From the Press Release:

The Chamber of Commerce Executives (CCEM) of Missouri awarded the Programs & Campaigns award to the North Kansas City Business Council at the CCEM annual association meeting on September 24, 2015. The North Kansas City Business Council organized an award winning Northland Coffee Connect to support its members and local community. Ginger Lamar, President of CCEM said, “It is a pleasure to recognize the outstanding work accomplished by the North Kansas City Business Council they are recognized as a leader in the Chamber profession.”

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9 Steps to Achieving Your Business Goals

1. Everything starts with a dream – It doesn’t matter if it’s a business trip, business goal, vacation or any aspect of life. You have to visualize it to make it happen.
2. Determine your destination – What’s your goal? After you’ve dreamed the perfect “it” you must determine the actual destination. This is the actual goal.
3. Pay the price up front and in full – Commit completely to the goal, half way will not get you there. “Pay” the mental and emotional price up front.
4. Realize that it will be all out war – Once you’ve made a decision to go for it and determined the destination it will be all out war for your time, attention and resources. Some of it will come in the form of naysayers, time demands, legal problems, logistics, etc., but since you’ve already paid the price you were prepared for this and can push forward.
5. To take off you have to give it 100% – If you’re going to go for your business goal it can’t be done half way. Just as taking off at 1/2 throttle would meet with disastrous consequences, pursuing a business goal with half execution is certain to end in failure.
6. Stay in contact with the tower – It’s important to get constant feedback from the tower to make sure there are no unforeseen dangers around the corner. It’s just important to stay plugged in to your business team, mentors and advisors or friends and family members that have insight into your business.
7. Sometimes you have to alter course – While the destination or goal never changes sometimes it is necessary to alter course to avoid a dangerous storm. That storm may take you off course, but your destination has not changed. It may take you longer, but it’s better to land with your business and team intact than to fail on the course.
8. Everything eventually gets off course – Even though it can’t be seen a slight breeze could blow you off course. That’s why it’s important to always be looking at your gauges and GPS. Constantly review the progress to your goal. Are you executing on your strategy or does a course correction need to be made?
9. Don’t stop until you reach your destination – Having dreamed this great goal, launched on the great mission, don’t forget that we don’t stop until we actually accomplish the goal. Push all the way until the end.

If you have set out a strategy and business goals for this year and find yourself or your business behind in progress take these 9 steps to heart and begin again. I have full confidence that you’ll be back on track very soon.

photo credit: ATC via photopin (license)

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We’re all familiar with the fantastical interaction between Alice and the Cheshire cat, but I think it’s appropriate to recall it again.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Like Alice, if your goal is to broadcast your message to the whole world with social media and you don’t really care who hears it then go for it. Monitoring your activity is probably not for you. But, if your goal is to be efficient and effective with your messaging (like I’m sure it is) then monitoring your activities becomes all the more important. Most entrepreneurs, and we’re no different, have a very limited time to curate and produce content that is engaging and “share-worthy”. We constantly evaluate our activities to make sure we are leveraging our time wisely.

Most social media platforms (Facebook, Google+, YouTube, etc.) provide some basic user engagement analytics. The problem is these platforms are not integrated and can be difficult to interpret, but the data that they provide is essential. If you’re curious about how to effectively engage your audience I encourage you to contact us about our new social media monitoring platform. It can give you real time data to know if your hitting the mark with your social media posts.

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Holiday Social Media Marketing Checklist

1. Create promotions with clear start and end dates

Clearly communicating start and end dates has 2 big advantages. It drives action between those dates and keep customers from the frustration of missing the sale date due to lack of knowledge.

2. Use product related hashtags

Hashtags (#) are a part of many social networks, especially Instagram and Twitter. Using relevant and if at all possible unique hashtags in your post has the potential to increase the reach of your promotion by giving the customers something to find in the search engines.

3. Share exclusive deals with your audience

Your audience follows your business for a reason, they are interested. Reward them for their attention and often they will reward you by being a vocal brand ambassador and referring others to your social media sites.

4. Post photos of new products with links to your website

Images and videos attract far more consumers and invite easier sharing of your business, product or service. Consider images that are related, but not actually representative of your product with links to your site with details.

5. Don’t forget to include a call-to-action in your post

Always tell your followers what you want them to do next. If you want them to visit your website, tell them and give them the link. Call? Tell them that too and give them the number.

6.  Most of all, have fun.

Post festive tips, images and videos. Change your profile pictures and header images to match the holiday spirit. Encourage engagement by asking for everyone’s special holiday recipe, traditions, celebrations, etc.

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One thing, among many, that struck me is how well they knew their target audience. They knew where they lived, what they liked and the language they spoke. There was a brief, as they call it, testimony time and I’m fairly certain I heard an F-bomb dropped. There was no commotion to silence or correct the individual speaking, just honest sharing. I talked to the founders of the group and they said that the guys they want to reach would likely never walk into a traditional church, but reaching them in this manner was inviting and engaging. They understood that we all have baggage and there was no pretension about the group.

They structured their entire mission, meeting format and atmosphere around reaching their target audience. How much more effective as business owners could we be if, like the men’s fellowship group, we understood our target audience and structured our offering around meeting their needs, wants and desires.

If defining your target audience or brand seems like a daunting task we can help. Find out more about our branding workshop and Monthly Revenue Growth Club or contact us directly to take the next step.

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We’ve all heard the term “laser like focus” and yet we rarely use this type of focus in our brand and marketing communications.

Why is this? I would like to suggest it’s because we’re afraid. We have a fear that if we focus too much we’ll miss some potential business, a member of our perceived target audience might not identify with our message.

In reality, by not aiming at one specific target we’re likely to hit nothing at all. By speaking the language of everyone we’re really speaking to no one. It’s like being in a crowded room, there might be a lot of noise, but no single conversation can be heard.

When building your brand it is critical to understand your target audience. Knowing their likes, dislikes, education level, basic demographic data, the “language” they speak and more are all important points to consider.

Identifying and understanding your target audience is just one of many essential steps in creating a prosperous, growing and vibrant brand. If you’re wondering how to hit the mark when aiming for your target audience then contact us to start building your amazing brand today.

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Did you know that 75% of purchases are based on emotion. What emotion does your brand evoke?

People buy based on trust. Strong brands build trust and reduce fear of making a bad purchase. Does your brand instantly and consistently convey you are trustworthy?

Branding is one of the most difficult and least understood of all marketing and business development activities. It appears to produce no immediate return, but get it right and all of your marketing and communication can become much more efficient and cost effective. The questions above are a great place to start in building a strong and lasting brand.

Seth Godin may have said it best “What is a brand? A brand is not a logo; a brand is not a name. It is a series of expectations that people have based on the promises you have made.”

Branding can be one of the most challenging tasks that business owners and entrepreneurs face, but you don’t have to go it alone. If you’re wondering how to create a strong and lasting brand Big Vision Media Group can help. Contact us here.

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My lesson started when I began to research an upcoming mountain biking trip to Moab. I literally read hundreds of articles and websites. I cannot tell you how many times I came across the phrase just “go with the flow” with regard to mountain biking in Moab. Of course, this was not a new phrase to me, but not until I went to Moab and had been riding a few days did I begin to understand its meaning. If you aren’t familiar with Moab it contains some of the most technically and physically demanding trails in the US. After two days of riding my arms and legs were toast. I was completely exhausted. I’d start out a ride on a new trail with vigor, but quickly fade as the muscle fatigue set in. It wasn’t until the third day on the morning ride of the Slick Rock Trail that I realized I was not going with the flow. I was fighting it, trying to muscle my way through the tough sections. In fighting the trail I was fighting the earth itself and there was no way I was going to win that battle. I loosened my grip, almost to the point of falling, relaxed my arms, legs and back and became a rag doll on the bike. All of a sudden I was going with the flow. I wasn’t fighting it and my riding was no longer difficult. I actually rode beyond my ability and took on much more challenging trails than the previous two days.

In going with the flow I realized that even though there was still physical exertion  it was not exhausting my muscles. I had time to recover and needed less recovery to ride well. How true this is about life too. When we fight the circumstances around us rather than going with the flow we often find that we are expending a ton of energy for little real output.

The same is true for marketing. We stick with the proven ways when everything around us screams something different. I still have clients that want to call all 5000 of their customers to drum up new business. Don’t get me wrong, the personal touch of a phone call can be very powerful, but the same company could engage thousands more if they would simply undertake a few additional activities that duplicate their behavior like blogging or other social media channels and yet they don’t. Fighting the wave of new customer engagement models seems to be easier than changing old habits that produce little, but known results.

Don’t fight it. Go with the flow and I think you’ll be surprised where it leads.

Photo by Tim Brink

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As with any business exercise that can be undertaken it can be as simple or as complex as needed, but I must say that the more complex the strategy the more difficult it will be to maintain and less likely to be fully implemented.  The system I’ve found that works best for me is five simple steps.  One of the great things about this system is that once the first two steps are completed they will not need to be reworked for a few years.

Step 1: Know Your Brand

This step really has nothing to do with strategy execution, but has everything to do with strategic direction.  Knowing your brand will act as a guide.  It will be the foundation of all your strategy and messaging to your employees and your customers.  It is the essence of what defines the business.

Step 2: Make an Assessment

The situation assessment, as I like to call it, is the state of your industry, the economy and market in your city, region or even national and international.  This quick assessment should give you a good idea of how things fare. What and how your competition is doing and what their plans might be. This is also a great time to assess your own strengths and weaknesses.  I like to use the popular SWOT tool – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.

Step 3:  Define and Develop Objectives

Objectives are the meat of the strategy, but they are nothing more than goals with a number and date attached.  When thinking about objectives think both short and long term.  Short term could be 6 months to a year.  Long term goals might be 3 to 5 years out or longer.  Remember, the purpose of an objective is to move toward the overall vision of the business.  When selecting an objective make sure that it is measureable and select a specific metric to measure it against.  Also, select only 3 to 5 objectives, any more and it’s easy to loose focus.

Step 4: Strategic Activities

If vision is the destination, then strategy is the plan to get there.  The essence of strategy is making trade-offs.  We can’t do it all, nor should we.  Part of making trade-offs is understanding your target audience so you can maximize your product and marketing activities. Communicating the correct message at the correct time to the correct audience is critical to achieving success in your marketing efforts.  Knowing the target audiences behaviors, wants, and needs will help to speak the same language and in places that it will be heard.

Step 5: Measuring Performance

The first step to measuring marketing performance is to develop a scorecard.  Remember those objectives and metrics that were developed in Step 3? Write them down and track them on a monthly basis.  Use an Excel file or other means to keep track of the performance.  Assuming you got your strategy correct you can adjust your activities and metrics accordingly.

Do you have a simple formula for developing your own strategy?  I’d love to hear it.

For a more detailed guide download the Guide to Developing a Strategy Framework

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