June 2006
Keeping Your Business On The
Right Track
Don't Hire Problems
Give Your Brand Identity Real
Customer Appeal
What's In A (Domain) Name?
 
Keeping Your Business On The Right Track
A business plan is a roadmap that establishes a
path for the development of your business. It
doesn’t tell you just about the current state of
the business, its strengths and its weaknesses,
it will also illustrate the opportunities and
what needs to be done to stay ahead of the
competition.
You might think you know all this now and don’t
have to write it down. But what if something
happened to you and someone else had to take
over the operation? What would they need to know
so it was still there and profitable when you
returned? This is the kind of information
contained in your business plan and its good
insurance against the unknown.
It clarifies your objective
What are your goals? These will be in your business
plan, the original goals you had plus any
additional objectives that arise in the course
of business. Your business plan spells out the
goals and shows the milestones along the way
that tell you how close you are to achieving
them. Goals are flexible and can be as varied as
achieving a certain level of turnover or simply
acquiring new customers. It’s important,
however, that each is presented in the same way
– as a target with milestones or indicators that
will let you measure how near you are to
achieving it.
It contains your business
vision
A vision is your description of how the business will
look at a specific date – usually three or five
years from the time the statement is written.
This is another part of a business plan that’s
regularly updated and describes how the business
will look from the outside (to customers) and
from the inside (to management and staff) when
it has achieved the goals that are presently
set.
It outlines your company's
mission statement
The mission statement is another expression of the
businesses’ long term goals. The mission of all
businesses is to conduct profitable business of
course, but it should also have other intangible
goals covering such issues as morality and
ethics. How do you want your business to treat
its customers? How does your business want to
treat its team members? The mission statement is
both long term and ongoing - a statement of
principles of business conduct and behavior that
rests above the metrics of commerce.
Cover all the management
essentials
Businesses are organic in nature, changing constantly
but always with growth in mind. Your business
plan is also organic – an ongoing record of the
changes in your business as well as a structure
for the changes that will take place in the
future and their intended consequences. Here are
just a few of the many possible elements that
can be incorporated into your business plan:
- Your products – The present and planned range of products
you sell, together with any product development
your firm undertakes to create its own products
- Your management structure – A statement of positions,
responsibilities and authorities
- Your finances – How the business is funded and how it will
repay its loans, your company’s credit policy
and how it will be enforced
- Your marketing plan – How your business will be marketed,
the promotional budget, the target market,
future plans for expansion, and
- Your succession plan – When you intend to leave the business
and how you will realize its maximum value
Every business should have an up-to-date and
functional business plan. It will tell you where
the business is going and how it’s going to get
there. It will focus the efforts of you, your
management and the rest of your team on the
drivers that will bring you what you want from
the business. It is, in other words, a map to
the future of your enterprise.
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Don't Hire Problems
One of management’s key responsibilities is selecting
the right people to perform the functions needed
by the business to operate productively. Hiring
the wrong person can affect your business for
years. Businesses have even been found legally
liable for damages to property and injury to
customers as a result of employee incompetence
because they failed to uncover the candidate’s
depth of ignorance at the time of hiring.
Whether you’re about to hire your first team member or
you’ve already hired dozens, there are some
basic steps to the process that you need to keep
in mind.
Step 1. Know exactly what
you're looking for before you start looking
The first thing to do is to clearly define the person
you’re looking for in terms of their education,
skills and competencies required to perform the
job. But it needs to go much further than that.
You also need to clearly set out the type of
person you need to help you achieve the vision
you have for your business. Qualities like
friendliness, integrity and enthusiasm are
important in a smaller enterprise.
Step 2. Consider how you're
going to find them
How you go about getting the word out about your
position goes a long way toward determining the
quality of the candidates you’ll get
applications from. You can advertise directly,
which means you get to do all the qualifying and
screening yourself. Or, you can use an outside
source such as a government placement service or
a fee-based recruitment agency. Don’t rush into
this decision. Identify your options and talk
with someone from each agency you could use.
You’ll get a lot of good ideas doing this and
eventually find the agency with access to the
biggest pool of quality prospects.
Step 3. Plan your interview
process carefully
The attributes you chose in step 1 will now become the
basis of your interview questions. Many of these
issues are easily turned into questions, for
example about their education, background and
work experience. Others, such as their degree of
enthusiasm, are subjective and require your own
assessment.
Ask at least a few open ended questions to extract the
candidate’s feelings on particular subjects. Get
their ‘take’ on important areas like their
attitude toward customer service and their
relationship with co-workers and supervisors.
Give them some "what if" questions to see how
they might behave in certain situations.
Step 4. Thoroughly check
their resumes and references
Do thorough background checking on candidates you
think might be worth hiring. Even if they’ve
made a terrific impression during the interview
there may be something lurking in their past
that can cause you problems in the future.
A pre-employment investigation is easy to arrange and
will quickly tell you if they have any criminal
convictions or a history of problems with
employers. Contact their former employers and
ask them for a reference. They may not be
willing to say much, but even their guarded
answers may tell you that there’s been some sort
of conflict in those previous positions.
You may even consider having an outside testing firm
administer standard tests for things like
emotional stability and intelligence.
Step 5. Get them up to speed
fast
After you’ve appointed the person, a well planned
induction will get your relationship off to a
good start. This will introduce them to your
business, to its culture, and to their
workmates. Arrange for any training needed, such
as on operating a particular piece of equipment
or in the use of the software your company uses,
to be conducted soon after they start.
Hiring is really about people and not just a set of
skills that any one of several candidates may
possess. Dedicate your hiring process to getting
the right person in every respect; the
future of your company depends on it.
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Give Your Brand Identity Real Customer
Appeal
Your business either has a brand, sells other people’s
brands, or both. All brands have a brand
identity. It’s the sum total of the consumer’s
perceptions of the brand name, the logo, the
products that carry it or are related to it, its
product packaging – to name just a few of the
elements - and they all have to be successfully
related to the brand in a positive way as well
as to interrelate consistently among themselves.
Very few companies have actually created their brand
identity. Usually it evolves gradually through
the experiences of customers and others outside
the business. But that is leaving your
reputation to chance - you should seize the
opportunity to create your own brand identity
and ensure that it has a positive consumer
impact that will help your business.
Let your brand represent the
benefits you provide
The first question naturally is: “How do I create a
brand identity?” The answer depends on what
your brand is and what it stands for. Just as a
machine shop is a different type of business
from a grocery store, brand values differ from
one brand to another and there’s no simple
answer to the question.
But there is a branding methodology that works on a
practical level and will add value to any brand
that has secure foundations to underpin it.
Because it’s based on reality and not imagery
it’s the kind of branding that has genuine and
long lasting meaning for consumers – whether
they’re purchasing a piece of equipment or a
service.
Consumers make purchases to do something. They
may want to have a better looking home or a
smoother running car. They don’t actually
purchase a can of paint or a mechanical service;
what they’re buying is the benefit they get from
the money they spend.
If you can make your brand represent this benefit by
creating an appealing brand identity you’ll be
adding a lot more value than if your brand
simply stands for a category of product or
service.
Create a link for consumers
You need the consumer to subconsciously link your
brand identity with the benefits they want to
experience. Start by writing a brand positioning
statement. Using as few words as possible, write
down everything your brand needs to stand for -
your industry, your unique features, and why
your offering is better than those provided by
the competition. This is the basis of your
desired brand identity.
Next, what is it that your customers want you to
deliver to them? In just one sentence, write
down precisely what it is that your customers
want to get from you. "The healthiest fruits
at reasonable prices" and "A car that
runs smoothly and dependably" are ways of
expressing this.
Match your business with what
customers want
Remember that you’re creating your own brand identity.
This means matching everything about your
business with what your brand has to stand for
and with what your customers want from you. Now
you need to analyze your business and to be
totally honest while doing it.
Go through every aspect of your business - from the
premises and staff to your products and your
promotions - and ask two questions about each:
1. Is it consistent with my desired brand positioning?
2. Is it contributing to giving my customers what
they want?
In other words, you need to examine everything you are
and everything that you do to ensure they are
compatible with the brand identity you want to
develop.
At the end of this process you’ll see where you’re
doing the right thing and where things have to
be changed. Like we said, you are seizing the
opportunity to create your own brand identity
and it’s never an easy task, nor will it happen
overnight. When you’ve finished, the value added
to your brand will also be added to your
business and your brand identity will be working
for you 24/7 and 365 days a year.
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What's In A (Domain) Name?
The next time you see an advertisement with a web
address or internet address, look at the part
that comes just before the ".com", ".org" or
".biz" at the end. Some familiar examples are
coca-cola.com and kelloggs.com, and the part
that you’ve recognized is called the domain
name.
Not long ago domain names were hot property with
popular names or names of large organizations
bringing big prices. Now, however, the situation
is more stable and you shouldn’t have too many
problems finding a suitable domain name at a
reasonable price.
This doesn’t mean domain names aren’t as important as
they once were. Many start-up enterprises wait
until they’ve secured a good domain name before
they settle on the name of their business. Any
company, but especially one that depends on the
Internet to generate turnover, needs to give
this aspect of their trading name careful
consideration. Here’s how to go about choosing
the right domain name for your business.
Start with your company name
Your own name, or some variant of it, is always the
best place to begin. A name like Atomic
Corporation can become "atomiccorporation.com",
"atomiccorp.com", or "atomcorp.com". Similarly,
Smith and Jones can become "smithandjones.com"
or ‘smithjones.com’. Stay as close as you can to
your existing name and try to register that
first.
A product name might work
Your company might have a popular product or service
that could be used as a domain name. Perhaps Ace
Guttering could use ‘gutters.com’ or an aquarium
could use ‘fish.com’. If your firm is the
national distributor for an imported product you
may be able to use the product’s name as your
domain name, noting that you should be sure your
distributorship is secure for the next few
years.
Keep it short and simple
If you’re starting from scratch or looking for a
domain name that doesn’t necessarily have to
relate to your business name, keep it as short
and simple as possible. It’s easier for others
to remember, less likely to be misspelled, and
more likely to fit in advertisements and on
business cards.
Or make it memorable
Two of today’s best known domain names are Google and
Yahoo! On their own they don’t say much about
the businesses they represent, but since their
territory is global and their main purpose is to
be memorable, they succeed as domain names.
Other companies take an off-the-wall approach to
their domain name which is why we see "ToxicRat.com"
and "InYourFace.com". Not pretty names, but
definitely memorable.
Be as individual as possible
With literally millions of domain names it’s hard to
be unique, but the best way to avoid confusion
or conflict with similar domain names is to have
one that’s as far away from any other as
possible. There are many databases of registered
domain names (not all registered names are in
use so they won’t necessarily turn up in a web
search) and you should search through as many as
you can find to ensure your name isn’t too close
to someone else’s.
Be easy to spell
Someone looking for a firm named Clarke and Walker at
"clarkeandwalker.com" could easily key in "clarkandwalker.com"
(did you notice the missing "e"?) and miss you
entirely. As well as being original, your domain
name should also be easy to spell - and hard to
misspell.
Your domain name becomes your trading name
and brand to anyone in the world who doesn’t
already know you by your business name. It’s
worth putting a bit of time into choosing a good
one, and spending a bit of money to register it
and keep it safe from poachers. It becomes a
part of your business, your online address, and
an element of your marketing, so be sure you get
it right before you go ahead.
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