John Bradley "JJ" Jackson

Pricing

The Four Dimensions of Pricing

You must know and understand the four dimensions of pricing for a new product or start up: 1. Cost. 2. Customer. 3. Competition. 4. Yourself. Cost drives a lot of pricing decisions, but for the wrong reasons. A typical price strategy is to mark up the estimated cost by some

Business Planning

Executive Summary Must Haves

The executive summary is a summary of the business plan (including operations, sales and marketing, and finance), but it is also a selling document. This means that you must answer your readers' questions if you want to sell your business concept. Here is a short list of questions you

Pricing

Pricing Products Individually

When establishing the prices for your products or services, don’t fall into the trap of establishing an “across board” price margin for all your products or services. Instead, look at each product individually. Look at this way. You might be able to justify a lower margin for products and

Uncategorized

Visuals Help Communicate

If you want people to understand your presentation and remember your key points, be sure to use visuals. Studies show that 83% of learning occurs visually. This means that you need to replace or enrich your text with flowcharts, org charts, diagrams, charts and graphs.. By all means, add color

Social Networking

Twitter Overload

I am sorry but I am buried in Twitter messages. And most of them are not the least bit relevant to me. It borders on abuse---I call it Twitter overload. Like many people, I signed up for Twitter thinking that there must be a value proposition for me, too. What

Mission and Vision

Feeling Trapped in the New Economy?

For many, the new economy of 2009 is limiting personal options, or so it seems. You know what I mean. We have always had the equity in our home, the cash in our IRA or 401K, and maybe some savings. Well, I guess we can scratch that now. I suppose

Social Networking

Facebook Is For Real

According to the San Jose Mercury News: "Facebook has crossed the 200 million user mark", founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post on Wednesday. He continued, "Growing rapidly to 200 million users is really a good start". So now, do you believe me

Barriers

I Spent a Year In That Town One Sunday

This is how comedian George Burns described a small town in the mid west that he disliked. It also describes how I feel about the current state of the economy. If you are like me, you are getting tired of this recession or “ice age” as I have been describing

Selling

Selling in the Recession of 2009

Times are tough---we can all read the headlines. And selling is tougher than ever. The typical sales management reaction is to push the sales reps harder and demand more sales activity. Some managers will remind the reps that everyone’s job is on the line. So guess what happens? The

Marketing Communications

Three Dog Night

Some of you may think “three dog night” is a rock band from the seventies. There may be others that think this means the neighbor’s dogs are barking too much. Still others may think it means it is cold outside. If you think that “three dog night” means that

Social Networking

Social Media: The New Water Cooler

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the other social media websites have supplanted the water cooler as the place to go when you need a break from your work day. I suppose for many in this increasingly virtual world having a chat with a cyber friend brings some meaning, if not

Business Planning

The Dehydrated Business Plan

There are times when a full business plan is not needed. Time may not allow for the creation of a full length plan or the reader might just want a shorter version. In this case, a dehydrated business plan is often chosen. This type of plan is a very brief

Social Networking

How Can a Business Maximize LinkedIn?

* This is a guest article by Social Media expert Daniela Bolzmann * Maximizing the use of LinkedIn by a business is a function of the type of business and of the target market company. If the target market is primarily found on LinkedIn, I would suggest an active participation in the

Business Planning

Proof of Concept

To get money from an Angel investor or from a banker will often require entrepreneurs to demonstrate a proof of concept. This begs the question, “what exactly is a proof of concept?” While the term is kind of fuzzy, a proof concept is evidence that the company, product, or service

Search Engine Optimization

Websites Need SEO

To be successful online and generate profit for your company you must have lots of customer traffic and it needs to be the right people. Yet, getting your site the right visitors is no simple task. An incredible looking website is useless if the web designer did not consider search

Marketing Communications

Communicate with a Mind Map

People learn, read, and communicate in many ways. Some people need or prefer more spatially effective communication with both words and images. In that case, consider a mind map. A mind map is a visual outline. It has a central core or box at the highest level, uses topics as

Pricing

Perceived Value Pricing

Perceived Value Pricing is the best choice for niche marketers (most of the time). This pricing strategy is defined as pricing a product or service at a level that reflects the potential savings, the highest satisfaction level, or the maximum use that a client will receive from the purchase and/

Branding

A Promise of Value

Your brand is a promise of value. Excellent brands are unique, consistent, and authentic. Your brand’s uniqueness answers the question, “How is your offering different or better?” To be considered better or different than your competition, your offering must have at least one feature or benefit that is measurably

Raising Money

What Do Venture Capitalists Want?

Venture Capital firms are out to make money---lots of money, if possible. The first thing to know about VC firms is that they are investing other peoples’ money,   rather than their own. The money comes from a variety of sources including insurance companies, banks, pension funds, university endowments, and corporate

Business Planning

What a Start-Up Firm Should Tell The Bank

When a small business or start up approaches a bank for a loan, you need to be able to answer the following eight questions: 1. How much money do you want? 2. Why do you want the money? 3. How will the money be used? 4. How will you repay

Raising Money

Angel Investors

Angel investors are people who have the money to help start ups. This help comes at a high cost in that the angel typically takes a stake or ownership position in the start up in the form of equity or stock ownership. For the angel investor, the investment is more

Uncategorized

Sales Forecasts at Startups

Forecasting sales at a start-up is part educated guess and part in-depth research. Forecasting can be tougher for a niche marketer since little existing data will be available. In this case, the entrepreneur knows best---assuming he or she knows the target market intimately. There is no substitute for knowing your

New Product Development

Foolish But Enthusiastic

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” -Colette I love that quote. Entrepreneurs need to take chances and do unconventional things and risk looking foolish. The mundane mass market is not the domain of the entrepreneur. Instead, it is the under served or overlooked customer segment which

Search Engine Optimization

Keywords and Your Website

Keywords are how people find you on the web. They function as the language of online search and are a must have feature on your site. The critical question to ask is what are the keywords used by your customers and prospects when they want to find you? The process

Email Marketing

Impermanence

A basic teaching of Zen Buddhism is that things are always changing. Just because we can see, hear, or feel something today does not mean that it will be there tomorrow. Essentially, nothing is permanent. And, so it is with our economic slowdown or meltdown or whatever you want to