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Business Intelligence

We’re back after a brief hiatus. Did you miss us? Today we’re going to talk about business intelligence. It seems like everyone is jumping on the data visualization bandwagon. That’s great and all, but if you aren’t doing anything with that information, you’re wasting time (and resources). The world’s slickest dashboards are meaningless unless they spur action and enable you to make better decisions for your business. We’re deviating from our “straight up text” policy to bring you this helpful diagram.

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Differentiation

Last week we posted about strategy. Today I’m going to unpack the differentiation aspect a little. As a small business, you’re probably in this category (because to be successful as the low cost provider, you need massive scale). In practical terms, that means everything you do should be about creating or capturing value. Are your employees chatting or playing on their phone behind the register? Probably not helping. Are you giving away free stuff? Some say giveaways are an effective marketing tool. There is certainly some truth to that, but you have to be careful that those freebies don’t cheapen your brand.

The question you should always be asking yourself: is what I’m doing right now creating value in the mind of my customer?

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Strategy

Business strategy is about one thing: competitive advantage.

What is competitive advantage?
It’s about creating a product or service that you can deliver better or cheaper than anyone else. “Better” means you should be pursuing a differentiation strategy and commanding a higher price; “cheaper” means you’re the low cost provider.

Why is it important?
Without competitive advantage, you’re going to find it really tough to stay in business.

What does that mean for strategy?
First and foremost, like Highlander — the sword-wielding immortal, not the Toyota — “there can be only one.” You can’t have a product development strategy and a separate marketing strategy. One company = one strategy. Secondly, “better” and “cheaper” are almost always mutually exclusive.

Need help developing your strategy? Contact us today and let’s figure it out together.

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About this Blog

I’ll be using this blog to share my thoughts and observations. I’ll throw in some stuff I learned in business school as well. I promise to keep it brief. I mean, let’s be real, who really has time to read a long, detailed post about anything? I personally lose interest in articles that can’t pass the supermarket line test — i.e. the whole thing can be read in the amount of time it takes to go through checkout. I suspect many of you are the same, or else why would TL;DR be a thing? All you’ll find here is a couple of lines of straight up, no frills text. If you want to see pretty pictures, follow us on Instagram.

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Let’s achieve something amazing together

I believe “mom and pop” shops are instrumental in shaping the identity of a community. All too often, however, we hear about small businesses shuttering their operation because they can’t compete with larger firms. I want to change that paradigm, so today I am launching SUCCE3D. My business acumen and your passion will be a powerful combination. Are you a brand new startup? Let’s create that pitch deck together. Are you ready to expand? Let’s take a deep dive into your data to figure out the best move.

No matter what it is that you do, if you own a small business, we need to get connected.