We Are Given The Right To Speak

What kind of noise is your business making?  Your business is given the right to speak.  Does the speaking you do with your business make the right kind of noise with the customers it can reach?  Does the speaking you do with your business model speak loud enough to be heard by the customers who have the ability to hear your model?  Some business models make a lot of noise, others are somewhat quiet.  Are you managing one that makes a lot of noise?  Are you managing a business that says the wrong things?  Your business has been given the right to speak.  How well is it doing?

Is it time to shake down how your business model speaks to its customers?  When you opened your business model did you picture how your business would speak to its market?  If so, is it saying what you want it to say?  Is your business doing what you dreamed it would be doing when you began building how you wanted it to be?  Is it making the noise you dreamed it would be making?

The business model you are managing has a life.  Its life is how it lives.  The things your business model does produces how its market responds.  Markets move towards the business models that #1...make the most noise, #2...make the loudest noise or #3...make the coolest noise.  Make sure your business model is finding one of these three areas to become an excellent producer of consumer listening.  The way a business speaks to its market will determine largely how the consumer will continue to communicate with that model.  If the consumer is communicating a lot with your business model, you will enjoy a lot of trade.  If the consumer is not listening to what your business model is saying, you will need to work on finding more trade to come in.  You will be facing some extra efforts to make better or louder noises to attract more consumers.  The business you manage has a right to speak.  What you help it to say and how you train it to speak will help your model earn the kind of crowds that will come to listen.  You want to earn the right to speak to large crowds.  Larger crowds produce larger volumes.  Given the right to speak, how well is your business model speaking?  Is your business model mumbling its way through the competition fields?

What are some of the best things your business can learn to say?  How can your business model say the right things the most, and make sure they are loud enough to hear?

There are a lot of things we can consider to do when we design our business model to speak to a larger audience.  There are also a lot of things we must do when we design our business model to speak to a larger crowd.  If we want a larger crowd, we need to make sure our audience can hear what we have to say and that what we have to say is what they want to hear.

We may need to do some of both of these things, the can do's and the must do's.  These two ways to speak require very different things to do.  What we can say is a whole lot different than what we must say. 

First of all, is our current audience large enough to do what we want our business to be doing?

A.)     If not, we need to figure out what kind of noise we need to be making to attract a larger crowd.  We also may need to see if where we are located can allow us the right placement to be heard.

B.)     If so, we need to determine why our large crowd is not listening to what our business is saying.  If our business is not making as much noise as we prefer it to make, we need to figure out how it can reach the marketplace more loudly.  If our audience of listeners are not large enough to make our business do what we want it to do, we can begin the repair work on fixing that challenge.  Maybe we are saying the wrong kinds of things.

Let's go to work on the if not side of the issue, first.  If our current audience is not large enough to do what we want our business to be doing we need to find out why.  We need to examine if we are located wrong.  Are we not placed in the right spot to be heard by the most people in our marketplace?  Are the tools we are using reaching the potential audience?  Do we need to develop some better mechanisms for getting our business noise out in front of more people so they can hear us better?  Are they able to hear us?  Is our noise buried below too many other sounds that drown out what we are trying to say?  Is the competition making louder noises than we are making?  Are we not able to reach far enough to find the bigger crowds?  What are the bigger crowds listening to?  We need to work on improving the creativity with the "can do's" of our business model.  We should spell out specifically how we need to make the proper adjustments in these areas.  We should include this work in our strategic planning.   

Next, we need to work on the if so side of the issue.  If the current audience is large enough for us to enjoy making great noise but the volume is not as high as the market potential shows, we may be saying the wrong kinds of things.  Maybe what our business model is saying does not meet what the audience wants to hear.  Maybe what our business model is saying cannot be heard by the large audience potential we have.  Something is wrong.  We have a business sitting in the area where a large audience exists, but that audience is not listening to what our business is saying.  We need to figure out what kind of noise we are making that is not being heard.  We also need to figure out why our business noise is not being heard.  If we have a large audience potential and they are not coming to hear what our business is saying, something is not working well.  We need to do some corrective and better work on the "must do's" in our business model.

Once we determine where our energy will be best served, we need to develop a plan to work on improving those areas.  We need to work on the things that are keeping our business from making the right kind of noise.  Either we go to work on the "can do's" or we go to work on the "must do's."  This is how we begin to build a better business model for making a louder noise.  We want to make sure our business model respects its right to speak loud and clear.  Your strategic planning can start at this very place.  You can begin to develop the right kind of work to do when you know how your business speaks to the audience it desires.  Make sure your business is being heard.  Make sure your business is in the right place to be heard.  Make sure your business is saying the right things to be heard.  Make sure your audience wants to listen to what your business is trying to say.  Make sure what they hear is something they want to listen to.  Now you know what kind of work you need to be doing.  Go do it.

(As a follow-up to an earlier post, Let's Connect With Our Customer. I wanted to share with the readers how the billboard sign is going in the parking lot.  Remember the billboard sign we were using to 'better connect' with our regional customers?  The first message on the billboard sign read, "Fresh Soup."  The next message we decided to 'better connect' with the audience passing by so we had the sign changed to read, "Snap, Crackle, Pop...Spring Is Coming."  After a few weeks of cold rainy weather we changed the sing to read, "Spring Is Here, We Promise."  After some recent and unusual snow fall, the last message on the billboard sign was placed to read, "Spring Is Here, We Promise...Maybe!"  Many new comments are flowing at the registers in the retail store about the message sign.  Comments generated by the customers.  Prior to the changes we made to the messages on the billboard sign, nobody ever spoke about the billboard sign.  Learn how to connect with the flow that is passing by.  It is not always about fresh soup or the lowest priced toothpaste.  Make sure the noise your business is making is a noise the consumer wants to share.  You can make successful noises in little chunks like this.  It does not require a huge budget.)

Until next time...