Size and growth alone are not effective strategies for professional firms. Specialization and focus on profitability rather than market share allow firms to differentiate themselves. Most companies attempt to appeal to all potential customers but end up appealing to none, so differentiation and boundaries are important. Effective positioning requires relevance to customer needs and clear differentiation from competitors. Successful execution is also critical to realizing the benefits of a strong positioning strategy.
What Separates the Best From the Rest: What Makes Great Agencies GreatTim Williams
The truly great agencies share a set of principles and practices that distinguish them from the other 12,000 agencies in America and make them brands in demand.
Executive Presence Guide packed with quick tips, article links, and how to build executive presence today. Leaders' and Managers' how to guide for every day use.
Presentation explain about
Spring Boot vs Spring vs Spring MVC,
Advantages,
Where to start and how does Spring boot work ?,
Dependency Management,
Logging,
Exception Handling,
Database Handling.
in Spring boot.
An introductory section from our work in helping clients define customer value propositions and understand the importance of differentiated value within the context of strategy and planning. Hope you find something of value.
What Separates the Best From the Rest: What Makes Great Agencies GreatTim Williams
The truly great agencies share a set of principles and practices that distinguish them from the other 12,000 agencies in America and make them brands in demand.
Executive Presence Guide packed with quick tips, article links, and how to build executive presence today. Leaders' and Managers' how to guide for every day use.
Presentation explain about
Spring Boot vs Spring vs Spring MVC,
Advantages,
Where to start and how does Spring boot work ?,
Dependency Management,
Logging,
Exception Handling,
Database Handling.
in Spring boot.
An introductory section from our work in helping clients define customer value propositions and understand the importance of differentiated value within the context of strategy and planning. Hope you find something of value.
Is your organization prepared for your leadership readiness gaps? According to Forbes Magazine, (11/17), only 25% of organizations have leaders ready to meet tomorrow’s business challenges.
There are 7 strategic decisions HR can make to properly build and deploy an effective leadership development program.
HR has a unique opportunity to engage as an important strategic partner for the business by insisting on a more formalized approach to leadership development. And, there's programs that work and programs that don't!
At the end of this webinar, participants will identify:
- The 7 Strategic Decisions to Walk Through for an Effective Leadership Readiness Program
- How to Build and Make the Case for Leadership Development within your Organization
- How to Design your Approach - including how to select participants and what components will be the best fit for your organizational goals
- Key Methods for Tracking Results and Measuring the ROI
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman present the results of two major studies. One
offers findings from polling more than a million employees about their workplace needs.
The other is a 20-year study of how the methods of the world’s greatest managers
differ from those of lesser managers. This study involved interviews with more than
80,000 managers from 400 companies, the largest such investigation ever undertaken. The authors found key differences that fly in the face of traditional thinking about successful managerial practices. This astute, well-written report presents the major principles of great managers, and offers examples of leaders who put their knowledge of effective management into practice. The book’s conclusions rest on in-depth research, not theory.
This painstaking study authoritatively describes how employees feel about management
and explains exactly what great managers do, and why and how they achieve top results.Recommended it to everyone who manages, wants to manage or is managed.
This presentation shows how agencies and other professional services firms can deconstruct their current business model and put it back together in a more differentiating way.
How to deconstruct your agency's business model to better understand the value you deliver to clients and better position for firm to work for the types of clients you really want.
Service Positioning
After a service strategy has been identified, a company must decide how to position its product most effectively. The concept of positioning involves establishing a distinctive place in the minds of target customers relative to competing products.
In “The New Positioning: The Latest on the World's #1 Business Strategy”, Jack Trout distills the essence of positioning into the following four principles
1. A company must establish a position in the minds of its targeted customers.
2. The position should be singular, providing one simple and consistent message.
3. The position must set a company apart from its competitors.
4. A company cannot be all things to all people—it must focus its efforts.
Positioning and Marketing Strategy
Companies use positioning strategies to distinguish their services from competitors and to design communications that convey their desired position to customers and prospects in the chosen market segments. There are a number of different dimensions around which positioning strategies can be developed.
Big Data and Advertising: Cutting through the Hype, Getting to What Matters. Presented by Jed. C. Jones, PH.D Co-Founder of MindEcology, at The 2015 District 10 AAF Dallas.
A quick review on how to run a brainstorm IDEO style. Adapted from "The Art of Innovation" by Tom Kelley. Comments on each slide include the speaker's notes.
Is your organization prepared for your leadership readiness gaps? According to Forbes Magazine, (11/17), only 25% of organizations have leaders ready to meet tomorrow’s business challenges.
There are 7 strategic decisions HR can make to properly build and deploy an effective leadership development program.
HR has a unique opportunity to engage as an important strategic partner for the business by insisting on a more formalized approach to leadership development. And, there's programs that work and programs that don't!
At the end of this webinar, participants will identify:
- The 7 Strategic Decisions to Walk Through for an Effective Leadership Readiness Program
- How to Build and Make the Case for Leadership Development within your Organization
- How to Design your Approach - including how to select participants and what components will be the best fit for your organizational goals
- Key Methods for Tracking Results and Measuring the ROI
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman present the results of two major studies. One
offers findings from polling more than a million employees about their workplace needs.
The other is a 20-year study of how the methods of the world’s greatest managers
differ from those of lesser managers. This study involved interviews with more than
80,000 managers from 400 companies, the largest such investigation ever undertaken. The authors found key differences that fly in the face of traditional thinking about successful managerial practices. This astute, well-written report presents the major principles of great managers, and offers examples of leaders who put their knowledge of effective management into practice. The book’s conclusions rest on in-depth research, not theory.
This painstaking study authoritatively describes how employees feel about management
and explains exactly what great managers do, and why and how they achieve top results.Recommended it to everyone who manages, wants to manage or is managed.
This presentation shows how agencies and other professional services firms can deconstruct their current business model and put it back together in a more differentiating way.
How to deconstruct your agency's business model to better understand the value you deliver to clients and better position for firm to work for the types of clients you really want.
Service Positioning
After a service strategy has been identified, a company must decide how to position its product most effectively. The concept of positioning involves establishing a distinctive place in the minds of target customers relative to competing products.
In “The New Positioning: The Latest on the World's #1 Business Strategy”, Jack Trout distills the essence of positioning into the following four principles
1. A company must establish a position in the minds of its targeted customers.
2. The position should be singular, providing one simple and consistent message.
3. The position must set a company apart from its competitors.
4. A company cannot be all things to all people—it must focus its efforts.
Positioning and Marketing Strategy
Companies use positioning strategies to distinguish their services from competitors and to design communications that convey their desired position to customers and prospects in the chosen market segments. There are a number of different dimensions around which positioning strategies can be developed.
Big Data and Advertising: Cutting through the Hype, Getting to What Matters. Presented by Jed. C. Jones, PH.D Co-Founder of MindEcology, at The 2015 District 10 AAF Dallas.
A quick review on how to run a brainstorm IDEO style. Adapted from "The Art of Innovation" by Tom Kelley. Comments on each slide include the speaker's notes.
A step-by-step guide for start-ups and micro enterprises to identify their core competency, conduct a competitor analysis and create a well knit activity map
Welcome to the first of my six SlideShares on revenue growth – each covering a different pillar necessary for success. The strategies and tactics I will share come from a great deal of client experience as well as what we have done to grow our own business. I promise that if you follow the advice I will share with you, it will make a large difference to your top-line revenue number. Here are the six pillars:
1. Differentiated and compelling brand promise
2. Profitable Business Model
3. Optimized sales process
4. Effective lead-to-revenue framework
5. High-performance online strategy
6. Successful customer loyalty program
Stay tuned for the rest of the Pillars. Click on the link in the presentation to read the complete blog article.
About Us:
Fusion Marketing Partners (FMP) is a B2B marketing agency that specializes in helping companies create powerful lead-to-revenue machines to turn around their stalled or under-performing marketing and sales operations and build value in their business. FMP’s strategic expertise and vigorous execution of proven tactics has quickly driven measurable improvements in awareness, leads and revenue for B2B clients across the U.S. and internationally.
The company was founded by principals with deep experience in B2B marketing, sales, business development, web marketing, and public relations — from successful startups to Silicon Valley giants.
To find out more, visit http://www.fusionmarketingpartners.com.
The Basics of Brand Management by Iftikhar Munir (Director at ZM TRADERS). Iftikhar Munir has over 15 years of experience of advertising, marketing and sales management at senior position.
Below C Level Strategy (a ChangeThis Manifesto by John Spence)Samuli Pahkala
Whereas C- level strategic planning is for people that ‘make’ budgets; below C-level strategic planning is for those of us that are given a budget. Folks at the C-level
make broad reaching decisions that direct people and departments across the entire organization, while those of us below C-level often have to focus on the few places within the organization where we do have impact, influence and some level of control. Luckily, the most important strategies for creating a highly successful organization fall into a handful of key result areas, most of which are completely within your control.
33 Tips, Secrets and idea's to help you create value for your business. Ultimately they will help you sell your business for the highest value possible.
Chapter 8 - SECRETS TO BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS BUSINESS THROUGH LEADERSHIP MAR...VINCE FERRARO
Do you dream of winning? Are you In It To Win It? There is an old saying that states:To the victor go the spoils. This saying originated from wars fought in ancient days - and meant that the victor got all the goodies! In today's competitive society, our desires and intentions are to be the best at what we do to win the prize - tangible or intangible. In fact, even the US Army used the slogan Be all that you can be as a motivator for recruits to join and excel.
Tom Hopkins, Author of How To Master The Art Of Selling & states that if you're going to do anything-small or large-why not do it to the best of your ability? Being the 'best' connotes drive, perseverance, leadership, success - factors that are valued by our culture, by which we are judged, and which make us feel good. Where does this take us? Well, we all want to be successful in our endeavors.
The Celebrity Expert® authors in this book have earned 'Blue Ribbons' in their respective fields of endeavor. They have succeeded in attaining their goals. Are you aspiring to be the best in your field? Are you planning to succeed? These Celebrity Experts® have blazed a trail that will show you the way and make it easier for you to succeed. They will show you how to avoid the pitfalls they encountered and, if you take advantage of their experiences, they will coach you to attain your desired goals. Experience suggests that readers of this book will be...In It To Win It.
Strategy is not complex. But it is hard. It’s hard because it forces people and organizations to make
specific choices about their future—something that doesn’t happen in most companies. Dr .Mahboob
Khan
Times have been tough the past few years. We’re a little confused and definitely a little scared. But there’s hope for the small business owner. We've compiled 6 tips to re-think the market and how you approach it.
Five key elements that drive the value of your businessMatthew Wirgau
Use These Five Fundamentals to Increase Your Business Value
Every business owner, Board of Directors, CEO, President, or entrepreneur should know the value of their business.
Because it’s hard to accurately determine the value of a business, many just ignore it. Too often, business owners get a mistaken view of value when they hear the price that another business owner received. I call this “the Valuation Gap”.
Business value is a combination of profitability, future certainty of profits, and the transfer-ability of the profits to a new business owner.
Knowing the value of your business is a prerequisite to good management.
Even if you have no intention of selling and you will be passing your business on to your next generation, you should know its value.
Going through the valuation process gives insight into your company’s historical performance and its potential future.
If you know the value of your business, you will be more prepared to make effective management decisions that will make it more successful in the future. If you don’t know the value of your business and what is driving its value, you could very easily end up doing things and making mistakes that will destroy its value over the long-term.
The Definitive Guide to Winning in Competitive B2B SaaS Markets.pdfContento
Learn how to deliver a plan for growth for your B2B SaaS Startup:
Get the basics right from the start
What marketing tactics can you leverage to drive growth
Evaluate the different marketing options you face
Create a marketing plan for growth
Similar to Highlights from "Positioning for Professionals" (20)
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
5 big bets to drive growth in 2024 without one additional marketing dollar AND how to adapt to the biggest shifting eCommerce trend- AI.
1) Romance Your Customers - Retention
2) ‘Alternative’ Lead Gen - Advocacy
3) The Beautiful Basics - Conversion Rate Optimization
4) Land that Bottom Line - Profitability
5) Roll the Dice - New Business Models
Everyone knows the power of stories, but when asked to come up with them, we struggle. Either we second guess ourselves as to the story's relevance, or we just come up blank and can't think of any. Unlocking Everyday Narratives: The Power of Storytelling in Marketing will teach you how to recognize stories in the moment and to recall forgotten moments that your audience needs to hear.
Key Takeaways:
Understand Why Personal Stories Connect Better
How To Remember Forgotten Stories
How To Use Customer Experiences As Stories For Your Brand
Most small businesses struggle to see marketing results. In this session, we will eliminate any confusion about what to do next, solving your marketing problems so your business can thrive. You’ll learn how to create a foundational marketing OS (operating system) based on neuroscience and backed by real-world results. You’ll be taught how to develop deep customer connections, and how to have your CRM dynamically segment and sell at any stage in the customer’s journey. By the end of the session, you’ll remove confusion and chaos and replace it with clarity and confidence for long-term marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
• Uncover the power of a foundational marketing system that dynamically communicates with prospects and customers on autopilot.
• Harness neuroscience and Tribal Alignment to transform your communication strategies, turning potential clients into fans and those fans into loyal customers.
• Discover the art of automated segmentation, pinpointing your most lucrative customers and identifying the optimal moments for successful conversions.
• Streamline your business with a content production plan that eliminates guesswork, wasted time, and money.
The Secret to Engaging Modern Consumers: Journey Mapping and Personalization
In today's digital landscape, understanding the customer's journey and delivering personalized experiences are paramount. This masterclass delves into the art of consumer journey mapping, a powerful technique that visualizes the entire customer experience across touchpoints. Attendees will learn how to create detailed journey maps, identify pain points, and uncover opportunities for optimization. The presentation also explores personalization strategies that leverage data and technology to tailor content, products, and experiences to individual customers. From real-time personalization to predictive analytics, attendees will gain insights into cutting-edge approaches that drive engagement and loyalty.
Key Takeaways:
Current consumer landscape; Steps to mapping an effective consumer journey; Understanding the value of personalization; Integrating mapping and personalization for success; Brands that are getting It right!; Best Practices; Future Trends
Videos are more engaging, more memorable, and more popular than any other type of content out there. That’s why it’s estimated that 82% of consumer traffic will come from videos by 2025.
And with videos evolving from landscape to portrait and experts promoting shorter clips, one thing remains constant – our brains LOVE videos.
So is there science behind what makes people absolutely irresistible on camera?
The answer: definitely yes.
In this jam-packed session with Stephanie Garcia, you’ll get your hands on a steal-worthy guide that uncovers the art and science to being irresistible on camera. From body language to words that convert, she’ll show you how to captivate on command so that viewers are excited and ready to take action.
In this presentation, Danny Leibrandt explains the impact of AI on SEO and what Google has been doing about it. Learn how to take your SEO game to the next level and win over Google with his new strategy anyone can use. Get actionable steps to rank your name, your business, and your clients on Google - the right way.
Key Takeaways:
1. Real content is king
2. Find ways to show EEAT
3. Repurpose across all platforms
10 Video Ideas Any Business Can Make RIGHT NOW!
You'll never draw a blank again on what kind of video to make for your business. Go beyond the basic categories and truly reimagine a brand new advanced way to brainstorm video content creation. During this masterclass you'll be challenged to think creatively and outside of the box and view your videos through lenses you may have never thought of previously. It's guaranteed that you'll leave with more than 10 video ideas, but I like to under-promise and over-deliver. Don't miss this session.
Key Takeaways:
How to use the Video Matrix
How to use additional "Lenses"
Where to source original video ideas
The session includes a brief history of the evolution of search before diving into the roles technology, content, and links play in developing a powerful SEO strategy in a world of Generative AI and social search. Discover how to optimize for TikTok searches, Google's Gemini, and Search Generative Experience while developing a powerful arsenal of tools and templates to help maximize the effectiveness of your SEO initiatives.
Key Takeaways:
Understand how search engines work
Be able to find out where your users search
Know what is required for each discipline of SEO
Feel confident creating an SEO Plan
Confidently measure SEO performance
For too many years marketing and sales have operated in silos...while in some forward thinking companies, the two organizations work together to drive new opportunity development and revenue. This session will explore the lessons learned in that beautiful dance that can occur when marketing and sales work together...to drive new opportunity development, account expansion and customer satisfaction.
No, this is not a conversation about MQLs and SQLs. Instead we will focus on a framework that allows the two organizations to drive company success together.
Is AI-Generated Content the Future of Content Creation?Cut-the-SaaS
Discover the transformative power of AI in content creation with our presentation, "Is AI-Generated Content the Future of Content Creation?" by Puran Parsani, CEO & Editor of Cut-The-SaaS. Learn how AI-generated content is revolutionizing marketing, publishing, education, healthcare, and finance by offering unprecedented efficiency, creativity, and scalability.
Understanding
AI-Generated Content:
AI-generated content includes text, images, videos, and audio produced by AI without direct human involvement. This technology leverages large datasets to create contextually relevant and coherent material, streamlining content production.
Key Benefits:
Content Creation: Rapidly generate high-quality content for blogs, articles, and social media.
Brainstorming: AI simulates conversations to inspire creative ideas.
Research Assistance: Efficiently summarize and research information.
Market Insights:
The content marketing industry is projected to grow to $17.6 billion by 2032, with AI-generated content expected to dominate over 55% of the market.
Case Study: CNET’s AI Content Controversy:
CNET’s use of AI for news articles led to public scrutiny due to factual inaccuracies, highlighting the need for transparency and human oversight.
Benefits Across Industries:
Marketing: Personalize content at scale and optimize engagement with predictive analytics.
Publishing: Automate content creation for faster publication cycles.
Education: Efficiently generate educational materials.
Healthcare: Create accurate content for patients and professionals.
Finance: Produce timely financial content for decision-making.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations:
Transparency: Disclose AI use to maintain trust.
Bias: Address potential AI biases with diverse datasets.
SEO: Ensure AI content meets SEO standards.
Quality: Maintain high standards to prevent misinformation.
Conclusion:
AI-generated content offers significant benefits in efficiency, personalization, and scalability. However, ethical considerations and quality assurance are crucial for responsible use. Explore the future of content creation with us and see how AI is transforming various industries.
Connect with Us:
Follow Cut-The-SaaS on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Medium. Visit cut-the-saas.com for more insights and resources.
AI-Powered Personalization: Principles, Use Cases, and Its Impact on CROVWO
In today’s era of AI, personalization is more than just a trend—it’s a fundamental strategy that unlocks numerous opportunities.
When done effectively, personalization builds trust, loyalty, and satisfaction among your users—key factors for business success. However, relying solely on AI capabilities isn’t enough. You need to anchor your approach in solid principles, understand your users’ context, and master the art of persuasion.
Join us as Sarjak Patel and Naitry Saggu from 3rd Eye Consulting unveil a transformative framework. This approach seamlessly integrates your unique context, consumer insights, and conversion goals, paving the way for unparalleled success in personalization.
The digital marketing industry is changing faster than ever and those who don’t adapt with the times are losing market share. Where should marketers be focusing their efforts? What strategies are the experts seeing get the best results? Get up-to-speed with the latest industry insights, trends and predictions for the future in this panel discussion with some leading digital marketing experts.
Core Web Vitals SEO Workshop - improve your performance [pdf]Peter Mead
Core Web Vitals to improve your website performance for better SEO results with CWV.
CWV Topics include:
- Understanding the latest Core Web Vitals including the significance of LCP, INP and CLS + their impact on SEO
- Optimisation techniques from our experts on how to improve your CWV on platforms like WordPress and WP Engine
- The impact of user experience and SEO
How to Use AI to Write a High-Quality Article that Ranksminatamang0021
In the world of content creation, many AI bloggers have drifted away from their original vision, resulting in low-quality articles that search engines overlook. Don't let that happen to you! Join us to discover how to leverage AI tools effectively to craft high-quality content that not only captures your audience's attention but also ranks well on search engines.
Disclaimer: Some of the prompts mentioned here are the examples of Matt Diggity. Please use it as reference and make your own custom prompts.
Monthly Social Media News Update May 2024Andy Lambert
TL;DR. These are the three themes that stood out to us over the course of last month.
1️⃣ Social media is becoming increasingly significant for brand discovery. Marketers are now understanding the impact of social and budgets are shifting accordingly.
2️⃣ Instagram’s new algorithm and latest guidance will help us maintain organic growth. Instagram continues to evolve, but Reels remains the most crucial tool for growth.
3️⃣ Collaboration will help us unlock growth. Who we work with will define how fast we grow. Meta continues to evolve their Creator Marketplace and now TikTok are beginning to push ‘collabs’ more too.
Mastering Multi-Touchpoint Content Strategy: Navigate Fragmented User JourneysSearch Engine Journal
Digital platforms are constantly multiplying, and with that, user engagement is becoming more intricate and fragmented.
So how do you effectively navigate distributing and tailoring your content across these various touchpoints?
Watch this webinar as we dive into the evolving landscape of content strategy tailored for today's fragmented user journeys. Understanding how to deliver your content to your users is more crucial than ever, and we’ll provide actionable tips for navigating these intricate challenges.
You’ll learn:
- How today’s users engage with content across various channels and devices.
- The latest methodologies for identifying and addressing content gaps to keep your content strategy proactive and relevant.
- What digital shelf space is and how your content strategy needs to pivot.
With Wayne Cichanski, we’ll explore innovative strategies to map out and meet the diverse needs of your audience, ensuring every piece of content resonates and connects, regardless of where or how it is consumed.
Mastering Multi-Touchpoint Content Strategy: Navigate Fragmented User Journeys
Highlights from "Positioning for Professionals"
1. HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BOOK
Positioning for Professionals
How Professional Firms Can Differentiate Their Way to Success
By Tim Williams
2. A few key highlights from Chapter 1
Size is Not a Strategy
Advertising Age recently observed, “The list
of great brands that have been damaged,
even ruined, as they’ve been milked for
growth rather than managed for profit is a
long one — and it grows every year.”
3. The unbridled quest for growth has played out in very
visible ways in the marketing communications industry.
Today, just five holding companies control 85 percent of
the advertising expenditures in the world. This roll up of
marketing communications companies also was expected
to produce significant economies of scale. It didn’t.
A few key highlights from Chapter 1
Size is Not a Strategy
4. Not only is growth not a strategy, but
the supposed advantages of size are
diminishing, especially in professional
services. “Bigness” is no longer a
competitive advantage. In fact, the
trend is clearly away from big diversified
firms to smaller specialized operations.
A few key highlights from Chapter 1
Size is Not a Strategy
5. The only growth the really matters is growth in
profitability. It’s easy to grow sales and market
share and still be unprofitable. Companies—not just
some, but most companies, including professional
firms—routinely “buy” sales and market share by
discounting. That kind of growth isn’t growth at all;
it’s merely a form of unhealthy enlargement.
Better to be a profit leader
than a market share leader.
A few key highlights from Chapter 1
Size is Not a Strategy
6. The temptation to copy in business is irresistible.
Business leaders logically conclude they can replicate
another company’s success by duplicating their
attributes and capabilities. This is what makes the
concepts of “benchmarking” and “best practices” so
pernicious. They just encourage one company to
adopt another’s business practices.
A few key highlights from Chapter 2
How Company Brands Become Homogenized
7. Believing that the more attributes a brand can claim, the
more valuable it will be to the customer, most brands
continue to add more and more features until they appear
to be “all-in-one solutions.” The problem is, of course,
nobody buys a product or service because it can do
everything, but rather because it can do something.
A few key highlights from Chapter 2
How Company Brands Become Homogenized
8. There’s really no such thing as “full
service.” The full-service promise often is
accompanied by other undifferentiating
terms like “wide range,” “full line,” and
“complete.” No client ever buys a “wide
range of expertise,” but rather a specific
kind of expertise.
A few key highlights from Chapter 2
How Company Brands Become Homogenized
9. Professional firms fear focus for myriad reasons, but
the leading fear is the belief that if they focus their
brand to solve a particular problem, they won’t be
solving other problems, thereby making the brand less
appealing to everyone. But brands are not marketed
to “everyone.” By appealing to everyone, brands end
up appealing to no one.
Standing for everything is the
same as standing for nothing.
A few key highlights from Chapter 2
How Company Brands Become Homogenized
10. In mature categories, the basis of
competition can unfortunately default
primarily to cost. So when brands attempt to
compete mostly on price, it’s a sign of an
undifferentiated marketplace. Lack of
pricing power correlates directly to lack of a
differentiating value proposition. Most
professional service brands are not
overpriced, they are just underexclusive.
A few key highlights from Chapter 3
The Mature Company’s Identity Crisis
11. Defining a differentiating positioning requires that we stop
focusing on reclaiming old territory and instead discover
new territory. The model is Columbus, not Napoleon.
Most firms are engaged in fighting “turf wars” instead of
finding new turf.
A few key highlights from Chapter 3
The Mature Company’s Identity Crisis
12. It feels like common sense to play to the
center of the market, but the middle is
actually the least desirable place to be. If
you try to simultaneously appeal to the
high end and the low end of the market,
guess where you end up? In the “mushy
middle,” where you appeal to no market.
A few key highlights from Chapter 3
The Mature Company’s Identity Crisis
13. Narrow is not the same as small. Of the top 25
advertising agencies in America, the majority are now
specialist firms, not “full-service” agencies. For the first
time in the history of modern marketing, the largest
agencies are no longer on Madison Avenue.
A few key highlights from Chapter 4
Expanding Your Business By Narrowing Your Focus
14. Imagine a sculptor not willing to risk chipping
away enough of the marble to reveal the detail
of what makes a beautiful human form. This is
similar to the behavior of companies not
willing to articulate a clearly defined strategy.
This is because they perceive “general” to be
less risky than “specific.” But the exact
opposite is true.
A few key highlights from Chapter 4
Expanding Your Business By Narrowing Your Focus
15. Most firms have the unrealistic aspiration
to compete across all segments of the
market. But success doesn’t require you to
serve all segments. It just requires that you
serve one well.
A few key highlights from Chapter 4
Expanding Your Business By Narrowing Your Focus
16. Because most businesses would
rather be liked than disliked, loved
instead of hated, they are reluctant to
say or do anything that would cause
anybody not to like them. But the
very nature of positioning strategy is
that your firm is right for some people
but not all people.
A few key highlights from Chapter 5
Positioning as the Centerpiece of Strategy
17. An effective positioning strategy exists at the
crossroads of relevance and differentiation.
Relevance is about maximizing the perceived
fit between your brand and your customers’
needs. Differentiation is about maximizing the
perceived difference between your brand and
competitive brands.
RELEVANCE +
DIFFERENTIATION
A few key highlights from Chapter 5
Positioning as the Centerpiece of Strategy
18. When you analyze the positioning strategies of
most professional firms, you find they are
based mostly on widely available,
overdeveloped services, which places the firm
on the wrong side of the value chain. By
focusing instead on the underdeveloped
features in the category, you are in effect
positioning the brand not just for where the
profits are, but for where the profits will be.
A few key highlights from Chapter 6
Building Brand Boundaries
19. How many times have you heard business
professionals rail against the idea of being
“boxed in”? As the argument goes, a “box”
prevents a company from selling whatever it
can to whoever might want to buy it. Exactly.
No box means no strategy, no boundaries. A
“boundary-less brand” is no brand at all; it’s a
product in search of a strategy.
A few key highlights from Chapter 6
Building Brand Boundaries
20. If you base your positioning strategy only on facts, you
are defining a position for the present and the past, but
not one for the future. Data can tell you only what has
happened, not what will happen. Facts don’t predict
the future. An effective positioning strategy is
ultimately based on a well-founded theory about what
will happen in the marketplace and why.
A few key highlights from Chapter 7
Validating Your Positioning Strategy
21. Much has been written about the
power of storytelling. Consider
your positioning strategy as the
story of how and why your
company came to be, what it loves
to do, what it cares about, and how
it thrives against competitors.
A few key highlights from Chapter 7
Validating Your Positioning Strategy
22. Your positioning strategy must not only
say, it must be. You must bring your
strategy to life in all of your firm’s major
business practices. This involves
identifying key imperatives that need to
be addressed with the same commitment
and urgency as client business. Unless
you translate your initiatives into action,
they are really only intentions.
A few key highlights from Chapter 8
Without Execution There Is No Strategy
23. Executing your positioning strategy
isn’t just an important thing; it’s the
only thing. Unless you actually put
your strategy into action, nothing
will have been accomplished. The
main difference between mediocre
firms and great ones is not just
vision, but execution.
A few key highlights from Chapter 8
Without Execution There Is No Strategy
24. The clock is an outdated metaphor
in the age of knowledge work. It’s a
relic of the industrial age when it
really mattered whether you were
“on the clock” because it meant you
were present on the assembly line
“creating value.” Knowledge work
requires a different set of
assumptions about productivity.
A few key highlights from Chapter 9
Getting Paid for Creating Value
25. Get clear about what you’re really
selling. Clients don’t buy your
efforts; they buy the outcomes your
efforts produce. Your internal costs
have nothing to do with the external
value you create for your clients.
A few key highlights from Chapter 9
Getting Paid for Creating Value
26. If professional firms are serious about
becoming partners with their clients, they
must stop being so risk-adverse and start
having more confidence in the effectiveness
of what they do. When a firm is willing to tie
its compensation to the same metrics that
CMOs and CEOs are judged by, then it is
entering into a real partnership.
A few key highlights from Chapter 10
Better Ways to Price Professional Services
27. When creating a personal investment
portfolio, no reasonable person would put
all their money in just gold, or just bonds.
Similarly, in a professional firm, if all your
compensation agreements are based on
just one low-risk, low-reward methodology
— hourly billing — it means you’re not
diversifying your portfolio in a way that
maximizes your return.
A few key highlights from Chapter 10
Better Ways to Price Professional Services
28. Reputational capital, by itself, does not make your
firm a brand. Because most firms have yet to do the
hard work of defining their brand boundaries, they
are mostly just “recognized trademarks.” The
strategic imperative is to not only create value for
your clients, but build the value of your own firm by
defining and living a relevant, differentiated
positioning strategy. Model the behavior you
preach to your clients.
PARTING THOUGHTS
29. More book previews and ordering
information at www.amazon.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Williams is the founder of Ignition
Consulting Group (www.ignitiongroup.com), a
business consultancy devoted to helping
professional firms create and capture more
value. As a recognized thought leader in the
marketing industry, Tim is a frequent speaker
and presenter for business organizations
worldwide. He is also a frequent contributor to
business and professional publications . His first
book, “Take a Stand for Your Brand” has been
ranked by Amazon as one of the top ten books
on brand building.