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Innovation Impact Mindmap



For 20+ years, I taught in a University of Arizona entrepreneurship program.  This Innovation Impact Mindmap started on the whiteboard in my office, a graphic schematic of the course syllabus.  

A syllabus is sequential, but innovation and entrepreneurship usually is not.  They bounce around a bit, from here to there and round again. 

The whiteboard version was fairly simple, but useful.  Students and colleagues took pictures of it for reference.  So, I thought, why not elaborate it just a little bit?  

[OK, OK, so maybe a little bit more than just a little bit!]  

I've added elements that I thought would be most useful, but certainly not all apply to every new venture! The "main highway" is the mission statement, highlighted in yellow.

Think of this Mindmap as a checklist of the elements you might want to visit as you travel around on your new venture adventure! 

High resolution .pdf .jpg and .png versions are available HERE.

--Jim

Ways to Grow Your Business

Scaling your business, building your team and expanding your customer base is essential if you want to grow your business. If you’re not sure where to begin, it can be a challenge for you to determine which direction to go when it’s time for growth. This guide reviews some effective ways to develop a business. 

How to grow a small business 

  • Many small business owners aren’t sure when they need to scale their operations, so they wait to expand into a new location or pursue new talent that can help them gain market share. The best way to tell that you’re ready to scale is when you’re hitting your goals regularly and have plenty of spare income to invest on expansion. When you hit that point, you can use the following strategies to take your business to the next level.  

Allow your existing customers to help you grow your business 

  • One of the best ways to make an impression on new customers is to show them how much your existing customers love your products and services. If you’re not asking for referrals, reviews and testimonials, you could be losing out. Make sure you’re requesting Google reviews and customer feedback whenever possible so your customers become advocates for your brand. 

Growing your business with a sales funnel 

  • A sales funnel is an automation tactic that can help you scale quickly. Companies can use a free product or service that attracts customers. The funnel guides customers through four stages: awareness, interest, decision and action.  You show people that whatever problem or concern they have can be resolved with your product or service. This builds their trust in your brand and makes them likely to buy or subscribe.  

Take customer service to the next level 

  • Some ways that you can provide excellent customer service include: 
  1. Providing transparency over what data you collect and how it’s used, what changes you’re making to your service policies, when you expect to update your pricing and service charges and how customers can return products or get assistance 
  2. Giving customers easy methods for changing their subscription statuses, paying for your products and choosing how products are shipped to their location 
  3. Reducing wait times when customers need to speak with a person about an issue 

Use a customer management system to grow your business 

  • Streamlining and automation save time and improve customer relationships. With the right customer management system in place, you can inform your customer base about deals and target your communications for better message optimization. As your business grows, finding ways to automatically track campaigns, leverage customer data and better manage your sales can pay off with increased referrals and more profits.

Offer a customer loyalty program 

  • One of the best ways to get customers to come back is to offer them savings if they enroll in your loyalty program. They often give you their email or other contact information so you can keep them informed whenever you want to run a promotion. Some people simply like getting a deal, so they may catch wind about your loyalty program and begin shopping at your business just to save.

Use your data to uncover new opportunities 

  • Data can tell you just about everything you need to know when you want to scale your business. It reveals what demographics are most interested in your products, how customers interact with your website, conversion rates and campaign efficiency. Data analytics and artificial intelligence technologies are behind many large companies’ success, and you can leverage your own data to see where to invest your time and money. 

Run an analysis on your competitors 

  • If your competitor has a successful social media strategy that’s drawing customers in droves, learn from it. You shouldn’t strive to copy your competitors, but you can certainly deploy the same marketing strategies that are driving their success.  

Form strategic partnerships 

  • Working with other businesses to achieve common goals helps everyone involved. Partnerships can range from agreeing to market another company’s products to using their services exclusively to scale your company. Be sure when you’re ironing out an agreement with another business that each business benefits from the relationship equally. 

License your product 

  • Licensing products allows other retailers and businesses to market them or alter them in a way to increase their own sales. One of the most lucrative licensing deals was when McDonald’s licensed Monopoly and borrowed elements of the game to create an instant-win promotion. If you want to build name recognition or expand your market share, there are fewer better branding options than allowing other businesses to get your products in front of people for you. 

Make wise hiring decisions 

  • Hiring the best employees possible is a major catalyst to fueling business growth and innovation. Employees working for small businesses have a greater opportunity to make a direct impact on the business than someone at a larger organization would. Take time to carefully review resumes and properly vet candidates to ensure you’re only hiring professionals who you believe can provide lasting value to your company. 

Turn your employees into brand ambassadors 

  • Sales representatives that own and use the products they sell often have a much easier time closing deals than those who don’t believe in what they’re selling. Get your employees excited about their roles within your company and turn them into believers. When they explain what they do to other people, potential customers could be impressed by their devotion to your brand and stop by to learn more. This is referred to as employer branding.

Use social media to grow your online footprint 

  • Everyone who interacts with your business likely takes the time to review your online presence. Social listening on your website and social media gives your business insight into your customers’ behaviors and what they’re saying about your business. Maintaining social media accounts helps you communicate with your followers, announce promotions and sales, learn what’s popular and cultivate brand loyalty.    

Create a webinar 

  • Webinars are more than a way to communicate news and updates to your existing customers. They give you a powerful video message you can display on social media and leverage with your sales funnel strategy. They often reach large audiences quickly and let people know more about your work culture and values. If you make an evergreen webinar, it can pay dividends for a long time.   

Build passive income streams 

  • If you make sure your revenue isn’t limited to a single source, you won’t be impacted as dramatically whenever supply chain issues, inflation, global events and political unrest tip the scales unfavorably. Investigate ways you can invest your resources or money in alternative revenue streams to help support your business through slow seasons, uncertain economic times and other unforeseen events so your business growth isn’t slowed by these influences.

Measure what works and refine as you grow your business 

  • The only way for you to understand what works for your business and what doesn’t is by measuring your organic and paid marketing. If you’re thrilled by increased sales, learn what’s driving your current success so you can replicate it. You also want to see whether your customers are sharing information about your company so you have more opportunities to expand or if they’re mostly silent about your business.


Challenges you may face when growing your business 

There are a few stumbling blocks that businesses run into when they’re trying to scale. Avoid these mistakes when it comes time to grow your small business.

Mismanaging cash flows 

  • It costs money to expand, and many small business owners underestimate the cost of expanding to a new location, recruiting new staff and ramping up their manufacturing. Make sure you’re fully aware of your new operational costs before you make the decision to move forward.

Poor hiring choices 

  • It’s important that the people you recruit while scaling your business align with your core mission and company culture. If you don’t hire the right people, it could bring your expansion to a standstill.

Price wars 

  • You may be tempted to undercut your competitors to lure more customers, but this only reduces your profit margins. Some people are willing to pay more if they know the extra cost is justified by quality and innovation.


Frequently asked questions about how to grow your business 

What are the stages of small business growth? 

  • There are five stages of small business growth: 
  1. Existence: a business becomes viable 
  2. Survival: the business turns a profit 
  3. Success: profits are sustainable and turn into income for the owner 
  4. Take-off: the scaling of the business into a competitor for market share 
  5. Resource maturity: long-term sustainability 

What are the four major business growth strategies? 

  • The four major growth strategies are: 

  1. Market penetration is when businesses gain market share.
  2. Market development is when businesses focus on sales growth.
  3. Product development is the launch of new products and innovation.
  4. Diversification involves expanding into new markets.

When should you scale up a business? 

  • You know you’re ready to scale up when: 

  1. You’re consistently surpassing goals for a prolonged period
  2. Cash flow is solid and repeatable
  3. Your infrastructure is strong and you’ve got solid proof of concept


[Thank you, Indeed.com]

Press Release Template

A press release format typically includes the following elements: 

  • Header: A business logo, release instructions, and contact information 
  • Headline: A compelling headline
  • Subheadline: An italicized subheadline that adds context 
  • Lead paragraph: An informative paragraph that summarizes the most important points in two or three sentences 
  • Body: Supporting information and context in paragraphs 
  • Background information: Underlying background information 
  • Call to action: A clear call to action 
  • Boilerplate: A boilerplate that summarizes the "who" and "what" 
  • Dateline: A piece of text that describes where and when the release was written or the event happened 
  • Media contact details: Contact information for media 

How to Solve a Problem

Ah, a day without a problem would be ... well, a day without a problem!  Ever have one of those?  Lucky you if you have.

More likely, we'll have a nice set of problems today. Some readily solved, as we've solved them before (what's for lunch?).  Others will be new, unheard of, unexpected. Some easy, some not quite so. 

Here's a little guidance checklist to help us with the problem solving process ...
  1. Define the problem.
  2. Explore potential causes of the problem.
  3. Identify alternatives for approaches to resolve the problem.
  4. Select the best approach to resolve the problem.
  5. Plan the implementation of this approach.
  6. Implement the plan.
  7. Monitor the results.
  8. Verify if the problem has been resolved or not. If not, back to #1.
BTW, this is the core process for developing a new business venture.

--Jim

The Role of a New Business Development Team Mentor

Experienced mentors can help innovators and entrepreneurs effectively and efficiently move their venture concept through the research, ideation, test, and planning stages to resourcing, launch, stability, sustainability, and growth. The role of a new business venture development team mentor is wide-ranging:

1] Mentor: experienced and trusted adviser (typically an unpaid, voluntary, part-time role)
2] Adviser: an expert willing to share their knowledge and opinions
3] Business Plan Editor: a mentor is best used in an editor role, rather than a writer
4] Voice of the Customer: keeps a light on the customer pain-pleasure spectrum
5] Voice of the Competition: ignoring the competition is never a good strategy, and there is always competition (alternatives, substitutes, replacements)
6] Voice of the Stakeholders: everyone involved with the venture must win
7] Voice of the Team Members: a balanced team is a productive team
8] Domain Expert: teaching from education and experience
9] Soothsayer: foresees the future based on experiences from the past
10] Angel Advocate: supports the team and venture, internally and externally
11] Consultant: professional expert advice (usually compensated to perform specific tasks)
12] Moderator: arbitrator, mediator
13] Coach: helps the team iterate and pivot as needed
14] Board Member, Director (not an ordinary role): helps govern the affairs of an organization
15] Teacher: instructor, guide
16] Innovation Stimulator: innovation is a continuing journey, not a destination
17] Collaborator: partner with the venture team
18] Friend: personal confidante and sounding board
19] Tool Technician: helping the team use the right tool at the right time for the right purpose
20] InnovateAthon Tour Guide: Creativity, Innovation, Entrepreneurship
21] DXpedition Tour Guide: Discover, Define, Design, Develop, Deploy
22] InnovateAthon Master of Ceremonies and/or Notetaker: leading the creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship process

There is a better way ...

Tips for Finding Your True Passion

  1. What puts a smile on your face?
  2. What do you find easy?
  3. What sparks your creativity?
  4. What would you do for free?
  5. What do you like to talk about?
  6. What makes you unafraid of failure?
  7. What would you regret not having tried?
[Thank you, Frederick Pemji]

What is an Innovate-A-thon?

An Innovate-A-thon(tm) is a series of complementary team activities for creating something new and better ... an innovation!

Innovate-A-thon participants collaborate to reach a goal in a predetermined period of time.  An independent, neutral facilitator/leader keeps the team focused, productive, and the process on-track and on-time.

Innovate-A-thon creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship principles have been refined through application in a variety of companies, business development support groups, nonprofit associations, universities, and other organizations.

An Innovate-A-thon program can be custom-structured to fit the needs of a particular organization or company, as well as at a variety of instructional and participation levels.

If your organization would like some independent mentoring to produce a custom Innovate-A-thon, please do contact us for a no-obligation chat ... Innovate-A-thon.org

The Three (or Four) Musketeers ...

  1. Successful early-stage venture management teams are often comprised of the "Three Musketeers": the General Manager (President), the Product/Operations Manager (VP), and the Marketing/Sales Manager (VP).
  2. More than three people leading the venture and the communication channels start to become too complex. 
  3. Less than three leading managers and the workload starts to become too intense. If there is a Fourth Musketeer, it could be a Financial Manager (VP?)
  4. The General Manager concentrates on the cash flow, keeping the venture profitable, and stimulating growth.
  5. The Product/Operations Manager is primarily internally focused on creating solutions that are better than the competition.
  6. The Marketing/Sales Manager is primarily externally focused on solving customer problems.
  7. The team is a cohesive entity focused on what is best for the venture and its customers ... one for all, all for one.
  8. Successful management teams are comprised on individuals who are competent, have complementary skills, and collaborative styles.
  9. Together the team is purposeful, passionate, and persistent.
  10. Together the team is focused on earning a profit solving customer problems better than the competition.

What's in a Name?

What's in a name? When deciding what to call your venture, the answer is plenty. A venture name can be too broad--or too confining. It can be too quirky--or not memorable enough. The challenge is to pick a name that's catchy, but also fits well with your particular type of venture. Here are 10 questions to ask as you ponder various names, keeping in mind that the choice could make all the difference in establishing your venture in the marketplace.

What do I want a name to accomplish for my venture?
A name can help separate you from competitors and reinforce your venture's image, says Steve Manning, founder of Sausalito, Calif.-based Igor, a naming agency. He suggests clearly defining your brand positioning before choosing a name, as Apple did to differentiate itself from corporate sounding names like IBM and NEC. "They were looking for a name that supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different," Manning says.

Will the name be too limiting?
Don't box yourself in, says Phoenix-based Martin Zwilling, CEO and founder of Startup Professionals Inc., an advisor to early-stage startups. Avoid picking names that could limit your venture from enlarging its product line or expanding to new locations, he says, citing the example of Angelsoft.com, a venture formed in 2004 to help connect startup companies with angel investors. A few years ago, the venture realized it needed to appeal equally to venture capital and other types of investors. So, it did a costly rebranding to Gust.com, which is less specific and evokes a nice "wind in the sails" image.

Does the name make sense for my venture?
For most companies, it's best to adopt a name that provides some information about their products and services. That doesn't mean it can't also have a catchy ring. Lawn and Order, for example, is a good name for a landscaping venture because it gets people's attention and also clearly relates to the venture's services, Zwilling says. While unusual words like Yahoo and Fogdog sometimes work, quirky names are always a crapshoot.

Is the name easy to remember?
The shorter the name, the better, Zwilling says, suggesting that venture owners limit it to two syllables and avoid using hyphens or other special characters. He also recommends skipping acronyms, which mean nothing to most people, and picking a name whose first letter is closer to A than Z because certain algorithms and directory listings work alphabetically. "When choosing an identity for a venture or a product, simple and straightforward are back in style and cost less to brand," he says.

Is the name easy for people to spell?
That may seem to be a given, but some companies purposely select names that consumers can't easily spell. It's a risky strategy to try to make a venture stand out, and some naming consultants recommend against it. "If your name looks like a typo, scratch it off the list," says Alexandra Watkins, founder and chief innovation officer of Eat My Words, a naming service based in San Francisco. She also believes that it's important that your name be spelled exactly as it sounds. Otherwise, you will forever have to spell it out for people when saying the name or your venture's email or website address aloud. "Think of how often you have to spell your own first or last name for people," she says. "Why would you want a brand name with the same problem?"

How will potential customers first encounter your name?
Some naming experts believe there are exceptions to the easy-to-spell rule, especially if most people will see your name for the first time in a print or online ad. For example, consider Zulily, the online venture offering daily deals for moms, babies and kids. "If you just heard that name, you might not guess how to spell it, but the venture's aggressive online ad campaign has meant that most people first see it spelled out," says Chris Johnson, a naming consultant in Seattle and author of The Name Inspector blog, who came up with the name Zulily. "The payoff is that the unusual sound and spelling of the name have helped them create a very distinctive brand."

Does the name sound good and is it easy to pronounce?
Manning says the sound of the name is important in conveying a feeling of energy and excitement. You also must be sure potential customers can easily pronounce your venture's name. "It is a hard fact that people are able to spell, pronounce and remember names that they are familiar with," he says, pointing to Apple, Stingray, Oracle and Virgin as strong names. But he doesn't like such venture names as Chordiant, Livent and Naviant. "These names are impossible to spell or remember without a huge advertising budget, and the look, rhythm and sound of them cast a cold, impersonal persona," he says.

Is your name meaningful only to yourself?
A name with hidden or personal meanings evokes nothing about your brand, and you won't be there to explain it when most people encounter it. "Refrain from Swahili, words spelled backwards, and naming things after your dog," Watkins says. She gives the example of Lynette Hoy, who was using her first and last name for her PR firm in Bainbridge Island, Wash. The name didn't work because it failed to evoke Hoy's fiery personality and passion, Watkins says. So, the company was rebranded Firetalker PR, and Hoy took the title of Fire Chief. She called her office The Firehouse, and began offering PR packages such as Inferno, Controlled Burn and The Matchbox. "Her entire brand is built around that name and lends itself to endless ways to extend the name," Watkins says. "Her prior name didn't lend itself to any theme or wordplay."

Is the name visually appealing?
You also want to consider how the name looks in a logo, ad or a billboard, Manning says. He points to Gogo, the inflight Internet service provider, as a good name for design purposes. "It's the balance of the letters, all rounded and friendly, versus a word with hard, angular letters like Ks and Ts and Rs," Manning says. Other visually appealing names include Volvo because it has no low-hanging letters and Xerox for the symmetry of beginning and ending with the same letter.

Have I conducted a proper trademark search?
A great name is worthless if someone else already has laid claim to it. Start with some free resources like Trademarkia.com or USPTO.gov to do a cursory search to see if the name is already in use. Then, hire a trademark attorney to do a more thorough screening, and if the name isn't taken, to register it with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. "Get it right the first time," Watkins says. "A third of our business comes from companies who are being threatened with trademark infringement."

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