For those of us familiar with the problems caused in the 1980s in areas of the country that were previously heavily reliant on manufacturing industry, it came as a welcome relief to learn recently of Yorkshire Forward's new manufacturing strategy for the region.

Like all good strategies, it starts with a vision, which is to grow the manufacturing sector until it reaches 20% of the regional economy  in 20 years' time from its current level, which is nearer 12%.

It will achieve this by selecting and supporting strategically important manufacturing sectors to target (not to the detriment of other sectors, it insists, but presumably using something like the 80/20 rule).  These are:

• Advanced Engineering and Materials;
• Digital;
• Low Carbon and
• Healthcare Technologies.

Someone's clearly been doing their STEP analysis (see our Top Tips for Growing your Business), since these sectors are very much in line with where the added value work is in Manufacturing at the moment.  In other words, gone are the days where we should be competing on price, because the 'low cost geography sourcing' as I've heard it called (in other words, shipping stuff out overseas to be made cheaply) will always follow the lowest cost of production (i.e. low wage economies).

So here's a call to manufacturers in Yorkshire to tap into this regional strategy.  Use it as an opportunity to think about what your sustainable competitive advantage really is and get focussed to grow your business in the knowledge that the time is right and the support is in place.

What are your views on where manufacturing should be heading?  Leave a comment below, or if you've a specific business problem you'd like us to address, ask a question.

At Business Doctors we really try and strip out the corporate claptrap, but some of what might be considered management mumbo jumbo it resolutely remains resistant to being purged as we can find no better way to describe it. So for those of you who consider the word ‘strategy’ just another group of letters that belongs on the bull**** bingo card, let’s consider for a second why this might be.

It’s true that people I’ve worked with in the past, including directors in well known firms, have sometimes considered ‘having a strategy’ to being a substitute for needing to do any actual work whatsoever – the thinking apparently goes that if you can show your boss a strategy paper then he’ll get off your back.  Well this works, right?

Wrong! OK, so strategy may be a word that’s over-used by consultants and the like, but I reckon it’s also much under-used by business people like you and me. 

Think of it this way, all that a strategy is, is simply a scheme to guide your actions towards a set goal in a reasoned and clear way.  Check this out on Wikipedia.  Now you can go about your business without having a strategy, but you’re much more at the mercy of events if you do.  You can have as many strategies as you see fit (a marketing strategy, an IT strategy, a quality management strategy) but as we've seen, you need to be aware of over-strategising and keep them at the level that's right for your business.  However, in all cases, your strategies need to fit into your overall business strategy.

You could also liken having a strategy to playing a board game with the family at Christmas.  Now, fuelled by too much wine and mince pies, who doesn’t want to thump the cocky brother-in-law at Monopoly?   Well, you’ll only do so by having a winning strategy and who would argue that having a strategy for playing a board game is a daft idea?

So, get in touch to let me know what you think – this could be an interesting debate.  Alternatively, Business Doctors tour the UK to tell SMEs about strategy, so if you’re open to ideas, come to one of our seminars or download our top ten tips to learn how getting a business strategy will help your firm.

Being creative is such an impressive quality, and I'm frequently left green with envy by the creativity and quality apparent in many of the business ideas that entrepreneurs young and old in our region have.  So if you've got a business idea - fantastic! You're one of the people that inspire me.

But a note of caution when you come to think about putting your business idea into practice.  You need to be very careful to build the business around the idea, not just launch into a series of activities driven by creative energy.

Spend time thinking about what your business will be that’s more than an idea.  Businesses consist of people, knowledge, processes and procedures, premises and equipment, vision and values.

In particular, I would encourage you to give careful thought to:

• What is your 'business model'? In other words, how do you do business? What is the logical sequence of activities in each area of operation (marketing, HR, sales, production etc.)?  A good example of solid application of this in the creative industry in The Design Mechanics – in particular check out, how they work.
• How do you generate leads and what moves potential customers from the 'Attention' stage to the 'Action' stage (see our blog post: Need more sales? Remember you need a sales process)?  Think of this like a sales 'funnel' where all the potential interest feeds in at the top (lead generation), your sales and marketing activity takes place inside the funnel and customers drip out of the bottom.
• Pay attention to the areas you don’t have expertise in and plug these gaps.  If it’s business planning, get someone to help you with this; if it’s accounts, find a book-keeper.  These services needn’t be expensive and you can get great value help from your local chamber of commerce or the Federation of Small Businesses.

I think the easiest way to think of this is that if you plan to build up your business to sell (your house), potential buyers will be more interested in an idea which has a solid business structure (foundations, bricks and mortar) underpinning it.

So get building - and don't be afraid to ask us for advice!

I have often analysed processes looking for improvement in a variety of businesses, large, medium and small. A tremendous effort is expended to ensure a process is relevant and effective. Businesses invest huge sums in design, implementation and training, advertising and sales to promote and win business. Why then does the sales process fail at the very last hurdle? 

Here are some real life examples where despite all the investment in process, sales were lost: 

1     Not responding

In January, Richard and Angela went out in the snow to buy a car for Angela. Since they had a 10 year old car to trade in they went to dealerships to look for new cars under the recent scrappage scheme. Having identified a likely make and model, they decided to check a local used car dealership to see if there was a competitive used car in stock that would meet their needs. Admittedly it had been snowing, but they called the dealership, left their contact details more than once and expected a response. To this day they have not had a response. Now there could have been a technical reason for the failure, but who knows. If a business can't take calls from a prospective customer and respond, how can it succeed in today's challenging times? 

2     Not following through

Harry applied to a major high street bank for a business bank account and he was correctly passed through to a local provider near his home. He explained, due to his circumstances, that he preferred to meet someone near where he worked since the meeting had to be during working hours. Harry was told he would be re-assigned to someone at another business branch. The follow-up never came.Undeterred, he contacted a different high street bank who promised to send me the application pack by post within 4 days. Would you believe it, it never arrived, even today. Third time lucky, Harry went to see a third high street bank and this time his application was processed within 24 hours. Harry is now up and running with his new business account, so he is happy in the end, but it took him 2 weeks longer than expected.In a competitive environment, people will go elsewhere. If your first contact is a poor experience, you are likely to have negative thoughts about the organisation. 

3     Missed opportunity

It is important to have a well trained sales force, but even more important that they have an awareness of customer need and how much easier it is to sell if the customer has a strong need. For example, John went to a well known high street mobile phone company and told them he had lost his phone, but he would like to keep the telephone number. The assistant went away and after 15 mins, returned and replied that there was nothing they could do.  That was the end of the conversation. John went across the road to a competitor to purchase a new phone. Surely this is the situation a savvy sales person dreams of: a customer in need. "Well we may not be able to help in this way, but can we sell you a new phone?" 

Considering how much money companies invest in advertising, a high street presence and a sales force, why is it that you come across these breakdowns in the selling process? Businesses of all sizes can learn from these experiences and it is important to remember that a process is only as strong as the weakest link. It is so important for customer facing staff to understand the importance of their role in the organisation and the processes supporting them. 

Do you have similar experiences? Please send your examples to me David Blackburn (davidb@businessdoctors.co.uk), I will collate the examples and share them. We can learn from such lessons and use the experience if we keep them in mind. 

David Blackburn

Business Doctors Surrey

Business Doctors Surrey including East Surrey, Croydon and the Gatwick Diamond.

Established in 2004, Business Doctors helps small and medium-sized businesses to achieve the next level of growth in turnover and profitability.  Offering expert friendly, practical support with strategy, sales and profit growth and people engagement, Business Doctors also provides implementation and interim support with management, sales, operations, HR, finance, training and development as well as helping businesses access funding and financial support.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, can you name any others?

How many people do you know who've actually grasped a sensible use for the plethora of social media tools at the moment?  To me, it seems like most people who are thinking about how they can use social media tools to promote their business are swimming in a sea of confusion, looking for ideas about what works.

Here's a radical - but I think common-sense idea - that's totally in keeping with the current Zeitgeist, an era in which consumer confidence in large corporates has been eroded by the mis-management performance of our so-called economic 'powerhouses' (certain banks and insurance companies being cases in point).  Most excitingly for those who work in the 'real economy', small businesses will benefit from this proportionately greater than larger ones.

So the idea goes like this:

Social media tools are about promoting you as an individual, not your business.

Since trust in corporates that use broadcast media has been severely dented, the opportunity is with the smaller business to build up trust in the personalities that make up those companies. Smaller firms are more nimble, can react quicker to market trends and get their message out without the signoff of several tiers of management.  To me, it's really interesting to speculate to what extent social media marketing could replace more traditional forms of direct marketing, i.e. gathering data and pushing a commercial message out.  The idea is to build up trust in individuals, and business will follow when relationships have been built, in much the same way as we do with our face to face relationships; the only difference being we're using online tools.

And surely it's more cost-effective than traditional advertising and mailing.

It goes without saying that launching yourself willy-nilly into the information soup currently on offer could be a sure-fire route to disaster, so a strategy is needed.  My current advice would be to listen to the people (few, in my experience), that seem to have grasped the usefulness of the tools currently on offer; two I have met and provide inspiration to me are Kwai Yu of Leader's Cafe Foundation and Lesley Aveyard of One Plus One Marketing (whom I have largely to thank for making this stuff much clearer for me yesterday).  Or look at how Barack Obama won the US election with social media tools as a central plank in their strategy.

And the nice thing is that to succeed in this way, we need to concentrate on building up trust, sharing and giving.  What could be better for our society at present? The benefit to us of doing this is we get to position ourselves as leaders in our own field of knowledge, with the economic and social benefits following on naturally.

But above all, don't just launch in, know what you're trying to achieve before you try and achieve it.

Read a more in-depth insight on Penny Power's blog at at http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=147936.

Business Doctors' mantra to owners of small and medium sized businesses is, "Achieve your vision".  But this is not simply a marketing slogan, we really believe that understanding your own personal motivation is the key to successful business growth.  Indeed, it's why we, as experienced business people ourselves, become Business Doctors in the first place.  Business Doctors have gained a significant amount of experience in both corporate and SME environments and consistently pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zones to overcome challenges and become more effective and rounded people.  This is typically at the root of your Business Doctor's passionate approach to helping clients to leap over the hurdles they are currently experiencing in their own businesses.

The thinking behind this is simple and has at its heart how the subconscious mind works (see the recent post A powerful way to overcome the barriers to achieving your vision).  Basically, if you believe that something will happen, then your subconscious mind will guide your behaviours and actions towards the desired outcome.

So, my advice would be to give some thought as to why you're in business in the first place.  Think about what it is that you want to achieve.  It could be that you'd like to retire early to the Bahamas or the South of France, it may be that you want to play a significant role in building a better society, like the regeneration of the area you grew up in or making life better for children with cancer, like my friend Colin through his charity Little Heroes, or it may simply be that you want to earn enough to give your own children a better future.  If you hear people talking about 'life goals', that's all they're referring to.

Whatever your own personal vision, your actions will be much more effective if you understand what your vision is.  For a Business Doctor, this is an important part of the process whereby we help you put in place an achievable strategic plan for your business and when we work with our clients, this is very often the starting point.  So if you haven't thought along these lines before, give it a go; it could at the very least liven up your day with a fun and invigorating few minutes' day dreaming!

Now, don't be fooled by the photo - but which one of the above examples do you think best describes my vision?

It’s often said that the only constant in business is change.  This means that owners and directors need to make sure their businesses can respond well in an environment which is itself constantly in a state of flux.

This article looks at ways to improve how change is managed in your company, without swallowing the manual!  To do this, it’s helpful to use an example of how other firms manage change.

It's considered that there are five levels of 'maturity' to the way companies manage change, where 1 is the most ad-hoc or 'least mature' and 5 is the most mature and organised level (see diagram below - but if you're really keen on this stuff and you've time to spare you can read more about it on the Office of Government Commerce web site).

Now, larger organisations tend to be further up the ladder – but speaking from personal experience, they still have enormous room for improvement in many instances.

For the smaller business, a similar way of looking at the way changes are managed in your own firm can be employed.  Level 1 starts simply with a recognition of changes as ‘projects’.  Next we move up the levels towards getting really smart at how changes are managed by moving towards an atmosphere of continuous improvement of your change management, according to what’s needed to deliver your own business vision.

On the right hand side of the ladder, I've indicated some simple examples of what a particular level of maturity looks like in a firm.  You can pretty much work this out for your own company by asking yourself the following questions:

• Do we have a list of the projects we’re working on?
• Do we know which are the most important to us?

Level 2

• When we manage projects, does each person involved understand what their role is and what they are responsible for?
• Do we have a few templates for important project documents like plans that we can draw upon?

Level 3

• Do we consider how the projects we undertake match the strategy our company has chosen?
• Do we plan how the cost savings or other benefits the projects need to deliver will contribute to the performance the company needs to achieve?

Level 4

• Do we measure the benefits that projects are meant to deliver?
• Do we have or are we anywhere near a quality management standard such as ISO9001?

Level 5

• Do we go over and above the requirements of ISO9001?
• Are we always looking to improve our processes and do we take action to do so?

If you can honestly answer ‘yes’ to the questions, then it’s a good indicator of how your company is doing.  When you reach the point where you start to answer ‘no’, you can consider and perhaps start to see how looking at what your business currently does to implement change can be improved upon.

OK, so this isn’t entirely straightforward to do when you’re up against the production schedule and aged debtors list; once again you need to find the time to do it, but consider getting some help at this point:  an effective independent advisor will have spent a considerable proportion of his/her career working with such tools and can help in the following ways:

• by getting to know you and your business and taking an independent look at how improvements to how change is managed can work in your particular case;
• by using his/her knowledge of the tools, models and techniques that larger organisations employ to really bring out the essence of what’s needed – an what’s not – for the smaller company;
• by using practical experience and facilitation skills to negotiate a way through any difficult situations that are likely to arise in the workplace when changes are needed.

As always, the trick for the small and medium sized company to getting this right so that the management of it doesn’t detract from day-to-day operations is to make it work for you and don’t swallow the manual!  This is where getting outside help can deliver real value.