Nobody can predict 100% the future but everybody can be prepared for it!

Be it the evolution of your customer needs, the latest moves of your competitors or the newest business models on the market,… one thing is for sure: your business environment is constantly evolving. Nobody can predict the future, but everybody can prepare for it. Building a formalized strategy will not only help you reduce the risks, but it will also improve your performance as new and realistic opportunities will become visible. 

Furthermore formalizing your strategy brings substantial improvement for:

your reflection: observe your ideas and understand how they are interconnected

your communication: your stakeholders will feel confident and the people in your company more motivated and engaged

your management: your investments and action plans are under control

your innovation: your new ideas and opportunities get rapidly validated and put into action.

The SST (Strategy Short Track) method conceived for and endorsed by many SMB’s will allow you to formalize your strategy. This bottom-up method provides a pragmatic, simple and rapid approach to defining your strategy, establish an action plan and implement control tools.

Available as an open source you can download your free copy here. You will also find on this blog the articles that will guide you through the SST. 

to your successful 2017!

Neuromarketing is so much more than marketing!

Discussing the subject and importance of Neuromarketing with a colleague professor about the importance of Neuromarketing in our curriculum, the issue came up where should we position this rather new discipline. We rapidly came to the conclusion there’s so much more in Neuromarketing than marketing. That’s why I think there’s a distinction to make between a focused vision and an extended vision of Neuromarketing.

In the focused vision Neuromarketing is considered as a pure marketing speciality. It only concerns marketing geeks who are eager to learn about the newest insights in consumer behavior. For sure anything that can help marketers to better understand how their customers perceive their product, if they like it and finally buy it, is more than welcome to marketers who need to justify their ROI.

But Neuromarketing also brings an extension of the consciousness of who we are as human beings. If “all business is human”, the essence of Neuromarketing can provoke disruptive changes in many domains of a company. Everywhere human behavior is involved the insights of Neuromarketing have a great potential to bring new perspectives such as: HR, Sales, Project Management, Leadership, etc. These insights will create new opportunities for the improvement of processes or for the creation of new value.

At HONEUR we want to foster both, the focused as well as the extended vision, as we do not think one can really separate one from another. Indeed we are aware that in ourworkshops we work on both levels simultaneously.

to your success!

Bart

Is being “lucky” a key success factor in marketing?

It is a well-known fact: only 1 new launched product out of 8 becomes a real success. A big challenge faced by all companies. So should you surrender to fatality and pray for luck to be successful?

I always wondered how this very high failure quote is überhaupt possible? It can’t be a question of means as the budgets are impressive. Neither is there a lack of competence as highly qualified and experienced marketing experts are in charge of such programs.  So if it is not a question of means or people, what could be the reason?

I have good reasons to believe the actual paradigm, which dominates the marketing community, shows dramatic deficiencies. And let’s be clear, this paradigm is not only ruling the marketing community, but a bigger part of humanity.

The essence of the paradigm consists in the believe people take their decisions rationally and therefore can explain the how’s and the why’s of their decision making process. Traditional market research is based on this paradigm and will provide information about how the consumer thinks about the product, the packaging, the advertisement,… This has without a doubt a certain degree of interest but it clearly fails to lead marketers to success.

There’s more than enough evidence to state that the decision making process is much more non-conscious than previously thought. On the one hand there are many different technologies available to discover the non-conscious processes of the mind.  On the other hand I believe Marketers should not just trust technology but also learn about the laws and processes of the non-conscious mind and integrate these fundamental insights into their marketing programs.

HONEUR or the House of Neuromarketing proposes workshops to cultivate your knowledge and get you started with Neuromarketing. Read more about it here.

Why communication is a struggle for PLEASURE!

Have you ever wondered why your communication failed? Why people did not “get” the message? Why your “information” was not received? The struggle for pleasure concept provides a new insight how to avoid frustration and build productive communication.

If we want to get a better grip on communication we need to understand how people process information? One thing is for sure; the human brain does not process information as a computer does. It can and will not store raw data.

By looking at our brain structure we know every neuron in our brain is connected to other neurons. This connection is called synapse and in average every neuron has 10’000 synapses. No wonder Neuroscientists estimate we have 320’000 Km cabling in our brain.

When we need to process information, this concept of association applies. This means we can only add additional information as long as the new information is associated with information already available in our brain.

The information theory can help us understand this in a very simple way. When we consider the degree of information in a message, we have on the one end 0% of new information or pure redundancy and at the other end 100% of information.

Pure redundancy leads to unbeatable annoyance and pure information to paralysis of the brain, as we are not able to process pure information. Communication to be effective needs to provide the optimal mix between redundancy (what receiver already knows) and the new information.

This zone I call the struggle for pleasure. Productive communication means knowing how to mix new information within a comfort zone provided by redundant information. So when you want to be efficient in your communication you should not only think about the information you want to transmit but also select with care the redundant information you will use to make sure your information is well received.

To your success!

 

Formalize your strategy to reduce your risks

Be it the evolution of your customer needs, the latest moves of your competitors or the newest business models on the market,… one thing is for sure: your business environment is constantly evolving. Nobody can predict the future but everybody can be prepared for it. Building a formalized strategy will not only help you reducethe risks but it will also improve your performance.

Furthermore formalizing your strategy brings substantial improvement for:

your reflection
observe your ideas and understand how they are interconnected

your communication
your stakeholders will feel confident and the people in your company more motivated and engaged

your management
your investments and action plans are under control

your innovation
your new ideas and opportunities get rapidly validated and put into action

The SST (Strategy Short Track)method conceived for and validated by numerous SMB’s will allow you to formalize your strategy.

SST provides a pragmatic, simple and rapid approach to define your stratégy, establish an action plan and implement control tools.

Available as an open source you can download your free copy here. You will also find on this blog the articles that will guide you through the SST.

to your success!

Are you a Winner?

Those who think winning and success is only a question of good luck might be tempted to take their company for a lottery ticket. True, a successful company has always to deal with a certain level of risk. But within the field of entrepreneurship risk becomes risk management.

Developing and formalizing a strategy is essential and mandatory when risk needs to be transformed into success and not a nightmare. No doubt, developing a formalized strategy provides tangible and indispensible information for optimized risk management such as:

• Knowing
  the key success factors in your strategic domain as well as assessing your ability to execute them

• Understanding
  your positioning with regard to your competitors

• Analyzing
  the environment in which your company evolves and identify the opportunities and traits for your companies growth

• Acting
  according to a complete action plan

• Measuring
  to which degree your action plans are effective for the development of your strategies

Winning companies systematically and continuously work around these axes, as they know that strategy is indispensible for transforming risk into success.
Developing a strategy can be simple, pragmatic and fast. The SST or Strategy Short Track has been conceived to allow everybody to develop a strategy and action plan. You can download this open source method for free here.

Neuromarketing is also a question of CULTURE

When you google Neuromarketing you might rapidly get confronted with fMRI Scanners or EEG curves. It could leave you with the impression this domain is only accessible to highly skilled scientists. A very select group of initiated specialists who can understand the secrets of human behavior by interpreting complex data streams provided by specialized devices.

Neuromarketing service companies might not resist the temptation to base their business model on the “exclusive secret formulas” they have lent from neurosciences, leaving their clients empty-handed. I was not surprised when I heard at the NMBSA world forum this year, some of these companies complain about the lack of growth of their business.

I guess they forgot Neuromarketing is also a question of culture on two different levels. First of all, the success of our economic development is sociologically spoken based on the cultural believe we “master” and thus control our environment. Business models based on secrets and mystery are not very compliant with this basic cultural value.

The second level concerns the evidence that Neuromarketing brings a cultural revolution as it changes our global understanding of human behavior, not only our buying behavior. It defeats the Descartes “ego cogito sum” (I think therefore I am) paradigm and restores our emotions as a very reliable and intelligent concept for non-conscious decision-making.

I am profoundly convinced Neuromarketing does not only need technology and science. Business manager and in a wider sense human kind need tools to take the paradigm shift and rehabilitate the non conscious part of the brain. The NeurOrchestra observation tool is our humble contribution to this cultural evolution.

to your success!

Big data goes beyond technology

If you are not in to big data, you are out; so far the latest tech hype. Have we finally found a direction in the “databoulemic” society we have become? Any click on the web is collected with care and devotion, our mobile phone keeps track of every place we have been, our smart watch is “watching” our biometric data,… the list is not only endless but continues to grow everyday.

And now we have collected all this data… so what? Is it only a question of technology to create value from these data? Geeks might believe so… we don’t. Every time technology is put above the needs, which it is meant to serve, the probability we get lost is high if not inevitably. I guess it must feel safe to keep the big data debate only technological. 🙂

As far as I understand it and that’s a pure personal view on the issue, the value of Big Data is human based not technology based. Who cares about big data when there are only data? If Big Data has to provide value and thus make sense, you will need the human oriented competences to create it and these competences are go beyond technology.

The only way to create new value from these endless data is to make (produce) sense. As far as I know only human beings can decide about meaning and sense. Technology should remain an executer and be kept away from this process. Human oriented competences such as social, anthropological and psychological insights will allow you to create sense from these data.

Within the same framework one should not forget the relativity of the captured data. There is no such thing as capturing the complete reality. The data captured are a result of a concept or an idea of how we think the world is. In this sense the capturing of data is a result of a human decision and thus again a creation process of meaning, which is to often hidden or taken for granted.

In conclusion, Big Data is above all a big challenge of creating meaning and the technology will not ease the pain of that challenge.

 

 

HAPPY STRATEGY! Yes, a formalized strategy can make you HAPPY!

Research shows a large majority of SMB’s does not have a formal strategy. It leaves me puzzled, as the benefits for your business are obvious. But maybe we should change the perspective from business to emotion to make strategy defining an attractive activity for a SMB owner.

Of course, why should we only speak about strategy from a “cold” business perspective when we know since the Beatles’ song that “Happiness is a warm gun”? Defining a clear strategy will bring you an important load of emotional benefits, which could be even more important than your business benefits. If you don’t want to do it for your business than do it for your happiness! 🙂

Feel sure; get rid of the doubts
As long as your strategy has not been clearly defined you fight the doubt. Defining your options and knowing why you choose them will free you from the doubts. What a relief!

Go straightforward instead of turning in circles
Strategic thinking is networked thinking as all strategic ideas are connected with each other. Trying to find clarity with your ideas inside your head of turns to be a “circled” exercise. Do you recognize this experience that burns your energy bringing you over and over again to the starting point? Talking about frustration…

The actor, not the spectator
Spectators go to movies but movies are fiction. If you are an entrepreneur you have chosen to be an actor in a real but complex world. A formalized strategy is an excellent tool to master this complexity and to put you in the actor’s seat.

Still need more reasons why a formalized strategy can make you happy? I am sure you can find many more. If I have convinced you, let’s take the next “hands-on” step. I have conceived the SST Strategic Short Track a rapid and action plan oriented method for you. The good news is that it is available as an open source method. Eight articles help you go through the method.

Three good reasons why you should help buying

Do you sell or do you help buying? It’s simply a question of who do you think is in control of the process, the customer or you? I think there is a lot of evidence, which suggests you should consider that the customer is in control and that helping buying instead of hard selling provides the best business opportunities for your company. There are numerous reasons why this is true, but let’s focus on three of them:

1. Turn information into customer value

Information is available everywhere and there is no competitive advantage to create by manipulating or withholding information. You’d better play the game with transparency. Moreover, the key issue is not “information” but the value of this information and this where you can help your customer by providing assistance to assess the collected information. It will help her/him to make a choice which best fits her/his needs.

Some might argue that in some cases we will help the customer to buy our competitor’s product. This is true, and if she/he does, it probably indicates the customer would not be happy with your product anyway and, unless you enjoy getting involved with frustrated customers, you should be happy with his choice…

2. Build a productive relationship

Trying to sell something your customer doesn’t need will bring you money on a short term but you should agree to loose your customer’s trust on the long term. If you want a productive and long term relationship with your customer, she/he needs to consider you as a trustful party, who serves her/his interests. And the customer’s interest is to buy the product, which the best fits his needs whether you provide it or not!

3. Optimize your communication tools

Helping the customer to buy implicates you understand your customers buying process. The buying process tells you which phases the customer needs to run through to finally buy a product (hopefully yours :-)). Each step of the process teaches you which are your customer’s needs at that stage. By designing your communication tools to respond to these specific needs and use them at the right moment within the process, they will become much more effective and appreciated by the customer.

There’s a lot more to say regarding this subject and I will surely write more about how to analyze your customer’s buying process as I am convinced it will help you become more successful.

To your success!

Happy summer! 🙂