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Write it UP - Sun Zi Art of War - Areas of Strategic Planning and Execution
WHAT ARE "UNTAPPED PROSPECTS? Untapped prospects are a) accounts and sites with the same characteristics as your best customers, but are not in your marketing database, and are therefore invisible to you, and b) unidentified key player contacts within accounts and sites you are already targeting who are in the decision-making group for your product or service. These contacts are especially significant, because they represent a segment of your market you may now believe is visible to you but in fact, is not.HOW THE STAUTS QUO CREATES BLIND SPOTS Many marketing and sales techniques in use today practically assure that your company is overlooking major parts of your available market, missing viable prospects in the part of the market you are actively targeting.DATABASE BUILDING BY DRIVE-BY Sales people, including those that work for channel companies, generally build market knowledge through referrals and drive-bys. A “drive-by” is a situation in which a sales person is on their way to an appointment and notices a large building with an impressive logo and thinks, “They must buy what I sell somewhere in there.” The sales person adds the company name to a list of cold-call accounts. When business is slow, they might pull out that list of cold call accounts. Sales management works diligently to keep sales people from spending any time on untested accounts, and that is an absolutely correct posture for them to assume. Ideally, it is a salesperson’s job to close deals, not find and cultivate new opportunities.RELYING ON LISTS Rented lists are one of the most common ways that marketing tries to build market knowledge and generate leads on behalf of sales. Have you ever taken the time to look at those lists? Massini Group has, and what we see
g) Administration of rewards and punishment.
1) Unity: Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals
As the heading says, political leadership in war is equivalent to the ability of the top management of the company to unite behind certain goals and vision.
Easier said than done? Sure but I think there are certain guidelines we can follow, first of all, the idea and purpose of the goals and vision should be made as clear as possible to the whole company. How do you do that? Quite easy, in my opinion, involve the whole company in crafting the goals and painting the vision. For those of you who has seen the Apprentice 3,
The age-old “branding” discussions always comes back to haunt us, don’t they? Surely, you would have encountered this argument countless times as you argue with clients about creating new brand campaigns. The clients’ view “I have a strong, reputable brand. This new product will sell really well based on my trusted brand.”Usually, when such discussions arise, it is because of the lack of understanding, or even misunderstanding of what a brand really is. Some people think that the product is the brand. Others believe that it is the “persona” of the brand that becomes the brand. Yet others argue that a brand is nothing more than the corporate vision or promise made tangible.Surprisingly, all the above are correct! Here lies the crux of it all. Marketers would do well to remember this before they get caught up in any such arguments. The key to it all is to understand this:“A BRAND is what you make it to be.”Think about this for a moment. Then jump back into that argument with your client. If your entire advertising, PR and promotions campaign has been geared towards selling a PRODUCT, what then does your brand represent? I would hazard a guess and say that at the end, when the advertising “dust” settles, what consumers will be left with would be a vivid memory of your wonderful product. It could be that gloriously luxurious LUX soap, or maybe even that oh, so satisfying “real thing”; but it would be the product.On the other hand, if your entire marketing campaign has been focused on your “brand persona”, if all you have been doing were “lifestyle” advertising, PR coverage on relevant social tid-bits, promotions that are cool, or hip, or whatever; your brand represents the persona more than the product.I believe by now, you know where I am coming from. Now to answer that question: “Ca
So which area should the ruler look at before deciding to go to war? Sun Zi proposed these five main areas and they are broken down into seven sub areas.
We can see from the writings that Sun Zi is a very meticulous person because he broke the five points down to the dimensions that one should look out for. For example, he broke down the terrain into whether it is high or low, near or far, wide plains or narrow paths, treacherous or accessible or the weather is broke down into cold or hot, night or day and which season it is in.
The 5 areas and 7 sub- areas are:
故经之已五，校之以计，而索其情: 一曰道，二曰天，三曰地，四曰将，五曰法。
1) Political leadership of the Ruler (道)
2) The weather where the battle is taking place (天)
3) The terrain where the battle is taking place （地）
4) Generalship, the person commanding the battle （将）
5) Army organization structure and systems （法）
7 Sub areas
a) Political Intelligence of a Ruler （主孰有道?)
b) Capability of General (将孰有能?)
c) Advantage of provided by Weather and Terrain (天地孰得?)
d) Effective and Efficient Execution of Orders (法令孰行?)
e) Equipped level and numerical strength of army (兵众孰强？)
f) Training level of army (士卒孰练？)
g) Administration of rewards and punishment (赏罚孰明？)
Relating to business aspect, these are important factors that determine the successful implementation of a company’s strategy. The key here is to relate these factors to business. There should not be much difficulty in relating these factors from military to business.
a) Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals.
b) Capability of Manager or Team Leader.
c) Different Aspects of Market like the culture of people, government set rules and regulation.
d) Business Systems like inventory management, delivery system and others.
e) Technology available to staff.
f) Skill set and knowledge level of staff.
g) Administration of rewards and punishment.
1) Unity: Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals
As the heading says, political leadership in war is equivalent to the ability of the top management of the company to unite behind certain goals and vision.
Easier said than done? Sure but I think there are certain guidelines we can follow, first of all, the idea and purpose of the goals and vision should be made as clear as possible to the whole company. How do you do that? Quite easy, in my opinion, involve the whole company in crafting the goals and painting the vision. For those of you who has seen the Apprentice 3,
Article submission software – people always ask if they are really useful in article marketing. To paraphrase that, what online marketers really want to know is whether there truly are merits in using them to submit articles. The truth is there are two schools of thinking about using article submission software. As usual, there are those who do not believe it works while another group can vouch to its effectiveness. Why don’t we have a quick look at the workings of the article submission software before we decide if we should submit articles with them?Article submission software in recent years have been emerging as a tool to replace manual submission. When I first started online marketing, I wrote articles and submit manually to these article directories like GoArticles, HotLib and a few other popular article directories. It often takes me more than a few hours to submit to more than a dozen article directories. There was the log in, followed by sieving through the article submission form, copying and pasting my article title, article body, article summary, relevant keywords and author resource boxes. Every article directory has a different interface, and very often I have to customize and twitch a little bit here and there. Trust me and those who have experienced all these, it is tough job and sweat. Okay, so here I have an article ready to be published after one day’s hard work including the writing. This is manual article submission done all without article submission software.That was a typical scenario most early day article marketers and authors have to face just a couple of years back. Today, the landscape has changed with the emergence of article submission software. The great thing about the functions of article submission software is it makes the log in and article formatting for each individual a
The 5 areas and 7 sub- areas are:
故经之已五，校之以计，而索其情: 一曰道，二曰天，三曰地，四曰将，五曰法。
1) Political leadership of the Ruler (道)
2) The weather where the battle is taking place (天)
3) The terrain where the battle is taking place （地）
4) Generalship, the person commanding the battle （将）
5) Army organization structure and systems （法）
7 Sub areas
a) Political Intelligence of a Ruler （主孰有道?)
b) Capability of General (将孰有能?)
c) Advantage of provided by Weather and Terrain (天地孰得?)
d) Effective and Efficient Execution of Orders (法令孰行?)
e) Equipped level and numerical strength of army (兵众孰强？)
f) Training level of army (士卒孰练？)
g) Administration of rewards and punishment (赏罚孰明？)
Relating to business aspect, these are important factors that determine the successful implementation of a company’s strategy. The key here is to relate these factors to business. There should not be much difficulty in relating these factors from military to business.
a) Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals.
b) Capability of Manager or Team Leader.
c) Different Aspects of Market like the culture of people, government set rules and regulation.
d) Business Systems like inventory management, delivery system and others.
e) Technology available to staff.
f) Skill set and knowledge level of staff.
g) Administration of rewards and punishment.
1) Unity: Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals
As the heading says, political leadership in war is equivalent to the ability of the top management of the company to unite behind certain goals and vision.
Easier said than done? Sure but I think there are certain guidelines we can follow, first of all, the idea and purpose of the goals and vision should be made as clear as possible to the whole company. How do you do that? Quite easy, in my opinion, involve the whole company in crafting the goals and painting the vision. For those of you who has seen the Apprentice 3,
Great companies look both internally and externally to help build business. One group fits into both those categories - your vendors and distributors. When looking to build sales or lower costs, challenge your vendors (and reward those who are successful) to help you grow your business and the bottom line. Not only should they have the expertise in the area they serve you, but they also have the additional insight of working with others and keep up with trends, cost projections, customer research, and so on. Here are a few ideas to have them help you:Incentive Contests. Need to focus on suggestive selling? Have vendors of key products support you with training materials, rebates on incremental sales, marketing support, or prizes so you can run incentive contests for employees and managers. One word of caution: Don’t just have a few “grand” prizes. Reward incremental performance at both the employee and manager level.Customer Research. Need to find out what your customer is thinking? Many vendors and distributors have access to key research that can help you get ahead of trends and take action before your competitors do.Cost Saving/Sales Building Ideas. Don’t let your vendors/distributors take your business for granted...force them to help you make more money. You need them to be successful and build their business with you. Ask them to bring you ideas to build sales or save money --- challenge them to keep getting better while helping you grow top-line and bottom-line dollars.Training Support. Many of your vendors and distributors have great training materials available (or can get them created) to help educate your team on products, selling tips, equipment maintenance, food safety, and so on. In addition, they often have facilities and plant tours
5) Army organization structure and systems （法）
7 Sub areas
a) Political Intelligence of a Ruler （主孰有道?)
b) Capability of General (将孰有能?)
c) Advantage of provided by Weather and Terrain (天地孰得?)
d) Effective and Efficient Execution of Orders (法令孰行?)
e) Equipped level and numerical strength of army (兵众孰强？)
f) Training level of army (士卒孰练？)
g) Administration of rewards and punishment (赏罚孰明？)
Relating to business aspect, these are important factors that determine the successful implementation of a company’s strategy. The key here is to relate these factors to business. There should not be much difficulty in relating these factors from military to business.
a) Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals.
b) Capability of Manager or Team Leader.
c) Different Aspects of Market like the culture of people, government set rules and regulation.
d) Business Systems like inventory management, delivery system and others.
e) Technology available to staff.
f) Skill set and knowledge level of staff.
g) Administration of rewards and punishment.
1) Unity: Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals
As the heading says, political leadership in war is equivalent to the ability of the top management of the company to unite behind certain goals and vision.
Easier said than done? Sure but I think there are certain guidelines we can follow, first of all, the idea and purpose of the goals and vision should be made as clear as possible to the whole company. How do you do that? Quite easy, in my opinion, involve the whole company in crafting the goals and painting the vision. For those of you who has seen the Apprentice 3,
We all know that selling involves finding and closing new clients. But where do you find them?Below is a list of 19 places where you can look. Print these off and have a think about where you can find your best clients and start prospecting.Not all of these 19 will be right for you. But, with a little imagination I am sure you’ll find out exactly where to find new sales. New sales this month and each month you keep looking. The business is out there, the sales are waiting for you so go out and get more sales.1. Yellow Pages. An excellent source but widely used. Try starting from the back to the front as most sales people who use the Yellow Pages go from the beginning to the end. Or you can access Yellow Pages for any city on the Internet.2. Trade Shows. As you will find a lot of customers all under one roof this is an excellent place to meet new prospects. Where is your next trade show?3. Newspapers. Review the, want ads, business section and business articles to get company names and ideas as to whom you might want to approach. Also, look for corporate announcements as well. The newspaper can provide lots of ideas4. Industry Associations. Find out the companies and individuals who belong to specific associations—legal, medical, engineering, and so on. Consider offering yourself as a keynote speaker at their next meeting. They are always looking for ways to spice up their meetings—maybe you're the answer. Lots of leads can be had here especially if you know your stuff.5. Use your local library. Look in the current business publications, annual reports, and an archive of newspaper articles on micro-fiche. Make a copy of relevant articles, announcements, and want ads.6. The Internet. If it's not on the Net, it hasn't been thought of or invented yet. Use it to r
a) Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals.
b) Capability of Manager or Team Leader.
c) Different Aspects of Market like the culture of people, government set rules and regulation.
d) Business Systems like inventory management, delivery system and others.
e) Technology available to staff.
f) Skill set and knowledge level of staff.
g) Administration of rewards and punishment.
1) Unity: Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals
As the heading says, political leadership in war is equivalent to the ability of the top management of the company to unite behind certain goals and vision.
Easier said than done? Sure but I think there are certain guidelines we can follow, first of all, the idea and purpose of the goals and vision should be made as clear as possible to the whole company. How do you do that? Quite easy, in my opinion, involve the whole company in crafting the goals and painting the vision. For those of you who has seen the Apprentice 3,
Those of us who are highly creative and artistic employees know how we can be looked at differently by those who operate from the other side of the brain in the corporate world. It can be hard to fit in to conservative work environments at times for those of us who are free-thinking and artistically expressive. The creative mind is cut from a very different cloth than many. Speaking for myself, it takes adapting a free-spirited and detail oriented mind to a different world - where logic, analytical minds and strict rules usually apply.Sitting behind a desk for forty hours is a hard thing to doBefore becoming a home agent for my company, I spent a year in-house, sitting in a cubicle and obeying strict rules. It was, as usual, a bit torturous to have to take breaks at assigned times, and be under the constant scrutiny of bosses. Having worked as a freelance artist most of my adult life, it was important for me to put aside my usual carefree lifestyle and adapt to being corporate. My superiors had some adjusting to get used to me, as well. Eventually, getting up at the crack of dawn and going into work, then staying all day in one place became routine. It took much practise and adaptation, but in the end, it wasn't all that bad.When in Rome, do as the Romans do...the best you can, anywaysBeing an independent soul, my creativeness could really get on my supervisor's nerves from time to time. I was adapting to corporate life, but was still an obviously free spirit, who didn't fall for the normal corporate means of controls. Many companies have policies that if bent, they promise that the offending employee will be punished harshly. Or, at least that is what they say. My motto has always been, "Rules are always meant to be bent." Staying within legal boundaries, I worked incredibly hard, but tended t
g) Administration of rewards and punishment.
1) Unity: Employer or top management ability to unite the company or department behind a vision or to achieve certain goals
As the heading says, political leadership in war is equivalent to the ability of the top management of the company to unite behind certain goals and vision.
Easier said than done? Sure but I think there are certain guidelines we can follow, first of all, the idea and purpose of the goals and vision should be made as clear as possible to the whole company. How do you do that? Quite easy, in my opinion, involve the whole company in crafting the goals and painting the vision. For those of you who has seen the Apprentice 3, in the graffiti competition, the leader of Magna Corp, was able to consult some of the kids from the street to provide some input to the graffiti that they were painting. In the end, because the focus group that determines the winner was able to identify with the graffiti, (the kids and the focus group came from the same neighborhood), the Magna Corp won the competition.
For those of you from big companies, it is definitely very difficult to involve the whole company. So the top management could decide some macro goals and vision pass it down to the middle management and get them to craft out the goals of their department according to the goals or vision crafted by the top management and so on. What is important is the whole company can relate to the macro goals and vision painted by the top management.
Another important factor is the hiring process. Michael Dell, from Dell Computers stresses that it is important to hire people who is completely in sync with the company’s philosophy and objectives. This person’s thinking must be compatible with company’s value and belief. (Please read Direct From Dell by Michael Dell).
2) Capability of Generals: Capability of Manager or Team Leader (Leadership)
This is more straightforward than the previous sub-area. This is one area that is quite important in my opinion. The reason why I say that is because firstly, a good leader would have been able to unite and command the respect of his army and people of the nation. A wise general would not be leading his army to attack when weather conditions are bad or terrain is unfavorable. Even if he is forced to do so, his wisdom (one of the characteristics for mentioned comparison) would be able make his troops avoid engaging his enemies or turn disadvantages into advantages. Good generals would be able to create a strong organization structure and control in his army through the other four characteristic mentioned for comparison.
The five capabilities that are advocated by Sun Zi are Wisdom, Benevolence, Courage, Discipline and Trustworthiness. Just these five characteristics are definitely not and exhaustive list of the characteristic of a good leader, but in my opinion these five are the most important so that an army, or in business, the project team or department to function properly. And from these five words, there are a lot of things to look out for, which I shall not write here or I would be writing a whole chapter.
3) Advantage of provided by Weather and Terrain: Different Aspects of Market like the culture of people, government set rules and regulation
This is something that is not straightforward, not a lot of people can relate from weather and terrain with respect to which area of business. After reading some books and some thoughts, I would like many to take note of the difference.
For
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