Strategic Discipline Blog

Over the past two weeks Bob Bloom, author of the Inside Advantage and the New Experts met with two of my clients who are focusing on growing their sales and revenue for 2012.   

Why would they meet with Bob?  If you recall the outcome of developing the right strategy for your business (One of the Rockefeller Habits Four Decisions) is top line revenue growth.

In a meeting with one client Bob focused on six emotions that your strategy needs to address, 3 positive or 3 negative emotions.  That may be an over simplification of all the emotions that our prospects have, however it’s precisely for that reason that I believe Bob is and can be so valuable to my clients.  He has a knack for understanding the complex and reducing it to simple terms.  "Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple."

Bob also understands two critical aspects of strategy.  First he believes you need to have total internal consistency and second you need to have alignment.  This is one reason why Verne Harnish, Gazelles International and the Rockefeller Habits chose Bob to be one of our Gazelles strategic partners.  The One Page Strategic Plan is the perfect tool to provide consistency and alignment.  We’ve described the One Page Strategic Plan in multiple blogs.  To become and remain competitive your Organization Needs Three Things:

1) Framework that identifies and supports your corporate strategy.

2) Common language in which to express that strategy and,

3) Well-developed habit of using this framework and language to continually evaluate your strategic progress.

Most important you need to keep it simple. 

That's What The One Page Strategic Plan Provides. In Mastering the Rockefeller Habits Verne Harnish emphatically states that building a growth company is 1% Vision, 99% Alignment.

Of course this truth is dependent upon you developing a strategy for your business that works. 

This is where Bob and the Inside Advantage provide practical application.  Read the book and you’ll discover a step by step process to dig into your business to uncover Your Inside Advantage.  Bob describes this as:

• An undiscovered, undervalued, or under-utilized strategic asset hidden deep inside your business that can form the foundation of enduring growth

• Your being well known for this unrecognized concept or way of working that your business already owns

• The quickest and easiest way to generate growth without investment in infrastructure or advertising

Developing your Inside Advantage is hard work.  Don’t expect to read the book and get results in a few hours.  In fact don’t expect a result in 40 hours.  Depending on your business size your best outcome will come from employing the services of Bob Bloom to help you either In Person (one day workshop) or Remotely through Email and phone conversations and facilitations of a trained gazelles coach.

The greatest value Bob brings is his ability to simplify the process and put it into words your prospect and customers will understand.  This comes for decades working in the advertising agency business building brands like Nestlé’s Juicy Juice, Southwest Airlines and BMW to name just a few.

Here are Bob’s six emotions you need to appeal to once you’ve determined your Inside Advantage:

Right now go to your website or collateral material for your business and ask yourself which of these six emotions is my customer/prospect most concerned with? 

How is your business differentiating itself in the competitive marketplace you battle in each day? 

Is it time you discovered what Your Inside Advantage is to develop a strategy that grows your top line revenue?