Internet Vision and Strategy
Here is a message that you might not want to hear. I am willing to bet that your company is not even remotely beginning to harness the full power of the Internet. Moreover I'm also willing to bet that you probably already know this. In a recent survey conducted by WebTrends in which more than 250 Chief Marketing Officers were polled, only 4% of respondents rated themselves and their staffs as…
Leveraging Collateral Material
It has been my experience that most businesses fall into either one of two categories when it comes to marketing and collateral material...They either understand how to leverage collateral material to add value to the sales and branding process or they don't. I've personally witnessed any number of companies that have very little if any collateral material because it's viewed as a frivolous…
Why You Need A War Room
Today's Myatt on Monday's question was posed by a CEO who asked: "I've heard reference to executive teams that utilize 'war rooms' for strategy development. Is this beneficial?" Let me begin by stating that any tools or techniques that bring executive teams together for the purposes of consistent and focused strategy development and refinement are marvelous things. Furthermore, any company that I…
How’s Your Product Mix?
One of the most critical choices that an executive or entrepreneur can make is to determine which sales/revenue opportunities to pursue vs. which ones to pass on. How do you determine where you will allocate your time, your resources, and your talent? Do you use a rational decisioning process to arrive at the right conclusion or are you the person that is often second-guessed or proved wrong…
Positioning Your Business for Sale
While the M&A space is very frothy with transactional volumes at record levels and premium valuations abounding, the risk associated with getting deals done might just also be at an all-time high. Ideally selling a business should really be about taking what the CEO believes is the best deal, however lately it has become more about doing the deal that the CEO perceives as the most defensible…
Is Business Formulaic?
You can either engineer your business by design or let it evolve by default. While the choice is clearly up to you I would strongly suggest the former over the latter. Creating a formulaic approach to business is not only logical, but it is without question the right approach to implement when desiring to create a thriving, sustainable enterprise. Some would argue that business is very fluid and…
View from the Top
How many times have you watched a CEO give a favorable assessment of expected company performance to the board of directors, the bank, shareholders, analysts, employees, or the media only to be proven woefully incorrect? I'm always amazed at the number of CEOs who are out of touch with the operating realities of their company. In today's post I'll share why the view isn't always better from the…
Brand Acquisitions
Real brands have real value...in fact recent studies confirm what many of us have known for quite some time, which is that brand equity can become one of the largest assets on a companies balance sheet and ultimately lead to increased valuations. While I have written often on the topic of branding in today's post I'm going to look at brands (as opposed to companies) as potential acquisition…
Say Yes to Corporate Alumni
No company is immune to the perils of employee turnover. But what if I told you that there was a way to recoup some of the investments made into former employees? While I'm sure each of us can easily recall those former employees that we were glad to part company with, it might not be so easy to recall those good employees that got away from us. Even the best of companies will from time-to-time…
Research & Benchmarking
I had an overwhelmingly positive response to my post the other day entitled "Identifying Competitive Threats." In fact so much so that today's post is somewhat of a follow-on piece based upon some of the questions that were submitted. As I read the comments and e-mails it became clear to me that while many of you understood that staying abreast of your competition is of critical importance, most…
Title Proliferation
I have recently been doing quite a bit of work in the European Community and more particularly in the UK. One of the things that I've found interesting is that many of our European brethren are not familiar with the term "C-suite executive". As the yank from the colonies, I've found myself attempting to rationally explain the phenomenon of "Title Proliferation" (which is comprised of "Title…
Social Networking for Business
So what's with all the buzz about social networking? What's the difference between old school networking and social networking? As a CEO or entrepreneur, why should you care? With so much being written about the impact of social networking on business and the numerous examples of companies that are capitalizing on its many benefits, I'm amazed at how few companies still just don't get it. Not…
Assessing Brand Value
Assessing a brand's value is not rocket science, nor does it constitute ethereal hocus-pocus. Good brands have real value and understanding this is central to measuring whether or not your brand equity is increasing or whether you have a brand in decline. Whether you are a brand asset manager at a Fortune 500 company responsible for the brand of a product line, a professional concerned about…