CH 2d : Jerry Maguire’s Mission Statement

I am revitalizing my 2020 article into a video.

Below is my article in 2020:

CH 2d : Jerry Maguire’s Mission Statement – 2020

When Jerry Maguire came out in the 90’s, it had a strong impact to some people. Some looked for the one who completes them while some like my co-sales teammate resigned from work. Like Jerry Maguire, he too had a quarter-life crisis and wanted to go back to school to pursue his passion. I, like some of Jerry Maguire’s officemate we’re clapping but deep inside was wary he will achieve his passion. If you are wondering what happened to him, he is now successful in the same work and industry he tried to leave.

Wikipedia defines quarter-life crisis as “involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one’s life” which is most commonly experienced in a period ranging from a person’s early twenties up to their mid-thirties^[1]. I define quarter-life crisis this way; we go through college and find a job just focused on earning money until one day we wakeup and begin to ask, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? In this crossroad of our life, we begin to look for our passion and purpose. If you are successful in finding your purpose and pursuing it, life seems easier. Actually the problems are the same but since you are doing what you love, you have gained the resilience to continue in spite of the difficulties. Plus the comfortable feeling that you are doing something that you are meant to do.

Business is like life, that is why it needs a Mission Statement. Otherwise your business would just be for earning money. In my “How to Start Your Own Business” Seminar, I always ask the attendees what is their passion, then I tell them to start the business of their passion. Business is a struggle, it is harder than just being employed and earning salary. Your continuing the business and closing it will depend if the business is your passion.

Another point from the movie, Jerry Maguire was fired for trying to change the direction of the company when he was not part of the Board of Directors. In fact he was like Don Quixote, dreaming people will embrace his mission when he is in the middle of the organizational chart. There will be no twist to the movie if Jerry Maguire was part of the Board of Director. It is the Owners or Board of Directors who sets the Vision and Mission of the business then cascades down this direction through policies and corporate culture. In fact, Jerry Maguire was only able to set the direction he wanted when he was the owner of his own company.

Two lessons I want to reiterate from this movie:

Your business needs a Mission and Vision based on your passion. There are a lot of advantages to this, one of which is you won’t have a quarter-life crisis which in business years is just after a few years. Owning a business is like sailing towards waves and you continuing or going back when you encounter rough seas would depend if your business completes you.
The Mission, Vision and Values are developed by the owners and cascaded down their employees. The analogy is like steering a ship with the directions coming from somewhere below deck and not on top at the bridge.

Ever wondered what was really inside Jerry Maguire’s Mission Statement? The movie’s writer, director and producer – Cameron Crowe released the full 25-page Mission Statement in his website to commemorate the 20th year of the movie in 2016. You can read it at http://www.theuncool.com/films/jerry-maguire/jerrys-mission-statement/ .

Reference :

Quarter-Life Crisis – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis#:~:text=In%20popular%20psychology%2C%20a%20quarter,begin%20as%20early%20as%2018).

December 30, 2020October 3, 2021

CH 3b : Go Digital!

I am revitalizing my 2020 article into a video.

Below is my article in 2020:

CH 3b : Go Digital!

There are two important things an existing business must do to succeed in the New Normal; 1) Reset-Realign-Restart which I have touched on my previous article “CH 1 : How my sanity survived the New Normal?” and 2) Go Digital!

The video Change(squared) by Gerd Leonhard was produced in 2016 long before the COVID-19 pandemic and businesses were already expected to embrace digitization to succeed. This has become a necessity in the New Normal due to the quarantine implemented by the government to protect its citizens.

Going Digital is not just having a web presence, which is having a website or an FB page. Going Digital is adapting technology in different areas of your business. What are the different areas of your business? See the figure below which is an Internal Analysis Framework in Strategic Planning:

If you are a micro business or even a sole proprietor this does not mean you have to create departments and hire people. You can assign yourself the different functions. Owning a business is not simply producing your product and selling it. You need to improve your product, deliver quality, have a good relationship with your suppliers, maintain financial books, file government compliance, and more. Based on studies, doing the other functions is a factor for business success. A common practice among the less than 0.7% of businesses that survive more than 5 years.

After being aware that there are more things that needs to be done in owning a business, you now do an internal analysis of your business. Track the process of your product from ordering your raw materials from the supplier to delivery to your client, plot the process into different boxes, as below:

Match your business process with Porter’s Value Chain Model and see what is missing in your business. Check what you cannot do during the New Normal and make two lists, in the 1st list put what you can do on your own and in the 2nd list put what you need manpower assistance. Items in list 1 can be solved with technology intervention and items in list 2 with outsourcing. The motorcycle delivery app is an example of an outsourced process for your business. It is not something you can do on your own and need extra manpower to achieve.

If you also want to have focus in just creating and selling your product, there is an option to outsource the other items in your list 2. There are businesses, such as SMEpinoy, who are offering business process outsourcing for MSMEs. You would be surprised how affordable it is to outsource, even much more affordable than hiring an employee.

But if budget is really tight and you want to do everything on your own, adapting technology is an option. How do you acquire technology? What you need can easily be Googled now, there are also friends you can ask or social media groups you can join.

But is technology expensive? On the contrary, do you know Google Suite and Microsoft Teams has a free usage for limited use. Which is enough if you’re a Micro Enterprise. You just start to pay when your transactions increase as your business grows.

If your still stuck in acquiring technology, feel free to ask for our assistance by emailing us at team@smepinoy.com. We will be more than happy to help since this is our mission. To help businesses succeed in the New Normal.

December 30, 2020October 3, 2021

CH 3d : If You Build It, They Will Come

I am revitalizing my 2020 article into a video.

Below is my article in 2020:

If you belong to Generation X, you may be one who were inspired to start a business because of this movie – Field of Dreams. Sorry Millennial’s you may not be able to relate, but even those who have not seen the movie believes just build your business and customers will line up at your door.

Although the movie was meant by the director to be about family reunions, “If you build it, he will come” and the father-son catch as the finale. The long line of headlights impacted me more, the pun “If you build it, they will come” became a slogan for startups. Unfortunately it is not that easy, business is not simply finding your product and registering your business. Now that I have gained white hair the last scene makes me ask, how did the people learn about the field?

Clients does not just come in droves without doing any marketing activity. It may be through word of mouth but the impact will not be that big in a short period of time. You need to do mass marketing to gain such a big impact. Unless you have baseball ghosts who can whisper to a lot of people, nobody will know about your product and business if you do not take the effort of telling people about your product.

I always mention in my business planning seminars, “If you want your business to succeed, make sure you and your business partners also sell aside from doing what they are tasked to do.”. You as the owners got to sell, sell, sell! You are also the best salesman for your company because you have the passion for your product. But many times I encounter business owners are afraid to sell. Example are tech-business owners that are developers, they are usually introverts and shy. They want to be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs by creating the next Windows or Apple. Unknown to them it took a lot of influencing and manipulating not just inspiring people. Even if you have the best product in the world but you cannot convince people that it is the best product in the world, might as well apply for a high paying tech job.

Another way is to look for partners that will help you convince people, the marriage of chaos and order.

December 30, 2020October 3, 2021

CH 4b : Introduction to Digital Marketing

I am revitalizing my 2020 article into a video.

Below is my article in 2020:

If you are still not yet marketing on the web then you are missing on a big chunk of the market. Remember:

“Over 50% of the population is below 30 years old“
“Facebook, YouTube, QQ and WhatsApp has a bigger population than China and India“
“93% of buying decisions are influenced by Social Media”. I would like to highlight on the word “Influenced” and not purchased or bought.

For people to patronize your business they must at least know it exists. People today use Search Engines, such as Google, to decide what to buy or where to go (ex. Restaurants in Quezon City). In the hundreds and thousands of businesses that will come out in that list, people will just look at the top 3 or at most the first page of the search. How do you get yourself on the top of the list? Search Engines rank their listing based on popularity, such as the number of unique visitors to your website. Thus, you need to make your website popular and visited regularly .

There are several activities to promote your website, such as:

The content of your website is what would make people visit it, thus create attractive content. As the video mentioned, “80% of our mobile consumption is video” and remember a gold fish now has a longer attention span than humans.
To Blog is to regularly update your website so people will come back. How often is regular? Well how often do you visit your favorite Social Media? But for a business, you must come out with daily updates or weekly at the most.
Do Social Media Marketing to invite people to visit your website because that is where the traffic is. Do not ask people to visit your FB page, you are just contributing to the popularity of Facebook and not your website.
Use the different Search Engine Optimization activities to make it at the top 3 of a search engine. Visit this site, https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en, to learn from Google itself how you can make your website rank.
And the long proven way of promoting your product, advertise. Compared to the classic tri-media (TV, Radio and Print), the Internet is becoming more popular. One advantage of Digital Advertising to Traditional Advertising is you can target the specific market you want to reach and at the same time accurately monitor your ads.

So what really is Digital Marketing? Digital Marketing is using the World Wide Web to do the classic marketing activities to promote your products and services through a website. Where in the old marketing you use Tri-Media (TV, Radio and Print), in Digital Marketing you are using the World Wide Web.

Is Facebook a Sales or Marketing Tool? Catch my answer next week as I continue my discussion on Digital Marketing.

December 30, 2020October 3, 2021

CH 4c : Sales or Marketing

I am revitalizing my 2020 article into a video.

Below is my article in 2020:

What is the difference between sales and marketing?

My answer will differ if you asked me this question today or 25 years ago. When I was with sales in the 90’s, the marketing effort is limited to generating awareness and interests through advertising, telemarketing, etc.. The prospects (or leads as we called it) are then given to us, the sales team, to Always Be Closing by getting Attention, Interest, Decision and Action.

As mentioned in last weeks video, “93% of buying decisions are influenced by Social Media”. Now, Social Media has widened the scope of Marketing that Sales is left to Decision and Action or based on the figure below Evaluation and Purchase.

Our sales report then was based on this funnel, for example :

Consideration = Number of Leads Visited, ex. KPI = 100 leads visited.
Intent = Number of Proposals Submitted, ex. KPI = 70 proposals submitted.
Evaluation = Number of Proposal in the Top 3 of the client, ex. KPI = 30 proposals shortlisted in the top 3.
Purchase = Number of Sales Closed, ex. KPI = 10 Proposals Closed.

If my batting average of Number of Sales Closed is 10% of Number of Leads Visited then if my Sales Quota can be achieved if I closed 10 clients I need to visit at least 100 leads and so on. As my MBA Sales Professor taught us, the best salesmen in the world are those who are not affected negatively by rejections. To close 10 accounts, you need to be rejected 90 times. If your batting average is 5%, to close 10 proposals you will be rejected 190 times.

To answer my hanging question last week, is Facebook a Sales or Marketing Tool? Based on the funnel, Facebook is a Marketing Tool. If a client decides to purchase, you need to go outside of Facebook to accept the payment. Facebook does not have a payment facility to complete the whole selling cycle. Facebook cannot be used to convince the client to decide and receive payments so Facebook is not a Sales Tool. You need your own eCommerce site or payment process to close the sale.

Sales or Marketing? “If you post it, They will Buy” alone does not work. It is a valuable knowledge especially for online sellers that you also need to “Always Be Closing”, even if you do not like it. Facebook knows this that is why they rate your Facebook Page based on how fast you respond to the Inbox of your FB Page. Notice this description in the About section of your FB page, Typically responds within a ______ thus you need to actively respond to inquiries in your Social Media Sites. Thus you also must not just be sharing and posting, you also must be closing. But how can you go to every group and comments to sell your product when Facebook treats this as an action against FB community standards which could make them block your account?

In the now, majority of the activities is in Digital Marketing. You must be able to bring people who have not heard of your product from Awareness to Evaluation through your Social Media presence. While the sales activities is now left to processing of orders and acceptance of payments. A control freak life me would find this as a disadvantage since my closing of sales is now dependent on how well I plan and implement my digital marketing strategy and not how good I am in selling. You need to have innovative promotions and a well thought of plan just to be noticed. How do you convince them to consider your product solely using Digital Marketing?

Patterned after the Marketing Mix or the 7Ps of Marketing, I will teach you how to do Digital Marketing. Next week we will start with the first P of the marketing mix – Product.

December 30, 2020October 3, 2021