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| Subject: Part 6 f- Building A Knowledge Base for the Present & Future | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 22:29:52 10/12/05 Wed In reply to: Dennis S. Vogel 's message, "Part 6a - Be Sure Your Business Is On Target" on 17:00:34 09/26/05 Mon Each of the group’s researcher/facilitators’ topic notes can be kept in a physical file &/or computer documents. It’ll be easier to search for words & key phrases with a computer if the documents are editable text -- can be opened & read with word-processing applications. Discussions can be digitally recorded with a microphone hooked to a computer’s sound card. The computer/digital files don’t require much physical space & can be shared via FAX or data/Internet transmissions, so they’re very useful if the information is useful. Do research about bigger retailers to determine what you’ll need in the future. When you learn what they needed in various growth stages, you can determine if or when you might the same things. You can also learn what their solutions were. If the books & articles are candid, you’ll also learn what didn’t work for them. If the authors included enough details & you have the right insights, you may figure out why some things worked or didn’t. Don’t put too much faith into any conclusions until you tested them in low-risk ways. I wrote about testing in other posts. You can read books about the stores, the founders & retailing. New college text books are expensive, but older editions are cheap. When I was in Nebraska, I got some used textbooks from a University of Nebraska bookstore. I paid $1 each for some, even graduate level books. These cover problems & solutions in general & in case studies. Some off-campus, used book stores sell text books & smaller books about specific subjects. Some web sites have free book summaries. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which ones. You can use a search engine to find summaries of books by specific authors or about specific subjects or summaries in general. You can all listen to/watch information on tapes, CDs or DVDs. There are good points about doing it together, if in-person meetings are practical. If not, members can watch or listen to the information if each can get a copy of it. Or if the group can only get one copy, you can each take turns using it. Then it can be discussed. Discussion forums, message boards, blogs, online chat rooms can be good sources for learning about retailing issues. You can use these to learn about consumers’ issues so you can develop solutions for them. Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 & 7 can search through the Internet for documents containing subjects or keywords you type. You can choose to have it search just for PDFs or any documents. If you use a free forum service like this -- Voy.com -- you could each have the password so when any SCAM/SPAM garbage is found, any member can delete it. Or you could start a thread in an established forum if none of you want to moderate/control the interface. Some Master Mind groups talk only about issues like these, others just talk about books &/or articles they've agreed to read. Some do both. There are many thousands of information sources. Some opinions you'll find along the way conflict with others & possibly conflict with what you believe. Some of us believe there are no experts, just people with different experiences. Part of your first meeting could be each member reciting his/her experiences & the others interviewing each other & discovering sources of information, Whether it’s during your meetings or when you watch, listen to or read information, you’ll probably notice opinions & beliefs you disagree with. That’s good. I’ve heard being a genius means being able to mentally hold opposing thoughts at the same time. When I receive conflicting opinions I consider each & don't always discard them because I know each could be right depending on the situation. Just because I, or some authority, disagree with something doesn't make it wrong. Some think advertising shouldn't be interruptive & would be more effective if it wasn't. There's probably some validity in that in some situations. Those who sell safety equipment, & some of us who don't, don't understand why people would avoid using something that can prevent or reduce problems. Whether it's safety features on power equipment or seat belts & crash helmets. I saw motorcycle riders wearing sturdy boots, gloves & thick clothes but not helmets. Huh? They protect everything below their necks, but … oh, well. When I had old machines & couldn’t get exactly the right parts. I’d adapt the equipment &/or parts (made for similar models). This meant bypassing or not replacing safety features. If you sell safety equipment, you may have to deal with situations like these. You may need to provide or find financing for people so they can buy new, or at least more modern used models. Maybe you can find a machine shop owner to fabricate or adapt things & work out a referral fee arrangement. This could be somebody who wouldn’t have to bypass safety features & can repair safety features & would have insurance coverage for liability in case somebody gets hurt or property is damaged. You won’t sell to all who avoid safety, but you’ll probably get more sales when you find - 1) what they do; 2) what’s dangerous about it; 3) why they do it anyway; 4) better options they could/should have/use; 5) how bad the consequences could be; 6) how often the consequences happen & in what conditions; 7) what the long-term problems are; 8) what they could’ve had if they hadn’t suffered the consequences [assuming what could go wrong, did go wrong.] If sales copy is too scary, people might not believe it -- even if it’s all true -- or they may ignore it because they don’t to change. Some don’t want to know risks, they’d rather ignore them so they can feel comfortable about doing nothing (until something goes wrong). You can do this (figure out how to sell to certain people) as a workshop, I suppose some would call it brainstorming. Like in brainstorming, critiquing is done after the ideas are generated & applications/methods are developed. It may require work at other meetings, but that’s OK. Also, don’t move on to another topic until after the applications/methods are working optimally. If you write sales copy based on the 7 points I wrote above, test the ad/commercial, then discuss results or lack of results in the next meeting. Then develop other copy to test & discuss. I doubt any will work optimally the first few times. That’s not a problem because it’s a learning process. By practicing something, people will be better at using/doing it. Then it should be adjusted & adapted. Don’t settle for thinking, “That didn’t work.” If it was a good enough idea to implement, it’s a good enough idea to work on, like Thomas Edison finding thousands of materials don’t work for light bulb filaments. He knew light bulbs would work. Light bulbs we used today aren’t exactly what he invented. After he made a working light bulb, others improved the concept. So, the group should figure what to do, test it, then figure out how to improve it Dennis S. Vogel thrivingbusiness@email.com Are your sales & profits increasing? Or are just your costs increasing? To solve these problems & to prevent them, use the links below to get information you need. http://web1.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/ http://www.voy.com/31049/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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