Grant Stanley Consulting

Selling can be sleazy when it’s manipulative. “Let me convince you to do something so I’ll get what I want.” If you want to grow your business, and feel good about yourself at the same time, it’s necessary to change the way you think about “selling.” Everyone buys things. If you provide a product or service that has real value and helps people solve real problems, there is someone who will want to buy it. That someone is struggling with the problem you’re prepared to solve. They wouldn’t want a solution if solving the problem wasn’t important to them. So if you can help them solve their problem and do a good job of it, you have become their new best friend. They not only will want to buy what you have to sell, they will want to buy from you again and again because now they have begun to trust that you are someone who can help them solve their problems. When you are able to shift your thinking from “I’m selling something” to “I’m serving someone by helping them solve a probl...

Innovators or Sheep? Have you ever notice that so many companies want to be visionary? Able to predict future products and services you need; but yet they also say they respond to market demand by being market-driven . Seems to me that’s an oxymoron. Can you be both market-driving and market-driven? To disruptively break free from reactive business strategy and accelerate the agile and pivot-able strategy, we need to understand the difference between market-driving and market-driven companies. In his 2004 book, “Marketing as Strategy,” Nurmalya Kumar characterised these two types of strategies. Market-driving companies rule the future – they push the envelope of possibility and consistently surprise customers by introducing unique value in exceptional brand new products and services. Market driven companies are doomed to fall increasingly further behind as they react to customer needs that will surely change by the time they deliver the ultimately out of date p...

This is a deviation from my normal genre of posting but relevant nonetheless. Whilst we compare the two contrasting theories of population growth, there are similarities in the business world that we can prepare for and prevent. The first is from Malthus, who was writing at the end of the 18th century. He believed that only bad could come from population growth. Population he said grows faster than food supply. This he said was because food supply can only grow arithmetically, for example, 1 then 2 then 3-4-5-6-7-8 but, population grows geometrically 2-4-8-16-32-64. Consequently, there is no way food supply can keep up with population growth. Therefore, population will inevitably exceed food supply. He then went on two say that there are two possible outcomes. Firstly, he said population could exceed food supply only to be positively "checked" (reduced) by famine, war, and disease.   Population exceeds food supply and is kept in check b...

Big Data. It’s a buzzword uttered by both industry experts and business professionals; a marketing term and industry description bandied about by techies and creative types alike. Everyone acknowledges how important it is and its unlimited potential in affecting how decisions are made in various areas of our lives. However, that’s all it has actually been thus far: potential . Big Data gives us the ability to gather and access data online, regardless of whether that information comes from open sources or behind layers of cyber-security. But we have yet to maximise this data and harness it to its fullest capacity. That will change in the years to come. Many say we are at a tipping point. The ubiquity of mobile devices, cloud computing, and digital technology permeating every aspect of our lives will affect how all these volumes of information will be used and processed. Here’s how 2015 will prove to be big data’s break out year. 1.        The De...

Video content is a growing commodity for brand marketers and investment in such content is continuing to grow, a trend that CSM’s Sales and Marketing director, Grant Stanley, predicts will continue throughout this year. In 2015, US consumers looking for information, products and services on the Internet will—for the first time—do more of their search queries on mobile devices than on desktop computers. Combined with the fact that YouTube will nudge Google into second place to narrowly become the number one search engine, it’s clear mobile and video will be front and centre of every marketer’s activities. The focus on mobile is underscored by a survey (The Advertiser Intelligence Reports, Wave 21) of approximately 2,000 marketer and agency decision makers conducted in July and August of 2014 by research firm Advertiser Perceptions. Among all respondents, 48 per cent expected to spend more on mobile advertising over the next 12 months while a mere 5 per cent indicated they would ...

What, another clarion call urging executives to fundamentally rethink their business models through digital technology? The business media have had no shortage of these. Many such bulletins focus on radically changing the nature of competition in an industry, as Apple did for music and Uber did for taxis. While there is certainly merit in questioning your business model, revolutionary business model transformation remains elusive despite the buzz. In our survey, a mere 7% of executives said that their company’s digital initiatives were helping them to launch new businesses. And only 15% said digital was helping them to create new business models. Why is that? Business model innovation is hard. But managers make it harder when they think about it only as radical industry reinvention. While revolutionary business model changes can be valuable, you don’t necessarily need to transform your industry. You don’t need to destroy your current business model. There is another way to make ...

Changes and improvements in parcel delivery options will give a boost to e-commerce sites in 2015, according to a new report by Fastlane International. The internet retail delivery and international parcel market is poised for some “significant developments” next year, including increased delivery options, the growth of Sunday and same-day delivers, better ‘signature’ proof systems and even the developments in drones. CSM Consultants Grant Stanley commented: “We are expecting 2015 to outperform even the technology-powered e-commerce revolution of 2014. Retailers have paid lip-service to the idea that the customer is king, or queen, for many years; but today they really are. No longer do companies decide how much stock might be available in any store, or how many days it might take to deliver. “We were in a push-economy, with manufacturers and retailers calling the shots. Now we are in a pull-economy: customers are in the driving seat, and are deciding exactly when and where ...

The New Year will be here before you know it, and 2015 promises to bring exciting trends. Before you make the leap into 2015, it is important to look back and see which parts of your company flourished and which areas could use improvement. Which tactics did you use and were they successful? You need to know if you were able to exceed your company’s forecasted financial goals and how the marketing tactics you used attributed to that success. Marketing professionals are already making their own estimations about what kinds of trends to expect in the very near future. Here is a list of a few trends you may want to keep in mind as you develop your 2015 marketing strategy: Visual Storytelling. Short videos have gotten very popular, especially with the younger demographics. They are short and engaging and, when done correctly, instill a strong message. Get your staff and customers involved by shooting a quick video of how your business operates  and post it to your social media a...

1)   Learn how to Delegate and do more of it. There are so many things to do when you're running a business, it's easy to delude ourselves that we need to do all of them. Then we wonder why we're so tired and frazzled and have no time to do anything else!  Determine your own Return On Investment, and decide to let someone else do some of the tasks for a change. Delegation is the key to a healthy work-life balance. 2) Promote your business regularly and consistently. Too often the task of promoting a business slips to the bottom of the to-do list in the press of urgent tasks. If you want to attract new customers, you have to make promotion a priority. Make a New Year's resolution to hire a marketing expert, or take the time to create a Marketing Plan on your own and follow through. Try some Low-Cost ways to promote your business to get started. 3) Make business planning a weekly event. Planning is vital if you want a healthy, growing business....