The C-Suite Digital Handbook

Building Your Business in 2010

Happy Monday Morning!  As we all begin to wrap up 2009 and look to 2010, we start thinking strategically.  What are your plans for building your business in 2010?  Do you launch a new business on you own or inside the company you work for?  And if you own the business, do you expand by building a new business line or expanding a new business line?  Certainly technology offers many opportunities for building new businesses.  Yet at the end of the day, whether it is using new technology platforms or combining them with traditional channels or traditional channels only, the same basics questions apply.  In order to answer them, I have reordered the basic 5 W’s & H of journalism of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How to What, Who, Why, Where, When and How.  I hope you will see the method in my madness by reading this below:

What is the Business?

This question should be answered in two sentences and should be easy to understand.  In working on the answer to the question, pretend that you are at a cocktail party.  How would you describe it?  In fact, use this holiday season to start practicing your answers.  However, I recommend trying them on people that aren’t strategically important to you.  Their response can help you simplify or refine your answer.

Also, look at what prospective competitors in your field are saying about their business.  Write them out on a piece of paper so you can look at them and understand how they are describing what they are doing.  How can you say it better?  How can you find the right key words?  Try using some of the free key word tools, such as Google’s Keyword Tool to start working on it.

There are other What questions to focus on:

• What resources can you bring to bear right away?
• What resources do you need to obtain to get things going?
• What is your unique selling proposition?

Who is Your Customer?

You need to zero in on who your customer is.  In fact, write out descriptions of your prototypical customer.  Even collect pictures of who you think your customer is.  And remember your customer is a multichannel customer.  Go online to understand who your customer is better by reading blogs pertaining to your customer, finding research studies that talk about your customer.  If you are in a B2B business, spend a lot of time on the websites of your prospective clients.  Go to their LinkedIn or Facebook profiles.  Read their press releases.  Understand everything you can about your customer and their needs and how your product or service is going to solve their problems.

There are other Who questions you need to answer:

• Who will be your initial customers?  Can they be evangelists?
• Who would you like to be part of your team?
• Who do you need to be part of your team?
• Who are potential alliances or strategic partners?

Why Would Your Customer Want Your Products or Services?

Why do your customers need your product or service?  Are you solving their problems in a way that no one has to date?  Why will your customers become repeat customers?  Why will it better than other offerings out there?

Other Why questions to look at include?

• Why now?  Why not next year or the year later?
• Why will you be able to scale your business?
• Why will you be a sustainable business?

Where Will you Start the Business?

Where will you start?  Locally, regionally, nationally or internationally?  Where is the best place for you to gain traction and get attention?  Where you do have the lowest opportunity costs and the greater ease of tweaking and developing a product.  It is great to have national or global aspirations.  That is what business plans are for?  Yet, as we all know we need to walk before we run.  Where will you have the best opportunity to get your walk and talk down?

Other Where questions include:

• Where are your consumers are online?
• Where can you reach your consumers via traditional channels?
• Where do you want to build your business over time?

When Will You Hit Key Milestones?

For me, one needs to answer the When question with a road map that includes key milestones.  Sit down and spend some time over the next few weeks and build a road map with critical milestones attached to dates and times, e.g. when will you develop your business prototype, when will you bring on new people, when will you get funding, when will you get your first customers, etc.  Set tangible and realistic goals and take time every month to adjust your road map so you can get closer to your goals.

Other When questions include:

• When can I fully launch the business?
• When will the business hit breakeven?
• When will the business achieve profitability?

How Will I Build My Business?

How will I secure the resources I need to:

• Develop My Business
• Define and Reach My Consumer
• Fulfill the Needs of My Consumer
• Determine Where to Launch My Business
• Define My Benchmarks and Measure Them

How shapes every part of your business.  How is the difference between an idea and a reality.

Other How questions to ask include:

• How will I get started?
• How will I survive?
• How will I stay inspired?

To stay inspired, I strongly recommend listening to Jason Calacanis’s weekly podcast, This Week in Startups.  While much of the focus is on pure start-ups, the fundamental business discussions are relevant to businesses large and small.  He has done 29 podcasts thus far as well as several bonus epidsodes.  If you want to get a summary of which ones are best for you to check out, please refer to Scott Simko’s blog called StartUpRecap.  Another source of inspiration is Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book Crush It.  Gary used social media to help build his family’s wine business from annual revenues of $ 4 MM to over $ 50 MM a year.  His story is an energizing one that should empower everyone to know that they can make things happen!