Growth Driven

“Strategy is only for big organizations”

Those with small companies or modest ambitions commonly believe that strategy is for those MBA types who manage Fortune 5000 level companies.

I would argue that one needs to rely on strategy, even more, when one has less money, opportunities, and resources.

Strategy helps you to prioritize and focus on important, life-defining activities that lead to further growth and success. 

When you’re strategic and resourceful, you “magically” garner more opportunities. 

“Strategy is only about thinking, thus a waste of my time”

I had someone tell me that all strategies, “Is thinking up ideas for other people to do.”

Most ignorant comment I may have ever heard. 

Just as your mind drives and directs your body, strategy drives and directs your tactics and regular activities.

A drunk or tired mind easily shows up in the muddled motions of those so affected.

A strategic mind is what we witness in Tom Brady's history of winning.

“Strategy provides little value or impact”

Most people are stuck in their normal, subconscious habits and old routines. They cannot connect the dots between strategy and elevating their maneuvers or developing improved tactics and efficient processes.

Before you witnessed any world-renowned innovation, there was a strategic mind working years, maybe decades, before it was unleashed upon the world. 

All true and famous innovators are also great strategists. 

Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy or direction and making decisions on allocating its resources to attain strategic goals.

It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic management. 

It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization and its relationship to the environment in which it competes.

Strategy has many definitions, but it generally involves setting strategic goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, setting a timeline, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. 

A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources) in a given span of time. Often, Strategic Planning is long term and organizational action steps are established from two to five years in the future. 

The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be planned (intended) or can be observed as a pattern of activity (emergent) as the organization adapts to its environment or competes in the market.

Strategy includes processes of formulation and implementation; strategic planning helps coordinate both. However, strategic planning is analytical in nature (i.e., it involves "finding the dots"); strategy formation itself involves synthesis (i.e., "connecting the dots") via strategic thinking. As such, strategic planning occurs around the strategy formation activity.

Recession-Proof Marketing Strategies with Cebron Walker
Featured Article: https://gobuttonmarketing.blogspot.co...

Here is the Virtual Marketing Bootcamp link and a little bit of text about it:
https://www.walkerkreative.com/produc...

The marketing bootcamp is designed for individuals, owners or team members who need to know digital marketing tools and tactics to implement NOW to recession-proof themselves and continue to grow their business or entrepreneurial project. You will be learning from experts who are applying these marketing principles right now with their clients across the country.

https://www.walkerkreative.com/

During a recession, your primitive lizard brain reacts, commanding the erroneous knee-jerk reaction to hunker down and wait out the storm. 

Do you know what people do when they panic? They end up saying dumb shit and overreacting. They sabotage what they’re trying to resolve. 

Do you know what handles most panic? Being extremely prepared!

Question: Are you prepared for the mother of all recessions? This business survival guide can help, if you apply what I teach within it.

On the other side of the coin are those few entrepreneurial contrarians who view these dark times as golden opportunities for grabbing additional market share. 

They prepare rather than panic. They respond rather than react. 

Warren Buffett once said, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

Recessions are unlikely opportunities for massive growth. But only for the prepared ones who respond, not panic. 

Once you change your mindset about recessions, refusing to be sucked into the upsetting news and panic of the media pundits, you can rise above with a written strategy and thus take effective actions to survive, and yes, even thrive. 

Live to serve others with high-quality services and products, while also standing tall as a brand that communicates positivity, empathy, and hope during challenging times, and you can win while others panic. 

“Some entrepreneurs think how can I make a lot of money? But the better way is to think how can I make people’s lives a lot better? If you get it right, the money will come.” – Sir Richard Branson

Take Away: Prepare and respond by writing out your business & marketing plan around, “How can I make many more people’s lives a lot better?” Do this before the economic storm peaks. 

History Teaches Us

In the 1920s, Post Cereals was the leader in their market. But when the Great Depression hit, the company reduced its marketing considerably.

Meanwhile, its biggest rival, Kellogg’s, doubled their advertising expenditure and quickly saw it

Recession Proof Your Business
https://gobuttonmarketing.blogspot.co...

This Is Your Business Survival Guide To Help You Prosper During Economic Crises 

During a recession, your primitive lizard brain reacts, commanding the erroneous knee-jerk reaction to hunker down and wait out the storm. 

Do you know what people do when they panic? They end up saying dumb sh*t and overreacting. They sabotage what they’re trying to resolve. 

Do you know what handles most panic? Being extremely prepared!

Question: Are you prepared for the mother of all recessions? This business survival guide can help, if you apply what I teach within it.

On the other side of the coin are those few entrepreneurial contrarians who view these dark times as golden opportunities for grabbing additional market share. 

They prepare rather than panic. They respond rather than react. 

Warren Buffett once said, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

Recessions are unlikely opportunities for massive growth. But only for the prepared ones who respond, not panic. 

Once you change your mindset about recessions, refusing to be sucked into the upsetting news and panic of the media pundits, you can rise above with a written strategy and thus take effective actions to survive, and yes, even thrive.
History Teaches Us

In the 1920s, Post Cereals was the leader in their market. But when the Great Depression hit, the company reduced its marketing considerably.

Meanwhile, its biggest rival, Kellogg’s, doubled their advertising expenditure and quickly saw its profits boom by 30%!

In fact, after overtaking the top position in the 1920s, Kellogg’s is still the category leader one century later.

Harvard graduate and Professor of Business & Marketing, Roland S. Vaile (1889-1970), tracked 200 companies through the recession of 1923. 

Roland reported that companies who continued to advertise during the crisis were 20% ahead of what they were before the recession. On the other hand, the companies that had reduced their marketing were still in the recession and were 7% behind where they were in 1920.

Companies that continued to advertise during the 1923 recession ended up 20% ahead of where they were before the recession.

During the 1990-1991 recession, McDonald’s decided to reduce its marketing spending and promotion budget. Contrarily, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell took advantage of their reduced presence and focused their efforts to retain their own respective marketing activities.

As a result, both the companies experienced higher sales, with Pizza Hut seeing a 61% increase, and Taco Bell a 40% raise. McDonald’s saw its sales decline by 28%.

Take Away: Recessions are unlikely opportunities for massive growth.

Full Episode: https://www.jeremyryanslate.com/987

About This Episode:
The Orange County Register featured @Edwin Dearborn as a true “Marketing Expert”. Edwin has also been featured in Entrepreneur, CBS MoneyWatch, Social Media Today, and other national media outlets. Edwin has appeared as a keynote speaker for Sony and the American Marketing Association.

Edwin is a veteran C-Level Executive, having been a CEO of a large non-profit organization in Orange County, CA for over 18 years. As a CEO, he was personally responsible for overseeing the planning and management of his 100 person staff.

Find out more about Edwin at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwindear...
Growth Driven Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Success Leaves Clues - What Does This Famous Quote About Success Mean?

“Long ago, I realized that success leaves clues, and that people who produce outstanding results do specific things to create those results. I believed that if I precisely duplicated the actions of others, I could reproduce the same quality of results that they had.” – Tony Robbins

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to virtual CMO and author, Edwin Dearborn. 

Edwin shares that he helps companies, who are doing well but don’t have a CMO on board, who want to become more growth-driven. In other words, he’s the perfect fit for a company that doesn’t want to hire a full time CMO but needs that guidance to get to the next level. 

Edwin also helps to advise on content creation. A lot of the companies he has worked with have great content ideas but haven’t executed on any of them; Edwin helps with actually pulling the trigger on the content creation process.

Josh and Edwin also explore how to approach solving marketing problems in business. Edwin explains that many businesses only see their most immediate or direct problem and not any other issues that negatively impact the business. More often than not, your issues aren’t just chalked up to one problem, but rather several that influence one another. Edwin helps his clients take off their blinders and untangle the web of problems, then he helps create a blueprint that will help those businesses overcome those challenges and get to the next level of growth. 

Edwin and Josh agree that a confused mind does nothing. If your marketing and messaging isn’t clear or doesn’t resonate with your target audience, your prospects simply aren’t going to buy. If you’re having leadgen issues, you need to reframe your messaging to actually hit home with your demographic. Do market research to find out how your marketing is actually being perceived and use that feedback to change your ad strategy. 

Another important point to consider is keeping up with trends and changes. A CEO that runs all of their own marketing isn’t going to have the bandwidth to continue being their own marketing expert. This is the beauty of hiring a virtual CMO – you can outsource your needs to the experts without necessarily creating a whole new role within your company’s framework. Don’t wait until the last moment to outsource this type of work to a virtual CMO or marketing expert; start working on this early to stay on top of marketing trends and to build your processes effectively from the get go. A good CMO can drive revenue beyond what you might think is possible and this can all be done fractionally and virtually. Edwin shares that he works with ambitious businesses that want to scale. His clients have big dreams and want to create massive amounts of presence in their space. 

Want to learn more? Check out Edwin Dearborn’s website at https://virtualcmo.expert/. 

Check out Edwin Dearborn on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwindearborn/. 

Business Development Process: The Skills, Strategy, and Activities 
https://virtualcmo.expert/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwindearborn/

Business development is the process of implementing strategies and opportunities across your organization to promote growth and boost revenue.

It involves pursuing opportunities to help your business grow, identifying new prospects, and converting more leads into customers. Business development is closely tied to sales — business development teams and representatives are almost always a part of the greater sales org.

Business development is a process that helps your company establish and maintain relationships with prospects, learn about your buyer’s personas, increase brand awareness, and seek new opportunities to promote growth.

In contrast, sales teams sell your product or service to customers and work to convert leads into customers. Business development-related work simplifies the work of a salesperson or sales manager.

Business Development Representative Responsibilities
Although some BDR responsibilities may change over time and as your business grows, the following list will provide you with a solid understanding of typical BDR tasks.

1. Qualify leads.
BDRs must qualify leads and pinpoint ideal prospects to determine who they'll sell to. Typically, leads are qualified through calls, emails, web forms, and social media.

The key to qualifying leads (leads who are assigned to the BDRs as well as leads BDRs identify themselves) is to consider their needs and then determine whether or not your product or software could be a solution for them.

2. Identify and communicate with prospects.
By qualifying leads and searching for people who fit your buyer personas, BDRs will identify ideal prospects. They can communicate with those prospects directly to learn more about their needs and pain points.

This way, BDRs can determine whether or not the prospect will really benefit from your product or service by becoming a customer. This is important because it increases the potential for improved customer loyalty and retention.

Once the BDRs have identified ideal prospects, those prospects can be passed along to a sales rep on the team (or sales manager, if necessary) who can nurture them into making a deal.

3. Proactively seek new business opportunities.
Proactively seeking new opportunities — whether that’s in terms of the product line, markets, prospects, or brand awareness — is an important part of your business’s success. BDRs work to find new business opportunities through networking, researching your competition, and talking to prospects and current customers.

If a new business opportunity is identified, BDRs should schedule marketing assessments and discovery meetings with the sales reps on the team so they can all assess whether or not there’s potential for a deal.

4. Stay up-to-date on competition and new market trends.
It’s important to stay up-to-date on your competition’s strategies, products, and target audience as well as any new market and industry trends.

This will allow you to more effectively identify ideal prospects. It also helps your business prepare for any shifts in the market that could lead to the need for a new approach to qualifying leads and attracting your target audience.

Sales Prospecting: What Does That Mean | B2B Sales & Lead Generation

Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwindear...

“Prospecting is the proactive search for potential clients and referrals. It is purely outbound and can be initiated at will. Prospecting is the process of identifying for yourself who your ideal clients are, then searching for them, and then creating a base of leads. The goal of prospecting is to further communicate with them, in person and via technology, and to eventually convert them into paying clients.” 

Prospecting is the art of starting new relationships. 

Your new business opportunities that later turn into sales are initially identified through prospecting.

Prospecting is the lifeblood of sales.

Improving your prospecting results begins with setting aside the time and the energy to prospect each and every day. That doesn’t mean once a week or every other day. I mean, each and every day. 

To prospect successfully, you need to focus your time and energy on the methods that work best for you. Which methods are your best?

Make a list of all of the methods you can think of that are used to prospect. Plan how much time you will set aside for each method and set goals for how many prospects you want to gain from your effort.

Poor prospecting results are usually caused by two things:

1. Spending too little time on prospecting.
2. Ineffective prospecting. Coming across as awkward, insincere, or unsure.

Despite being the first stage of the sales funnel, prospecting is one of the most challenging tasks for sales representatives. Generating prospects is often time-consuming and it certainly isn’t as rewarding as closing a deal, which means it’s not uncommon to postpone this task until it absolutely has to be done. However, with the right strategy and commitment, salespeople can refine their sales skills and learn how to identify promising prospects quickly.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

As someone who has over 19,000 followers on LinkedIn and routinely has his posts seen by thousands of people per day, I’d like to help you win on LinkedIn.

I’ll keep this tutorial simple because how you can win on LinkedIn is simple.

But before I get into the Action Plan, let me share two observations.

Observation No.1: Most people don’t succeed on social media because they will not do the basics. The basics are not sexy or exciting, most often. The basics take time and consistency.

Burpees and kettlebell swings are not that fun. But if you keep doing them over and over every other day for months, you'll see the difference. Not sexy, but quite effective.

Observation No. 2: Complex people (over-thinkers and the idle) love to complicate everything. Then they tell you that they are waiting because they “want to make sure I’m doing it right”.

Perfection is the blood brother to procrastination.

Start simple. Then build up your competencies and systems as you get into a groove of activity and success.

Real Estate 2022 with Zachary Beach
https://smartrealestatecoach.com/

After many years of coaching and constantly doing deals himself independently, Chris Prefontaine founded Smart Real Estate Coach in 2014, bringing in his son Nick, daughter Kayla, and son-in-law Zachary as the company began to grow. The family team coaches investors on how to properly scale and automate their businesses throughout North America — all without using their own cash, credit, or taking out bank loans to buy property. Our team buys and sells homes in our own market every month. 

They mentor, coach, and consult students and Associates all around North America to do the exact same thing. We stay current because we're in the trenches ourselves.