example, you may need only a state or regional certification to enter the supplier diversity program at large corporations. Knowing your target audience helps to narrow your scope and focus your marketing efforts on specific businesses or entities.

Learn the Lingo

Pursuing opportunities with government agencies also comes with a vernacular that is necessary to master to be successful in this space. A term like “lowest responsible bid” is quite telling and suggests business owners should be (1) operating at its most efficient level and (2) understand that egregious markup of services are less likely than in the past. Lowest, responsible bids means the granting entity already has an informed idea of the costs for the project, so unless your bid has a valid, and compelling reason to be higher than your competitors, the bid that meets the needs of the project with the lowest price will win the bid, provided all other requirements are present.

Demonstrate Performance

Competition for the largest contracts is stiff. Many agencies are loath to displace a known entity with an unknown player based on what is written in the bids or certification applications. New players must bring their “A” game. To win big in government contracting, a solid track record of performance, stability, and sustainability in related business activity along with great timing is paramount.  Tell your story, better yet, get others to tell your story to key players for you.

Establish a Solid Marketing Strategy

Government agencies are a market segment just like any other segment. As such, a marketing strategy specific to this target group is a necessity.  Simply having space in a vendor’s database will yield minimal results unless an aggressive marketing strategy is employed. Keep in mind, the sales cycle for each level of government and agency are different, but few are instantaneous. Landing a multi-million dollar contract can take years.

While many bid opportunities are issued at the state and local levels, the level of competition for these contracts is also high. Decision makers who have built relationships with existing contractors are more like to stick with a known entity over a new comer.

Remain Abreast of Trends

The time spent between pursuing and waiting for your big break is also the time where additional training and preparation should be obtained for leaders and key employees. For instance, LEED certification and training is a growing requirement among companies seeking large contracts with government and large corporations. Understanding your role in the social and environmental space is of growing importance and increasingly large general contractors, government agencies, and large corporations want to ensure small businesses will add value and strengthen their efforts in the sustainability areas.

The bottom-line is there are numerous, good reasons to pursue certifications. However, developing a solid strategy for how you will leverage them for your business is a critical step in the process. There are many companies that offer services to assist businesses with obtaining certifications, just be certain find a partner you can trust, that is knowledgeable and offers real value to you and business.

Dr. Renae Sanders is the Managing Director at KRS Consulting, LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in organizational development, growth, and relationships. Believing people are the link between strategy and success, Dr. Sanders works with organizations, leaders, and managers to strengthen internal practices and relationships. Email info@krsconsult.com to book an engagement or meeting with Dr. Sanders.

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Posted in Business Development, Dr. Renae Sanders, Organizational Planning, Sales Strategy, Small Business | No Comments »

From Losing to Winning

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

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Posted in Business Development, Dr. Wesley Carter, Sales Management, Sales Strategy, Small Business | No Comments »

What is Your Change Capacity?

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

by Dr. Wesley Carter
Kevin is a professional, driven, efficient, change agent. Kevin is intent on achieving his personal best in everything he does. Yet, he continues to feel frustrated at the end of every day because he did not successfully complete all of the items on his ‘to do’ list. Perhaps Kevin is too ambitious. Or maybe he is too hard on himself. Kevin’s experience is not unique.

Most busy professionals are on a never ending journey to improve personal efficiency in the hopes of carving out personal time or increasing productivity. Upon discovering new or more innovative strategies professionals must choose whether to change their current practices. Without change, improvement cannot occur. And without improvement, professionals become stagnant and lose their competitive edge.

Before embarking on any change effort, it is important to evaluate your palate for change. Do you typically act on your intentions? Are you able to observe others and imagine yourself performing similar activities? Do you initiate effort and maintain the level of commitment required to complete an action to your standards?

High self-efficacy, your confidence in your capability to execute some action, is a key component of successful change. There are four components of self efficacy; intention, vicarious experience, volition, and faith. Intention is a strong indicator of whether an activity is acted upon. Vicarious experience refers to the capacity to identify and observe how others whether similar changes. This information serves to confirm or dispute the practicality of our intentions.

Volition refers to the power of will. In fact, when we will ourselves to execute some action, we are acting of our own volition. Volition is a combination of initiative, motivation, and commitment. Faith refers to our confidence in our ability to accomplish some objective. Without faith, our efforts will be halfhearted and unproductive. Faith gives us the strength to raise our emotional arousal to the level necessary to sustain our commitment.

While it is impossible to prepare for every change that we encounter, it is totally possible to control how we experience and respond to every change. To do so, we need to make a conscious decision to take 100% ownership of how we navigate change. By owning our power to navigate change we become emboldened to actually achieve our objectives.

High performing professionals never stop driving to self-actualize personally and professionally. Like Kevin, we should all hold ourselves accountable for achieving our personal best. Are you satisfied with your productivity? If not, change.

Dr. Wesley Carter authors a weekly business column in The Charlotte Post newspaper. Carter holds a Doctor of Management (DM) degree from the University of Phoenix with an emphasis in Organizational Leadership, an MBA from the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University, and a B.A in Management from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This information may not be copied or shared without permission from Dr. Wesley Carter. If you have a question, email wesley@krsconsult.com or call (704) 992-1211.

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What is My Sales Cycle?

Monday, June 13th, 2011

By Dr. Renae Sanders

What is my sales cycle? Understanding this simple concept is the critical step toward building sustainable revenue for your business. While customers represent organizational relationships, business is won or lost on the people who touch the prospect or client. Each relationship is established and built throughout the sales cycle. Keep in mind, however, that trust is not established until the final product is delivered to the client’s satisfaction.

The sales cycle is defined as the period from which the sales person makes the initial contact with a prospect to the point when the deal is finalized. Some businesses consider the deal finalized when the contract is signed, others when payment is made, still others when the product is delivered.  I define the sales cycle as the time lapsed from the initial contact with the client or prospect to final delivery of the product. When you can determine the length of time between contact and the contract and the period from “yes” to YES, you can best forecast your sales projections.

An accurate sales forecast has numerous benefits. It is helpful when planning for future up/down turns in the market, decision to reinvest in your company, building the case for credit, or enlisting the support of investors for raising capital. Sales management is another important role related to the sales cycle. Leaders can better monitor the activity of the sales team and coach employees who need the attention. 

 Sales Cycle = Prospect > Suspect > Signed Contract > Implementation> Payment

As the old adage goes, you get what you measure and what better metric to measure than your sales. Whether a micro business or large corporate, the sales cycle is the respiratory system of the company.  Start tracking the lapsed time from contact and final product/service delivery and watch your sales increase.

Dr. Renae Sanders is the Managing Director at KRS Consulting, LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in organizational relationships. Believing people are the link between strategy and success, Renae works with organizations, leaders, and managers to strengthen internal relationships. You can reach Dr. Sanders at info@krsconsult.com.

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Want to Grow? Create a Growth Strategy

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Renae Sanders

Businesses viewed has ongoing concerns must be run to drive revenue in to perpetuity. The renowned Peter Drucker revealed the purpose of “business exists to supply goods and services to customers” not to supply jobs to workers and managers, or even to pay dividends to stockholders; benefits to communities and investors are great, but not a business requirement.

However, business owners have a very important need and that is to earn a profit. Profits, of course, allow business to continuously meet the needs of its customers. Businesses that successfully meet customer needs must determine how to sustain its ability to do so through economic, operational, and competitive challenges. The concepts involved in growing a business are quite simple – find new clients, offer new products or services, expand the business geographically, merge with another business, or acquisition.

How and when to grow require planning. A growth strategy defines your growth goals, long- and short-term objectives designed to ensure the goals of the business are met with the least amount of risk. The power of a growth strategy lies not only in its creation but also in closing the gap between knowing and doing – planning and execution. From weight loss to marathon training, to retirement planning, defining and measuring goals provide a documented plan for how the business will grow.

According to research, less than 2% of small businesses ever grow to earn $250,000 or more in sales. SCORE reports in its website, seven in 10 new employer businesses last two years, and 50% last five years. With these statistics, leaders cannot leave company growth to chance. Regardless of size, companies should seriously approach the development of a sustainable growth strategy, with executable objectives and tasks.

Components of the Growth Strategy

The growth strategy is created following a continuum of Least Risk and Reward to Most Risk and Reward.

Market Penetration represents the least risk/reward growth strategy of selling more products and serivces to existing clients. Incremental growth can also solidify clients and make it more challenging for deeply penetrated customers to leave.

Market Development is selling existing products into new markets or regions. This growth strategy broadens the market size or opportunity.

Alternative channels means find diverse distribution channels to distribute your product or services. It may invlue using the Internet, hiring an external or internal sales team, licensing to other providers, renting shelf space from retailers. Understanding how consumers search for and purchase the product is a necessary aspect of this strategy.

New Product New Customers is a more aggressive growth strategy where defining and developing new products to meet the need of a new type of customer can bring about significant growth, but at more risk to the company.

Merger relies on finding a complimentary organization with which to merge and expand operations, often in the same space. The cost and challenge are higher and more complex as organization leaders are taxed to find the best ways to integrate and reorganize to capture the value.

Acquisition the most risky growth option if acquiring a business to extend the business each throught improved technology, human capital, or physcial location. There are three primary forms of acquisition lateral or horizontal, forward and backward. A lateral acquisition can extend the growth and reduce competition by purchasing a competing business. A backward acquistion may mean purchasing a supplier; while a forward acquisition may be acquiring a distribution network for your product. Both backward and forward growth strategy offer a way to exert more control of the supply chain ffor your business.

While all potential growth strategies require careful consideration and planning, the merger and acquisition options certainly require intensive planning and due diligence in the areas of leadership, operational risk, tax implications, capital requirements, technology, and human capital requirements.

As in all things, we get what we plan for and measure. A growth strategy is a first step toward driving organization growth. Besides it is always easier to get to new destinations with a well defined map. Want to grow? Create a growth strategy.

Renae Sanders is the Managing Director at KRS Consulting LLC a management consulting firm specializing organizational relationships and productivity. Contact Renae at info@krsconsult.com or call 704-947-2098. To read other articles by Renae Sanders go to www.krsconsult.com/blog.

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Posted in Dr. Renae Sanders, Management, Organizational Planning, Small Business | 26 Comments »

Holding Company Growth Hostage – The Role of Stereotypes

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

By Renae Sanders

Stereotypes are the generalized beliefs we hold about the world around us. We hold stereotypes about situations, people, places and things. We are often blind to our views or unaware that do not treat people of other cultures or backgrounds with respect or that we judge others’ value based on media portrayals of beauty, education, intelligence, and ability. We also hold stereotypes about ourselves based on what we are told by others; we judge ourselves to be good or bad, worthy or unworthy, righteous or sinful, all knowing or clueless.

Stereotypical beliefs drive positive (or menacing) affects on businesses. For example, if we hold that the product is great and has value we execute strategy related to the product more passionately than if we did hold a positive perception. If you believe your staff or key members of the team are inept, we treat them accordingly; which leads to lower performance over time.  If we believe entire populations of consumers are poor, under-educated, illegal, or unable to understand English, our marketing and sales efforts to those populations and how we treat employees from those groups will not yield positive results or you may miss a vastly important opportunity to grow. In fact, it is conceivable to say we create an environment of self-fulfilling prophecy when act based on stereotypes.

Beliefs > Attitude / Behaviors > Outcomes

To position the business for success, leaders should find ways to challenge their beliefs. Researchers use triangulation to validate assumptions. Triangulation requires three different sources of information. If you rely on a single source for information (such as friends, parents or television), you might consider reading white papers or research papers on the subject and speak with experts for and against your ideas.  When it comes to dispelling beliefs about people, get to know them as individuals. We often see people of color and other differences as groups; we don’t allow them to be individuals. It’s common for people of color to be asked about the “collective” views of their entire group. Ask yourself, “Why do I feel/think this way? Is there information that supports a different view?”  Another approach is to learn about the contributions all groups have made to our society. As long as we hold one view of history, we remain unaware of a more accurate portrayal of cultural groups as contributing members of society.

Learning to challenge long held beliefs prepares us to make better strategic decisions about the business and challenges our views about the people who work for us and markets we serve. The motto at the University of South Carolina reads, “Emollit mores nec sinit ese feros”, when translated suggests, learning humanizes men and permits them not to be cruel.

Don’t allow stereotypes to stifle your growth or the growth of your business.

Related articles

Workplace Stereotyping: A Silent Productivity Destroyer

Renae Sanders is the Managing Director at KRS Consulting, LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in organizational relationships. Believing people are the link between strategy and success, Renae works with organizations, leaders, and managers to strengthen internal relationships. You can reach her at renae@krsconsult.com.

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Posted in Diversity & Inclusion, Dr. Renae Sanders, Leadership, Multicultural, Organization Relationships, Professional Development, Small Business | 15 Comments »