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I’ve been full-time online since way back 1996, so 
I’ve seen a few things come down the road. And I
 keep seeing people get the basic things wrong.

By now most of our readers know that the two most
 important elements for people doing business online 
are conversions and traffic.

In the past I’ve mentioned the “one thing that 
always wins” for both traffic and conversion – and
 that “thing” is CONTENT.

Great content will get your site noticed in the
 Search Engines and will also help you convert
 leads into Customers if presented in a logical
 and convincing way.

OK, now you ask… it might be great if content 
always wins for traffic and conversion… but how
 do you turn that into money?

Well, I’ve used just about every revenue system
 under the sun since I started out. I’ve sold all
 kinds of things – from continuity programs to ebooks to 
home-study courses to online courses to membership 
sites to physical products. I’ve also sold 
advertising on my sites, in my ezines, and
 probably a few other places I can’t remember. And 
I’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars with
 affiliate programs and Adsense.
And what I’ve learned about actually
 extracting money from a web site is this:
There are 
basically TWO ways to make money online:
1. You can sell your stuff.

2. You can sell other people’s stuff.

Hey, that might sound overly simple, but it’s CRITICAL 
that you understand it and how these two relate
 (and WHY they relate.)

First off, I’m a huge fan of selling my own stuff. 
This gives you big time control, positioning…
and most importantly it gives you higher profit
 margins.

And higher margins aren’t just about you making
 more money, it’s about your business survival.

For example, if you’re selling a $97 widget that
 someone else is producing, you might only make $10
 or $20 per widget that you sell. That might sound good, but if you’re competing
 against someone else who is manufacturing that
 widget (or a competing widget), and they are
 making $50 in profit per widget… then you aren’t
 going to be able to compete.

Higher margins mean you have more money to spend
 to pull in more traffic and increase your conversions.
For this reason, I think it’s important for you to 
have your own high-margin products. Maybe not when 
you first start out in your business, but it’s
 something you should quickly work toward.

Personally, I love information products for this 
purpose – they are relatively easy to create and
 they carry typically high margins.

All that said, you should also use the 
second revenue system – selling other people’s 
stuff.
Why?
1. Because it will balance out your cash flow
2. And you will never be able to create all 
the products that your prospects want.

Trust me on this – no matter what market you’re 
in, your prospects and Customers will have a 
bigger demand than you can meet.

Some people think they can put a wall up around 
their Customers, and keep them from straying to a
 competitor.
Well that’s pure fantasy… it’s not going to happen,
 not when they can find ten competitive solutions 
in the time it takes to do a search online. So you might as well be the trusted source 
introducing them to other people’s stuff.

So let’s break this down – what exactly do I mean 
by “selling other people’s stuff”…
In fact, if you’re doing any form of affiliate marketing,
 marketing CPA offers, advertising, or even
 Adsense… then you’re already selling other
 people’s stuff. Nothing wrong with ANY of that. In fact it’s
 GOOD… for the reasons I outlined above. You just
 need to be really clear about these two revenue 
systems, and understand that you can easily 
implement each of them to boost your bottom line.

And one more time – I think you should do both.

I know that when I first started out, I didn’t
 have the knowledge or the confidence to create my 
own products, so I sold other people’s stuff…

Basically, I had two CPA offers (CPA stands for 
Cost Per Action) on my site… they were what we 
call “soft offers”, one for a newsletter and one for 
a software product. That means I generated leads – people would sign
up for a free trial on my site, and I would get 
paid for each person that took the trial. The
 people didn’t have to buy, didn’t have to give a
 credit card… didn’t have to do anything other 
than request a free trial.

That CPA offer was the way I made my very first 
dollars online, and it went on to pay my expenses 
every month for about nine years.

As an aside, marketing CPA offers is a GREAT
revenue generator, and I have a soft spot for it
 since it was the way I started making money 
online.

Unfortunately, over the years it’s gotten harder
 to get approved for those CPA offers. The big CPA
 brokers are really hard-core about who they will
 approve… frankly, if it were this way back in
 1996 I never would have been approved in the first
 place – and it might have cut my Internet
 Marketing career short way back then.

Today, one of my colleagues just opened the 
doors to his own CPA network and he is allowing 
just about anyone curious enough to join
 as long as they are determined to succeed.

If you are interested in giving CPA a whirl, 
let me know and I’ll have him send you a personal
 invitation.

Networks such as Facebook and MySpace basically help us socialise and communicate with friends en-masse. LinkedIn, Xing and Viadeo concentrate on work-related communication on a variety of topics. The sites aimed at professionals, although much smaller than the ones for hanging out with friends, are having an interesting effect on job and job-search markets.

In many ways the world of commerce is a perfect place for a social network to flourish. Doing business, after all, boils down to managing a web of relationships with Customers, prospects, suppliers and others. Professional networks make it easier for people to maintain such relationships and to forge new ones. LinkedIn, for instance, has over 500,000 groups—some better than others—on specialised subjects that people can join to share ideas and make new contacts. Such connections may prove useful later on.

Research has shown that the more distant members of people’s professional networks are often the best source of new job leads. Job-hunters can also use their networks to gather intelligence about prospective employers and to solicit recommendations that strengthen their candidacies, and they can benefit from some of the career tools that networks provide. LinkedIn, for example, has launched a service that aggregates data it holds to show career paths for certain professions. So someone who wants to become, say, head of consulting at a large company in ten years’ time can see what sort of jobs have led to such roles for others in the past.

Online networks have attracted plenty of attention from corporate recruiters too. Olivier Fecherolle, the head of Viadeo’s French operations, says that for an employer the networks have several advantages over online job boards. One is that people visit them frequently, so profiles on the sites tend to be more up-to-date than those on job boards. Another benefit, he says, is that the networks’ rich profiles help recruiters get a good feel for a candidate without having to spend time on and delve into a detailed curriculum vitae.

But perhaps the biggest attraction is that the professional networks help firms to cut search costs.

Don Cooper, a recruiter at Intel, reckons that they save millions of dollars a year in fees by recruiting senior managers through LinkedIn rather than using headhunters or executive search firms. US Cellular, a telecoms company, says it saved over $1m last year by using LinkedIn that produced good candidates for its jobs faster than traditional recruitment channels.

Mr Piskorski of the Harvard Business School thinks professional networks have been successful because they offer a way for people to participate passively in the job market yet still claim plausibly that they are seeking out information to do their current job better. Companies put up with this, he says, because the benefit they get from better-informed workers more than offsets the cost of losing them when they get poached.

All this makes labor markets more efficient. By cutting out middlemen such as headhunters and executive search firms,  corporations save money. And by looking at rich online profiles of candidates, they can cut the time it takes to get the right people into jobs. Network users, for their part, get what Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s chairman, calls an “active sonar” system that publishes their skills to a broad marketplace with minimal effort and collects the responses that ping back with job opportunities.

Social networks have made the labour market more transparent in another way too. A survey by CareerBuilder.com of about 2,700 executives in America last year found that 45% of them looked at job candidates’ social-network pages as part of their research, and more than a third of those had unearthed information there that put them off hiring someone. Time to turn up those privacy settings?

Want our team members to show you how to make Linked In and other similar services work for you?  Just contact us on this page today.

When you have a powerful brand, sales tilt in your favor. That’s not just a bold statement, it’s a fact.

There are 3 levels to branding:
a) a manufacturer’s identifier
b) a promise of a Customer experience
c) a single idea that your company owns that tilts sales in your favor

That single idea can be described as the Sales Moment.

For example, if I were to say:
- “Family fast food” odds are that you would reply “McDonalds”
- “Family Entertainment” you’d be thinking “Disney”

There is just too much information available in the world today. If people can’t quickly understand what you stand for, then you will not break through the clutter. With so much competition, people gravitate to those that make things easier for them. If you want to create a powerful brand that increases your sales, you need to communicate one single idea and you have to keep it simple so that people can see how you fit into their world.

Think about the single idea that you need to own in order to tilt sales in your favor. If you think tactically, you will not succeed at this level because your focus will be on building a website, creating a brochure, buying some ads etc You need to think strategically and start at the beginning with the Sales Moment and your brand strategy.

To discover your Sales Moment you need to either triangulate your Customer’s Desires and your Strategic Advantages with your Competitor’s Exploitable Weaknesses or simply contact us using the form below and we’ll guide you through the process.

A powerful brand makes it easy for your target Customers to understand how the brand is relevant to them and this will increase your sales.

So, if you are prepared to consider rolling up your sleeves and working on your brand strategy, we can help you… If you insist that what you need now are tactics, then sorry but, this article is probably not what you’re looking for… on the other hand, it just might just change the way you think about branding forever.

A brand is a single mental image that tilts sales in your company’s favor and it is made up of 4 major elements:
1 the Name
2 the Logo
3 the Tagline
4 the Ad Campaign

From a potential Customer’s perspective the above are experienced simultaneously.

To create a powerful brand, all 4 elements MUST quickly communicate the Sales Moment.  If they don’t do this, the brand is weak and will confuse the target Customer. The Sales Moment is the one thing that can be said of your company’s products or services that actually makes the sale and converts a prospect into a paying Customer.

Businesses grow rapidly when the mental image from the four brand elements trigger the Sales Moment.

1 THE NAME
When you create a brand, the name MUST help to create a mental image based on verbal cues. There are six different types of names used by the most successful brands of all time. Each of the types helps the brand achieve a particular objective and at the same time communicate the Sales Moment.

Think about the idea that your company is trying to OWN…  and how you might be able to do it more effectively with the right name.

Creating a powerful brand name begins with understanding the different naming types:
- Functional
- Metaphor
- Energy
- Morpheme
- Historic
- Family

Functional:

• Liquid Plumber
• Toys R Us
• ThinkFun

If you select a functional name, be careful with the other brand elements (logo, tagline, ad image etc) so that  the company does not appear cheap or unsophisticated compared to other brands.
Functional names use a key product feature that you want to own.

Metaphor:

• TransparentValue (an asset mgmt company)
• Amazon (name conveys size)

The focus here is on creating strategic value using a word that suggests an important value of your brand.

Energy:

• Big Ass Fans (yes.. that is the company name)
• OshKosh B’Gosh (it’s just fun to say… esp for the target mkt of little girls)

Energy naming uses words that convey emotion, action or tone of the brand to achieve effect.

Morpheme:

• Microsoft
• Verizon
• FedEx

Morphemes use small syllables of a word or words to conveys essential meaning and can be combined to form a new word like FedEx from Federal Express and Microsoft.

Historic:

• Rembrandt toothpaste
• Baby Einstein
• Con Edison

Historic naming uses an historic event, character or location to embody a brand.

Family:

• McDonalds
• Ford
• Samsung

Family naming uses either real or fictional names usually from the founders to convey the sales moment effectively especially when one needs to differentiate from competition.

Once you have a clear brand idea to work with then develop names in all 6 areas… Then you can determine which type of naming works best to convey the sales moment and helps you to own your brand idea.  Then do trademark searches on the best names to see what is available. Choose the name that is the most memorable and best owns your strategic idea.

CAUTION:
Do NOT select a company name that you like best or one that others like best.  You may not like your company name at all… The results are in and after 50+ years of studying successful brands the ones that succeed are the memorable ones that best own their Sales Moment.  If you let your ego get in the way and you decide that you ‘don’t like it’ then you will be missing out on best practices and you will be making a decision based upon a limited perspective of what you, personally are comfortable with.  It is much better to make such a decision based upon your Customer’s perspective answering the question: What name communicates the sales moment to the Customer in a memorable way.

So we can not brand a company based upon what you or I or a bunch of friends think is cool nor can we brand the company for you, me or your friends using some inside meaning that is only relevant to us. Your Customer likely does not share the same perspective as you do… We can’t choose the company colors based upon what we like either. Instead we select each of the brand elements based on what performs. These elements create an ownable mental image. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. What matters is that your brand makes it easy for your target Customer to understand how it is relevant to them. That will increase sales.

A few more tips:
Avoid names that are challenging to spell or difficult to pronounce easily. Do some research and drop names that have negative connotations in languages that are important to your market.

2 THE LOGO
Simplicity is the key to a great logo as long as it is memorable. Customers need to be able to construct the logo easily in their mind so that they have a clear an unique mental image of your brand.
The stronger your mental image, the more likely they are to remember you. The four main attributes of successful logos are that they are simple in a symbolic way, memorable, differentiated from the competition and that they tell a story. The story MUST be closely related to the Sales Moment. Does your logo tell a story that communicates the Sales Moment?

The logo must support the mental image of the brand in such a way that you own the strategic idea stemming from the company name and supported by the tagline. Be sure that your logo is different from those used by your competitors.

3 THE TAGLINE
Great taglines bring a brand to life. They should NOT include a description of your products or services. Great taglines communicate why your brand is relevant to your target Customers by calling up the Sales Moment. There are 3 types of taglines.
- Promises
- Calls to Action
- Memory taglines

Promises are based on a key brand attribute.
Calls to Action are invitations for a Prospect to join us because they share a similar philosophy.
Memory taglines play off the name or logo to help people remember the brand.

Examples:
Timex – it takes a licking and keeps on ticking (promise)
Apple – think different (call to action)
Army – be all you can be (call to action)
Maybelline – Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline? (memory)
Prudential – own a piece of the rock (memory)
Duracell – you can’t top the copper top (promise & memory)
Volvo – For Life
TransparentValue – See the market clearly

Does your tagline quickly explain why your brand is relevant to your target Customer and, at the same time, differentiate you from your competitors?

4 THE AD CAMPAIGN
In the history of the world. there have been only 4 types of advertising campaigns that build brands and drive sales. If you’d like to learn about them, enter your contact details below and we will share a few more of our best practice secrets with you shortly.

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PS.

If you are not using one of these four types of advertising campaigns to build your brand and drive sales, your marketing is simply not working.

Every sustainable business that we studied during the past 20+ years has:

• Quality products / services that their market needs and values
• A strong value proposition that justifies strong pricing and delivers strong margins
• A process to fully monetize Customers instead of just selling one at a time
• A continual stream of leads and business opportunities
• Cost-effective methods to consistently convert leads into paying Customers
• Processes and systems in place so that people and machines get enough done daily to be both effective and efficient
• Been successful with socially supported marketing strategies
• Listings in industry directories, networking publications or search engine results pages
• The ability to collect intelligence easily through research

In order to survive, you need to succeed in at least 4 out of these 9 core areas.

If you want to prosper, you need to master all 9.

At BoxOnline, we can help you to:

• Create products that Customers want to buy
• Increase your gross margin
• Increase the amount of money each Customer spends with you
• Increase the number of business opportunities or sales leads (leveraging SMM or SEM for online businesses)
• Efficiently convert prospects into paying Customers
• Offer processes and tools that increase the number of productive hours you spend each day without working more
• Provide you with a variety of competitive intelligence reports to help you build successful strategies

Our consultants frequently coach Clients to achieve success in each of these core areas.

If we could help you to improve in any one of these areas so that you would make more money – where would you want us to start?

Click here and let us know your thoughts.

What have you got to lose?  Better decisions satisfy our objectives and get us what we desire – most of the time helping others to get what they want at the same time. Learning how to make better decisions should have been a course in our educational experience – sadly, it was not and that is one of the primary reasons we still offer this training to the general public. Decision making skills are critical to both success and to having peace of mind.

We’ve been helping people make better decisions on a variety of levels since 1999. As you can imagine, decisions need to be made in board rooms and offices as well as over the kitchen table.  We provide the tools and processes so that you can master the art of decision making in any situation whether it be in a board room or a dining room, your business environment or during a meeting with neighbors. You can count on our process to deliver results for you every single time.

A typical training course that guides you to making the best possible decision takes approximately 2 days to learn including time spent on applying the secret process to your unique situation and one on one coaching time to answer questions, eliminate barriers and speed the process up. We all know that learning something new requires an investment in time and energy and usually it takes a while before we master a skill to the level where it becomes second nature to us. Our objective is to follow up with our Clients and help make the process become one of your favorite and most trusted tools in your mental toolbox. After coaching, most of our Clients require no more than 30 minutes to apply our DA process to an important decision.

Are you willing to invest just two days to learn the core skills needed to make better decisions for the rest of your life?

Hey, I’m sure that you’ve already invested more than that for other courses which may or may not have given you returns year after year but this is different. This is a life-skill that, as long as you use it, will deliver results for you and those you care about.

At BoxOnline and through the b6group of consultants, we deliver top level training to both companies and individuals that want a methodical process for making and supporting decisions. Along these lines, our corporate Clients typically want three things.
a) They want their board members, executives, employees and team members to make better decisions using a proven process rather than a ‘gut feeling’
b) An increase in confidence that their subordinates will make similar decisions to those that their team leader would have made thus improving both delegation and trust within teams.
c) They want to present clear reasoning, proof that risks were evaluated and that the best possible alternative was chosen for each decision made based on the company’s (or supervisor’s) objectives.

BoxOnline has been providing the tools, training and guidance needed to help make better decisions for both groups and individuals since 1996. This process was developed in the 1950s for NASA and has been honed to perfection over the years. Wouldn’t it be great if such a decision making process were a required part of a high school or University curriculum?

In the case study below, the focus was on selecting the best possible alternative for an information technology purchase decision. This decision involved selecting a vendor, the appropriate software, hardware, infrastructure, staff support and an implementation partner. It was something of a complex decision to tackle and thus worthy of review here since so many of our Clients need to make exactly this sort of decision at least once every 5 years.

The decision analysis or ‘DA’ process can be used on simple decisions as well. You can adapt the DA process to meet EVERY decision making situation you are likely to encounter in both your personal and professional environments.

Knowing when to apply the DA process is important as well.

The method we teach is a tool you can apply when you need to make a selection from a set of alternatives to meet your specific objectives for a given project.
Personal examples include selecting a new place to live, rent or buy decisions, buying a car or even selecting a gift.
Work examples include leading the Board of Directors toward a mutually acceptable decision based on facts rather than emotions, selecting a distribution partner, hiring decisions, choosing the best possible option for growth, selecting marketing events given time and budget constraints. There are literally millions of ways to use this powerful tool and we challenge you to put it to task today.

The plain fact is that the pressure is on to make decisions rapidly in today’s market, including choosing which software and services suppliers to partner with to deliver on strategic objectives. Responsible managers want to deliver on objectives in a timely way, yet protect themselves from career jeopardy. Can they achieve both?

One approach to making the best possible decision is to use a highly logical process. The DA (Decision Analysis) methodology used and taught for 50+ years by top business process consultants world-wide is something that we have adopted and applied for many of our Clients. Yes, it’s a time proven process that even NASA uses and it involves many well-orchestrated and synchronized steps. The BoxOnline DA process is designed to avoid some of the classic pitfalls typical of the way many people make decisions today.

Here are the key steps when evaluating alternatives for an important decision:

• Clearly state the decision to be made.
• Set the strategic and operational objectives.
• Classify objectives based on Client’s musts and wants.
• Weight the “wants.”
• Generate alternatives.
• Screen alternatives through the “musts.”
• Compare alternatives against the “wants.”
• Identify adverse consequences.
• Make the best, most balanced choice.

IT decision making requires additional steps:

• Decide on technology standards into which the decision fits.
• Recognize the major pitfalls typical in each step of the IT purchase process.
• Use the “relationship manager” between IT and business organizations.
• Evaluate vendors against objectives.

Setting Strategic Objectives

The decision analysis method begins with the decision statement, which provides the focus for everything that follows and sets the choice’s parameters. The criteria to be developed will follow, detailing the decision requirements. Alternatives will be evaluated according to those requirements. The decision statement always indicates a choice and its intended result, and it often implies a prior decision has been made, such as to select a services vendor for a certain operation. The decision statement sets all activities in motion, so be sure to word it carefully.

Conducting a full decision analysis for every single decision you make is not very time efficient. Sometimes, just agreeing on a decision statement and objectives will give you and your team the clarity needed to make a sound decision.

Decisions must meet objectives. Once the decision statement is drafted, objectives are established. Alternatives are discussed and identified possibly only after objectives are established. The opposite of decision analysis would be a process in which the course of action is identified first; then a case is built to support the intended action. In such situations, decision analysis would not be the tool of choice, we use a process called PPA to protect the plan. If this is something that interest you, please don’t hesitate to ask us for more information.

Objectives related to technology strategy are important for selecting software and services providers. You need to know if the company is trying to build a platform for the future or keep existing systems cobbled together. Some strategic decisions will include certain vendors and technologies, and thereby eliminate others. In essence, the guts of the technology platform should be well understood, covering strategic areas such as security, data, development frameworks, communications standards, infrastructure and available people skills. This view enables the IT manager to attain a strategic perspective.

Some common mistakes in this phase include overemphasizing cost objectives and defining requirements without Customers in mind. There is a whole class of criteria for front office people or users of the system, that will have different weights for different Customer needs. Costs must be estimated, and viewed according to whether the project is strategic (an investment is justified) or tactical in which case low cost is an important criteria in the decision process.

Many times a manager is not exposed to the real project requirements and thus, looks at the estimated price tag and says, “We can’t do that – it’s too expensive.” You might find that you are unnaturally constrained by a budgetary concern that has nothing to do with the problem you are trying to solve.

Getting back on track again:
Decision analysis divides objectives into two categories: musts and wants. Musts are the minimum requirements, not necessarily the most important. When alternatives are later evaluated against objectives, any alternative that can’t fulfill a must objective is immediately dropped.

Objectives must be measurable to screen against alternatives. In IT decisions, measurable objectives may include response time, mean time between failures, service levels and access speed.

Must objectives need to be reasonable. For example, requiring .Net programmers to have five years of experience might be unrealistic, if the .Net framework was launched less than 5 years ago. To require e-business service firms to have such experience would knock out many options. To rate vendors, IT managers need to establish their minimum requirements. This is an absolute priority.

Once must objectives are clearly defined, all other objectives are called “wants”. Wants are used to provide a picture of how alternatives compare.

A common IT pitfall is to base objectives on ‘new’ or ‘compatible technology’ when actually, the Customer’s needs may be satisfied by older technology. IT guys should not purchase products simply because they are new. Newness has to be weighted against factors such as potentially longer testing cycles.

The second largest stumbling block to decision making success is when a group responsible for making the decision begins their process with what from our perspective is a comparison of the alternatives; Thus System A may be compared to System B, or Product X to Product Y, or Hardware C to Hardware D. This comparison of one to another so early on in the decision making process launches the team into a challenge / defense mode and is clearly not a productive way to reach the best possible decision outcome.

Creating a written record of the reasons why a specific decision was made is an additional benefit of the decision analysis process. In the real world, when people are making decisions, some things are more important than others. If you can get that on the table, it really helps move things forward. This also demonstrates to people both in the decision making quorum as well as those outside (perhaps sitting on the management team or board of directors) that logic, fairness and process were used to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion that also took into account potential risks and probability of occurrence among other factors.

Try using decision analysis to determine which projects to work on. Your objectives should include the anticipated results of the project, as well as resource and other restrictions you face.

When a group is choosing between a current and proposed course of action, both are considered alternatives. Both are evaluated against the objectives as if both had been proposed. In the absence of any alternative, the group can usually build an alternative from available components.

Never get tangled up in the alternatives before you define the objectives. IT people are typically analytical, so they go for a system involving weights and scores, but that is not an end in itself. The decision meeting is about making the decision not influencing your favorite alternative with a high score. In fact, the KT method has some brilliant built-in checks and balances to ensure that the best possible group decision gets made. Use the objectives to help the team keep an open mind while working toward a viable solution and be sure to keep score.

The final step in decision analysis is to consider adverse consequences for all feasible alternatives. Once a decision has been made and implemented, any negative effects can grow into real problems. The effect of the decision always outlives the process that led to it. Before making a final decision, the group must explore and evaluate adverse consequences. When the group identifies a risk, it can plan to avoid the risk or reduce its likely effect. A risk may not be fatal, provided someone recognizes it in time to do something about it. Omitting this step is an invitation for disaster.

It can all be overwhelming: strategic objectives, alternatives, weighting, scores and implementation plans. Many IT organizations now have defined the role of “relationship manager” to bridge the gap between the IT and the operational business worlds. The decision process outlined in this article helps you figure out how to start. Since we all know that IT people come from different planets and speak different languages than their business counterparts, the clearly defined process helps them understand exactly what needs to get done on the road to making a good decision. After a few minutes of bewilderment, most people physically relax as they learn this 40 year old time proven methodology for making the best possible decisions. There is an order and a logic that helps the IT people become more like internal consultants. They are not just throwing stuff over the cubicle wall, but rather listening to their Customers and applying their knowledge to come up with viable solutions.

Here is one more tip regarding your MUST criteria. When you evaluate your MUSTs consider if you would accept something slightly more or less than described in the objective? If the answer is yes, then the objective is a want, not a must.

If you’d like some help getting started with your own decision analysis just drop us a line – we love helping our Clients achieve results and the DA process delivers consistently great results. It is truly a tool that you can use for the rest of your life. So, go ahead, make better decisions today!

The most obvious reason for putting together a business case is to justify the resources and capital investment necessary to bring a change project to fruition. This may imply that a business case is simply a financial document but please don’t be mislead – business cases need to include financial justification but more importantly, they need to link all of the relevant facts in a cohesive story outlining the what, when, where, how and why for investing resources into a project. The purpose of a business case is to capture the reasoning for initiating a project or task. It is often presented in a well-structured, written document but may also come in the form of verbal argumentation. The logic of the business case is that when resources such as money or effort are consumed; they should support the business. Upgrading a given piece of kit (hardware, software etc) to improve system performance is a good example because the “business case” is that better performance would improve customer satisfaction.

Essential elements of a business case include:

• Reasons why the project is necessary.
• How the project or results generated by the project will solve given issues or capitalize on specific opportunities facing the organization.
• Focus: Exactly what ‘problem’ or ‘issue’ does the project address or solve?
• What is/are the recommended solution(s)?
• What are the benefits to the business?
• What will happen to the business if the project is not undertaken?
• Timing: When will the solutions be deployed?
• Resources such as money, people, and time needed to deliver the solution and realize the benefits?

The Business Case Process should ensure that:

• The required issues and concerns have been thoroughly considered and documented
• Both the value and risks inherent in the proposed project are clear
• The project is sponsored by, and has the commitment of an executive with the capability and authority to deliver the benefits
• The delivery of the outcomes and benefits can be tracked and measured.

Your Business Case should contain some or all of the following information types (depending on the size, timing, scale and availability of information):

• Reference; project name/reference, origins/background/current state
• Context; business objectives/opportunities, business strategic alignment (priority)
• Value Proposition; desired business outcome(s), outcome roadmap, business benefits (by outcome), quantified benefits value, costs/ROI financial scenarios, risks/costs of not proceeding, project risks (to project, benefits and business)
• Focus; problem/solution scope, assumptions/constraints, options identified/evaluated, size, scale and complexity assessment
• Deliverables; outcomes, deliverables and benefits planned, organizational areas impacted (internally and externally), key stakeholders, dependencies
• Workload; approach, phase/stage definitions (project (change) activities, technical delivery activities, workload estimate/breakdown, project plan and schedule, critical path)
• Required resources; project leadership team, project governance team, team resources, funding
• Commitments (required); project controls, reporting processes, deliverables schedule, financial budget/schedule

While one of your primary goals may be to get funding, your chances of success will be greater if you keep the following goals in mind as well:

• Make it interesting; remember someone will need to read it.
• Keep it clear and concise.
• Minimize jargon and conjecture.
• Provide the reader with a clear vision of the end state.
• Communicate all facts as part of the overall story – if you’ve done your homework, here is the chance to prove it.
• Demonstrate the value the project brings to the organization, Customer(s) and financial bottom line of the company.

After preparing your business case you and your team will likely experience some positive side effects including:

• CLARITY: Organization of thoughts, activities and knowledge
• REALITY CHECK: An objective review of the ideas and facts related to the project
• STRENGTH: The ability to identify holes, inconsistencies or weaknesses in the effort
• ELEVATOR PITCH: An improved ability to communicate the purpose of the project
• ROI: Financial justification for the effort

Below we offer an outline that includes many of the above recommendations. Remember that your business case should describe to the reader the problem or opportunity that exists. Then, the business case should describe how the problem will be solved or the opportunity exploited. The outline presented below shows you how to effectively tell the entire story of your project and concludes by demonstrating the expected ROI and financial impact you expect to achieve.

Executive summary:
Pretend that you have two minutes to tell someone about the project and justify your requests for resources and funding.

Each paragraph in the executive summary should succinctly convey vital information about the project, and communicate the story to the reader. The information in each section of the executive summary is typically extracted from the detailed sections of the business case. We recommend creating the executive summary after you have completed the rest of the sections.

Current state assessment and problem statement:
The situational assessment or current state assessment refers to the details regarding the problem or opportunities facing the organization. It is a statement about what is happening in the organization today. Most projects are started by the original project stakeholder or champion because something is wrong, or a major opportunity is being missed. Every project usually has one or two key themes related to issues or opportunities. In one paragraph or less, clearly state the specific business problem.

Project Overview:
The project description section introduces your reader to the details of the project. This section should give your stakeholders confidence that your team will professionally, efficiently and aggressively seek the best processes, systems, and organizational elements to enable your company to overcome the issues presented above. There are two main components of the project overview section:

• description and scope
• objectives

Use a maximum of nine bullet points to state what the proposed solution is expected to accomplish. Some examples may include purchasing hardware and software or selecting a new vendor.

Solution Overview:
Summarize the solution that your team recommends to address the issues and opportunities presented in the current state assessment. Be sure to cover the following topics:

• Current Process and ‘fit’ into the big picture
• Requirements
• Alternatives
• Compare Alternatives
• Additional Considerations
• Action Plan

Current process: Identify the organizational processes that the proposed solution will likely affect, including the departments within your organization, relationships with Clients, external partners, and the competition.

Requirements: List the resources needed to complete the project, such as staff, hardware, software, print materials, time, budget, and so forth.

Alternatives. Outline at least three other options to implementing the proposed solution. Be sure to include basic requirements and an estimation of project risks for each, ramp-up time, training costs, and potential project delays.

Compare alternatives. Compare and contrast each of the alternatives with the proposed solution and the other alternatives. State similarities and differences, benefits and detriments, and costs associated with each option. Basically, answer the question: “What is the cost to get to the future state, and is it worth it?”

Additional considerations. List critical success factors other than ROI metrics; for example, affects on partnership agreements with specific vendors or the potential need for help desk or Customer support.

Action plan. Now that management understands the solution and the financial return that will be realized from implementing the solution, they will want confirmation that the solution can actually be implemented. Propose specific action steps. State your short-term (first three months) and long-term (three months to conclusion) action plans, including major milestones. This section will reassure management that your team has carefully and professionally considered all major issues of the implementation. A number of major elements are important to successful implementation. Your implementation section should address each area.

• Implementation components
• Implementation timeline
• Major milestones
• Major dependencies

Critical assumptions and risk assessment:
Most business improvement projects will make assumptions in order to develop the solution. It is vital that the business case documents these assumptions. You should test your assumptions with project stakeholders and operational managers prior to placing them in the business case. The statement of assumptions should be followed by an impartial discussion of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) that are associated with the recommended solution. It is also important that the business case discuss the risks associated with both implementing and not implementing a solution, the seriousness of the apparent risk should it occur and the probability of the risk occurring.

Conclusions and recommendations:
This section closes out the business case. It should reiterate the key themes that caused the project to be undertaken. It should restate the solution in at a high-level. It should identify the return on investment and the overall benefits of the solution. It should restate the risks of doing nothing and re-convey a sense of urgency. Finally this section should state the conclusions the reader should draw from the business case, and your recommendations for next steps.

I spent a good amount of time reviewing business opportunities in China both locally and from abroad in 2006/7. The overwhelming conclusion I drew was that there is enormous potential in almost every sector of the economy driven by both foreign demand and local consumption capacity. Some companies were not able to produce enough product to satisfy local and regional demand let alone national demand in China yet, as I stepped into the reality that is the China of today, I discovered that I needed to shed my preconceived ideas that China’s production capacity exists to serve foreign interests. Sure, international markets are of great importance to the Chinese manufacturing sector but, the number of companies I reviewed that produced product for export only were few and far between.

China is a gigantic market just getting ready to shift into a consumer oriented phase. So, what exactly was I doing in China? Well, I figured that if I could identify sectors with the strongest production growth this would give me some insight into a future global trend that helps to answer my number one question… what is going to be the next big thing? and… how can I come up with a best guess estimate before the world wakes up and smells the coffee?

So here is what I did. I reviewed the following industries and their largest manufacturing partners in China.
Lighting: including LEDs and Displays
Optics: lenses of all shapes and sizes including x-ray… yes, x-ray lenses!
Sensors: the kind that are able to sense 5 particles per million for security applications fighting potential terrorist threats
Actuators: MEMS, NEMS MOEMS and NOEMS… don’t even ask plus medical testing devices
Storage: mechanical HDDs are on their way out or are they? I had a 100 GB solid state drive in my hand
Semiconductors: What is the biggest obstacle to progress on Moore’s law these days… I found out!
Energy: Well, with the rising price of fossil fuels alternative is the only way and improving methods of harvesting energy were on the list of the coolest inventions I saw
Biotech or as it’s known today… life science – DNA manipulation seems to be all the rage but what caught my attention was the ability of some companies to grow skin and…

Ok, enough! if I haven’t bored you by now you are probably wondering what this article is all about.
Well, I thought that if I were able to analyze what is being produced today and get an idea of what is coming down the pipe to satisfy the needs of tomorrow then I could gain some valuable insight into who will manufacture the next big hit for tomorrow… for several different industries and kind of hedge my bet. I got lucky, I discovered something even more valuable.

In my research I analyzed all major players in the above industry sectors and put together something like a roadmap for each. Although the time lines vary as each company plans to move its invention from the R&D phase into production and no one is able to forecast consumer or business demand for 5 years from today, there were some very interesting correlations. One was size. Products will be getting smaller – fact. Another was that products will be influenced more by market need (pull) rather than an inventor’s desire to create a new market (push). Lastly, ROI is playing a greater role in how long a particular invention is allowed to cook in the R&D labs before it is forced out the door to an awaiting and already expectant consumer market.

How about a summary of my thoughts? OK, take the current products manufactured today, do research on where they are headed, look into the components that enhance or add value to each of these products and see if there are a few companies that produce the next generation of these components – then limit the study to less than 10 industries where these components are bound to have major impact.

Do you see where I am headed with this now? If I can identify companies that produce something really small on a micro or even nano scale that improves today’s products and will be integral in moving tomorrow’s products forward, I will have successfully identified a winner in not one but several industries.

In my most recent estimation, there are not a lot of these players out there but they do exist and I am hunting them down one by one. Did I mention that I am already in discussions with one?

Yes, I believe that I have identified the first of several of these core component providers. If you have read my article this far, then you may want to contact me to learn more because information this hot, can not yet be published in an open forum. Alas, the search continues and a new project is born to narrow down the hunt for the next big thing.

I was making my monthly backup recently when it occurred to me that long term data storage does not yet really exist. Can you believe it? There is currently no well known technological means of digitally storing data for a few hundred years. I decided to dive in and investigate and here is what I discovered.

First of all, sorting out personal needs from corporate and governmental requirements I found out that the term ‘long term data storage’ currently refers to a period of 20 to 30 years in a ‘controlled environment’. What is a ‘controlled environment’? Well, this phrase refers to the absence of ultra violet rays (basically sunlight) and heat – both of which decrease the lifespan of current data storage media. It is hard to believe that an industry has come to the conclusion that 30 years is ‘long term’ but setting that aside, let’s address personal data storage alternatives first. There are CD-R discs and CD-RW discs available as well as DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD+RW options in most electronics stores today. If you want to store your data for a few years, do not rely on RW discs – they are suitable for temporary storage or data transfer purposes only. Technically speaking, the coating is volatile and will not last more than a few years.

Next, let’s explore the coatings used on CDs and DVDs. As I put these words onto digital paper, the most durable of the CD-R coatings is Phthalocyanine. When combined with gold reflective layers and stored in a cool, dry, dark environment, experts tell us that the data ’should last’ up to 100 years on these discs. Reality however, is that no one has been able to confirm the manufacturer’s claims given than CD and DVD technology has only been available to the masses for the past 20 years (one fifth of the claimed lifespan). The other issue is that CD and DVD readers / writers are constantly changing and also improving by increasing data storage capacity and improving read / write tasks keeping pace with Moore’s law. Thus, the conclusion is that although you may be able (under ideal conditions) to maintain integrity of some discs for up to 100 years, the chances are good that there will not be a reader available for those discs 50 years from now. Storage is apparently one thing and data retrieval an entirely different beast.

On the corporate and government fronts, DVDs and CDs are not only too expensive to archive data but also too difficult to handle given their current capacity limitations. Tape systems have worked in these environments for decades but, tape is a medium designed for 5 to 10 years at the most before the data is no longer retrievable. The other issue is quantity or volume of data that needs to be stored for more than 20 years. Imagine the vast libraries of books that are being converted into digital format, add to this collection another library of artwork and photos that are only available digitally and quintuple that amount of data with a library of films, movies and documentaries and you quickly become overwhelmed with the task faced by people with the responsibility of preserving history for future generations to appreciate.

The facts are fairly straight forward, hard drives are mechanical and will fail in under 5 years with a probability better than 70%, top quality compact discs can last 15-20 years before the coatings, dyes or composite materials will begin to break down and disintegrate.

What can we use to preserve our digital assets for eternity before it’s too late?

One possibility, Microfiche. If this is an option, it would be a case of back to the future IMHO. The basics are that data as we know it today would be printed on the microfiche using a color laser. The Microfiche could be stored for hundreds of years in a fraction of space required by other media and, when needed, the Microfiche could be scanned back into a PC using the then current scanners which would likely be much better than today’s resolution thus delivering a technology independent method of long term data archiving.

I wonder what companies would be the first to order if such a machine were to exist?

I’d like to take you through what I believe are the eight core principles to success.

These apply online, as well as offline, in all aspects of our lives and in every phase thereof. The 8 principles are the culmination of 20 years and $500,000 invested in all types of books, live seminars, videos, lectures, CDs, DVDs, tapes, courses e-books, magazine articles etc – I ate them all up like candy and distilled what I believe is the core essence to success.

Read through the following with an open mind, if some of them help you or match your lifestyle goals then, by all means – apply them to your life, if they don’t, then find a few that do, having principles and a code of ethics dictates who you are and who you turn out to be, and the sooner you find yours and live them, the sooner you’ll get what you seek.

Here are the 8 principles:
Principle #1 – Action
Principle #2 – Objectives
Principle #3 – Focus
Principle #4 – Discipline
Principle #5 – Time
Principle #6 – Just do it
Principle #7 – Communicate
Principle #8 – Leverage

Sowing seeds in a garden is only the first step in order to be able to harvest something later – all of the above steps need constant care and attention so that you will be able to reap the rewards of your efforts over time. Nothing in life worth having is instant – this is a process and will take some effort… but in my humble opinion, it’s worth the effort.

1) Act. That is essence is all I want to say about this particular principle. Ok, I want to add one or two more lines. “Act or ye shall be acted upon” Translation: get up off your lazy ass and do something today to help you move toward achieving one of your goals.

2) If you don’t set a specific and measurable goal as a destination, how would you know that you got there? Each of us needs to list goals and objectives for every area of our lives. Then, when we achieve one of our goals – we have something great to celebrate. There is a shortcut but you probably won’t believe me until it happens to you. One of my mentors told me years ago “Picture yourself already having achieved your goal. Make the picture as vivid and real as possible and remember to see yourself in the end result of having achieved your goal.” This sounds easy and can be a really fun way to spend a few meditative hours but the fascinating thing about this technique is that it works – and it works really well.

3) This is something that all successful people have mastered. It does not matter what their chosen field was, they focused on achieving their goals and no obstacle stood in their way for long. In an age where instant gratification is the rule rather than the exception, attention deficit disorder seems to have replaced focus as the chosen path. My suggestion: Drop the ADD and pick up your list of goals, select ONE then do nothing else for 2 hours except work on achieving that specific goal. As with most things you need to get used to doing this so expect to get into a groove after a few attempts but make the effort and get started today.

4) Discipline has to do with choices. It links your goals with achievement and is an essential element to accomplishing your objecives. You need to know what is the best possible choice available to you to help you achieve your goal. Once motivation has subsided, usually it is discipline that gets the job done. Every successful individual I have ever read about or known personally, had an over abundance of self discipline.

5) The only finite resource we have is time. Don’t waste a drop. Enjoy the road and journey as much as you enjoy the destination. Work on efficient and effective activities – those things that are going to be moving you toward your end result. Ignore the rest and be sure to prioritize how you spend your day / week so that you maximize your achievement including time with friends and family.

6) Take responsibility for action and follow through. There is no such thing as quitting or turning back. You simply need to move forward and get the job done – that’s it. Just do it and do it with compassion, honesty and integrity.

7) If you are going to look at your life with the end result in mind then do the same for communication too. If your intended message is received crystal clear by the person with whom you are communicating then mission accomplished. One way to accomplish this is to collect your thoughts on the person with whom you are communicating and put on their shoes… say things to them in a way that they will understand – speak their language – use words that they too would use. Then test this by asking them to explain what they just heard in their own words and compare it to your intent.

8) We can leverage time, money and knowledge in the pursuit of our goals. When you outsource grunt work to others you are leveraging your time. When you can use OPM to achieve an objective and score a win-win in the process you are leveraging your money. Knowledge on its own is without much value until it is applied. Know where to go to get help with achieving your specific goals by doing a bit of research. If you need help, hire a specialist and get the job done… when you do this, you are leveraging knowledge as well.

It all boils down to this:
Know what you want
Make a plan to get it
Focus on your dream
Have the discipline to work on the goal regularly
Reserve time for what is important not what is urgent
Just do it
Remember to communicate effectively so that the core message is received as intended
Leverage your time and apply the abundant knowledge of experts to get what you want

Good luck and enjoy the ride!