Strategic Planning Archives

Business Strategy: Don’t Replicate, Innovate

Business Strategy: Don’t Replicate, Innovate

I remember back around 1990 when a film producer client told me about a great script of a kid who foiled robbers. I responded that it sounded like Home Alone. His eyes lit up and he said, ” That’s why it will be a hit because the Home Alone concept is so big now.”This meeting came back to me when I read Shira Levine’s article, What it will take to become the internet’s next big thing. It reminds me of so many copy cat product and services.

So many business persons set their strategy in the direction to replicate what a successful business person has already accomplished. That is not American Ingenuity. These businesses just ride on the coattails of the creativity of others.

Read On

Competitive vs Competitor, Knowing the Difference Using the Southwest Airlines Story

Do you know that difference between the competitive intelligence and competitor intelligence? Does it matter, or is it just a play on words? Join Rick and Brandon as they use one of Seena Sharp’s books, Competitive Intelligence Advantage which can give you the small business edge that you have been searching for.

Listen To Our Podcast Here

Business Models: The Big Data Pitfall

When my youngest son Austin was in middle school, his small business enterprise was known as “the candy man.” He would go to the 99 Cent Store and buy about $50 of candy in bulk. He then broke them down selling them in small quantaties for $1-$5 in his small business. My favorite story is when he would approach the kids who were not strong in math. It went like this, “Hey, sell you 4 airheadsfor $6.00 ?” The kid pulled back, “No way, that’s a rip off?” My son would respond, “Ok, how about 3airheads for $5.00?” “Cool, I’ll take that deal!” screamed his customer. (For you math-challenged people, he increased the sales price from $1.50 cents each to $1.67 cents for each airhead). My son didn’t realize it, but regardless of the victory of increasing his profit, he degraded his merchandise to the status of a commodity.

Read On

We hope our articles were informative. All questions, comments,and feedback are welcome.

Sincerely,

The LA CPA

How Does a Small Business Grow? You Can Try to Think Like A Rock Band

How Does a Small Business Grow? You Can Try to Think Like A Rock Band

We were called the Mini Playboys. Three ten year old musicians who temporarily put down their rock roots to play old standards, big band, and Italian songs. The band consisted of a drum, guitar, and accordion. We almost never played like this for our friends for the obvious reasons, but played at old folks parties and restaurants. Heck, we each earned $5.00 an hour in 1967 when minimum wage was $1.40. Great money! Our band focused on a strategy to hit a particular niche market, and it worked for 2 years until we went our separate ways.

I came across an article by Apryl Peredo

Read On

Predicting and Accomplishing Your Business Success

Do you own a struggling small or mid-sized business? Are you between jobs and want to start your own business, but are intimidated with the high failure rate? Join Rick and Brandon as they use a method described in Les McKeown’s Predictable Success, Getting your organization on the growth track-and keeping it there. Learn about the business’s good and bad cycles and the stages they go through. Rick and Brandon leave you with tips on how to get out of bad cycles and into a balance, which he calls Predictable Success.

Listen To Our Podcast Here

Business Vision and Goals: Understand the Target You are Aiming For

In the early 1970s, I watched a Stanford professor choose Jim Plunkett, (Stanford’s star quarterback) to demonstrate perception and the brain. The professor placed a pair of glasses on Jim that caused his vision to be distorted, shifting everything he sees to the right about 20 degrees. Jim missed his attended receiver throwing consistantly to the right by 20 degrees.

Read On

We hope our articles were informative. All questions, comments,and feedback are welcome.

Sincerely,

The LA CPA

Are Business Strategies Obsolete? Does it Matter?

My wife and I have started a new hobby of collecting and reselling small antiques. We really enjoy “the hunt,” but one of the most rewarding aspects is our increased knowledge of 100 year old household tools. One such item was a nickle/steel handle with a cone cup on the end. The cone cup had a butterfly handle on the end of the cone that turned blades inside the cone, scraping the sides.

Almost nobody guessed its function, which was a Delmonico ice cream scoop.

Today, the basic operation of the Delmonico ice cream scoop is the same, scoop it up, and scrape it out.

Read On

Business Plans Can Be as Entertaining as a Russian Nesting Doll

Are you thinking about starting a new business? Whether you are starting a new business or wanting to expand your current business using investors, you will need a business plan. But how should you go about it? Hire a financial consultant? Or maybe buy the expensive software that churns out business plans? Join Brandon and Rick as they go through the steps of building a business plan and the pitfalls that many stumble into when doing so.

Listen To Our Podcast Here

Strategic Thinking: Don’t Confuse Tactics for Strategy

“There’s nothing worse than a sharp picture of a fuzzy concept.” -Ansel Adams

“There is nothing more wasteful than becoming highly efficient at doing the wrong thing.” -Peter Drucker

Mike Michalowicz’s article The 90-Day Method: A Strategy For Business Growth in Difficult Times offers some suggestions for business to strategize. He says that a business owner should ask what they have done in the last 90 days that has brought results, and then replicate those things that were successful. Even though these may sound like sage advice, they can be interpreted as tactics instead of strategy.

Read On

We hope our articles were informative. All questions, comments,and feedback are welcome.

Sincerely,

The LA CPA

Are Music and Small Business Creativity Leaving Us?

A Rick E Norris, An Accountancy Corp Publication

Issue: # August 12th 2015

Welcome to the LA CPA Expose’ . These articles outline business and personal financial advice on a variety of topics. You should always consult your professional and legal advisors before implementing any new strategies.

Pareto’s 80/20 Principle: Business Playing the Odds
Amazing, just amazing. No more than amazing, it was magic. That was my first reaction to the 80/20 rule when I reached into my pocket and saw that 20 % of the coins equalled 80% or more of the value. So, I read the book The 80/20 Principle, The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch.

That was a few years ago. Since then I have applied the concept of the book (and the 1906 Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who created the principle) in many business situations. Here’s a few conclusions:

Read On

Policies, Processes and Procedures can Save a Business and Even Lives

Do you run your business by the “seat of your pants?” Do you engage company policies, processes and procedures? Do you know how these three concepts differ? Join Rick and Brandon as they lift the veil off these seldom implemented small and mid-sized business necessities. Learn the importance of these components in Rick’s story as a Mounted Volunteer Patrol serving in the Santa Monica Mountains with his wife Judy, as they responded to a life-threatening emergency.
Listen To Our Podcast Here

Is Music and Small Business Creativity Leaving Us?

Have you heard? We’re still in a major recession. Well, not according to our government.

However, according to Paul Resnikoff’s article, What is the Economy Doing to Creativity , our current economic disaster may quiet musicians because of their prolonged economic struggle.

I think Paul is on the wrong side of history. Artistic and business creators could not have a better feeding ground than our current economic condition:

Read On

We hope our articles were informative. All questions, comments,and feedback are welcome.

Sincerely,

The LA CPA

Is it a Good Idea to Pay off a House?

DeBabbitting the Business Strategy Process: Can Creative People Be Developed?

My grandfather left quite a legacy. He came from Italy as a boy to start a new life. He acted in and scripted silent movies, fought in WWI, tightrope walked between two eight story buildings (without a net) over a busy Chicago street, helped build navy ships as an electrician during WWII, and founded a successful restaurant with his wife and nine kids.

His success in the variety of endevours is grounded in one quality: creativity. Creativity is a right-brain function, natural to some and alien to others. Should all brain-storming teams have a business strategist who has this trait?

Read On

Improving Your Business Immediately with Pareto’s 80/20 Rule and Tea

Would you like a quick way to improve your business? Have other projects taken too long before showing results? Learn a faster way to improve your business in different areas with Pareto’s 80/20 Rule. Join Rick and Brandon on the Improv-ing Business Podcast as they discuss Rick’s visit to the Charleston Tea Plantation and how the 80/20 Rule applies to tea.

Listen To Our Podcast Here

CPA Economic Depression Thinking: Buy Your House and Pay it off…Good Idea? Maybe.

As a CPA, I have categorized home-owner’s financial strategy into two categories over the last 32 years: One, the Depression Victim, and Two, the Leverage Junkie. The Depression Victim’s financial strategy is a person who has lived or heard about people living during the Great Depression of the 1930s. My mother is like that. The philosophy goes like this. You buy a house, and you pay it off, period…Sure, you can buy rental real estate, but don’t use your house as a piggy bank.

The other financial strategy extreme is the leverage junkie. Looking at them through my CPA glasses, I see that a person who holds that philosophy will buy a house, and then when it goes up in value, borrow against it to buy an other.

Read On

We hope our articles were informative. All questions, comments,and feedback are welcome.

Sincerely,
Rick E Norris

Fulfilling Your Passion by Creating a Non-Profit Business

Business Strategy and Tactics: What We Can Learn From How We Raise our Kids

Our kids hate us…when we don’t give them money. Oh sure, we pay of their schooling, sports, and other school-related activities, but we are determined to require them to work for their recreation money. All three of my boys have worked for me from time to time.

So, when I came across Barbara Haislip’s article, How to Raise en Entrepreneur, it rang true with lessons with business strategy and tactics:

Read On

Fulfilling Your Passion by Creating a Non-Profit Business

Do you have a passion to do charitable work? Have you thought of creating a non-profit to make the world a little bit better? Have you been asked to volunteer or participate on a board of directors of a non-profit? Today, we will be addressing this aspect of our society and some advice to starting or maintaining your own on-profit business.

Listen To Our Podcast Here

Antiquing: How My Wife Convinced Me, and The Impact on Business Strategy

It started with Chumlee. I walked through the living room to my computer and stopped to watch Rick and Chumlee on Pawn Stars discuss the historical significance of something like a musket rifle. This intrigued me, but what really got me interested in their antiques was “value.” No, I don’t mean some 1920 decorative egg, I mean something that won’t break down within two years like my microwave.

Eight years ago, we purchased moderately expensive sconces. We didn’t realized that they would only last about five years. They developed an electrical short, and succumbed to the outside elements.

Inspired by the Pawn Star’s antiques, I bought four 1929 sconces at an estate sale that I will recondition. I believe these will be a better value than going to a lamp store to pay $200 per sconce. These antiques have lasted over 80 years, and are pretty cool to look at. I believe they will be a good value.

Read On

Mobile Payment Strategy: Is Your Small Business Developing One?

A Rick E Norris, An Accountancy Corp Publication

Issue: # July 8th 2015

Mobile Payment Strategy: Is Your Small Business Developing One?

I remember around 1970 asking for a “stingray” type bicycle with a five speed stick shift and a slick tire. I was definitely leap-frogging my friends’ stingrays who lacked multiple gears. I nailed them on the hills. My bike was the early precursor of the multi-gear mountain bikes that cost up to $5,000 today. I was ahead of the pack, for a while anyway.

Last December, I wrote about the mobile payment strategy in Is Your Viral Strategy Becoming Obsolete? I asked the question of whether your strategy and tactics are being adjusted to accommodate the next horizon? If you were, you were ahead of the pack.

Read On

In a Company’s Strategic Culture, Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire! (But What if You Can’t See the Smoke?)
Employee resistance is the most common reason executives (and small business owners) cite for the failure of organizational change. Strong, respected change leaders i.e., people with informal influences, is needed to convince employees about the value of a new business strategy. Your effort to convince those who can influence others may create cultural change, allowing employees “own” the process. Join Rick and Brandon as they give some tips on how to nurture these key individuals.

Listen To Our Podcast Here

Social Marketing Cloud Computing: Ground Control to Major Tom

“Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God’s love be with you”

When David Bowie sang these lyrics, the astonauts’s image touched us. We wondered what the astronaut was thinking, and why did he suffer a demise.

Cloud comuting is going private. Dan Rowinski came out with an article, The Personal Cloud will be a $12 Billion industry business by 2016. He claims that this will be the next horizon. In addition, an article by Jim Blasingame Social Media Builds Customer Communities touches on this new frontier combining cloud computing and social networking.

Read On

We hope our articles were informative. All questions, comments,and feedback are welcome.

Sincerely,

5 Reasons Why Every Business Should Have a Strategic Plan

Some great TV comedy moments were achieved during the David Letterman shows when he did the top ten lists. Some examples were: “Top ten least popular Broadway Shows: #10, Oprah-homa! ,” “Top ten least-loved Christmas Stories: #9, The Sweatiest Angel ,“ and “Top ten courses for athletes at SMU: #10 Subtraction: Addition’s Tricky Pal.”

Letterman’s writers and producer must have had a strategy when creating this idea, just like a business owner should have a strategic plan when running a business. If you are a small business owner without a strategic plan, here are the top five (not ten, because we’re on a budget, here) reasons why you should have one:

Businesses without a plan probably lack a purpose: Why does your business exist? Just to make money doesn’t cut it. Sure, we are in business to make money, but each business must also have a purpose. This purpose should infuse all business practices and should be obvious to clients. For example, if your business purpose is to bring integrated wireless technology to small businesses at an affordable price, your prospects must know that.
Businesses without a plan probably lack a vision: Instead of dream, strategize. Dreaming is a vision with no road to the rainbow. Strategy is dreaming using realistic facts concerning yourself and your industry.
Businesses without a plan probably lack a direction: You may think you know where you are going, but can you imagine where your business will be in ten or twenty years? Small business owners usually cannot see past the end of the month, or worse, past the next pay date. You may have a vision, but there are four horizons. Which horizon are you moving toward?
Businesses without a plan probably lack a culture which supports change: Owners cannot change a company unilaterally. They need to foster a culture that flexes with change in the direction of the vision. If business owners cannot design a plan, they cannot communicate it to their employees, and therefore, they cannot execute it.
Businesses without a plan probably lack meaningful tactics: If you don’t know where you are going, any tactics you establish will get you there. Businesses usually focus on tactics (how to do something), as opposed to strategy (where they are going). Therefore, the tactics are set up in a void. Just doing things, like increasing your advertising budget, is not strategic planning. There are many steps you must place together before implementing your tactics and establishing your metrics to measure them.

Small business owners must go through their own top 5 (or 10) lists when creating their strategic plans. If they don’t, the end result with be like a joke without a punch line.

(Reprinted from Money for Lunch–September 16, 2014)

https://www.moneyforlunch.com/5-reasons-why-every-business-should-have-a-strategic-plan-2/

Don’t use a Pineapple Upside down Cake Strategy to Increase your bottom line

Have you ever baked a pineapple upside down cake? It was one of my favorite desserts as a kid. You start the recipe with laying pineapple rings and cherries on a brown sugared baking pan base. You then pour the batter over this sweet foundation before placing it into an oven to bake. When you turned the baked cake over on a plate the pineapple is displayed on top.

Most small businesses seem to build their businesses like a pineapple upside down cake. They start with the items that are most visible in a business, like sales, the inventory, and purchase orders, and ignore the biggest part of a business like the processes, structure, and culture. Then they turn the business upside down expecting it to operate efficiently and to increase profits. However, the foundation of the business (the batter) falters. This may cause problems and decrease the bottom line.

I tell small business owners that the best way to increase your bottom line is to increase their top line. Not cut, cut, cut your payroll and operating costs. Oh, sure they should operate a business as efficiently as possible, but no business ever shrunk itself to greatness.

For example, let’s say a small business owner is not making as much money as she wants. So, to increase her bottom line, she “lays off” a couple of employees and shifts the excess work to the remaining employees. The benefit is that she may have a more efficient company earning 10% more net profit. The negative impact might be as follows:

Culture: Working employees harder unnecessarily might disrupt employee morale. The change also may lead to employee carelessness, quality-control issues, and theft.
Processes: If the company originally operated efficiently, a reduction in the workforce could disrupt that process. Quality control issues, again, may be affected, but not only because of a decrease of moral, but because of a process that requires “more hands.”
Structure: Employees need to know their responsibilities. A good structure (like an organizational chart), helps lay out responsibilities and accountabilities in a visual format. When you reduce your workforce unnecessarily, you may disrupt the known chain of command, thereby creating little vacuum pockets where nobody is responsible for certain steps in the overall process.

So what is a small business owner to do to increase the bottom line?

Act while business is booming: Don’t wait until there is an economic downturn before taking action to increase your business size or increase profits.
Think Strategically: The example above demonstrates the pitfalls of tactically thinking, as opposed to strategically thinking. Strategic thinking is what to do, tactical thinking is how to do it. A business should design and implement a strategic plan that projects to ten or twenty years.
Build from the unseen: As shown above, the underlying processes, structure, and culture were ignored when the business owner decided to increase her net profit. Start with what is not seen in a business and make that solid before moving on to more obvious tactics. Strategically set tactical pieces in motion.

With a growing business, you can have your cake and eat it, too, but you have to make sure you bake it properly.

(Reprinted from Money For Lunch–September 16, 2014)

https://www.moneyforlunch.com/dont-use-a-pineapple-upside-down-cake-strategy-to-increase-your-bottom-line-2/

Strategy and the Exploration for the Non-Customers

I met with one of my clients and friends, Armen Alajian, co-owner of Artobrick. Now Armen runs this business with his brother, Vod with the respect and tradition of a family business that has been passed down to younger generations.

However, one of the things that makes me proud to have them as a client is their aggressiveness to continue to test new ground. The latest is the “Ceramic Paintings” shown on this page. They brought an artist into their game to paint original artistic works on ceramics that can cover any size of walls and floors. Basically, Artobrick has merged the art world and the ceramics world. But what they don’t realize is they have increased their market space to the “unexplored” non-customers. This is a concept discussed in the Blue Ocean Strategy by Kim and Mauborgne.

Kim and Mauborgne lay out three tiers:

1st tier, “Soon-to-be” non-customers who are on the edge of your market waiting to to jump ship;

2nd tier, “Refusing” non-customers who consciously choose against your market;

3rd tier, “Unexplored” non-customers who are in markets distant from yours.

I would argue that these tiles will attract a 3rd tier customer who loves art. These customers may not consider installing bricks, but may consider installing a Jackson Pollack-type tile just for the artistic addition to their home or business. This attraction gives Artobrick a distinct advantage over other tile/brick manufacturers who cannot compete in this market space because they don’t have the strategy to see buyer needs.

The initial step for this to venture to be successful is for Artobrick to distinguish a buyer utility. Some companies do surveys or venture into a new concept slowly gauging buyer and market response. I don’t know if the brothers took this step, but assuming they did, the next step is to make a price easily accessible to buyers. Third, at this price point, can they make money? And lastly, what other hurdles can restrict the market roll out.

According to the Blue Ocean authors, if Armen and Vod get past these steps, then they can have a viable Blue Ocean idea where competition becomes irrelevant. All small and medium-sized businesses should take this approach in their businesses by thinking about the non-customer.