Our Community and Australia Post are working together to build up a gallery of photos that show the full extent of Australia’s communities and the people who work with them. A total of $5000 in cash prizes is available for photographers who upload images to the Photo Bank, and their nominated community groups. There are two prizes – one for the most popular photo, and another for the photo that best exemplifies the work of Australian community.
The competition is open until October 22, but photos will remain on the Photo Bank indefinitely. Find out more and view existing photographs at
www.ourcommunity.com.au/photobank.
Don’t miss your chance to show the rest of Australia what’s going on in your neck of the woods – and maybe win some loot while you’re at it.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Communication Success Tip
[From Parsons Associates Coaching]
Think before you speak.
Saying what you mean and meaning what you say is the golden rule to communication.
To achieve this, you must hear what you are saying before it is spoken.
This requires pausing for a moment of thought.
Analyze what you plan to say and evaluate whether it sounds like what you mean.
When you speak to someone you don’t have a backspace key to erase what you just said.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Video - Sharing - the Leadership Challenge
See practical examples of this particular style of leadership in change in the public sector
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Top Five tips for a healthy event
[From Our Community Matters, the newsletter of http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/]
If you're taking care of the health of both your volunteers and the general public (and you should be), take these considerations into account when planning your next fundraising event.
1. Free and easily accessible water
You may think you can make more money by selling your own cans (and perhaps forbidding other people from bringing their own), but this is very risky. If anyone gets dehydrated you may be held liable. Make sure
that volunteers have a clear source of hydration, even if you have to buy it.
2. Adequate first aid
You may be able to get this expertise from within your own volunteer roster that is, you may be able to arrange for your volunteers to take the course. If n, thought, you'll have to mae other arrangements.
3. Smoke-free areas
This is a no-brainer. Slightly harder is the question of whether to have an entirely smoke-free event. Will this discourage participants? On the other hand, is it ethical to facilitate ill-health? Will it cheapen your brand?
4. Shaded areas
Any outdoors event venue needs to have as much shade as possible.
To set a good example volunteers should be encouraged to be SunSmart (a long-sleeved collared shirt, sunglasses and a broad-rimmed hat when outdoors).
5. Healthy publicity
These tips do involve you doing more work, so you need to get something back for the cause. Try and make it a sales feature. Promote your healthy event in your media campaign and stress how friendly it is to families (working families, even!). Explain any restrictions to volunteers in advance.
Keep it fun, keep it healthy, and minimise risks.
If you're taking care of the health of both your volunteers and the general public (and you should be), take these considerations into account when planning your next fundraising event.
1. Free and easily accessible water
You may think you can make more money by selling your own cans (and perhaps forbidding other people from bringing their own), but this is very risky. If anyone gets dehydrated you may be held liable. Make sure
that volunteers have a clear source of hydration, even if you have to buy it.
2. Adequate first aid
You may be able to get this expertise from within your own volunteer roster that is, you may be able to arrange for your volunteers to take the course. If n, thought, you'll have to mae other arrangements.
3. Smoke-free areas
This is a no-brainer. Slightly harder is the question of whether to have an entirely smoke-free event. Will this discourage participants? On the other hand, is it ethical to facilitate ill-health? Will it cheapen your brand?
4. Shaded areas
Any outdoors event venue needs to have as much shade as possible.
To set a good example volunteers should be encouraged to be SunSmart (a long-sleeved collared shirt, sunglasses and a broad-rimmed hat when outdoors).
5. Healthy publicity
These tips do involve you doing more work, so you need to get something back for the cause. Try and make it a sales feature. Promote your healthy event in your media campaign and stress how friendly it is to families (working families, even!). Explain any restrictions to volunteers in advance.
Keep it fun, keep it healthy, and minimise risks.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Not just one of the gang
When exploited, a good manager's intimate working relationships with the team can boost performance. Too much closeness could lead to discomfort.
In business, as in sports, winning teams have a well-honed sense of camaraderie that helps team members to read one another's signals, move as one, and watch each other's backs. In management circles, this sense of commitment and connection is often referred to as affiliation. Many experts consider it an essential component of effective teamwork. The more people value their relationships with one another, the thinking goes, the better they will perform for one another and the organisation. But can you have too much of a good thing?
According to a new study of 20 executive leadership teams from Fortune 500 companies conducted by the Philadelphia-based Hay Group, you can. While confirming that affiliation is a crucial component of effective teamwork, the study also showed that too much emphasis on positive relationships, especially by the team leader, could hamper performance.
(... more)
In business, as in sports, winning teams have a well-honed sense of camaraderie that helps team members to read one another's signals, move as one, and watch each other's backs. In management circles, this sense of commitment and connection is often referred to as affiliation. Many experts consider it an essential component of effective teamwork. The more people value their relationships with one another, the thinking goes, the better they will perform for one another and the organisation. But can you have too much of a good thing?
According to a new study of 20 executive leadership teams from Fortune 500 companies conducted by the Philadelphia-based Hay Group, you can. While confirming that affiliation is a crucial component of effective teamwork, the study also showed that too much emphasis on positive relationships, especially by the team leader, could hamper performance.
(... more)
Friday, September 26, 2008
Support for volunteering
[Via the Ourcommunity (www.ourcommunity.com.au) newsletter]
Everybody’s always been in favour of volunteering, but now some governments are actually starting to do something to help support it.
The UK Workforce hub has issued a set of National Occupational Standards 2008 for Management of Volunteers to put together all the things that a volunteer coordinator – paid or unpaid – might have to do.
These National Occupational Standards define the whole spectrum of activities involved in the management of volunteers and will help you to carry out this role effectively, with emphasis on
A. Developing and evaluating strategies & policies that support volunteering
B. Promoting volunteering
C. Recruiting, placing, & inducting volunteers
D. Managing & developing volunteers
E. Managing yourself, your relationships & your responsibilities
F. Providing management support for volunteering programs
Each section goes into more detail – the section on Management Support, for example, includes information on promoting your organisation and its services, managing projects involving volunteers, obtaining funds to support volunteering, and more.
Each of these points is broken down further, too, and running an eye down them as a checklist would be a useful exercise for anybody who’s been given the job.
One of the things that’s too new to make the standards under Recruiting also comes from England, where they’re giving universities the option of allowing their students degree credits for their voluntary work – for “experiential learning” they’ve done in the workplace or while volunteering.
Although credit systems are already in operation in most UK universities, up to now there’s been no single system operating across the whole of the country.
So not only are we behind the UK in the medal tally, their universities have also got a much better grasp of the value of volunteering than ours have.
And why are the British doing this? Because, as they say,
The emerging agenda for higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (UK) promotes lifelong learning, social inclusion, wider participation, employability and partnership working with business, community organisations and among HE providers nationally and internationally. Consequently, higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly recognising the significant knowledge, skills and understanding which can
be developed as a result of learning opportunities found at work, both paid and unpaid, and through individual activities and interests.
Seems sensible.
Over in America, meanwhile, they’re conducting the kind of fine‐grained research into volunteering that we need if we are to hold our own.
The American Time Use Survey (ATUS), sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, has done surveys to find that
• Volunteers, on average, are about as busy as other people.
• Volunteers don’t make time for volunteering by simply trading paid work for unpaid work.
• Volunteers trade off more than an hour a day of TV watching, on average, to engage in voluntary service. On average, recent volunteers watch approximately 15 hours of television per week, compared to approximately 21 hours for former volunteers and 23 hours for non‐volunteers.
• Volunteers spend substantially more time caring for children than either former volunteers or nonvolunteers do.
• In a typical day, volunteers tend to be more socially connected and interact more with others. For instance, recent volunteers spend 78% of their mealtime hours eating with other people, compared to about 70% for
non‐volunteers.
• Good health is preserved by volunteering; it keeps healthy volunteers healthy.
What’s not to like?
Back here in Oz, though, the Australian Bureau of Statistics funding has been cut, and its coverage of the Australian voluntary sector is cursory at best. Do the American findings also apply here? We can only guess.
Out of Pocket – Out of Luck
Meanwhile, Volunteering Australia has released the finding of the 2008 National Survey of Volunteering Issues. The survey attempts to work out where volunteers are satisfied, where they’re concerned, and what moves them. It’s found, for example, that 98% of volunteers said that they believed their work as volunteers made a difference to their organisation and its work, and 86% of volunteers believed their volunteering increased their sense of community belonging – figures that help the sector’s quest for government recognition of its effect on community health and social cohesion.
The survey looked at Corporate Volunteering for the first time – 38% of surveyed organisations with volunteers had corporate or employee programs, and 57% of those respondents reported that corporate volunteers made an extremely valuable contribution to their organisation.
On the downside, it seems that Australian community groups are being forced to take a harder line on repaying out-of-pocket expenses.
On the other hand, when asked, “Do out of pocket expenses affect your ability or desire to volunteer?” the proportion who said “No, they don’t,” went up from 36% to 60%, so the net effect probably wasn’t large.
Does your organisation offer to reimburse any out of pocket expenses?2007(n = 117)
2008(n = 194)
Yes – in full 27% 28%
Yes – in part 52% 38%
No – we can’t afford it 18% 22%
No – it’s against our policy 1% 7%
No – we haven’t thought about it 1% 4%
Don’t know 1% 3%
Everybody’s always been in favour of volunteering, but now some governments are actually starting to do something to help support it.
The UK Workforce hub has issued a set of National Occupational Standards 2008 for Management of Volunteers to put together all the things that a volunteer coordinator – paid or unpaid – might have to do.
These National Occupational Standards define the whole spectrum of activities involved in the management of volunteers and will help you to carry out this role effectively, with emphasis on
A. Developing and evaluating strategies & policies that support volunteering
B. Promoting volunteering
C. Recruiting, placing, & inducting volunteers
D. Managing & developing volunteers
E. Managing yourself, your relationships & your responsibilities
F. Providing management support for volunteering programs
Each section goes into more detail – the section on Management Support, for example, includes information on promoting your organisation and its services, managing projects involving volunteers, obtaining funds to support volunteering, and more.
Each of these points is broken down further, too, and running an eye down them as a checklist would be a useful exercise for anybody who’s been given the job.
One of the things that’s too new to make the standards under Recruiting also comes from England, where they’re giving universities the option of allowing their students degree credits for their voluntary work – for “experiential learning” they’ve done in the workplace or while volunteering.
Although credit systems are already in operation in most UK universities, up to now there’s been no single system operating across the whole of the country.
So not only are we behind the UK in the medal tally, their universities have also got a much better grasp of the value of volunteering than ours have.
And why are the British doing this? Because, as they say,
The emerging agenda for higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (UK) promotes lifelong learning, social inclusion, wider participation, employability and partnership working with business, community organisations and among HE providers nationally and internationally. Consequently, higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly recognising the significant knowledge, skills and understanding which can
be developed as a result of learning opportunities found at work, both paid and unpaid, and through individual activities and interests.
Seems sensible.
Over in America, meanwhile, they’re conducting the kind of fine‐grained research into volunteering that we need if we are to hold our own.
The American Time Use Survey (ATUS), sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, has done surveys to find that
• Volunteers, on average, are about as busy as other people.
• Volunteers don’t make time for volunteering by simply trading paid work for unpaid work.
• Volunteers trade off more than an hour a day of TV watching, on average, to engage in voluntary service. On average, recent volunteers watch approximately 15 hours of television per week, compared to approximately 21 hours for former volunteers and 23 hours for non‐volunteers.
• Volunteers spend substantially more time caring for children than either former volunteers or nonvolunteers do.
• In a typical day, volunteers tend to be more socially connected and interact more with others. For instance, recent volunteers spend 78% of their mealtime hours eating with other people, compared to about 70% for
non‐volunteers.
• Good health is preserved by volunteering; it keeps healthy volunteers healthy.
What’s not to like?
Back here in Oz, though, the Australian Bureau of Statistics funding has been cut, and its coverage of the Australian voluntary sector is cursory at best. Do the American findings also apply here? We can only guess.
Out of Pocket – Out of Luck
Meanwhile, Volunteering Australia has released the finding of the 2008 National Survey of Volunteering Issues. The survey attempts to work out where volunteers are satisfied, where they’re concerned, and what moves them. It’s found, for example, that 98% of volunteers said that they believed their work as volunteers made a difference to their organisation and its work, and 86% of volunteers believed their volunteering increased their sense of community belonging – figures that help the sector’s quest for government recognition of its effect on community health and social cohesion.
The survey looked at Corporate Volunteering for the first time – 38% of surveyed organisations with volunteers had corporate or employee programs, and 57% of those respondents reported that corporate volunteers made an extremely valuable contribution to their organisation.
On the downside, it seems that Australian community groups are being forced to take a harder line on repaying out-of-pocket expenses.
On the other hand, when asked, “Do out of pocket expenses affect your ability or desire to volunteer?” the proportion who said “No, they don’t,” went up from 36% to 60%, so the net effect probably wasn’t large.
Does your organisation offer to reimburse any out of pocket expenses?2007(n = 117)
2008(n = 194)
Yes – in full 27% 28%
Yes – in part 52% 38%
No – we can’t afford it 18% 22%
No – it’s against our policy 1% 7%
No – we haven’t thought about it 1% 4%
Don’t know 1% 3%
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Friday, September 05, 2008
Stres control: tough leadership versus Easy Does It
Tough leaders are usually seen as ogres.
Their exacting demands and high expectations add to stress levels. And their obsessive-compulsive behaviour can have a negative effect on results if they don't understand how to control stress to get positive results without serious negative reactions.
The same kind of leadership challenge can be found in the Army. Management at all levels are faced with the decision of "tough leadership" or "easy does it" in preparing troops for combat and on the battlefield.
Article continues
Their exacting demands and high expectations add to stress levels. And their obsessive-compulsive behaviour can have a negative effect on results if they don't understand how to control stress to get positive results without serious negative reactions.
The same kind of leadership challenge can be found in the Army. Management at all levels are faced with the decision of "tough leadership" or "easy does it" in preparing troops for combat and on the battlefield.
Article continues
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Usability: Bringing User-centred design inside the organisation
Trying to get the spirit of usability and user-centered design (UCD) established internally can be a difficult and isolating experience, even for the most determined user champion.
Introducing change of any kind in organisations is difficult at the best of times, doubly so when you have to break through the concrete walls of 'process' and 'methodology'. The emotional journey of trying to introduce usability is no different to that of a revolutionary, desperately trying to change the status quo through various guerrilla tactics.
This article offers practical advice of what a user champion can do to introduce and embed usability and user-centered design within a company.
(more ...)
Introducing change of any kind in organisations is difficult at the best of times, doubly so when you have to break through the concrete walls of 'process' and 'methodology'. The emotional journey of trying to introduce usability is no different to that of a revolutionary, desperately trying to change the status quo through various guerrilla tactics.
This article offers practical advice of what a user champion can do to introduce and embed usability and user-centered design within a company.
(more ...)
Thursday, July 24, 2008
For Your Eyes Only
Young Australians can win up to $3000 for a community group of their choice by entering the Your Eyes Only competition. To enter, young people aged 12 to 15 need to submit a creative piece of work that shows the positive things about their community through their eyes. Entries will be judged by a committee made up of young people from right across Australia.
Entries need to be received by September 2, 2008. Find out more at The Foundation for Young Australians’ website at www.youngaustralians.org or call (03) 9670 5436.
Entries need to be received by September 2, 2008. Find out more at The Foundation for Young Australians’ website at www.youngaustralians.org or call (03) 9670 5436.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Summing Up: Why Don't Managers Think Deeply?
What is your organization—and what are you—doing to bring more deep thinking into work and life? According to respondents to this past month's column by Jim Heskett, providing time to reflect, particularly in an era of multi-tasking and the tyranny of technology, was most frequently suggested as an antidote to the dearth of deep thinking. (Online forum now closed.)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5952.html
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5952.html
Monday, June 30, 2008
Board Development - workshop, Sydney
Where: Sydney
When: 30 July 2008
Start time: 4pm
Finish time: 6pm
Are you a non-profit leader, or a current or potential board member? This afternoon workshop turns the spotlight on what’s required to make your non-profit board deliver. You’ll look at best practice, performance expectations and what it takes to make non-profit leaders and board members work effectively together.
To address the sector’s need for practical and affordable skills development, Social Ventures Australia has developed an integrated program of capacity building workshops specifically designed for non-profit organisations of all sizes and stages of development.
Led by qualified and experienced facilitators who are familiar with nonprofit culture and the unique issues we face, these workshops introduce key concepts of organisational and board development and offer specific techniques on how to apply them to your organisation.
SVA workshops are for non-profit leaders and managers. They’re short, sharp and focused to make sure your time out of the office makes your time in the office easier and more effective.
Why come?
Get tools and know-how that boost organisational outcomes
Apply your learning in real-time
Benefit from experienced facilitators and non-profit peer working
Cost: $200
For more information or to register download the workshop flyer.
When: 30 July 2008
Start time: 4pm
Finish time: 6pm
Are you a non-profit leader, or a current or potential board member? This afternoon workshop turns the spotlight on what’s required to make your non-profit board deliver. You’ll look at best practice, performance expectations and what it takes to make non-profit leaders and board members work effectively together.
To address the sector’s need for practical and affordable skills development, Social Ventures Australia has developed an integrated program of capacity building workshops specifically designed for non-profit organisations of all sizes and stages of development.
Led by qualified and experienced facilitators who are familiar with nonprofit culture and the unique issues we face, these workshops introduce key concepts of organisational and board development and offer specific techniques on how to apply them to your organisation.
SVA workshops are for non-profit leaders and managers. They’re short, sharp and focused to make sure your time out of the office makes your time in the office easier and more effective.
Why come?
Get tools and know-how that boost organisational outcomes
Apply your learning in real-time
Benefit from experienced facilitators and non-profit peer working
Cost: $200
For more information or to register download the workshop flyer.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Successful Grants and Proposals
Wednesday 16 July
Is funding an important issue for your organisation?
Learn ways to secure funding with successful tenders and proposals.
Back by popular demand!
http://www.training.infoxchange.net.au
Is funding an important issue for your organisation?
Learn ways to secure funding with successful tenders and proposals.
Back by popular demand!
http://www.training.infoxchange.net.au
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Working paper: Agency and Institutions
—A Review of Institutional Entrepreneurship
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5943.html
Download the PDF.
Researchers' understanding of institutional entrepreneurship has evolved since the publication of Paul DiMaggio's seminal text "Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory" 20 years ago. In particular, researchers have begun to establish foundations for a theory of institutional entrepreneurship. This paper by Bernard Leca, HBS professor Julie Battilana, and Eva Boxenbaum analyzes existing work, and proposes an ambitious research agenda that calls for a more systematic investigation of institutional entrepreneurship.
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5943.html
Download the PDF.
Researchers' understanding of institutional entrepreneurship has evolved since the publication of Paul DiMaggio's seminal text "Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory" 20 years ago. In particular, researchers have begun to establish foundations for a theory of institutional entrepreneurship. This paper by Bernard Leca, HBS professor Julie Battilana, and Eva Boxenbaum analyzes existing work, and proposes an ambitious research agenda that calls for a more systematic investigation of institutional entrepreneurship.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Fundraising help sheet
Raising money to send amateur individuals or teams away to events musical, sporting or otherwise is not easy.
There's no quick fix, no magic pool of funds that ou can dip into to get yu on your way.
To help people think through the process of raising funds for things like this, the OurCommunity webste has a help sheet. It's a handy reference for anyone wanting to know how to raise funds for a one-off need (as well as those such as council officers who also receive this request from time to time).
The help sheet is in the Community Funding Centre at www.ourcommunity.com.au/oneoff
There's no quick fix, no magic pool of funds that ou can dip into to get yu on your way.
To help people think through the process of raising funds for things like this, the OurCommunity webste has a help sheet. It's a handy reference for anyone wanting to know how to raise funds for a one-off need (as well as those such as council officers who also receive this request from time to time).
The help sheet is in the Community Funding Centre at www.ourcommunity.com.au/oneoff
Sunday, June 01, 2008
The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations [pdf]
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu/
Established in 1997 with a grant from Rita and Gus Hauser, The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organization "pursues dispassionate research and education, promoting critical thinking about the importance, roles and performance of civic organizations." This website complements their contextual work by offering information about their staff, publications, research programs, and educational programs. The "Publications" area is one that will be of most interest to visitors, as they can peruse their working paper series, look over their newsletters, and also learn about recent books written by Hauser Center authors. The working paper series contains over 40 titles, including "Comparative Advantage in Disaster Response" and "What Matters to Whom? Managing Trust Across Multiple Stakeholder Groups". In the "Programs" area, visitors will find resources for public sector and religious leaders via the Program on Religion and Public Life and materials on the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative. Finally, visitors can also sign up to receive the Center's e-newsletter.
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hauser/
Established in 1997 with a grant from Rita and Gus Hauser, The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organization "pursues dispassionate research and education, promoting critical thinking about the importance, roles and performance of civic organizations." This website complements their contextual work by offering information about their staff, publications, research programs, and educational programs. The "Publications" area is one that will be of most interest to visitors, as they can peruse their working paper series, look over their newsletters, and also learn about recent books written by Hauser Center authors. The working paper series contains over 40 titles, including "Comparative Advantage in Disaster Response" and "What Matters to Whom? Managing Trust Across Multiple Stakeholder Groups". In the "Programs" area, visitors will find resources for public sector and religious leaders via the Program on Religion and Public Life and materials on the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative. Finally, visitors can also sign up to receive the Center's e-newsletter.
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hauser/
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Future of Work
The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life (Hardcover)
by Thomas W. Malone
From the Reviews
A more apt title would have been: The Future of Organizational Structure.
As an expert on communications costs and benefits, Professor Malone explores how the pros and cons of centralized hierarchies, loose hierarchies, democracies and free markets compare in producing better organizational results. The book abounds with examples.
The book's overall theme is that with the costs of communications plummeting and the value of the information communication increasing it is inevitable that organizations will decentralize more than ever . . . by employing hybrid forms of loose hierarchies, democracies and free markets for the same organization.
The book ends up with a call to live your dreams that draws on decidedly nonmanagement sources of inspiration. The key idea is that organizations can live values that uplift everyone in them.
If you would like a solid introduction into the forces that are influencing shifts towards decentralization, The Future of Work is a good theoretical overview. Professor Malone also points you to online resources for finding out about best practices in some of these areas.
The book would have been vastly more valuable if it had focused on a few key areas of management performance (such as developing new business models, creating breakthrough new products, or bypassing competitor's established cost advantages) and described how best to apply the concepts in those contexts. I hope that Professor Malone will choose to do this in future books and articles.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Webinar — The Outlook for Foundation Giving in 2008
Join us from the comfort of your own office to hear the latest perspective on how grantmaking foundations are being affected by current trends in the U.S. economy and how foundation giving might fare. Steven Lawrence, senior director of research at the Foundation Center, will present findings from the Foundation Center’s new report, Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates: Current Outlook, and address the following topics:
Did foundation giving falter as the economy began to slow in 2007?
Given a weak economic climate, what is the outlook for foundation giving in 2008?
What do prior downturns suggest about the current funding environment?
The webinar will conclude with a question-and-answer segment.
Thursday, May 15, 2008, 2:00-3:00 pm (Eastern Time)
more information ...
Did foundation giving falter as the economy began to slow in 2007?
Given a weak economic climate, what is the outlook for foundation giving in 2008?
What do prior downturns suggest about the current funding environment?
The webinar will conclude with a question-and-answer segment.
Thursday, May 15, 2008, 2:00-3:00 pm (Eastern Time)
more information ...
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Your own Super Niche
To Find a Niche: Focus!
Many entrepreneurs think that selling to the widest possible market is thelikeliest path to success. The problem is that the "take all comers" approach isnot very effective as an overall marketing strategy; marketing becomes expensivewhen everyone is a potential prospect.
Today's small businesses share a fiercely competitive playing field. Combined with information overload, this means that it's harder to stand out when you havea generic message. If you are merely a "management consultant," a humble"business coach," or a nondescript "financial advisor," you risk fighting it outover price with competitors who offer identical services to yours.
To rise above the fray, you need a compelling business message aimed at the rightpeople. You need to cultivate your own Super Niche.
Read the whole article
Many entrepreneurs think that selling to the widest possible market is thelikeliest path to success. The problem is that the "take all comers" approach isnot very effective as an overall marketing strategy; marketing becomes expensivewhen everyone is a potential prospect.
Today's small businesses share a fiercely competitive playing field. Combined with information overload, this means that it's harder to stand out when you havea generic message. If you are merely a "management consultant," a humble"business coach," or a nondescript "financial advisor," you risk fighting it outover price with competitors who offer identical services to yours.
To rise above the fray, you need a compelling business message aimed at the rightpeople. You need to cultivate your own Super Niche.
Read the whole article
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