1to1real

Every month, every day, I hear about or am invited to use a “new tool” my business can’t do without.  Personally, I’ve had ENOUGH with this gluttony of software.  We have enough software to run the planet right from our iPhones and Blackberries! All these programs are doing is distracting us from what should be our primary task – running an efficient business.

What happened?  How did we get into this mess? Firstly developers love to, well, develop.  It’s fun, exciting and enthralling to develop new gadgets.  However, too many of these gadgets are just technological junk food - they fill up your system, but they don’t really do anything for you. Just like real junk food, these programs don’t give your business real ‘nutrition’ and if you indulge in too much junk food you get bloated and sick.

So, the first thing we’re doing for Business fitness month? Cutting out the junk and untangling your technology!

Just like we have the four food groups, there are Four Pillars of good tech use that lead to Connected Success. I’ll introduce you to the Four Pillars of Connected Success next week. (Just like going to the gym, business boot camp won’t get you fit in one week. You’ll have to keep coming back!) For now however, let’s look at the typical diet of technology that most entrepreneurial businesses are eating in one form or another to manage their business: tracking and speaking to contacts, working as a team, that sort of thing.Abusing these programs is basically like eating too many candy bars – initially satisfying, but not a good way to stay productive or healthy.

1. CRM (Salesforce, Sugar, MS CRM Dynamics, etc) These programs are all full of features, but are you actually using them? Do they really add value to what you need to do to, or are they just empty calories?

2. Email Marketing (Constant Contact, Mailchimp, etc) Ah yes, generic emails and mailing lists. Not only are we doing badly as managing our own flows of email and information, but we’re pushing too much onto our clients and contacts. Email marketing is great – when it’s personalized and relevant, but spam isn’t good for your technology or your diet!

3. File Storage (Dropbox, etc) We have a huge need to share files and information online, but if you can’t connect files to the people who need to have them and you need to use one program to share the files and another to collaborate, you’re not working very efficiently.

4. Notes (Evernote, Onenote, etc) Once again, notes are great, but connecting your notes to contacts, files or discussion groups is time consuming. Notes aren’t collaborative either, which means you’re back to using several tools to do one job.

5. Project Management (Basecamp, etc)  Project management is a huge part of business today – especially since you need a project management tool to keep track of the notes and files you have to share among your team…

So what we have here are 5 sets of tools. The problem is that these tools all do a small part of the one job you actually need them to do – manage contacts, collaborate and share files and notes… Each type of program has a clear single function, but none of them work together. Instead of eating one sandwich to satisfy your business needs, you’re eating 5 different candy bars.  They fill you up when you’re hungry for a function, but there’s no long term nutritional value for your business.

A well place set of integrated tools is like a well balanced diet.  It keeps you lean, mean and energetic. Putting the right nutrients into your body is a huge part of being a high performance athlete, and using the right programs is what it takes to be a top performing business – lean, efficient and successful. To be successful today management, marketing and messaging are all equally important. It’s a well rounded, holistic approach that recognizes it takes more than sales to drive an efficient company. We call this the M3 of CRM.

So, when we designed 1to1Real™ and the Connected Market Coach™ solutions for the “cloud” we decided we’d be like a well established gym. A “circut” of business and training tools that you need to stay in top shape and get into the zone; focusing not just on one small aspect of what a business needs to do, but the whole picture.

So what’s Step 1 for 2011? Trim down the disconnected tools, and get your business technology “mind” in line with your core business body – look at what you do, and how that’s different from what you need to do.

Next week we’ll cover Step Two: Organizing your Business Brain.

Picture: Candy and junk food might be delicious, but they're not what your body, or your business needs! Photo by Snippy Snippy Crab Kristine.

It’s always a bit melancholy to say goodbye to the holidays - helping put away the decorations while thinking about all the family, friends and smiles that make this time of year so special to us.  This past year my family received more cards than ever from our loved ones – cards about triumphs, about struggles in work and health, but all laced with hope, strength and love.

Many of us have been faced with challenges from the economic downturn for a few years now.  In our family, like so many others, health struggles surprised us and added to the stress.  For me, connecting with family, friends and associates during the holiday, and finding the time to reflect on the things we thought we wouldn't have been able to handle, yet did, provides a great source of personal growth and strength. The year past always seems to have many more bright spots than we saw at the time.  Perhaps this is why December always seems like such a wonderful month - the holidays let us reflect and anticipate.

As a lifetime entrepreneur I always find reflecting on these close connections, along with the holiday cheer and food to be a great springboard for new ideas, innovation and transformation.  This is the time of year I look back at our  business and the businesses we support in the Connected Market and say - “what can we… should we… will we do better, differently, more effectively in the coming year?”   It’s resolution time.

This year I’ve decided to create the first annual Business Fitness Month – after all, fitness resolutions shouldn’t just be about eating too many Christmas cookies! Get Ready for Business Boot Camp with the Connected Market Coach!

Here the seven exercises we’ll work through together over the next few weeks as we drive the “resolution challenge” to get your business and our Connected Market Solutions to you. 2011 is the year we get on track, in business and in our personal lives (I’ll be running, stand up paddling and working out every week to get myself into great shape along with our businesses.)

Let’s get started - here’s our work-out schedule, the 2011 seven step Connected Market Ladder!

Step 1: Trim Down your Technology Tangle

Businesses across the board have a glut of unneeded technology tools clogging up their system and reducing efficiency.  Like high cholesterol, we’re going to show you how to get the good stuff into your system, and connect the “mind” of your business with the “body” of your team. The goal of this step is to stop wasting time and duplicating work.

Step 2: Organize your Business Brain

Your customer data is like the internal organs of your business.  The problem with internal organs is that if you ignore them, eventually they’ll wear out.  Data that is poorly handled, cluttered, hidden or disorganized won’t just hold you back - in today’s Connected Market it could kill your business…

“When data is sitting in pockets, and not transparent to the whole organization, decisions are not understood that well. If everybody has the same data, they’ll generally come to the same decision.”  Jack Welch, former CEO GE

The goal of this step is to help you understand why your Data Depot is the most critical part of your unique position in the market.

Step 3: Cut out the “Junk” and Focus on the Good Stuff

Just like cutting out junk food, tabloid magazines and junk mail, we’re going to get your communications in order, streamlining everything from social media to websites to newsletters. The best way to succeed is to get your message heard. The goal of this step is to gather your Unique Content and put in a place where your market will get your message.

Step 4: Get your Business Body (your team) Fully Engaged and Connected With your Core Value Proposition (your customers)

Buddhist philosophy calls this being mindful: Two Feet, One Mind.  How your “mind” of technology works either for or against your business will ultimately determine the effectiveness of your connections to your market and your success.  The goal of the he Connection Analyzer step is about changing your business “perception of reality”, i.e. getting focused on building and driving success.

Step 5: Get Away From Bad Habits and create Great Habits

What are your business habits? Like everyone, you’ve probably developed a set of both good and bad habits - some of them are your best processes, and some are outdated, repetitive and bloated; simply put, they’re overweight. The goal of this step is take a step back, trim, streamline and focus how you work, and develop healthy new automated, connected processes to replace the old broken ones.

Step 6: Embrace Communications and Find your Friends

Where do you stand in the constantly evolving Social Hub of communication as a business?  Can you manage all your connections and your presence, or do you find it cumbersome and difficult to understand?  The goal of this step is to work with you to clear all messy communications with solutions and structure that flows perfectly toward your business and lets you get your message heard.

Step 7: Constant Improvement for a True Transformation

Becoming number 1 in your market… even becoming number 2 or number 10 won’t just happen easily. Nobody gets six pack abs or have more energy after going to the gym once. Getting your business fit – getting more customers through your door and more productive, profitable operations – is about constantly working at it, and finding ways to improve. The goal of this step will be to set up a constant feedback process – to help you continue to improve your business fitness and master your market.

So, welcome to the Connected Market Coach 2011 Tim’s Boot Camp. We’ll be here every week  if you really want to focus and get going call The Connected Market Coach and start shaping up your business.

Happy New Year,

Tim, The Connected Market Coach Team, PedBot and 1to1Real.