17 Strategic Planning Tips for Your Business, Part 2

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Every business owner and manager need to understand strategic planning. This series of articles has been exploring strategic planning tips from Brian Tracy, as explained in The Way to Wealth Workbook, Part III: Blueprints for Success. Here are tips 6 through 11, tips 1 through 5 can be found here.

6. Understand why your customers will buy from you or from your competitors.

People make purchases for a variety of reasons but that list is limited, and fairly easy to narrow down to a few primary motivations. Some people buy for emotional reasons, some because the product or service makes a tangible improvement in their lives, others because of the price or convenience or brag value of what you're selling. You may be able to capitalize on a key difference in one or more of these areas.

7. Base your market segments on the things that differentiate you.

Start by making a list of the things that differentiate you from your competitors:

  • your quality,
  • prices,
  • speed,
  • geographic location and any others you can think of.

Each of these differentiators tells you something about who you should be targeting with your marketing. Think about who in particular would want a product or service with those combinations of traits.

8. Start with your highest-value customers.

Begin by asking which types of customers are most likely to buy from you the soonest.

  • Are they people within a certain geographical area?
  • With a certain occupation?
  • With a certain type of need?

As you launch your business, focus your time, energy and marketing spend on these customers first. The others will come later.

9. Balance the “Seven P's” of your marketing mix.

Your marketing mix is simply the list of selling points on which you market your business. The “Seven P's” are:

  • Product,
  • Price,
  • Place,
  • Promotion,
  • Packaging,
  • Positioning
  • and People.

These are all potential selling points, to be balanced as necessary. You'll learn the right balance for your company's marketing mix by making slight adjustments to your “Seven P's” as your campaign progresses, and seeing what works and what doesn't.

10. Be ready to loss-lead and “buy” customers, as long as the math checks out.

For example, if you would normally make a $30 profit on a widget, but you will only make a $15 profit on each after the discount, then you will need to sell 150 percent of your normal sales volume to justify that promotion. If you think you will get that extra 50 percent – or more – then it's justified. As Brian Tracy says, “If you project a certain level of sales, you should be able to show exactly how much advertising you will do and how many leads the advertising will generate.”

11. Think of your customers as long-term investments.

Companies that survive over decades, and build stable financial legacies for their founders' families, thrive by cultivating customer relationships that generate ongoing profits. Sometimes that means giving a product or service away for free the first time, or offering a deep discount for a loyal customer, or going the extra mile in other ways.

Following these tips will make sure your customers will stick with your company for years to come. Join us next time for even more strategic planning tips from Brian Tracy's The Way to Wealth Workbook, Part III: Blueprints for Success.

A FocalPoint Business Coach can provide you with tips like these, along with others which you will find throughout the FocalPoint Business Coaching and Training website. Our professional global Business Coaches will assist with making your customers and employees into passionate supporters of your business. All it takes is a little kindness, and a lot of attention to detail. Contact a FocalPoint Business Coach today.

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