bernardjansen.com

The biggest challenge for small/medium companies is reaching their intended audience. This problem becomes even more pronounced in business markets where key decision-makers often hide behind an email firewall and a receptionist. "Reach" is the crucial reason SMEs do marketing: "help me announce myself to my target market".  Interestingly, with established brands and larger companies, the reason for doing marketing is different. Awareness has already been achieved, and it becomes a case of encouraging existing customers to remain loyal. It is this reason why a company like Coca-Cola continues to advertise. Small brands advertise to become known; large brands stay relevant. Same activity; different objectives. The problem smaller companies have is how to achieve reach with limited resources. Small budgets mean that certain heavy-hitting, mass-marketing tools are unavailable, and so too highly targeted ones that require a substantial investment in upfront research. Ev...

I see many owner-managed businesses on the verge of collapsing. It isn't so much the economy that is bad, but rather that a bad economy exposes poor management practices. The fact is that without the cushioning of a strong economy, most owner-businesses are exposed as badly managed. They simply aren't competitive.  As I consult on business development, I see nepotism to the point of incompetence, zero evident succession planning, owners being treated as gods, and no healthy debate to challenge the thinking. Things become stale.  To be fair, this is the natural path of all owner-managed businesses unless intentional countermeasures are taken. All owners are treated like gods - they often started the business from scratch and now provide a livelihood to staff. No wonder they are revered. Nepotism is standard practice and an accepted, effective tool to manage risk - it's not all bad. The problem isn't so much the existence of these factors, but that left unchecked, they b...

Something they don't tell you when you start on your own as a consultant: there are no rules to it - you make it up as you go and as you gain confidence. It's up to you how you want to do it. It's more art than science. I find it quite amazing. There's no right or wrong way to consult, especially as an independent. Take, for example, the near cast-in-stone rule that diagnosis should precede strategy. Although true, I'm finding that I often do diagnosis and strategy almost at the same time as I interact with business owners and marketing directors. Since I only focus on small and midsized clients, I tend to work with organisations with flat structures where decision-makers still have front-end contact with the market. Information is often already in the room - it just needs to be sorted.  One could argue that this is taking shortcuts, but I've found delaying the strategy discussion "till next time" ignores the reality of the moment where a certain insig...