Entrepreneur

Feb 28, 2012

Add to Your Network: 5 Best Business Contacts

by Elaine Pofeldt Independent journalist and editorial consultant, Elaine Pofeldt. Originally published on The American Express Open Forum on February, 1, 2012.

The 90% Rule - Business Strategy Even if your marketing budget is tight, there’s plenty you can do to build your business. Networking is one of the most cost-effective ways to win new business. Often, it won’t cost you a dime, but to reap the rewards, you have to weave it into your daily business activities.

Here are five types of contacts to make in the coming months.

1. Smart people in other industries

People in other industries can alert you to best practices that you can bring to your own arena.

“It’s about exchanging information,” says Ken Tencer, CEO of Spyder Works, a branding and innovation firm in Toronto and New York. He is co-author of The 90% Rule, which looks at how to evaluate and effectively act on business opportunities.

How do you find the right people to add to your brain trust? Ask yourself who to exchange information with that would benefit yourself and your business, says Tencer. Don’t know many professionals outside of your field? Join a high-level networking group, such as Vistage, that puts you in the same room with CEOs from unrelated industries.

“It really opens your mind,” Tencer says. “It gives you feedback on what you could be doing differently, by learning from best practices in other areas.”

2. Amplifiers

To spread your company’s message, get to know like-minded industry thought leaders, journalists and social media users with a significant following. These people will help you reach their audiences, says Tencer.

You don’t have to meet such contacts face-to-face to build a strong working relationship. One good way to meet amplifiers, says Tencer, is by offering useful information based on your professional knowledge. Post to social networks such as LinkedIn.

3. New prospects in growing industries

A good 44 percent of small business owners expect economic volatility to make it harder to reach their business goals for 2012, according to the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute.

You may lose some sales to clients who are in bad financial shape in today’s economy, but you can compensate. Add new customers who are in thriving industries.

It’s not likely to happen by accident.

“If you want to be in health care, make it a point to do some homework,” says Andrea Nierenberg, author of Nonstop Networking. She is president of The Nierenberg Group, an executive training, recruiting and consulting firm in New York.

Identify key players in the market you want to reach, and make a plan for contacting them, perhaps through a site like LinkedIn or with introductions from professional contacts.

4. Savvy suppliers

When you buy products and services, take the time to ask your suppliers about what they’re seeing in the marketplace. Consider inviting one or two to your office this year to make a brief presentation.

“They can definitely tell you about trends they have seen in your industry and in parallel industries,” says Tencer. Suppliers who do business internationally can offer a particularly comprehensive perspective.

5. Friends of friends

Forget the old taboo against mixing business with pleasure. Your social circle, from lunch mates at the office to high school friends, can be a great source of referrals. This works as long as they are familiar enough with the quality of your work to recommend you confidently to their contacts.

How do you foster unsought referrals? Be a recurring source of help to others in your personal, professional and volunteer networks. When you pass along a job lead or make introductions to a potential client, says Nierenberg, others will naturally want to reciprocate.

If you’ve lost touch with a friend, Nierenberg suggests that you set up a Google alert with that person’s name. News clippings and blog posts that pop up may give you conversation starters to use in an e-mail. Of course, if a buddy makes a valuable connection, you’ll want to take them to lunch or send a small gift.

“The better the relationships you have with people, the more likely they are to make introductions for you,” says Nierenberg.

Elaine Pofeldt is an independent journalist specializing in entrepreneurship. Her work has appeared in TheAtlantic.com, BNET, Crain’s New York Business, CBS Moneywatch, Good Housekeeping, Inc., Working Mother and many other publications. A former senior editor of Fortune Small Business magazine and editor of its website, she does editorial consulting for online and print publications.

By Ken Tencer Blog, branding, business, business strategy, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurial Thinking, Innovation, marketing, strategy, The 90% Rule No comments Tags: business, business strategy, Canadian Business, Entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Innovation, Ken Tencer, strategy, The 90% Rule

Dec 7, 2011

Make yourself obsolete, or someone else will

by Ken Tencer
Originally published as a Special to Globe and Mail Update, Wednesday, Dec. 07, 2011

With Dyson’s new bladeless fans, generation of kids will be denied the chance to stick pencils through screens to see what happens when they touch fast-spinning blades.

For any other reason, you have to love the British-based company because its innovations are so obvious yet so breakthrough.

Safe, bladeless fans that move air without all the rumbling and rattling.
Technology patterned after jet engines.
Dual-cyclonic vacuums that suck up more dirt, more efficiently.
Airport hand driers that actually work.

Why were these products not developed sooner? Did no other company listen to generations of frustrated consumers? Or were the former market leaders simply too afraid to cannibalize existing products and markets by introducing something truly innovative?

Dyson’s success is a lesson to all business leaders: Don’t be afraid to make yourself obsolete, or someone else will do it for you.

For most companies that’s easier said than done. I used these words while co-chairing a recent innovation conference in New York City, and I heard the groans from the audience.

I have heard their thoughts out loud too often:

“We are the market leaders. We are too big to fail.”
“Our technology dominates the market, no need to worry,” said the buggy-whip maker to his horse.

Too many great companies have disappeared because they resisted change instead of embracing it. We may now be watching the demise of yet another giant, in photography company Eastman Kodak Co. The incredible thing is that Kodak actually saw and invented a future when digital photography would replace film. But somehow it managed to resist it. As analyst Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank told The New York Times: “The big story here is that their core business — the yellow box business — got cannibalized by the digital camera, which ironically they invented.”

The “good news” for investors is that Kodak is now soundly and strategically focused on digital-printing technology (in an increasingly paperless world?). I don’t mean to pick on Kodak, as it is not the first company to resist change, and it won’t be the last.

So where do we turn to find an example of an industry successfully making itself obsolete? Look at autos. Car makers recognized it was only a matter of time before the traditional combustion engine model gave way to newer, cleaner technology. So over the past decade they have gradually introduced us to the future, in the form of clean diesel, hybrid and now fully electric engines.

Each of these introductions started small, with expensive pioneering products sold to early adopters. This is how the industry developed its ability to introduce alternative technology, test demand, optimize production, and manage the transition. Today auto makers have a clear understanding of their market and possess the production capacity to ramp up a full-scale transition – fully cannibalizing the old combustion technology – without endangering their revenues.

The car industry didn’t just stay ahead of the curve – it created and managed the curve. If more of Dyson’s vacuum-cleaner competitors had shared that kind of vision, they wouldn’t be sucking air.

By Ken Tencer Blog, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurial Thinking, entrepreneurship, Innovation, marketing, optimzing innovation, planning, Spyder Works, strategy, The 90% Rule No comments Tags: branding, Entrepreneur, Innovation, social media, Spyder Works Inc., strategy, The 90% Rule

Dec 1, 2011

Innovation Insight: You Don’t Have To Be an Inventor to Be an Innovator

One of a series by Ken Tencer, Spyder Works CEO

Many people confuse the words innovator and inventor; they can be synonymous, but they don’t have to be. Some of the world’s most successful and well known innovators aren’t inventors at all; they are masters of the art of taking an idea or concept and making it better. Often, they are able to make good ideas into the best ideas of all time.

Take Steve Jobs, for example. Famous author, Malcom Gladwell, has dubbed him, “The Tweaker” in a recent article he wrote for The New Yorker. Jobs was a masterful innovator because he was able to take the ideas of others and turn them into winning products and concepts. For example, Jobs got the ideas for the main characteristics of the MacIntosh operating system from Xerox PARC, stemming from a famous visit there in 1979. The revolutionary iPad evolved from an engineer at Microsoft’s idea for a tablet computer. His idea made use of a stylus – an old idea that wasn’t revolutionary enough for Jobs. He did away with the stylus and the iPad made history as one of the most coveted devices of its era.

The moral to this innovation story? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to become an epic success.

By Ken Tencer Blog, business strategy, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurial Thinking, entrepreneurship, Innovation, optimzing innovation, Spyder Works, strategy, The 90% Rule No comments Tags: 90% Rule, business strategy, Entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Innovation, strategy, The 90 percent rule, The 90% Rule