Plan to Succeed

Ideas for businesses are always plentiful but some of the most creative ideas can end up in failure as a result of failing to take time to do one simple part of the process; creating a plan!

Having a great idea for a business or knowing what you want to achieve in your career is great but you need to carefully build the ladder that will get you to the top. Not taking time to construct how you will go about executing your ideas could hinder your flight to success.

If you are looking to start a business, taking the necessary time to plan is crucial for success. Researching the industry takes time but will allow you to understand your competition, how to create your market niche and develop the types of products you want to sell. This also will help you define who your target audience is and can help you set the stages for creating a successful marketing plan to reach these people.

Though it can be expensive at times, creating a marketing strategy as part of your business plan will be crucial to your success. If people don't know about the product you are selling, how are they supposed to purchase it? How are you going to alert your target audience your product fills their needs? How will you create a brand name that will resonate with potential customers? These are all questions you need to ask when developing your business plan.

Planning for success can often be seen when expansion teams enter professional sports leagues. Owners for these teams have to plan how to build a team that will be competitive in the league they are playing in, how to reach the target audience, and drive fans into their stadiums or arenas. These teams need to plan how to build a team from scratch to winner in a few seasons, develop a brand name through creative marketing strategies and develop a loyal and consistent fan base. The team will need to win on the court, field, ice (if you are playing hockey), create a name that is easily remembered and develop a fan base to be successful.

While starting up a business requires planning, developing your career and where you want to go takes planning as well. Taking the necessary steps to plot where you want to go in your professional career and how to get there takes dedication and time but can pay off. Do you want to eventually reach a management position? What will it take for you to earn a promotion? What can you do to become one of the best workers in your company? These are all questions people ask themselves and the answers can help pave the way for a plan to help them reach their goals.

An example that can used to explain comes from watching one of my heroes, former Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken Jr., during and after his career as a professional baseball player. After being drafted out of high school, Ripken wanted to make the Orioles roster and created a plan to help get him there. He created offseason training plans to help hone his skills, he played winter ball to get him more experience playing professionally and solicited the advice from veteran players who had been in his shoes before. As a result, Ripken was able to hone his skills and had a career in which he broke Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive games played, made the All-Star team 19 times, won a World Series, and made it into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Ripken's plan for his career worked and paved the way to success.

During his playing days, Ripken knew he wasn't going to play forever but planned for his life beyond baseball. He started to develop Ripken Baseball Inc. which is a program designed to help grow the love of baseball to others and has created other charitable foundations. Ripken listened to others along the way during his playing career and helped set many of these foundations in motion while serving as an active player. By the time he had retired, Ripken's plan started to take shape and he successfully created a life for himself outside of baseball.

Taking the time to plan is crucial and even though it can be exhausting, it can pay off in the end. In order to get to where you want to go, you need to know what you need, what will get you there and the right direction to go in.

Getting the Word Out: A Lesson in Marketing

Having a business can be rewarding and a lot of work but consumers can only buy your product or services if they know your business exists! You might have the best product or service on the market but no one can buy it if they don't know it exists!

Putting together a marketing plan for a business is essential and necessity to promote your products and services. Consumers have to know your product is available in order to purchase it and leaving this out of your plan could help slow down your growth. Having a marketing plan that is creative, outgoing and well thought out can help provide the growth you will need to sustain and be successful.

One example of how this has been done well in recent times is what the American Hockey League's Lake Erie Monsters have done to market themselves to fans in Cleveland. The Monsters are a minor league team in what many call a major league city and the team had to almost start out from scratch. The previous team in the market, the American Hockey League Cleveland Barons, played to an empty Quicken Loans arena for several seasons from 2001-2006. The Barons weren't very big on marketing and almost never advertised at all in the market. As a result, the team took a hit at the gate and many in Cleveland didn't even know the team existed.

After the Barons left town to move to Worecester, MA, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert brought in the Lake Erie Monsters and he and the executives hired to run the team put a huge emphasis on marketing. The team was not only utilizing traditional methods of purchasing ad space in newspapers, television and radio but hired salespeople who previously contacted those who purchased tickets to Cleveland Barons games and Cleveland Lumberjacks games (the Lumberjacks were a minor league team in Cleveland before the Barons). These salespeople found out that many people were unaware that minor league hockey existed in Cleveland but those phone calls along with the ads in the paper and on radio and television helped get the word out. It took time to put in those phone calls but the person on the other end of the phone lines learned a little something when they received that call or saw the ads elsewhere.

In addition to traditional forms of marketing, the Monsters have a functioning web-site, have utilized Twitter and Facebook and have had players make public appearances at local rinks and schools. As a result, this has helped build the brand name of the Monsters and become more familiar to people in Northeast Ohio. The Monsters are also cross promoted at Cavaliers basketball games and this and the other marketing efforts have helped fans become more familiar with the team and get them through the gate.

In these times, it's not always easy to have a big budget for advertising and marketing but there are cost efficient ways to promote your business. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter cost almost nothing but time to the business owners and many have been able to grow by utilizing this as part of a marketing strategy. Networking at different functions can help put you in touch with people who may need your products or services and blogs have also become useful in getting the word out. Being able to get in front of people utilizing the growing forms of social media and networking can help put you in front of potential customers and make consumers aware your business exists.

Putting together a good product or service is vital to a business but making others aware it exists is crucial to growth. Marketing does take time and can be expensive but can also be done in ways that can help promote your business and grow your sales.

Are You in Tune with YouTube?

Since being launched, YouTube has grown into one of the most powerful entertainment and search mediums in the world. With more and more videos being uploaded each day, YouTube has grown in visitors and popularity. YouTube has become one of the most effective ways to find information and to build a brand.

Whenever I mention YouTube in normal conversation, I am often asked how YouTube can be beneficial to a business. Here are the main reasons I typically give whenever I am asked this question:

1) YouTube's Growth Has Turned It From Being a Form of Social Media to a Search Engine- As more and more videos are uploaded each day, YouTube has become one of the best ways to find information on the Internet. Since being purchased by Google, finding content on YouTube is easy and can be optimized for these searches. The titles and descriptions of your videos on YouTube can be optimized to be search engine friendly and easier for YouTube users to find.

2) YouTube Can Help Build Your Audience and Your Brand- A consistent and steady line of YouTube videos can help you reach different audiences and build your brand name to thousands upon thousands of people. Creating a YouTube channel will allow followers to get updates on new videos and develop your brand name and following. Followers can typically subscribe to your YouTube channel and follow your business closely.

3) YouTube Videos Can Appear on Other Sites- YouTube videos can be shared on Facebook pages, Twitter tweets, blogs, and other places on the Internet. Your YouTube videos can be shared with other people who are no on YouTube and spread your message even further. The more people that come across your YouTube video, the better chance you have of building up your brand to its highest level

4) You Never Know Who Is Watching- Some of the biggest YouTube success stories have come from videos that were widely viewed by others and in some cases, decision makers at big companies. For example, the a capella singing group Straight No Chaser went from being an unknown group to YouTube sensation when one of their members uploaded a version of "The 12 Days of Christmas" onto YouTube. One of the viewers happened to be one of the top executives at Atlantic Records and the group ended up getting signed not too long after that. Stories like this don't happen all the time with YouTube but it's at least worth taking a shot.