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Knowing how to design business models for creating new market spaces and immobilizing your competition will be the ultimate business strategy skill for the 21st century. It doesn’t matter whether you are a local service business, a retail operation, or a manufacturer of industrial equipment, understanding the fundamentals of business model innovation will be key to your continued success.

1. Define Your Target Customer (and Your Peripheral Non-Customer)

The one concept I share that most shocks any of the audiences I speak to is the idea that the non-customer you currently ignore is almost as important as the customer you are currently targeting for your products and services. Of course I don’t mean just any non-customer, but the type of customer I describe as your “peripheral non-customer”.

Your peripheral non-customer is one that you do not currently target but could easily target given your mix of organizational abilities, relationships and assets. Very often, peripheral customers are being served by your neighbors in the value chain and by some of your indirect competitors. Forming the habit of thinking about and monitoring peripheral non-customers can help CEOs and leaders identify potentially disruptive market trends in adjacent industries.

2. Targeting Profit Zones

In his masterful book “Profit Zones”, Dr. Adrian Slywotzky clearly illustrates how profits can migrate up and down activity segments within the value chain, or along the lines of information-based vs. product-based value propositions. As an executive and business leader, your annual and quarterly strategy review sessions should include a clear program for monitoring where the areas of “high margin” return are moving to in your industry.

3. Developing Your Unique Selling Proposition

In the decades since Rosser Reeves first publicized the concept of a unique selling proposition, lazy managers and business executives have increasingly abdicated their responsibility to search for business model innovations that can be crystallized into a short, concise and memorable selling argument.

If you carefully examine competition-destroying businesses like Cirque Du Soleil and Southwest Airlines, you will find that beneath the smiles and favorable customer reviews lie unique business designs that can be communicated in a unique selling argument.

4. Shutting Out Your Competition (Strategic Control)

One of the most powerful insights you can have in your business is a strategic business mapping tool known as the “strategic control index”. This is a very simple but powerful framework for identifying whether your business model covers enough points to dictate or control the moves made by your competitors. Some points on the strategic control index include elements like:
Having a commoditized product with a 20% plus cost advantage Ownership of a clearly differentiated brand Ownership of the key customer relationships Dominance of the key communication and distribution channels Ownership of Industry-wide standards

When you are able to place your organization and competitors on a map that clearly indicates who owns which strategic control points, you will generate business model innovations that acknowledge the most important competitive realities in your industry.

5. Scoping Out Your Blue Oceans

Perhaps the most important single business (and marketing) strategy decision you can make after customer selection is in the scope of your projects and your services. These two elements are necessary prerequisites for developing a relevant and marketable value proposition. The “Blue Ocean” strategy as articulated by Dr. W. Chan Kim and Renee Marbougne provides a very useful set of tools for making decisions on the scope of your offerings.

They conceived of a tool called a strategy canvas which graphically maps out factors that the customers care about and how various competitors accounted for, and combined those factors to create their business designs.

Domino’s Pizza disrupted the Pizza industry by emphasizing factors like speed and delivery while intentionally reducing or cutting out other factors like sit-down restaurants, taste tests, etc.

Carefully consider the profitability of every offering you make available to the marketplace. Design your business model to cater to clearly identified customer priorities rather than industry traditions, personal intuition or hearsay. Your profitability will depend on it.

By: Gogo Erekosima

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Motivating staff is one of the key challenges that a manager will face. Keeping your staff motivated in an ever changing business environment can test the skill and the abilities of the most effective and skilled managers. However, an effective manager knows one important skill that is needed to keep their team, happy, loyal and productive.

This is skill is coaching. An effective manager, above all other things, is a coach. The coaching role is essential in any team environment as it is important that each individual within the teams works together. However, coaching needs to be tailored to the specific needs of each team member. Individual needs are different therefore, the coaching needs to be applied differently. For example, for some staff an informal chat is sufficient while another team member who is lacking in confidence will need more reassurance.

There are certain coaching techniques that you can use to motivate your staff to be more productive as follows:

Being accessible to your team
The mangers role is to manage people therefore, a good manager is one who always has the door of their office open. This means that they are accessible and available to their team. However, it is not a good idea to hold up in your office. Make the effort to leave your office and walk round and speak to your team face to face. If your staffs see that you are a person that is unapproachable they will look for other ways to help themselves. This can undermine and weaken your position as they will end up avoiding you.

Setting the Scene
A managers role is far more than delegating tasks. An effective manager will explain the ‘why’ behind the assignments and work that needs to be done. An effective manager will outline the role that each team member plays and the contribution they make.

Providing knowledge and experience
As a manager progresses through the ranks they gain invaluable insight, knowledge and experience. These can be tapped into by team members to help solve problems or to come up with business opportunities in the future.

Providing Resources
Managers play a vital role in assisting staff members to achieve their goals. This assistance and support can come in the form of time, funding, training, equipment or extra staff. For example, if the printing department are unable to meet the demand of the recent increase in orders the manager can give the OK for a new faster printer to be purchased.

By: Sarah Woodbridge

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Short term financing for satisfying a consumer’s immediate needs is not a new phenomenon. Payday loan or cash advance is simply a new term for the old practice that was prevalent even in early American history. According to this practice, short-term loans were granted to the farmers, factory workers or miners to enable them to feed their family between the pay periods. Nowadays, the government has given affiliation to the money lenders who provide ready cash to the needy people for helping them meet their emergency requirements.

Now that the latest regulations are imposed by the American government on payday loan providers, it is important to find one that complies with the state rules and policies of lending money.

Payday Loan: How to Find the Legitimate Lenders

Any lender that offers you payday loan without referring to certain terms and conditions is a dangerous choice. So, your best bet is to find a legitimate lender firm. Follow these tips to come across an ethical money lending organization:
Check out some government website that enlists all the registered and affiliated money lenders in a particular area. Any lender firm, in order to operate legally, has to register with a government agency. So, check for the name of the lender whom you are going to deal with. If it is there in the list, you can rest at peace while transacting with them.
You can also contact the lender directly and ask him if he has submitted all the necessary details about his firm to the government. A genuine lender will not hesitate in providing you the asked details. However, if he does not disclose the information; there is full reason for being sceptical about the legitimacy of his firm.
Simply conforming to the state regulations is not enough. Before dealing with a lender, you must verify his reputation in the market. It may be possible that the lender firm is only making a show off of following the state policies, while in reality it practices no business norms.
Check with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to be sure of the company’s reputation. If people are not happy with a lender’s services and there are numerous complaints filed against his company, the same will reflect in the ratings of BBB.
Finally, make extra effort to compare different lenders. There are various websites that can do this service for you and will compare the services of multiple lenders on certain basis. By availing this service, you can come across the most legitimate online payday loan company. Moreover, you can also come to know about the prevailing interest rate and loan fee. This will help you save a lot of money as no company can cheat an educated customer.

By opting for payday loans, you can get short-term cash advance very fast. If you have a permanent job and you earn about $800 per month, then you can easily qualify for such loans. For seeking higher amount of loans, you need to have higher pay. The maximum amount one can get as a loan from these firms is $1500.

By: Neon Marsh

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Have you bit off more than you can chew lately?

If so, you’re not alone. One of the defining characteristics of the success-minded is a desire to take on big challenges, to move forward as fast as humanly possible, and to defy any kind of self-perceived limitation.

In many circumstances, that’s a good thing.

It stops being productive though when we make the mistake of significantly overestimating our ability to deliver. When our desire for more faster gets us to overextend our finances, investments, business and/ or leadership capacity, and even relationships, we can find ourselves in hot water.

And if we’re not careful, we can sink the ship. Just look at Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch, et al.

When making big decisions – business, investment, or other – it’s critical to do the following:

Know the numbers. Numbers are reality, everything else is subject to delusion. If you’re operating your business without a firm handle on your financial data, you simply can’t make good business decisions. Decision making without good financial data would be like trying to launch the Space Shuttle into orbit without doing the proper calculations first. Evaluate all projects and initiatives against your finances. You can only do so much. Rigorously study your possible projects and decide whether or not they’re worth doing. As Peter Drucker famously said, there’s nothing so futile as doing a project that should never have been done at all (paraphrase) Prioritize your initiatives, and then do first things first. This will likely mean you’re going to need to move slower than you’d like, but taking this approach will ensure that your initiatives will be successful more often than not. 90% of projects fail to live up to their original promise – the reason for this is largely lack of a proper level of due diligence and preparation ahead of time. Say “no” to opportunities that don’t fit into your plan or finances. One of the most productive things we can learn to do is to know when to say “no”. When a new initiative is going to take precious mental, time, and financial resources away from the things that are moving you forward on your path, not saying “no” is at best counter-productive, at worst self-defeating. Sometimes, throw the rule book out the window. There is a time to break all the rules, and opportunities that arise that can completely transform the game you’re playing. The only way you know if it’s a true fork in the road, though, is by following all of the above. Above all else, don’t be greedy. Focus on making quality decisions, not on satisfying your insatiable hunger for more.

Most of us play far too loose with our finances, businesses, and lives.

Tightening up and adding a little intellectual rigor into your decision-making process will probably do you good.

And as far as the companies who’ve recently gone bankrupt or been bailed out by the federal government, shame on you. You not only should have known better, you owed us better.

By: Lawrence Mortenson

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There are many types of tax problems that a person can encounter. Having to deal with tax issues can be stressful and intimidating, so understanding what types of tax problems you may encounter can better help you to prevent them from occurring. There are many different kinds of problems you can run into, some which are well known, and others which many people aren’t even aware of.

It can be difficult to have to deal with tax problems, because many people have an innate fear of dealing with the IRS. So when problems occur, they aren’t quite sure what to do because they are hesitant to contact the IRS with questions and concerns that they may have. However, it is possible for you to research the information for yourself so that you do not have to make that dreaded phone call to the IRS for questions about your tax issues. Once you have researched the issues yourself, it is best for you to contact a professional to help you deal with the issues, before you actually contact the IRS.

The first type of tax problem that people can encounter is problems with their payroll taxes. Payroll tax problems can vary and there are many different issues that can come up. The IRS is extremely relentless in making sure that they are able to collect on any past due payroll taxes that you may owe. It is very important for you to make sure that your payroll documents are up to date and that all of the tax information is correct. There are many cases with employers making typo errors on your tax documents that you may never be aware of. For this reason, it is important that you periodically ask your employer to review your payroll tax documents to ensure the information is correct. You also need to make sure that you often review your payroll stubs and keep track of the payroll taxes are being taken out, so that you can ascertain whether they are taking the right amount of taxes out or not.

Another one of the types of tax problems you may encounter are IRS tax liens. A tax lien shows that you already owe the IRS back taxes. Tax liens can be placed upon your personal property such as your home or other types of real estate you may have such as a business location. If a tax lien is placed against your property, you will be unable to transfer or sell ownership of that property without first paying off your back taxes and having the lien removed. Trying to prevent a tax lien is in your best interest. Most people don’t have the extra funds laying around to pay off a tax lien. They then realize they are in a real predicament because with a tax lien on their property, they are unable to get a loan to pay off the back taxes. The best way to prevent this of course, is to pay your taxes on time and not have a lien placed against you.

An IRS levy is another of the types of tax problems that can occur. A levy is an actual attempt by the IRS to receive payment from you to pay off your back taxes. This can cause a great deal of financial burden to you, as a levy can drastically cut into the money that you have coming in. With an IRS levy, the IRS has the ability to take the money owed to them from your checking or savings account, if you have money is these accounts. However, the levy can only be placed against the account for one particular day. The bank must then withdraw any money in the accounts and send it to the IRS. The IRS cannot take any additional deposits that you may make into these accounts unless they place another levy against the account. The IRS levy can also garish your wages, so that the money they are owed is taken from your paycheck. This can result in you loosing your entire paycheck to the IRS, which will certainly put you in a real bind.

Other types of tax problems that can occur are IRS seizures, wage garnishments, IRS audits and unfiled tax returns. All of these issues can cause severe issues with your taxes and greatly affect your life and your finances. It is extremely important that you retain all the necessary tax documentation that you have so that if you are audited, you can provide the information to the IRS to help prevent any action from being taken against you. Of course, preventing this negative action is only going to work if you have been truthful on your tax forms and have provided all the necessary information that is requires to ensure that you are paying the right amount of taxes. If an audit shows that you have missing tax income and unpaid taxes, this can lead to the IRS placing wage garnishments against you and seizing assets to cover the cost of your unpaid tax debt.

These are just some of the types of tax problems that a person can encounter. There are of course other types of tax problems that can arise, which is why it is so important to ensure that you are properly paying your taxes every year. To prevent these types of tax problems from happening, you need to make sure that your payroll taxes are being taken out and paid properly and that you are filing your taxes each year to ensure that you do not owe any money to the government. When you file your taxes, make sure that you claim all of your income, so that if the IRS decides to do an audit, you do not end up in trouble for unpaid taxes that they may find. This is one of the number one causes of tax problems that are encountered. Properly taking care of your taxes is one of the best things you can do in life, and will prevent these types of tax problems from occurring.

By: Aaron R Klimchuk

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Business Management characterizes the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). Early twentieth-century business management writer Mary Parker Follett defined management as “the art of getting things done through other people.”

One can also think of business management functionally as the action of measuring a quantity on a regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan, and as the actions taken to reach one’s intended goal. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, there are several major management functions, namely: planning, organizing, leading, coordinating and controlling.

Management is known by some as “business administration”, although this then excludes management in places outside business, e.g. charities and the public sector. University departments that teach management are nonetheless usually called “business schools”. The term “management” may also be used as a collective word, describe the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation.

Today, we find it increasingly difficult to subdivide management into functional categories in this way. More and more processes simultaneously involve several categories. Instead, we tend to think in terms of the various processes, tasks, and objects subject to management.

One consequence is that workplace democracy has become both more common, and more advocated, in some places distributing all management functions among the workers, each of whom takes on a portion of the work. However, these models predate any current political issue, and may be more natural than command hierarchy.

All management is to some degree democratic in that there must be majority support of workers for the management in the long term, or they leave to find other work, or go on strike. Hence management is becoming less based on the conceptualization of classical military command-and-control, and more about facilitation and support of collaborative activity, utilizing principles such as those of human interaction management to deal with the complexities of human interaction.

By: Ismael Tabije

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