Regardless of the type of business you own, marketing your products and services on the internet is becoming increasingly important. The reason is that the internet has become the first port of call for 99% of people who are looking to buy something – they do their research online, and then they buy offline. Old school forms of advertising, such as the Yellow Pages and the local newspapers, are dying, because people are paying them much less attention – when was the last time you looked in the Yellow Pages for anything?

If you agree with my introduction above, you now have a decision to make – do you buy-in specialist skills to create an online presence for your business (not cheap!), or do you do it yourself (where do you start?). Even if you choose the ‘buy-in’ option, I believe it is still in your interests to at least have a basic understanding of the skills involved in marketing online, so that you are able to ensure you are receiving value-for-money services. Therefore, regardless of which option you choose, doing the 30 Day Challenge should be a no-brainer for you.

What is the 30 Day Challenge?
In simple terms, it is a FREE online course which is designed to teach complete beginners how to set-up and run a profitable online business in 30 days. It’s the brainchild of Ed Dale, who is one of the most successful internet marketers in the world. It takes place during the month of August each year, but there is also a pre-season (June/July), which is designed to get you familiar with the tools that you will be using during the Challenge.

Do yourself a massive favour, and check it out – you’ll be glad you did!

It is very clear to me that the vast majority of my generation in the UK (I am 45) have either forgotten about, or they never knew about, the wisdom of sound money management. Judging by the state of the world economy, it looks like people in lots of other countries are no different!

I think now is a really good time to reflect, and to learn from my parents’ generation, because they clearly know how to get the most from their money. Despite the fact that the majority of my parents’ friends worked in low-paid jobs their whole lives, they all managed to do the following:

• They had lovely, but modest homes.
• They ate well, but refused to waste any food.
• They saved up for what they wanted, rather than going into debt – they enjoyed the anticipation almost as much as the purchase!
• They looked after things, and made them last (my mum’s best friend had the same washing machine for more than 30 years!).
• They always had enough money to go out and enjoy themselves at the weekend.
• They always managed to take their family on holiday each year.
• They were happy with their lot.
• They didn’t try to keep up with the Jones’ next door.

Clayton Makepeace has just written a great article (A Guilty Glance Inside Your Prospect’s Bedroom at his most intimate moments, thoughts and feelings) which discusses this topic, but from the angle of how businesses need to take account of the changing mindsets of clients. Clients, and prospective clients, are now paying much closer attention to the value of every purchase, so, by definition, sales will be much harder to come by. This means that any business that wants to survive, and ideally thrive, in these tough economic times, must now take a good look at the products and services they offer, and how they market them. Reading this article is 5 minutes well spent!

I would love to know your thoughts, so please provide your comments below.

Although Pay Per Click (PPC) is a very effective marketing method, it does require a lot of time and skill to manage properly – especially Google PPC, because Google keeps changing the rules! For this reason, a lot of businesses either forget about PPC altogether, or they do it pretty poorly, and don’t get the ROI they should.

A business associate of mine had this very problem. David is the Managing Director of a medium sized company (Kirona) that specialises in mobile computing solutions, and he was concerned that his Marketing Department were spending more and more time managing their PPC campaigns, and neglecting other marketing methods, which he believed provided a better ROI. For these reasons, David was planning on ‘pulling the plug’ on his PPC advertising. I suggested that before he did that, it would be worth his while checking out a specialist PPC Management company headed-up by the renowned PPC expert – Dr. Glenn Livingston. I suggested this for three reasons:

• I believed that David’s company could get a great ROI from PPC, if they either set things up properly, or if they handed over control to a specialist PPC Management company, such as Glen Livingston’s.
• I had heard great things about Glen Livingston, and his PPC Management company, and I wanted to test their services, before recommending them to clients.
• Even if David decided not to use the services of Glen Livingston’s company, he would get a detailed PPC Strategy specific to Kirona’s needs, which has been written by one of the leading PPC experts in the world, and it would have cost him $75 – a bargain!

David agreed to give my suggestion a try, and he instructed his Marketing Manager (Jamie) to get on with it, and to report back to him, and to myself. Jamie did as he was instructed, and very shortly afterwards he sent an email saying the following:

David, Gary,

I had my chat with Glenn Livingston about pay per click advertising last Friday. He has since been in touch with the blueprint.

David – this was a very useful conversation with Glenn and I feel money well spent. His suggestions are in the attached; more than happy to discuss them with you if you wish. When I get the chance I’d also like to make some changes in accordance with the suggestions, but I’ll have that conversation with you when I get the time to make the changes.

Gary – I’ll give you feedback now about the overall process but feel free to call if you want a chat.

1. First off. Glenn does his meetings using ‘GoToMeeting’, which is a Citrix programme. From here he can see the screen and I guided him visually through our Adwords. The negative of this is unfortunately I couldn’t get the VoIP working so he had to call me for the meeting which was a bit of a pain with international codes etc. Its also a bit of a pain that due to the timezone differences, its difficult to get an appointment except in the afternoon. Overall though, GoToMeeting was a really great way to drive the meeting as he quickly sees the campaigns and can direct you visually how to make improvements within a few minutes.

2. As you’re probably aware, Glenn really knows his stuff. From the hi-tech algorithms used by google to the basic stuff. He would be a good suggestion for people at all levels of experience with google ads. The $75 session was a bargain. I’m confident the suggestions he made will give a great ROI for us and he got me thinking on a number of issues I wasn’t aware of. Therefore, definitely worth the 30 min session with him.

3. The blueprint he made is attached. As you can see, most of it is standard suggestions which he must have re-cycled from another document, but he has also put together a summary tailored to Kirona. All the stuff in it is pretty much what we talked about on the phone that he has committed to paper.

Overall – Very happy with the session. It’s well worth paying the $75, even if we don’t set up an account with them.

Hope this helps. If you want any more info, just give me a bell.

Cheers,

Jamie Heaton
Kirona Solutions Ltd

Jamie soon afterwards sent me the Blueprint Report he had received from Glen Livingston. As Jamie pointed out, the report is based on a template (I would have been surprised if it hadn’t have been!), but it did contain lots of specific advice for Kirona, and a very clear explanation of how Kirona and Glen Livingston would work together, and what the fees would be.

As you can see from Jamie’s email above, Kirona were very impressed with Glen Livingston, and so was I! For that reason I now recommend his services to any of my business contacts who need help with their PPC campaigns. To find out more about Glen Livingston, the service his company offers, and the fees he charges, simply click here.

Introduction

Business Process Improvement (BPI) is widely recognised as being one of the best ways of reducing operational costs and/or increasing profits. However, the vast majority of Business Process Improvement projects end in failure – they fail to deliver the expected savings or profit increase; they cost far more to implement than originally estimated; in the worst cases, they fail on both counts.

I have worked as a freelance BPI consultant for more than ten years now, and the brief report below is based on my experience of the main reasons why BPI projects fail. I am sure you will find this report to be valuable if you can answer yes to one or more of the following questions:

• Have you been involved in a business process improvement project that failed to meet expectations?
• Are you a business owner or CEO who realises that your business needs to have more efficient business processes in order to remain competitive in your particular market?
• Are you a manager, team leader, or supervisor who is having budget reductions imposed on you from above, and you realise becoming more efficient and streamlined is the only chance you have of staying within these budgets?
• Are you just about to start your first business process improvement project, and you would welcome some advice from an ‘old hand’ at BPI.

Mistake Number 10: Handing over total responsibility for the project to expensive BPI consultants

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against BPI consultants – I am one myself after all! However, it is important to realise that their number one objective is different to yours – yours is to reduce your operational costs and/or increase your profits; theirs is to make as much money as possible for their company. I have worked on lots of projects where consultants have been given a completely free rein, and the results have always been the same – escalating project costs.

Used correctly, BPI consultants are a valuable addition to any business process improvement project – the secret is to give them a tight framework to operate within, and to keep the responsibility for the project in your hands, rather than in theirs. By doing this, you will benefit from their knowledge and experience, whilst at the same time keeping a firm control on project costs.

Mistake Number 9: Choosing the wrong business area to improve

Although every part of your business will probably benefit from a business process improvement project, some areas will return much bigger benefits than others. Therefore, it is important that the first area you choose has the potential to return big benefits. I have seen many successful BPI projects being viewed as failures, simply because the return on investment wasn’t that impressive.

If you choose your first BPI project wisely, and you realise big benefits quickly, the kudos and attention this attracts will create momentum to tackle further BPI projects. Also, the savings realised from this first project can be used to finance the second project; the savings realised from the second project can be used to finance the third project; and so on. There is very little that is more pleasing to a business owner, than self-funded business process improvement projects!

Mistake Number 8: Only doing BPI once

Most clients I have worked with have the mindset that you do BPI once, and that’s it – job done! What they fail to realise is that business processes constantly evolve, in order to survive in the face of an ever-changing business environment. If this ‘business process evolution’ isn’t designed, which is usually the case, inefficiencies will start to creep back into your processes.

One of the big keys to successful BPI is to continue to do it forever. You need to treat your business processes like a big steel bridge – by the time you have painted it once, it is time to start painting it all over again, in order to avoid any corrosion from setting in.

Mistake Number 7: Treating BPI as a ‘business as usual’ activity, instead of a project

A lot of clients I have worked with treat BPI as something that their already over-stretched staff should simply fit in around their normal daily activities. This is absolute madness, because it just makes the staff involved pay lip service to BPI, and nothing worthwhile actually happens.

BPI needs to be set up as a project with the following attributes:

• A clearly defined scope.

• A clear, measurable set of objectives – e.g. reduce customer complaints by 10%; increase profits on product XYZ by 7%; reduce operational costs associated with processing application form ABC by 12% etc…

• A clear plan of who is responsible for delivering what, by when.

• Properly allocated resources – i.e. people and money.

Mistake Number 6: Failing to get staff buy-in

Without staff buy-in, business process improvement projects are nearly always doomed to failure. I have worked with a lot of senior managers whose initial plan was to run a two hour workshop with a couple of managers to re-design a process, and to then simply impose this new way of working onto the appropriate business area.

On the rare occasions where I have been unable to convince these senior managers that this isn’t the best approach, the end result has always been the same – extreme resistance from staff, which makes it very difficult for the project team to implement the new process, which in turn results in people pretending that things have changed, when, in actual fact, the staff continue to work in the same old way.

Proper staff involvement is one of the big keys to successful business process improvement. Doing the following will significantly increase your chances of success:

• Explaining to staff why things need to change.

• Canvassing staff for their opinions, and for their ideas for improvement.

• Being very open, and responding honestly to their questions and concerns.

• Continuing to keep staff informed throughout the project.

• Having staff representation on the BPI project team.

Mistake Number 5: Believing that a new IT system will solve all of your problems

It never ceases to amaze me that so many senior managers still believe that buying the latest ‘all singing, all dancing’ IT system, is the ‘magic bullet’ that will instantly solve all of their problems. When, in fact, the reality is that a cheap and simple IT system, that supports a well designed business process, is much more effective than an expensive IT system, that is struggling to support a business process that has evolved, rather than been designed.

It is true, however, that an IT system can often help to shape the design of a business process – i.e. it is often more cost-effective to tweak a business process to utilise an ‘out of the box’ IT function, than it is to have a bespoke IT function built to support the perfect business process. However, my preference is to always start by designing the perfect business process, and to then, if necessary, agree to change it to fit in with an existing IT function – I don’t recommend starting by designing the process around an IT function, because that is a definite case of the ‘tail wagging the dog’.

The other thing to bear in mind is that successful BPI can be accomplished without any IT at all – I have been involved in many successful ‘non-IT’ BPI projects. These projects focus on things such as:

• Reducing the number of hand-offs between people or teams.

• Removing non-value adding activities.

• Using a less expensive resource to undertake an activity.

• Tackling the root cause of errors (e.g. providing forms that are easier for customers to complete, which cuts down on the number of incorrectly completed forms being received).

• Creating procedures to ensure that all staff do things consistently.

Mistake Number 4: Consulting with the wrong people

When I start working with a new client, they normally expect me to just consult with their management team – I don’t! Managers obviously have a role to play in a business process improvement project, but the really key people are the ‘coal face’ workers. This is because they actually carry out the existing business processes on a day-to-day basis, whereas the managers often have a view of the business processes that don’t actually reflect reality. This also means that ‘coal face’ workers often have good ideas for improving the existing processes.

A lot of BPI projects I have witnessed seem to involve getting a lot of managers into a room; drawing a lot of process maps on whiteboards; and miraculously coming up with the new process. This just doesn’t work in practice. Workshops do have their place, but I believe it is at the start of a BPI project, in order to get a feel for the existing business processes, and to scope out the project, and then much later in the project to work through a detailed model of the existing processes, to identify and agree on improvements. In between these two points in the project, I believe the key is to actually observe ‘coal face’ workers going about their normal activities. Relying on people simply telling you what they do, often results in big chunks of a process being missed, because people typically only tell you about the ‘sunny day scenario’ (i.e. when everything goes right), and the biggest improvements are often associated with removing or reducing error handling activities.

Once you have got a detailed model of the existing process, it is time to review it to identify improvements. Be sure to involve ‘coal face’ workers in this review, because they are the people who normally come up with the best improvements.

Mistake Number 3: Not using a proven BPI Method

There are lots of BPI tools and techniques that are available to use, but so much choice can often be overwhelming to people who are fairly new to BPI. I have often been brought into BPI projects that have been up and running for a while, where the project team has been very busy producing lots of BPI products (e.g. process maps, process descriptions, organisation charts etc…), but nobody seems to have a clear idea of how all of these products fit together, or what to do next to move the project forward.

In order to run a successful business process improvement project, what you actually require is a small set of simple to produce products, together with a methodology that details how to produce each of the products, and in what sequence.

Mistake Number 2: Tackling too much in one go

If you pick too big a chunk of your business to improve in one project, you will be in grave danger of running out of steam, or money, before you reach the end of the project. My biggest BPI successes have been where I have broken a large project down into a number of much smaller projects – i.e. no more than 3 to 6 months from the start of the project, to improvements being implemented, and benefits being realised.

These smaller projects still need to be run properly, with a clearly defined scope, a set of objectives, and a project plan. As I said in point 9 above, do this right, and you can run one small BPI project after another, with each one being self-financing.

Mistake Number 1: Having no mechanism to measure if a BPI project has been successful

“If it can’t be measured, it can’t be improved.” This is a well known saying, which, in the context of a business process improvement project, simply means that if you don’t have an accurate model of how your business currently operates, and what it costs to operate it, then you have no way of determining if the improvements you plan to make to it are worthwhile.

Not so long ago, it was all the vogue to simply start with a clean slate, and design a brand new process, without taking any notice whatsoever of the existing business process. The result of this was that lots of new business processes were very quickly implemented, with no way of knowing if they were better or worse than the processes they replaced. Don’t make this mistake yourself – taking the time to properly model your existing processes will pay dividends, and it doesn’t really take any longer than the ‘clean slate’ method.

And finally …

So there you have it – my take on the main reasons why so many BPI projects fail to meet expectations. This isn’t something I have gotten from reading a ‘How to do BPI’ book, it has come from real world experience of working on lots of business process improvement projects, so I hope you will take advantage of my experience, and ensure that your BPI projects don’t make the mistakes I have outlined above.

I would be very interested to know whether or not you agree with my ‘Top Ten’ above. Feel free to leave a comment below, and let me know what you think.

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