(Time to read this Blog is about 3 1/2 minutes)

Wishing you good health, great joy, love, adventure and prosperity in 2025…and beyond!

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “In both business and life, the beginning of wisdom is the recognition of reality.”
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   Two key questions to get you thinking for 2025:
   As a business owner, leader or manager, how you see your job is key to the success of your business or department.  Is it your job to:
    
   1. Assign blame & solve problems, OR…to coach, encourage and enable others to solve problems?
   2. Apply ‘quick fixes’ to problems OR…to work with your Team to find and fix the basic systemic, operational or cultural causes of the problems?
       
3. Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions?  There are 2 kinds of resolutions.  There are ‘avoid’ resolutions like avoiding alcohol or cigarettes, not watching so much TV, or avoiding unhealthy foods.
    
   Then, there are ‘achieve’ resolutions like committing to read 2 books a month, loose 20 pounds, or run a 5K race in under 20 minutes. 
    
   Either way, about 90% of New Year’s Resolutions don’t make it into February.  As my Grandma Cooper used to say, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
     
4. How can I be helpful in 2025? If your company, Industry Association or local Business Group has a Conference coming up in 2025, and you need an insightful, entertaining, bottom-line Management Speaker who will inform, focus, challenge and inspire, perhaps we should chat about possibilities.  I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.
     
5. This little fact amazed me. Cold drinks now represent 75% of Starbucks’ sales.  I’m guessing that the profit margins must be pretty good when you sell of cup of ‘mostly ice’ for $5.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

Are you the clear and compelling ‘Wise Choice’ for your target customers?

Every industry and every market is over-served and under-differentiated.  Whatever product or service you sell, there are way too many other people selling it.  And you mostly look alike, sound alike and charge about the same price.  So, you need to clearly differentiate yourself in a way that matters to your target customers…and that’s your biggest challenge!

One of the biggest complaints I get from businesses around the world is that ‘there’s no such thing as customer loyalty anymore’…and they’re dead wrong!

Here’s the truth.  ‘People are loyal to what’s best for them, or what they assume is best for them.’   Read it again, let it sink in.  ‘People are loyal to what’s best for them, or what they assume is best for them.’  This simple truth changes everything.  It transforms business from weak whiners to powerful, proactive value creators and market leaders.

So, are you the clear and compelling ‘wise choice’ for your target customers?  Are you ‘best’ for them?   If not, stop complaining about there being no customer loyalty anymore and do the work to be the clear wise choice.

What compelling functional, emotional and financial value will you create and commit to consistently deliver that will ‘grab’ your target customers, clearly differentiate you from your competitors, make you famous and grow your bottom line?  That’s what it takes to deserve loyalty.  Mediocrity is no longer an option.

Then, when you’re doing the ongoing work to be the clear ‘wise choice’, you need to effectively and consistently communicate your compelling value story in everything you do.  There’s no point  being the best if you’re also the best kept secret.   

So, the question is, “Are you the clear and compelling ‘wise choice’ for your target customers?”  If not, stop whining and do the work.  And, by the way, you can’t be the ‘wise choice’ for everyone. That’s why God invented niche marketing.

What do you need to do or improve, or stop doing, starting now, to be the clear wise choice for your target customers?   What decisive action will you take?  Get specific about what will be done, by whom, by when, at what expense, with what measurable outcomes, measured how and rewarded how to become the clear wise choice?  

If you’d like help with this important work, perhaps we should talk. I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.