(Time to read this Blog is about 2 ½ minutes)

Wishing you an extraordinary 2024! 

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:
   “Offering higher wages and more benefits to marginal job candidates is a formula for disaster!  So, your ability to screen candidates and quickly detect non-performers is key. Who’s in charge of improving your performance in these two key factors and how will they do it?”
   …Donald Cooper.

2. Quick Biz Tip:
   Succession & Exit doesn’t necessarily mean selling your business.
    
   Two of my Biz Coaching clients are planning to step back from the day-to-day management of their business in 4 years,  but will continue to own it, serve as Chairman,  Team builder, Mentor and Encourager while receiving a salary and / or dividends and enjoying many of the perfectly legal tax-friendly perks of being an owner / employee.

   At some point they’ll sell, perhaps to their management team…but by then the business will be worth a lot more.

3. How I can be helpful:   If you have an industry or company Conference coming up in 2024 where my bottom-line insights on management, marketing and profitability will be helpful, I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com. Our most requested topics are:
   3. ‘Accelerate Your Business…the ‘straight goods’ on how to sell more, manage smarter, grow your bottom line…and have a life.’
   4. ‘Create Your Compelling Service Advantage…how to amaze your customers, differentiate your business…and grow your bottom line!’
   5. ‘Winning the Talent Wars…8 essential steps to attracting, developing, leading & engaging a top-performing team.’
   6. “Getting Stuff Done…creating a culture of clarity, commitment, urgency & accountability!”  
   7. ‘Vision Critical…how to manage, innovate and thrive in a very different tomorrow!’
   8. ‘Succession Planning & Exit Strategies…preparing your business and yourself for the most important financial transaction of your life!’

Most clients have me deliver 2 or more sessions, or one extended ‘Super Session’ at their event, which makes me very cost-effective in both speaking fee and travel cost, as I take the place of 2 speakers.  

Attendee comment from my most recent Conference session, “Best, most insightful, most ‘real’ management speaker we’ve had in 30 years!  His complete set of free Management Implementation Tools is a bonus!” 

4. Four important questions to answer when thinking of selling your business to your next-gen ‘kids’:
    
   Much of my Biz Coaching is with family-owned businesses in need of a succession and exit Plan…or businesses that have been passed on to the next-gen ‘kids’ and it has become a financial and family mess.
    
   When considering whether to sell the family Biz to the next-gen ‘kids’ or to a 3^rd-party buyer ask and honestly answer these simple questions:

1. 1. Are they interested?
   2. Are they capable, or willing to do the work to become capable?
   3. How will they pay for it?
      …and, if there’s more than one ‘kid’…
   4. Do they get along?

If you’d like to chat about this difficult issue, email me at donald@donaldcooper.com.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

Every business needs at least two technology ‘heroes’: 

There are at least two quite different types of business technology that every business must embrace.  Because they’re quite different it’s unlikely that one technology person will be an expert in both areas. 

The first we’ll call ‘operational technology’ that will help you achieve world-class operating efficiency in each part of your business.  With every industry and market being so intensely price-competitive, world-class operating efficiency is your only hope of profitability.  Do you have an ‘operational technology’ hero?       

The second kind of technology we’ll call ‘marketing technology’ that will help you understand, serve and communicate with customers as a group…and customers as individuals.  This will include the technology of: 

• Delivering extraordinary customer experiences,
• Creating databases of customers, prospects and key influencers,
• Website creation and maintenance,
• Communicating with customers through blogs, or E-Newsletters, social media and apps,
• Data mining…and lots more stuff that I don’t understand yet.

Do you have a ‘marketing technology’ hero?

Note: In some businesses there may be more than two different types of technology that must be embraced and those businesses will need to align themselves with an expert ‘hero’ in each of those areas.  For example, in some industries, the technology of exotic new raw materials may be the key to success. In other industries biotechnology, nanotechnology or even food technology may be key. 

That’s it for this week…

Stay safe…live brilliantly!       

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.