5. Keep a Sharp Eye on Inventory It's not nearly as easy as it sounds to put a product into the hands of a paying customer, especially when your model requires several third parties along the way. The only way to do it successfully is to manage inventory from the point where it is but a glimmer in your eye until the credit card swipe. This is not easy or even possible if you are using several different pieces of software to run the business. And if you're thinking that different systems can simply be integrated, or integrated simply, please stop and disabuse yourself of these ideas. Consult any experienced information technology professional with whom you are acquainted and they will tell that no two systems are easily or well integrated, unless they start out this way. With manufactures and distribution warehouses spread out over great geographical areas, it is vitally important that you understand lead times and safety stock levels, and that you continue to assess these over time as your business grows. Just as important is the seasonal inventory question. Sporting goods will start to jump a couple of months before the high school season begins. If your container arrives after the first game you are going to be sitting on a lot of inventory for a long time. Managing these inventory levels is much easier when all of your purchasing and sales data is in the same system, enabling the system to do a lot of the work for you. Also, if you are selling to other businesses, then your sales pipeline also gives some very important information about the stock levels that you should be carrying. The key point here is that in order to manage your brand eco-system with authority, you need to take a enterprise wide view of your systems and processes. Don't let various stakeholders cordon off pieces of your enterprise for their own narrow purposes. Frankly, sales people prefer to use a CRM that is not part of the enterprise suite, because they like autonomy, and are not fond of too much performance measurement. But a stand alone CRM means that your customers are now on their own island and this eventually creates huge supply problems. Remember: Managing your enterprise means managing your brand-ecosystem. The best, most meticulous managers are not going to manage isolated islands of information well. A well functioning enterprise demands an enterprise suite. The enterprise suite also demands attentive management to create value. Don't stack the odds against yourself.
6. Automate Pricing
Customer pricing and vendor pricing are often the Achilles heel of brand owner organizations. Focused on the sale, as they should be, brand owners often develop a lack of pricing discipline in the market. For example, landing those first customers is important and doing whatever it takes may be necessary. But even as you negotiate prices product by product and customer by customer, try to maintain some rationale in the process. One way to do this is to keep an historical record on the system of the various opportunities that you are working and the quotes you create. And instead of just adjusting the per unit price, attempt to work a volume price break in conjunction with price tiers. Do whatever it takes to land the business. But try to work the deal into an understandable model. One of the great pain points that we see on every implementation with a brand owner already in business is that they have negotiated prices with every customer and done so without any rhyme or reason. Again, do what you need to land the business, but try to configure a price model as you move through each deal. Eventually your pricing will start to take shape and you will see patterns develop, based on product line, division, channel, etc.. When you at last have a system that can manage a complex price model you will be able to implement it and start to forecast not only sales but profitability.
7. Exploit the Search Engines
As we mentioned earlier, everyone now understands the need for a corporate web site, much like we all need business cards. The difference is that while all of us understand the use and meaning of a business card, most brand owners have not really asked themselves what the use of the website is and what it means in the larger context of business. Every day, the Internet becomes more important to the world of commerce. If you want your brands to occupy the mindshare they deserve, then a strategy to exploit the search engines is a must. We hand someone a business card, or staple it to a brochure. Simple enough. But how do we hand someone our website? We should know the answer to this question because, after all, a website costs more than a business card and, day by day, has more gravity in the business world than all the printed marketing material we can muster. There are two acronyms that every brand owner should know: SEM and SEO. SEM is search engine marketing, and SEO is search engine optimization. SEM is a strategy, with wide ranging tactics, to market your brand via the Internet search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com. SEO is the goal of optimizing all that you do on the Internet for the search engines. Without becoming entangled in a lot of jargon, let's offer a few important ideas about what you should be doing online and how you should be doing it. First, your corporate web site, regardless of its main purpose, information or e-commerce, must be built within a context, and that context is the words and phrases that are key to your brand. You have heard of the elevator pitch? The 30 second explanation of what your company does and why is a well known exercise for new business owners to sharpen their focus. The 'keywords' list is the same thing. A keyword is what someone types into Google as a search term. If you are selling sandals, then you should have a list of all of the keywords that describe your product from 'sandal' to 'beach shoes' and everything in between. What's the point? When you build your site you need to write about your business, brands and products using these keywords; you need to optimize your site for the search engines that will eventually 'crawl' through your site and then unite you with people searching for what you offer. SEM is a topic greater than this white paper, but the other thing that you must think about is marketing on the Internet. A lot of business people think about marketing or advertising as 'paying for space' in one way or another; but there are other, and we would argue, better ways to create your brand marketing using the Internet. As mentioned earlier, your company has a fascinating story to tell and when you tell it your search engine rankings will take off. Hello customers!
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