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Subject: Profitably Linking Your Business, Profession & Purpose Part 1

Author: Dennis S. Vogel

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 15:37:34 11/26/06 Sun NOTE- As I do in many things I write, I introduce related topics, then I tie them together. So, please be patient & you’ll learn the whole lesson. Many small business owners have trouble implementing what (the late) Ray Kroc & Robert Kiyosaki advised. It’s important to distinguish your business & from your profession. Kroc said he was a salesman. The most profitable things he sold were McDonald’s franchises. It was his profession. His business was finding, buying & owning real estate. McD’s sells the real estate to franchisees, but real estate sales don’t make McD’s so profitable. It & franchisees use the real estate to increase their profitability. Location Is More Important In Commodity Businesses Many tout the importance of location in retailing. I’d like to debunk it, but I can’t do it completely. But I don’t accept the garbage of “Build it & they’ll come” & “The Better Mouse Trap” Myth. Though marketing is important, unless a business offers what a target market PERCEIVES as an exclusive, proprietary product/service, people will buy from the most convenient competitor. Part of this convenience is location—consumers finding & going to the business, then getting back on track to continue what they were planning to do (If they get lost, it interfere with their plans.). I emphasized “perceives” because, as an example, though Coca-Cola is made from a trade-secret formula (which has changed frequently), it tastes much like other colas. But millions rebelled when the formula was publicly changed. But when the formula is changed gradually & quietly, there’s no outcry about it. Coke can be & is easily replaced by other colas because, other than its brand, it’s too much like other colas. Place Is 1 of Marketing’s 4 Ps, Promotion (Another Marketing P) Can Trump Place I’m not a real estate agent or a retailing consultant. I can help business owners overcome bad locations, if they offer things with significant, unique value. (There are other variables I won’t get into here.) My business is building awareness & acceptance of businesses, products & services. My profession is providing marketing & selling-related programming. I give much information away; I have some proprietary information (some I paid for, the rest I figured out), which I won’t give for free. Focusing on building, then retaining awareness & acceptance makes the marketing & selling-related programming effective. But if I told business owners I want to sell them some awareness & acceptance, would enough of them want to “buy” it? Awareness & acceptance can be built & arranged, but it can’t be bought. Could anybody sell $1 million worth of awareness & acceptance? How would it be measured? The awareness & acceptance is the result of the marketing & selling-related programming. This is a bit different than being in the hamburger making/selling profession & a real estate business. Ray Kroc probably didn’t have a real estate license. But he didn’t sell real estate like a real estate agent does. NOTE- The marketing & selling-related programming includes ways to build awareness & acceptance, my business & profession don’t exist independently. A McD’s franchisee can’t be in business without adequately maintaining the property. Even if people would still buy from him/her, McD’s would take away the franchise rights. A McD’s franchisee’s profession is also making & selling food. The business is a bit different than Kroc’s. Franchisees maintain their properties; it’s their business. Without it, they’ll be out of the McD’s business. Bringing Professions & Businesses Into Better Focus Your profession will probably be more tangible—easier to quantify & explain--than your business. Though doctors may not like to think of their practices as being businesses, businesses are made to earn revenue/profits. Their profession is healing & preferably preventing disease & injury. Though prevention is worth far more, people tend to focus on paying for cures. How can we quantify the value of prevention? How do we know, for sure, if anything has been prevented? We know if it hasn’t happened yet. But how would we know if it would’ve happened even if we hadn’t done anything to prevent it. We can save lives by removing tumors & by protecting against a disease or injury. But unless we perceive an imminent threat, like an out-of-control car being a foot away from us, how would we know if something has been prevented? Two people can be exposed to the same germs, but yet, one might become sick. Two people could fall 10 feet & only one of them might have broken bones. Order Up Like Jack Trout & Al Ries wrote in "Bottom Up Marketing,” the right strategy makes the right tactic work.” The right real estate makes a McDonald’s franchise more profitable because they’re interdependent. One may be, but isn’t necessarily, more important than the other. They should be accomplished in the correct order. McDonald’s has had the winning “formula” for years, but it’s implemented after locations are found & purchased. It didn’t buy land then figure out what to put on the land. It doesn’t jump into a city that seems ripe unless it identifies what the city is ripe for. Identifying what makes a city ripe helps preparing & finding other ripe cities. Putting a franchise on the best real estate is a vital substrategy. McDonald’s has the money & clout to find & buy the land it wants, so it can implement its substrategy. Of course, the right real estate can become the wrong location when situations change. It happened to many little stores & restaurants when 4-lane highways were built & tourists stopped driving through business districts. It also happens when attractive (popular destination) businesses set up in a different part of town or a different city. The real estate & lease payments in those places are too expensive for small business owners. WARNING: It doesn’t mean you should spend your money on a location near a McDonald’s restaurant. There are other factors determining what’s a good location for a particular business. McDonald’s has various formats & lack of parking space can be bad for one format, but make another work even better. If you move your business to be near a McD’s express (focused on drive-through customers) location & your customers couldn’t find convenient parking spots, you’d be in trouble. A franchisee can have the best location for a McDonald’s in town, but if s/he loses the franchise rights it’s devastating. If every trace of McDonald’s identity would be removed from the property, people wouldn’t instantly know what to expect there (products & services). They may recognize it as a quick service restaurant, but not know what it offers. Going there just to find out & leave disappointed, would waste time & increase the duration of hunger. A former McD’s franchisee may sell similar food, but not Mcfood. S/he may offer better tasting, more nutritious, more satisfying food, but without the “Mc” label, many would judge it as inferior. The restaurant may be operated with better standards than McD’s requirements, but better is a perception to those who aren’t discerning or not trained to know the difference. By him/herself, the former McD’s franchisee probably won’t have the resources to “reeducate” consumers to appreciate the difference. Fundamental Differences McDonald’s invests billions of dollars showing what it sells, even when its menu doesn’t change. When something else is introduced, it invests far more to raise awareness & ACCEPTANCE. After the Green Bay Packers lost a game, Vince Lombardi started the next practice by holding a ball & saying, “Men, this is a football.” He drilled players on the fundamentals of the game & their part in it. I advise & challenge you to realize you could lose each customer & convinced prospect, if you don’t remind them how your business fits or should fit in their lives. I dare you to admit, consumers can & will buy from other businesses or not buy at all, if you don’t drill yourself on what’s important to them. In general, as a starting action point, your profession may be what you offer—what people will hopefully buy from you. Your job may be what directly helps customers. Your business may be what makes it possible for you to do your job & be in your profession. This may vary depending on the business category. You need to find customers’ priorities, so you can set your priorities. You should determine/discover what your profession is & how your business makes it possible & easier to serve customers. If your profession & business aren’t compatible, you’ll have some changes to make. Dennis S. Vogel thrivingbusiness@email.com If you’re not actively building awareness & acceptance of what you offer, you’re helping competitors, not yourself. You need more information & methods to help you help more customers. Help yourself to that information & those methods by using these URLs. http://www.voy.com/31049/ http://www.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Profitably Linking Your Business, Profession & Purpose Part 2	Dennis S. Vogel	16:24:06 12/21/06 Thu
Profitably Linking Your Business, Profession & Purpose Part 3	Dennis S. Vogel	20:56:35 01/23/07 Tue
Profitably Linking Your Business, Profession & Purpose Part 4	Dennis S. Vogel	21:16:15 02/19/07 Mon
Profitably Linking Your Business, Profession & Purpose Part 5	Dennis S. Vogel	22:10:50 03/31/07 Sat
Side Bar—Create & Build Your Chain Of Success	Dennis S. Vogel	22:48:48 04/28/07 Sat
Re: Profitably Linking Your Business, Profession & Purpose Part 6	Dennis S. Vogel	13:41:42 05/30/07 Wed
Sidebar 2- The Right Conditions For Profitability & General Buying Criteria	Dennis S. Vogel	16:42:11 06/30/07 Sat
Part 7 Tying This Together	Dennis S. Vogel	23:30:24 08/11/07 Sat
You Get Paid Quickly & Customers Get Served Quickly	Dennis S. Vogel	13:18:30 08/30/07 Thu