I have been busy and unwell the last 1-2 weeks. sorry for not writing for quite a while. But that didn’t deter me to read some good articles on marketing, strategies and business.

Below is the link to a solid brief on Marketing and behavioral economics. It also contain some strategies for your tacticals in your business. i am very sure you will like it. For more of this type of article you should go to mckinsey.com have fun!

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/A_marketers_guide_to_behavioral_economics_2536

What do you think? You can also subscribe to Mckinsey Quarterly. I highly recommend it! Cheers!

This content is rather unique to be captured but i personally think it is relevant. In fact, assuming you have your Chief Marketing as the 2nd man, supply/logistic chain is a major concern. On the other hand, assuming you are your own boss, wouldn’t you be concern about these as well?

I am trying to rationalize marketing beyond advertising, sales or technology. Like i said in my Marketing Plan S6PEC, marketing is a strategy and a strategic business tool. And i am going to stick to that. I try to make this post light and yet meaningful. if you found this useful, let me know because i think it is timely to expand (rather change), marketing to broader understanding.

Logistics management is a subset of supply chain management. Whilst supply chain management focus on the overall integration of business functions and the supplies from suppliers to stores and customers, logistics management focus on how those items and data being transported and disseminated and support the overall supply chain management. Logistics management is key to supply chain management planning because it helps to determine the effectiveness and efficiency that effects the topline and bottomline of a business.

Definition of logistics management from Council of Supply Chain Professionals:

“Logistics Management is that part of Supply Chain Management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods, services and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customers’ requirements.”

One example is assuming an aluminum smeltering plant that is located at Sarawak. The suppliers or raw materials are located at Sabah. The question logistics management should as is “How do we transport those materials or supplies to the plant to be processed?”. Say we choose land transport, next we need to know is the cost effectiveness, time and also risk. Wouldn’t it be better if the smeltering plant is set up in Sabah instead? Probably.

On the same example, supply chain management questions would be, “how much of those materials do we need to buy from Sabah?”, “Is the raw materials can be found somewhere else that is much more convenient?”, “Does the quality meets the customer’s requirements?”

Definition of logistics management from Council of Supply Chain Professionals:

“Supply chain management encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all logistics management activities. Importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third party service providers, and customers. In essence, supply chain management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies.”

Second example is let say we managed to transport those items to Sarawak from Sabah using land transport, logistics management should ask how do we transport those items to the customers e.g. distributors. And assuming majority of our distributors are located in Pahang and some are importers from Taiwan. Logistics management then again has to rationalize the transportation plan to the distributors. Other than “physical transport”, logistics management also concerns about the infrastructures such as how information technology can assist all the information integration such as designs, shipment tracking, data processing vis-à-vis the orders from distributors, warehousing and also availability of such transport especially for an international operation. In some instances, logistics management also has to look into the security of the logistics.

Thoughtful and Well-Planned SCM and LCM helps to serve customers better and increase profitability.

On the same scenario, supply chain management will look into matters such as inventory, supplier’s contracts, product design, production sourcing and also pricing.

Unless the manufacturer works up to only distributors, logistics management has to also expand its planning up to reaching the actual consumers that consume or use the products. Nevertheless, in logistics management planning the manufacturer can decide whether to own the transport or outsource or partner with other companies to smoothen the operation.

Logistics provider such as 3PL (Third Party Logistic) partner e.g. UPS, Federal Express and DHL are good example how logistics management can be a separated altogether in a supply chain but pertinent to the overall supply chain planning.

I still believe that focusing on customers as main driver of profits and lever to increase business profitability will be here for the next 50 years or so. With current development in many emerging economies and BRIC, more and more customers will have the power to buy and make purchase decision. Furthermore, did you know that it’s only less than 50 years ago that women beginning to have purchasing power? What about teens now? Where they have higher disposable income from their parents? These are customers. And yes, they are multi-segments and ultra fragmented.

Cheers!

Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)

“A woman is carrying a handbag, and that she’s wearing a coat, which she’ll probably want to remove once she’s inside the store, meaning she’ll have to carry that, too. God gave here two good hands but she’s shopping with one. If she selects something, the free hand carries it. Now she’s down to no hands. Maybe, if it’s small and light, she can tuck the purchase under one arm. Perhaps she’ll sling the handbag over a shoulder or forearm. Then she’ll have….let’s call it a hand and a quarter. If she picks one more thing, though, she’ll run out of hands. Only an extremely motivated buyer will persevere. Human anatomy has just declared this shopping spree over.”

What do you get out of that? I said, “I need my hands!!”. And i want to relate that to strategy.

Strategy, in that story is our “business” hands. If we are too occupied or “full” with strategies we are going to get stucked. Just like that woman’s hands. There was one CEO i know that has his hands full of strategies until he can’t carry it anymore. In our hands, we can only carry certain things for a limited time only. then we have to unload.

With our strategies (hands!) also, business can pick and choose what they want and what they do not want. For example for a food retail business, they can choose to sell inside the mall or outside the mall. Both require different strategies. What if they want to sell both inside and outside the mall? Chaos! I have seen in Malaysia, whereby few retail brands try to have “captured both sides” of the mall but fail to do so because people are confuse. Customers are confuse on two things. Firstly, why do you need to have two outlets in the same mall? And which one should i go to? One thing about customers, when we are given options to choose most of the time we fail to choose. Customers go somewhere else to other outlet that has single message per outlet.

On the other hand, for business to business (B2B) businesses, having “hands” definitely very important and have to set it right from the start. i recently learned that large companies operation is very complex. A lot ogf stakeholders and usually steps taken are far too many and planning is on very long range too. Therefore, making sure the “hands” are picking up the right strategies are very crucial.

View Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC HERE

Alternatively, business hands also can be extended. Say you want to expand to new market in new country, you definitely cannot do it alone. We need a helping hand. This is where friendly parties, partners, sponsors and networks play very important role. We need to talk to them, identify and select them accordingly to become our extended hands for our business.

I recently met one CEO of a growing global university and he shared me a story. he said that in some African countries, people are still don’t want to spend on education. people save money under their pillow because they are so worried and have low access to information. they don’t trust bank so much and they live a traditional life. he also added, to set up a global university there definitely a big challenge, but the moment the country wakes up (just like China!), it is going to give a handsome return. So how he plans to do it? Find strong local partners and support them. This is because local partners, most of them have less money and do small trading business. The idea of effective and efficient are definitely alien to them but they are hard working.

I personally found this approach is very interesting and unique. Nevertheless, a good example of extended hands are needed if you want  to go beyond your home base. But what if your hands are still full?

One, is to pray to God for a stronger back and not a lighter loads! Two, you need to prioritize. Prioritization is easy said than done. Even i sometimes overlook prioritizing, especially during busy period. I remember someone said, “when the going gets up, everyone is very happy!’. This refers to stock market bullishness, when it’s up everyone starts to forget basic things. But it certainly helpful to get our priority right.

I normally write down and prioritize based on time, processes and outcome. Lastly i also measure ROI. Sometimes, certain things you do is very painful but it’s going to give the highest ROI, so i choose to do that first. But as for you, you need to decide what’s best.

I will discuss more on Maven marketing in my next post, how to use it as your extended hands for your business. Cheers!

Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)

Pricing is super important for “making it sells” and “making your profits”. Agree? But often times for new business owners, they are sometimes overcharged and on the other undercharged. Thus only profiting is just a dream. Because they lose both ways; overcharged they get less sales, and underchared they make losses for every additional output.

What are things to look for when we do our pricing plan? How to determine the correct pricing strategies for our product? Here are EIGHT Tips on Pricing as a guide.

1. Have a pricing plan
- i always emphasized on having a plan including pricing plan. it’s like this, before you launch or introduce your product/service, i suggest you to take a piece of paper and write down what you plan to sell and how you plan to price it. write it down and see it for yourself. does those information make sense to you?

2. Know your segment- different price is for different segment? Yes, this is fact. i know someone who sells women dress that he gets from a supplier price $45 for segment A and charge $95 for segment B. Segment A receives the dress in a plastic bag and segment B in a striking colored brown bag. Got it?

3. Know your cost
- many costing methods covered in my book Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC such as cost plus, mark up and so on. But the gist is, “know how much you paid for the product”. The cost you should include are raw material, transport, miscellaneous and time. Then you break them down into per unit cost to see how much is the cost distribution. if you are running a restaurant, factor in your fixed cost like rent, overheads and utililities. If you are selling services, most probably your additional unit production lessen at least by 30% – 50%. So do the math!

4. Set your pricing point
- pricing point should include your minimum profit you want to make. Say you use mark up pricing at 20%, therefore your $10 cost price should be sold at minimum at $12 because you marked-up 20%. But as question whether 20% enough for you to sustain business? Therefore, when you set pricing point please include your risk factor as well. for example slow season, pilferage rate, spoilt and so on.

5. Multi pricing
- lately i realize multi pricing can give greater profits if done correctly. i have a friend who runs a toy shop and whenever certain toys on high demand, he will increase the price that is enough to make him keep up with the competition (when he priced lower, customer may think his product is inferior and when he priced too high, customer may think it’s too expensive!). what he does is to gauge the demand and look around pay attention to his customers and competition. he will reduce certain less-demanded toys and display it at the main storefront. when customers are “captured” with the cheaper toy, he goes in and then he will see the high-demand toys and the rest is better sales and greater profits. customers and sellers happy!

6. Keep your overheads intact
- this is important when you have sales team working on project selling (involve in large contracts and items) or you work with distributors. Sometimes, after working with them for a particular project, you may realize your cost run too faraway and eat up into your profit. i recommend to have constant check and monitor the performance vs incentives vs achieved sales

7. Scan your environment pricing
- it is common now to have competition in any business you go. there are always someone who has done it first, therefore i recommend to do a little benchmarking. but not getting overwhelmed with the data, but rather “be in the know”. For example consulting is becoming more expensive and sometimes too expensive. are you willing to make it cheaper and still offer the same or greater material and content?

8. Trend
- when the trend comes, demand will surge like crazy. i still remember a friend of mine who imports Tamagochi (virtual pet) 10 years ago. it was “D” thing and it was super hot. One Tamagochi can sell up to $40 and that is consider average price. He bought tonnes of those pets and within 2 years those pets is a fad. no one plays Tamagotchi anymore because many already can afford Sony Playstation and so on. Watch the trend because when the trend goes off, you are sure to make losses!

Hope it helps! For further marketing strategies and how to have a solid marketing plan, please view my book Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC or DOWNLOAD SUMMARY HERE.

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I highly recommend you to view and subsequently purchase it. it’s only USD 24.50 (ONLY USD 19.90, WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!) and that will give you better control and ideas on how to manage your business. Buy Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC here

Just a few sheets of paper and rigorous implementation. That’s all. Sound easy? It is supposed to be easy, but many fails in both planning (or writing) the few sheets of paper and rigorous implementation. I may not be able to help you with the rigorous implementation because it requires resources such as many and people to hire to “rigour” it, but i can surely assist you in fighting the other half; the solid few sheets of paper. Which i refer as “marketing plan” for small business owners and entrepreneurs. i am fully confident that small business is going to thrive in the next century and going to become “d” business not far from now. So you still want to know about the “few solid sheets of paper”? You should be because it’s going to save your business, not to mention other than that.

Few months ago i gathered substantial amount of information (both in theory and practical application) from various sources. Sources are from books like philip kotler, malcolm mcdonald, sergio zyman, levitt, jack welch, fenwick (digital marketer) and many more. other sources like harvard business review, MIT Sloan Management Review magazine, mckinsey, boston consulting group, gartner reports, tns and so on. I also chat with few local and international marketing practitioners, and lastly my own experience as marketing and strategy consultant. What i gathered? You only need to have a few solid sheets of paper to plan and make your marketing work.

1. Your customer
This is key in any marketing plan and business. You don’t equate your customer with other business customers. For example if you are selling Japanese car, you can’t equate the need of your customer with the one that going for European car. They are just different. Always look at your customer and write down every single thing about them. Ask the 5W 1H questions to yourself, people around you and the customers.

2. About You
As business owner, i know sometimes we get too deep into our own idea and we were blinded by the beauty and joy it brings but guys, when something going too sweet, you got to be careful. It is like when you first dating a girl and you like her so much; that whatever your friend tell you was ignored. That is the same feeling when we are too engrossed with our own ideas. We need to open up and look for other angle and ready to accept criticism of that idea. I have been there and i have lost quite a bit just because i fondle the “business” and drown together!

3. What is your business
You need to ask this question from the practical side in terms of its capability and capacity. Capability is skills set and capacity is ‘engine size” – how much can you do. For example as a new restaurant you have the capability to cook nice food but you don’t have the capacity to do food delivery yet. You follow? And when you ask this question, do not ask and answer intellectually because you end up confuse yourself. Plan for 6 months first before looking at how the business should be in 6 years.

4. Distribution
In distribution principle, the bigger your network and distribution channel the better your business is. this is fact and true. Check how else can you distribute. If non-perishable and dry product, you will find it easier but can you afford to buy bulk and warehouse it? If food or perishable item, you will find a bit challenging. if you are in service, can you duplicate your service using network or join venture with other similar service provider but in a different market? Think of this.

5. Promotion
If you don’t announce it, people don’t know. Put aside some budget to spend on marketing campaigns, and please try using online marketing as one of your strategy. Global business is not so global anymore, transportation is getting cheaper and if you are in knowledge business, you can do it online now. If physical product, make sure you tap sources like social media (Facebook, MySpace and Ning), blogs, websites, online banners and search engines. big billboards, tv ads and print ads are traditional media and exorbitantly expensive. The ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) also very low. I recently with a client and compare to Phase 1 and Phase 2 marketing spending, they shaved almost 50% spending in Phase 2 and getting better results!

6. Employee
If your business is labour intensive like restaurant, service counters or manufacturing then you need to look for competent people that can run machine, understand operation and willing to work with haphazard processes (unless you run a franchise business). Simply because as a new business and small, or new product, we dont know how the product or business perform in the market. It can be a bomb or doom. But what i learn is we need to give some time to let it grow.

7. Fliers
For a new business, fliers is a must. don’t start the business without it because you are risking a lot of eyeballs especially if you have a physical shop. You want to attract people to come to your fish shop, trading shop, saloon, data centre and so on. While eyeballs don’t give direct business, eyeballs can develop trust, reach and build confidence. my experience in restaurant and service business, the moment i put in fliers, i can safely sure i will get the next 2 months business. Yes, it is that powerful but there will be a lot of wastage too. Especially if your business is on green product, you gotta think again!

8. Pricing
Price determines your profit. I just got to know my client today (a new Head of a Food Division) just told me that the previous Head screwed up on the pricing for their newly operated food court. Now after 3 months operation, they are heavily debted and this is because the food court was well received and jammed-packed daily and it runs 24 hours. the problem is, with every customer they sell they are losing money. You follow me? So, the more they sell while they have the volume but because the pricing is at below cost price (for some internal reasons and overly subsidied), the food court makes losses in 3 months! be careful about pricing my friend. Have a pricing plan and pricing points. it is ok to give discount and promotions, but you need to plan it.

9. Risk
Starting a new business or new product always come with risk factors. I am not going to brag about risk management just like some investment banker, typical consultant (that never run real business) and academician (intellects that never be in the real market!) because they don’t really know what we are facing down (or is it up!) there. Risk comes and goes on daily basis but we need to identify what type of risk. is it bearable? are they harmful? how long you expect to last i.e. crisis? how do you plan to recover? what is the cut-off point? what is the business impact? who is involved and get affected? how you want to compensate or recover? what is your nett risk/loses? These questions, are brushed aside or “simplistically” not important by those 3 categories of people. When in risky situation i have only one advice: search for information and data aggresively. dig dig dig!

10. Strategy
What you really need is a few great strategies. in fact i currently practice, at maximum is three solid strategies. enough to make a difference, even a small step but it is still superior than not moving at all right? it is better to own and run a slum laundry but with solid strategy rather than an exclusive laundry without strategy. you lose money greatly without strategy. but from my observation, good strategy need some time to get effect, so give it time to flourish. nonetheless, it shouldnt take too long because if it is too long and persist, consult your doctor!!

I am sharing more of these findings, views, knowledge, experiences or “whatchaever” you call it in my Marketing Plan E-book which is in the 2nd final process of editing and polishing. it should be released in a couple week time. READY!! You can BUY it NOW ONLY USD 19.90 with LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!

I highly recommend you to purchase it, and i guarantee you it is going to be very cheap and worth money spend. it is so low that you will not believe it. i shall put the content to be viewed on SlideShare/Entreprenovator so you can know what are you buying. Like i said, in marketing you just need a few solid sheets of paper and you are ready to go guys. Forget about marketing software and all those bombastic name gadgets/technology for marketing, as small business owners and entrepreneurs we have our guts, instinct and balls to keep the business afloat and running. So, let’s just do that first and make your money and more profits.

Cheers! Should you require any further information please email to entreprenovators@gmail.com