Position Yourself as a Thought Leader ... an Expert

Think about all the things you have learned on your career journey .... the things you have mastered ...

Consider positioning yourself as a thought leader in a "select" topic area .... someone with knowledge, advice and "how to" information that helps/adds value for a target audience ....

Take a specific topic/area of focus for what you have learned .... package it in a way that a target audience will find it useful and of high value ..... and willing to pay for it .....

Provide high value to others by "creating" information that can improve results ..... focus on creating products around your area of expertise .....

6 Steps to Building a Business ..... around your area of expertise ....

1. Choose a topic/area to focus on ..... decide what you will teach & choose a target audience to teach it to
2. Discover your audience's problems ...... identify their pain points and needs
3. Position your expertise ... create your story
4. Create something to sell .... create a product suite .... make it easy to experience & learn what you know and can share .... create a "buyer's path" that continues to add value and keeps them buying from you
5. Create an online infrastructure for marketing, sales, fulfillment & customer service .... this is not hard or costly ... there are low cost & easy to implement online systems available today .... systems that are managed and maintained online by others.
6. Create sales campaigns .... step-by-step communications to actively sell your products online and through promotional partners.

Get started today leveraging your career journey of learning .... create and sell products & services around your area of expertise.

Follow @PatAlacqua

Are Your Products Maturing - What is Next?

Are you facing more and more competition for the products you offer? Is it getting harder to differentiate your company, your brand and your products in comparison to your competitors?

Is pricing becoming more challenging inlight of competitor pricing strategies? Are prices dropping due to competing products? Are your prospects and customers more often questioning your value proposition .. your price?

Do you have a proactive approach for product development and management? How are you positioning your products/services in your markets? Do you find you are reacting to your competition?

Do you have new products in the pipeline or are you finding your efforts are focused on current product feature additions?

Are you searching for how to creatively bundle your products? Are you considering how to bundle the products of other companies in with your products to improve your value proposition and your differentiation?

Consider your current approach to developing & implementing an effective product/service strategy. Is it working for you? Do you need to make some adjustments? Some idea generators are as follows:

1. Identify areas of improvement for current products/services to improve competitive advantage
2. Determine how your products/services have evolved and how they compare to your industry and take the appropriate actions to address the GAPS
3. Ensure you have clarity for  .... who your target customers are.  The segments that are most important to you.....the segments that have the highest potential. Identify the segments you want to ignore.
4. Ensure your product/service packages fit the way your target customers want to buy and are priced at levels they will pay and are acceptable to you. Which of your customer's problems/pain points are you trying to solve? Are there customer unmet needs you are not satisfying? What are your customers willing to pay for? What are they not willing to pay for? Where is demand increasing? Where is demand declining? What switching costs prevent customers from defecting to competitors? Can customers easily find & purchase less expensive products and services?

All products and services will journey through the 4 phases of the product/service life cycle......Introduction....Growth....Maturity....Decline. Often times companies find themselves navigating their way through these phases without a process for effectively managing product/service strategy. 

Your company's products/services ARE YOUR COMPANY. Don't wake up every day reacting to your competition. Develop your own product/service strategy so you can proactively navigate your company towards a balanced product/service portfolio that manages the path for all your products/services through their life cycle.

Get started today. The right product/service strategy processes will provide the foundation for you to make better decisions to ensure competitive advantage in your markets!

Follow @PatAlacqua

Building Your Business - 6 Building Blocks

Business Building - 6 Building Blocks

When building your business, there are 6 key areas to focus on as you build.

Your Markets - identify and define a set of customers who have needs you can provide solutions for. 


Products and/or Services - develop them so they are the right fit for your customers and you clearly communicate the offering, the benefits and value proposition to the customer. 


Resources - what you need to acquire and/or develop to operate your business ... includes people (knowledge, experience, skill sets), equipment, facilities, $$. 


Operational Systems - processes and systems that need to be in place to ensure your business can operate and scale effectively to manage growth.......sort of like the plumbing in your home. It has to be in place and working or you can't live in the house. Think about your business processes and systems as your organization's plumbing. 


Management Systems - need to be in place for long term success...... includes strategic thinking/planning that leads to a plan you can execute, ensuring staff learns how to manage along with systems in place to manage and measure performance. 


Culture - as you add more people .... values, beliefs and traditions that influence people's behavior, productivity and results become a critical focus of leadership and management.

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