30 May 2007 
The ABC’s of Marketing: The Allocation of Budget Cascade
Your Business Blogger recently had a conversation with a reporter from Forbes.com. She posed the following questions for start-ups,
[What are some] marketing strategies that are worth the money.
If a cash-strapped small business owner were to pick one big marketing expense, what would it be and how much should they spend?
We’re not necessarily limiting this to one kind of marketing (online, direct mail, etc.), so feel free to cast a wide net with your thoughts.
Following are some notes as we talked.
Marketing has the well known “Five P’s”
Let us will make the dangerous assumption that these first 3 P’s are perfect in this scenario.
Product
Price
Packaging
And let’s lay money down on Promotion and Place:
Promotion
So what get’s the best return on the small business budget for the best reach, frequency and awareness?
Find a Friend
Get a reputation
Rent them, if you must
Marketing is what a sales guy does when he’s got no one to talk to.
Marketing today should be a seamless continuum from Bits to Atoms .
Here is the Allocation of Budget Cascade where ever the small business owner is found — bricks or clicks. Let’s start with $15k and go down the funnel:
Bits
1) Website $1,000
Interactive — Your on line presence will be more than an on line brochure.
Information — Free content on line. Your site will be a resource.
Blog — immediate interaction with prospects and customers.
2) Search Engines $2,000
Google, Yahoo, are the new Yellow Pages. Buy ad space and clicks to attempt to drive prospects to your site or phone number.
Atoms
3) Professional organizations $3,000.
Find an umbrella and get under it.The Small Business Owner as Rainmaker — The Boss is the embodiment of sales and marketing. The owner generates the leads and closes the sale.
4) Professional education $4,000.
Not yours, your prospects. The smart small business owner develops a service parallel to the product.
In the late 80’s Your Business Blogger was part of a medical device start-up. With no money.
We were launching new products, with new technology, teaching new surgical techniques, new medicine.
Conventional wisdom dictated hiring a half-dozen advanced-skill nurses to teach around the country. Our Board of Directors said no budget. This was a problem. Our product required extensive inservice training.
With a product that was 100 times the cost of its nearest competitive substitute.
So what’s a thinly capitalized company in trouble to do?
Throw a party.
Events have four components to be SAFE: Speaker, Attendees, Food, Entertainment.
Where we sold,
Features, what the product is
Advantages, what the product does
Benefits, So What? The product has a superlative: faster, better, cheaper
5) Professionals $5,000
Install a odd number of advisors and treat them like a board of directors — with out the liability nonsense and the need to cover them under Directors and Officers insurance. Use your board of advisors for contacts, consulting and access to capital.
Businesses, small and large should use small, easy to cancel marketing programs as pilots. Test. Then feed or kill and launch another and measure the return on investment.
25 May 2007
Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery
A post from last year and the year before by the wife of Your Business Blogger, Charmaine.
Every time we’ve made the left turn onto Eisenhower Drive, and passed through the imposing brick gates of Arlington National Cemetery, I’ve been overwhelmed with emotion. Family members of those buried at Arlington National Cemetery are given a special pass and may drive onto the Hallowed Grounds to visit the grave of their loved one. It’s an enormous honor which makes me feel humbled.
The Penta-Posse
at Arlington National Cemetery
My husband’s father served thirty years in the United States Navy, and died the year I married into the family, so I didn’t know him well. And the fact is, after a lifetime of nine-month Mediterranean tours, wars, and rumors of war, there is a lot my husband doesn’t know as well.
However, over the 15 years that we’ve been married, I have gotten to know my mother-in-law well. She doesn’t talk either about the sacrifices she made, but there is one story that she has told me several times.
Once, when my father-in-law was out on tour, and she was home with three small children, the car broke down and, of course, she had to take care of it. My husband marched up and said, “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll fix it.” He was about five years old at the time.
My mother-in-law laughs. . . the little man, takin’ care of things. But it makes me cry.
We owe a lot to our military families.
When we visited Arlington this past week, we passed at least three funeral ceremonies on the way to Section 64. I lost track of the fresh graves and the still-standing tents, either just vacated by other grieving families, or awaiting the afternoon’s fresh, raw sorrow.
As we pulled up on Bradley Avenue, an Air Force honor guard was marching precisely back to their bus after a ceremony for an airman who had been a POW in Korea. While we searched for my father-in-law’s headstone, an empty horse-drawn caisson lumbered past, and settled briefly in the shade nearby, awaiting their next assignment. . .
We found my father-in-law’s headstone: The front has the Christian Cross with the old Chief’s Curriculum Vita. Chief Yoest cut high school to catch World War II. He retired with rows of ribbons and a “v” device, and pinned butterbars on his boy. He now has a grandson, The Dude, who bears his name and wants to be a Navy pilot.
The reverse of the stone is blank, awaiting the inscripton for Chief Yoest’s high school sweetheart, his wife, Jack’s mom, “Babcia” (Polish for Grandmother), who is still with us. In the end, they will be buried together, an honor she earned.
As we turned to go, the Diva took her jingle-bell necklace from around her neck, and left it on the headstone. A fitting tribute for a warrior.
Sailors, rest your oars.
We drove back down Bradley Avenue — past a fresh grave covered by a tarp. In front of us, sparkling in the bright sunlight of a gorgeous day, stretched row after row of white marble markers, orderly, peaceful, some weathered, others new and crisply chiseled . . .
I turned to the Penta-Posse. “I want you to look,” I said. “I want you to understand, that each one of these headstones represents someone who gave their life so that you could be free.”
They were quiet and solemn. The weight of it is beyond measure.
The Dreamer said, “Don’t cry, Mom.”
We made the right turn onto Eisenhower. We drove slowly toward the exit, passing the drive to the Tomb of the Unknowns to our left, until we came to a crosswalk thronged with tourists. The guard on duty motioned to the crowd to stop, and we drove through, passing through the gates, back to a busy day, leaving behind — the curious crowds, the chattering school children. . . and the silent stones.
Blackfive with “Opening the Gates of Heaven.”
Intel DumpMarine Corps Moms
See Traffic Jam
Jo’s Cafe has Specials.
Mudville Gazette has Open Post.
Michelle Malkin has Memorial Day Links.
Wiz Bang has links.
LaShawn has tributes.
California Conservative has Memorial Day Tribute.
19 May 2007
Free Publicity and How To Walk The Red Carpet
L to R: Elaine Donnelly, President,
Center for Military Readiness;
Charmaine; Chris Buckley;
Your Business Blogger “Isn’t that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame up ahead?” Asks Charmaine.
“I think so,” I said. “Quick, let’s get in their frame.”
Charmaine and Your Business Blogger are on The Red Carpet. Roped off from the unwashed masses as we enter the Washington Hilton for the White House Correspondent’s Dinner Saturday night. Cameras, flashing lights, squeals.
No. Not for us. George Clooney is here somewhere. Probably trying to get in our frame.
We are there for the reception only, courtesy NRO. But we still get a walk on the red side.
There is a science to RCW, Red Carpet Walking. It takes years of study. But this should be a part of your business etiquette.
Here’s Walking In In Seven Steps:
1) Never a wear name tag. Ever see Madonna with badge on her breast? Or anything at all, besides traffic cones?
2) Drop the drink. It may be sparkling water, but looks like scotch and soda. Your board will think you are boozing it up. Or worse — you’re having a good time. Smiling with the staff.
3) Look back at your backdrop. Your assistant should handle this, but be aware of what’s behind you. If I did, I would have noticed the light poles growing out of our heads. See pic above. Not cool — even if the light poles were for the tennis courts where Justice Scalia was headed.
4) Delay at the door. This gives the person ahead of you time to clear out. It will also compress your posse behind you, if your entourage is to trail. Count to Five. Expectation mounts. Walk in with your head back and smile. They’ve been waiting for you.
5) Stop for the Paparazzi. And cameras. Even fast shutter times might blur. Walk slow. Smile. Again. The cameras never blink, as Dan Rather said.
6) Never wear a coat. Fur yes, but not outer winter wear. You are walking only from the limo car to the door. No need for a coat. And it hassles the staff. You don’t do coat checks.
7) Get in the picture. Now if Maria Bartoloma is ahead of you, cameras will follow her. Camera equipment, as has been well documented, is carried by lonely, sex-starved men. Photo-journalists are like 14-year-old boys, but on the payroll. Get close behind the celebrity, especially if it’s a woman. It makes it difficult to photoshop you out.
Now you know The Red Carpet as an important component of Your Management Training. In case your daughter is part of the Academy Awards, or for your blockbuster IPO, or if you simply walk through the wrong door.
Like we did.
Cross post at Reasoned Audacity.
Open Post at Mudville Gazette.
16 May 2007
What We Do — Help Managers Anticipate, Adapt and Learn
What We Do
Under Revision
Yoest Interviewed by Forbes.com
Your Business Blogger Where should the small business owner invest a modest marketing budget?
Your Business Blogger, here at Management Training of DC, LLC, had a conversation with Mary Crane, a reporter for Forbes.com and reviewed the management and marketing challenges of small business owners.
Her article will be out tomorrow, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 in the Entrepreneurs section of Forbes.com. Click thru and let me know what you think.
13 May 2007
Products
Client List & Testimonials
A partial list of Clients, Projects, Associations and Pro Bono Work:
- The Pentagon
- Virginia Piedmont Technology Council
- United States Department of Health & Human Services
- Distro-Cal, Inc.
- Independent Women’s Forum
- IVAC Corporation
- Ogilvy
- Global Strategies, inc.
- Johnson & Johnson
- Job Accord
- Tfori Labs
- Technology Empowerment Inc.
- The Andrew W. Mellon Foundaiton
- Maremont
- Computer Applications Development & Integration (CADI)
- U.S. Department of Education
- The Heritage Foundation
- National Gaucher Foundation
- University Cable Network
- Harper Collins
- Luther Place Memorial Shelter for Women
- United States Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol
- NeuroLogic
- MenloCare Inc
- The Salvation Army
- Kohler Foundation, INC
- DaVinci Technologies
- Mallinckrodt
- Century Club of George Mason University
- John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
- Interbank
- Crouse Concrete
- The Bradley Foundation
- Kirby Classic
- CMSI
- Medical Endoscopic Services, Inc
- Family Gender and Tenure in Academia: A Nationwide Study of Faculty and Institutions
- SonoMedica, LLC
- Geotype of Tidewater
- Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign
- SBA
- Sears
- Kiwanis International
- U.S. Submarine Veterans of World War II
- Leadership Institute
- Brown and Associates, Inc.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Governor’s Year 2000 Task Force
- Venetec International
- Family Research Council
- National Press Club
- Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA)
- SheThinks
- National Education Association
- Hammer Marketing
- STF, Inc.
- Bernard Haldane Associates
- Sandler Sales Institute
- Creative System Designs
- David Philbrook, P.E.
- National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence
- The Governor’s Procurement Assessment Task Force
Services
Our core program, Managing Management Time™ (MMT), addresses the manager’s central mission:
To anticipate and positively influence — if not control — critical events which impact on their organization.
Do you know your time differences:
Between Vocational and
Management?
The penalty for failure here is to find oneself reacting to events, fighting fires, in essence to be living a life of crisis management.
- Confusing or conflicting priorities,
- A chronic shortage or lack of resources,
- Not enough time in the day to handle everything on their plate, and/or
- Someone else is in control of “what” and “when” the manager is doing, no matter what the manager may have planned.
Add to this that decisions must often be made under time pressure, in an environment often characterized by:
- Incomplete or partial information
- Uncertainty
- Ambiguity, and
- Risk.
Additionally, many of us are faced with these problems:
- Self doubts/wavering self-confidence:
“At this level, a mistake could be devastating. Did I make the right decision?”
- A feeling of isolation:
“While I might have the authority, I am in no position to directly affect tactical outcomes.”
“I have to rely on people, many of whom I don’t even ‘know’, to solve the problem.”"Can everyone effectively help solve the problem or is there confusion in the ranks?”
“I have to rely on people, many of whom I don’t even ‘know’, to solve the problem.”
“Can everyone effectively help solve the problem or is there confusion in the ranks?”
We know that internal problems, if not detected and corrected, can have a dramatic negative impact on the organization’s “bottom line,” even on its will and ability to survive. So . . .
Do you really know how to delegate:
Who’s got the Monkey?
We teach managers how to:
1. Recognize
- Where they are in the mix,
How they got there, and
Why they got there.
2. Implement
- Solutions to those managerial problems.
Why?
Our objective is to build a self-sustaining organizational culture that
Managing Management Time™
Our Program
This is NOT a conventional time management seminar.
It is different from other time management courses. Our program is not going to teach you efficiency techniques like prioritizing, sorting your in-basket, your e-mail, or screening calls and visitors. Those are valuable techniques which you can use after you’ve attended this program. What it will teach you, instead, is how to get control of the timing and content of your job.
Is our Managing Management Time™ Seminar for you?
Could you increase the value of each hour you put in:
-
If you could become more accessible to your subordinates and have more time to yourself without having to put in longer hours?
-
If your own subordinates would assume more responsibility for day-to-day operating decisions–so they would not reach your desk?
-
If you could successfully anticipate, and not have to wait for, the decisions of your boss and those of other departments?
-
If others would stop bypassing you for decisions that are your prerogative to make?
-
If the reports you get from “the field” were more timely and meaningful?
-
If interdepartmental conflicts and differences were resolved more often at those levels in the organization where they initially arise?
If so, then attending our Managing Management Time™ Seminar will be invaluable to you.
To further convince you that our presentations will address your situation, we invite you to explore this site. Then we look forward to being invited to conduct our leadership training for your organization.
For the course description of our Managing Management Time™ Seminar and the follow-up training, please click on their titles below:
“Managing Management Time”™
(MMT)The Real World
If we had to reduce the mission statement (or vision statement) of any manager or leader to only two words, it would be to control events. Simply stated, if we are not controlling events, then they will be controlling us. There is no third alternative!
Many of us begin by trying to efficiently manage our time. William Oncken, Jr. (1912-1988), who created his unique MMT philosophy and its humorous and down-to-earth imagery in 1960, believed that efficiency — the “daily diary” approach to time management — is useful only after you’re in control of your time in the first place.
But as you know, each day brings many unexpected interruptions, sometimes so many that you may not get around to doing what you were planning to do. Of course, handling those interruptions is part of your job; how you handle them determines whether or not you are in control or whether events are controlling you.
For example, suppose you have a deadline to meet for a project and you plan to spend the whole day working on it, then your boss calls you in for a three-hour meeting to discuss the status of another project. What happens to your plan? Or suppose a peer or one of your staff members comes to you with an urgent problem, which you know you must take care of right away to avert a disaster.
In these cases, someone else is determining what you do and when you do it, no matter what you had planned. And in the case of the peer or staff member, you might even be doing something that isn’t your job to do. Of course, in neither of those cases could you refuse to cooperate on the grounds that you have a plan and must stick to it. That would hurt your organization. And when you do something that’s bad for your organization, it’s also bad for your career.
You’re caught in a paradox - organizational management versus time management. You need to maintain good relations with the people you work with to do your job effectively, but they are precisely the source of the interruptions in which can prevent you from doing your job. That paradox is the basis of the Oncken MMT Philosophy.
At this point we invite you to “Surf the Molecule” and explore “Our Approach”. You will get a preview of what you will learn in attending our seminar:
- how to recognize the paradox in your own job and
- how to deal with it realistically and productively
Our Invitation To You
To make our Managing Management Time™ ( MMT) philosophy an integral part of your organizational culture, “Contact Us” about conducting an on-site Seminar at your company location. We also invite you to return the our Home page and check out the follow-up training available to graduates of our MMT Seminar.
10 May 2007
Management Training of DC
It takes a skilled teacher like Jack to hold the attention of a room full of smart lawyers —
Management Training of DC, LLC is a management training company that advises managers on tactics and strategies to be better bosses. Our unique practice of “persuasion management” teaches sales techniques to managers and key individual contributors. Business Sense, Military Precision & Timeless Truth Other types of training teach time-management. They teach how to manage the individual’s individual time. We teach you, the manager and influencer, to leverage your time, and the time of your team, to get more done — both inside your organization and with outside customers. Our emphasis uses the Army’s two-part definition of discipline: 1) The prompt obedience to orders, which every organization needs; and, more important, 2) The initiation of appropriate action in the absence of orders. The challenge for today’s leaders is working with the young entry-level individual contributors who demand work-life-family balance. And training the managers to manage.
What We Do
Workshops and Seminars. Management Training of DC educates leaders in planning, organizing, leading, motivating, coordinating and controlling. His experience is in the military, for-profit, non-profit, government and start-up organizations. Jack Yoest, left, lecturing at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Organization Managers and sales Account Managers are paid to accomplish the mission; to deliver the numbers.
The leader doesn’t manage numbers,the leader manages behaviors.
We teach the knowledge, explain the skills and sharpen the abilities of managers and individual contributors.
Press Release: Management Training of DC, LLC is a Licensed Marketing Representative of The William Oncken Corporation
You are invited! Solutions to your Management Problems, Baltimore, MD, 26 March
Northern Virginia Community College, Syllabus Northern Virginia Community College,
Results by Objective, International.
Accenture reports that 30 percent of organizations are “mismanaged.” Which means that judgment and influence skills are being allowed to atrophy. And this results despite billions of dollars being spent annually on training and “employee learning and development.”