I can fit my entire foot in my mouth. . .

Recently, the telephone books showed up at our house. I immediately tossed them into recycling. Much to the dismay of my partner. “I use those!!,” he cried. "Really?" I just assumed we had all moved online for any such search.

The next day, I conveyed the story to a class I was teaching on business planning. I received blank stares. Apparently, over 70% of the room still used phone books as their directory of choice.

Obviously, I had assumed everyone had followed the same path I had chosen, but I had never actually tested that theory or even bothered to ask. While in this case the fall out was minimal – the books were retrieved from recycling and placed in their proper place of honor in the cabinet. But, if I was advertising to my clients using pay per view on Google or Yahoo! And they were looking for me in the phone book – I never would reach them and I would be tossing money down the drain.

It is important to understand how your clients find you. And the best way to find out is to simply ask. "How did you hear about us?"

Change is never pretty – Part II

Some of you (obviously, with too much time on your hands – LOL) may have noticed a considerable amount of time had passed since the last post. And, the last post was about the amount of time between posts – ugh!!

Well, the last 6 or 7 months has been about change. We lost our lease in December after 5 years. In April, Liza broke her ankle – thus creating quite the change in our staffing structure. And in the past week I moved, after residing on De Haro Street for 6 years.

Trust me that’s enough change for anybody. Often, it’s not until you are on the other side that you can begin to see that change is a good thing. Our new office is great, we love the windows, we love the location and Mabel’s “Just for You” Café down the street makes incredible New Orleans-style Beignets.

Beignets – yea, life is pretty good!!

Change is never pretty

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Charles Darwin (English Naturalist and Author of the theory of evolution by natural selection. 1809-1882)

So can be said for businesses. It’s not how much capital you have (we all know companies with what seemed like unlimited capital resources that have folded) or a dominant market position that guarantees survival. It’s the ability to adapt to an ever changing market and finding opportunities in these changes.

So when do you chuck the business plan and head off in a new direction? Well, that’s a tough one. It's always a good idea to revisit OODA Loops when strategizing in a changing market.

• Observe – What is the market doing? How are your competitors reacting? How is this impacting your sales?
• Orientate – Based on your observation, what direction should your business take? Lower prices, develop new channels, develop a new product line or service?
• Decide – This is the big one. You can analyze the market for six months, and when you are through - it will have changed, again. It’s more important that you make a decision, than being stuck in decision mode while your competitors are seizing the moment.
• Act - Do something!! You’ve made decision, now move forward!! The market is changing, if you don’t – you will be left behind.

What if you make the wrong decision? So what? It’s a loop. If you made the wrong decision, you’ll observe this in the market’s reaction (or lack thereof) to the change you’ve made. You’ll re-orientate and continue the loop process.

The theory is that this is a continuous process and the quicker you can move through the loop - and thus re-orientate in response to a change in the market – the greater your company’s chance for success.