What’s Your Strategy?

by Pat OSullivan on / No Comment

Category: Leadership, Strategic Change

Pat-OSullivanSPECIAL GUEST BLOG By Pat O’Sullivan, Strategic Development Mentor, Mentors.ie

Strategy is essential when it comes to setting up a successful business model. This is the case no matter what field or industry you are working in. It is not always easy to define what your strategy is. Many businesses struggle with this type of concern. Mentor.ie offers you the assistance that you need for defining and re-defining your business strategy.

Mentor.ie takes a proven approach at conducting business. This model looks at components like business, people, sales, operations, and strategy. Each component is valuable and necessary for you to accommodate. A qualified mentor will help you to better organize your business. The mentors at Mentor.ie offer years of professional experience. They also have expertise in a variety of areas. This experience and expertise are resources for you when you start to define your strategy.

Looking at Your Field

One of the ways to best compose a strategy is to look at your competition. Who are the players in your field? Are they successful? Mentors can assist you with this sort of information. They often apply their own professional experience with consulting duties. A look at your field will help you to adjust and to apply a winning strategy.

What Has Worked

Mentors don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to composing a strategy. Strategies that have worked in the past are good models. Fortunately for clients of Mentor.ie, mentors have worked and served in diverse fields of expertise. They know how to help start-up companies and businesses. Taking notice of the current climate and proven tactics and strategies, you can put together a successful model.

Utilize Mentors

No one wants to repeat the mistakes that other businesses have fallen to. Avoiding mistakes is a big part of conducting business. Mentors are resources to help you to avoid pitfalls in business. Utilizing them is a smart way to plan ahead in your strategy.

The veteran business professionals at Mentor.ie are skilled at corporate governance. These are individuals who have served on boards of multinational companies in some cases. Mentors offer you decades of knowledge and experience. It is possible to define a strategy with their help that will transform your business and how it performs. This is invaluable expertise at its best.

5 Business Plan “Don’ts”

by ColinLewis on / 1 Comment

Category: Finance, Leadership, Sales & Marketing

SPECIAL GUEST BLOG By Colin Lewis, Marketing and Business Development Mentor, Mentors.ie

As mentioned last week, I've been reviewing David Ronick's take on the "Do"s of successful business plans. There were also five business plan pitch tactics that the losing teams had in common to be avoided:

1. Text Overload

Great slides make complex ideas simple and abstract ideas tangible, using numbers, diagrams, or pictures. But for the most part, words in pitches are best when spoken, not written. So stick to writing the headlines and telling us the details.

Comment from Colin: The MOST ignored piece of advice in history. What possesses people to write essays on slides? If you cannot work this out, go to slideshare.net and find the winners of their presentation of the year for the last few years. No words, yet incredibly powerful.

2. Too Much Focus on Product

We’re judging your business, not just your product. So don’t focus simply on what you’re selling. You should also keep in mind that you’ll probably wind up changing certain aspects of your product once you put it in front of customers and see what they think. So if your pitch is 15 minutes long, don’t spend more than two of those minutes on your products.

3. Passive Research

It’s good to use some statistics in your presentation (e.g. “The market is growing at 10 percent.”), but reserve the details and sources for backup slides. Don’t base your entire business plan on quantitative research. Be sure to show that you’ve gotten out of the library and have gathered some qualitative research by talking to potential customers. “We interviewed 50 customers and they said…” carries much more weight than “A study showed…”

Comment from Colin: ‘Studies show’ or worse, ‘recent studies show’ is up there with ‘people say’. I always want to shout ‘who says?’ when people say this!!!

4. Overlooked Execution

A start-up idea by itself is pretty much worthless; it’s all about the execution. The weakest teams underestimated how much time and money it would take to develop and tweak a product, or they outright failed to think through how they’d attract customers in a cost-effective, repeatable way. So be sure to spend time really thinking about and researching how to properly execute your idea.

Comment from Colin: For all you people who require NDAs, remember this point. All the ideas in the world are irrelevant. All that matters is execution. If you ask me for an NDA, I start getting suspicious as it proves that people do not know the difference between and idea and execution.

5. Lack of Authenticity

Stick to what you know and care about. One team pitched an idea related to parenting, but didn’t include even one story or picture of a child anywhere in their pitch. As a result, it felt like the team wasn’t truly passionate about parenting—even though that probably was not the case.

Ironically, some of the best business ideas in this year’s competition rated poorly with the judges because they simply weren’t pitched well. It’s important to understand that pitch tactics can make a huge difference in how well your business plan is received. So be sure to take your good idea, and turn it into a great pitch.

Comment from Colin: Possibly the most important statement of the lot. Building a better mousetrap does not mean they will beat a trip to your door.

 

5 Business Plan “Do”s

by ColinLewis on / No Comment

Category: Leadership, Mentoring Questions

SPECIAL GUEST BLOG By Colin Lewis, Marketing and Business Development Mentor, Mentors.ie

David Ronick is a co-founder of UpStart Bootcamp, but is also a from Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest. As somebody who is a judge on the Marketing Institute of Ireland’s All Ireland Marketing Awards, I know you can learn a tonne from this sort of thing.

I have noted in the past on previous blogs what I learnt – as they say, the teacher learns more than the student – or at least, the person doing the judging gains as much if not more!

Here is what David said which pitch approaches seemed to work best:

1. Bookends

The best pitches started and ended with the same 30-second, crystal clear explanation of what was to come: The customers, their needs, the solution, and the amount of capital sought. That helped the judges process and remember everything in between.

Comment from Colin: A rehash of the old ‘tell ‘em, tell ‘em what your gonna tell ‘em, and tell ‘em again’ mantra. A must-do: don’t overestimate your audience!

2. Comparables

At some point in most pitches, judges think to themselves, “Will this really work?” The best way to convince them is to show that you’re already getting results. If you are just starting out, another powerful approach is to cite real world comparables. For example, if your exit strategy is to sell your company to P&G, tell us how they recently bought companies similar to the one you are planning, for how much, and why.

Comment from Colin: AKA Don’t assume they will know – make sure they know

3. Emotion

Every student used logic. But the winners built on that logic with an appeal to emotions. Winners brought their arguments to life, using examples, stories, or short demonstrations. Judges could sense their passion, and imagine how their customers would feel.

Comment from Colin: Irish people are supposed to be good at telling stories. Don’t be afraid to do that even in the most professional sober places. Everybody actually wants to hear a story, because it speeds up the processing of information and gives you personality.

4. Market Research

The best competitors really understood their markets and taught us about them. They explained what parts of their industries were growing and why. That gave the judges insights and perspective, which helped us evaluate their pitches. Not to mention, it also gave us confidence in the teams.

5. Proof of Demand

Last but not least, the best teams had clearly been out in the field, talking with and listening to customers. They shared customer comments, survey results, and data collected from interviews and test market campaigns. In short, they convinced the judges that customers wanted their products.

Comment from Colin: For 4 and 5 – ‘Nuff said.

Check back next week for the top 5 DON'Ts for business plans.

Source of article: Inc Magazine goo.gl/1wQgI

12 Ways to Ensure Your Business Does Not Run Out of Cash

by SeanDonnelly on / 1 Comment

Category: Finance, Sales & Marketing

SPECIAL GUEST BLOG By Sean Donnelly, Financial Management Mentor, Mentors.ie

Businesses don’t necessarily fail because they are not profitable – most businesses fail simply because they run out of cash.The following are some actions to ensure your business does not run out of cash:

1) Reduce stocks levels where possible. Ask suppliers for more frequent deliveries if possible. If there is slow-moving stock, seek ways to sell it at a discounted price at home or abroad.

2) Put a very strong focus on debtors, particularly overdue debts. Ensure payment commitments are confirmed in writing by either party and that these are followed up as per agreement. Seek staggered payments for all overdue debts. Offer settlement discounts if your bank situation warrants it. Differentiate the ‘won’t pay’ from the ‘can’t pay’. Initiate quick & strong legal action where warranted.

3) Ask suppliers for extended credit terms and seek agreement to instalment payments.

4) Review the debtor’s ledger for debts needing to be written off and the vat to be reclaimed if you are on a ‘vat on sales invoice’ basis.

5) Ensure you are on a ‘vat on cash received’ basis for vat payments if your business qualifies. This will ensure you are only paying the vat on monies actually collected.

6) Seek invoice financing/discounting if appropriate and available.

7) Examine all cost areas within your business to identify all costs which can be eliminated to conserve cash.

8 ) Review your sales terms. What are the payment terms currently offered? Review incentives for prompt payment. Ensure you have a strong retention of title clause. Review marketing methods, new sales channels & online marketing & selling.

9) Review surplus assets and capital equipment which could be sold.

10) Do a revised Business Plan to run your business on a more profitable basis. Have a weekly cash forecast of receipts & payments and compare actual with forecast. Decide what changes need to be made to ensure the cash situation is improved.

11) Review all bank loan terms & conditions and seek rescheduling based on the revised Business Plan.

12) Review all available tax incentives for the business including R&D allowances, PRSI exemptions, increased capital allowances based on cleantech technologies, three year tax exemption etc.

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