Coaching & Workshops

Frequently, organizations need additional knowledge, information, insight, skills, tools, and framework to accomplish their tasks. We offer both individualized coaching and customized workshops. In addition to bringing over two decades of hands on experience meeting business challenges, we collaborate with the top business schools to keep track of the latest topics, trends, and information.

RECENT WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS:

• Maryland Technology Development Center: New Marketing Trends & Paradigm
• Silver Spring Innovation Center: Word of Mouth Marketing Techniques
• Wheaton Business Innovation Center: Principles of Internet Marketing
  
  

                  Requires Apple QuickTime media player. Short clip of a recent seminar.

Customized workshops and seminars. You can find these presentations online at http://gotastrategy.typepad.com

Strategy & Strategic Planning:
Teach your organization how to innovate, plan, think, and execute strategically. Strategy 101. What is it? What are the basic characteristics of successful strategies? Why should your entire organization understand the nomenclature? Leverage "left-brain power" before getting started. Why is there only one optimum strategy for most businesses? Is there an absolute right strategy? How do I know I have the right strategy? Strategy framework. What is the difference between corporate strategy, business strategy, and marketing strategy? Strategies for high tech companies. How is innovation cannibalizing itself? Why innovation and intellectual property are not enough to compete? Creating a sustainable strategy? Capturing and / or creating new sources of competitive advantage. Why is "linkage" so important? How do I apply a real-time performance tool to track my progress? Can a balanced scorecard be adapted for small business? Why is important for everyone to participate? Strategic planning vs. analysis. Elements of a strategic plan. Linkage and alignment. Competitive advantage. Attributes of high performance companies. Sustainability. Characteristics of successful strategy. Strategy formulation methods.

New Marketing Paradigm:
How has marketing changed over the past decade? What is marketing today? The new marketing paradigm. How to create brand advocates. Is marketing an art or a science? What is the difference between marketing management, marketing strategy, marketing communication, marketing collateral, brand equity, and e-marketing? Is e-marketing the way of the future? What is e-marketing? Is e-marketing suitable for b2b and b2c? Why you should not apply the same "cookie cutter" marketing plan and activities? Is marketing about doing the same thing you know or coming up with something totally different? Why is it so important for your marketing strategy and plan to be linked to the right business strategy? How do I get my customers to sell my product? Is word of mouth marketing for every business? Can I build brand equity ahead of sales? Does the 80% - 20% rule apply for all industry segments? What if my market is shrinking? What if my market is collapsing? What if my market is saturated?

e-Marketing: Principles of Internet Marketing
Principles of Internet marketing (emarketing). Framework for building an emarketing plan and strategy. Learn what website techniques to use to boost your search engine ranking. Social media interaction. Creating a weblog that is aligned with your brand and community. Open collaborative innovation. Learn how to reduce the risk of innovation.

Viral Marketing:
Viral marketing is getting a lot of media attention. Viral marketing is just one of the many word of mouth marketing techniques - WOMM. What is WOMM? Viral marketing. Buzz marketing. Learn the latest word of mouth marketing (WOMM) techniques. Is viral marketing for b2b or only b2c businesses? Elements and what it takes? Benefits and strategy. Is this the best way to build brand equity? Is viral marketing for revenue generating companies or social networks only? Have citizen marketers / brand advocates replaced traditional advertising?

New Software Paradigm & Business Models:
The founder of Salesforce.com was one of the first entrepreneurs to prove the viability of software as a service (SaaS). Internet giants Google, Yahoo, Adobe are entering the on demand Web 2.0 browser based software as a service space. While some contiue to debate the viability of the open innovation framework and protection of intellectual property ownership, start-ups like Zimbra are demonstrating commercial viability of open source. Google is just one of many companies moving email and popular productivity applications online. Will the pervasive Internet, networked world, and compact mobile devices pose a risk or opportunity for your application? Some notable technologists strongly advocate that companies in the product software space should migrate to the software services space. Open source 101. What is it? Open source strategies for business? Open source strategy for software based companies? The impact of open source on the traditional software business model? Building business models around open source? Building a virtual development community around your product? Do I need to launch my open source initiative? How do I launch my code? How do I reach the virtual development community? Do I need to marketing plan and web site for my open source initiative? Is open source the way of the future? Open source trends. Can the open source innovation framework help my business? Is open soure and SaaS mutually exclusive? What is Ajax? Pros and cons of web based applications?

Strategies For Driving Traffic To Your Website:
How can you more effectively drive traffic to your website without online ads. Web design strategy and SEO 101. Has the web replaced traditional marketing activities? Do I need a web strategy? How do I position product and services in the marketspace? What is the difference between a web graphic designer, web developer, SEO, web copywriter, and web strategist? What is SEO? How do I advertise online? How do I make my web site noticeable? Ranking. Indexing. Analytics. Difference between e-business, e-commerce, and e-marketing.

Tapping Into the Online Advertising Paradigm:
Learn how to augment your business model and capture new sources of revenue. A number of companies are finding out that their community and traffic generated presents an even bigger opportunity. Why some companies are finding out that giving away the product / service is more profitable.

Product Innovation:
While most companies draw a fine line between company employees and customers, a number of innovative start-ups are demonstrating that you can create value through community collaboration. Learn how to leverage the open virtuous cycle to reduce the risk of innovation. Product marketing & management 101. Product management vs. product marketing. How has the Internet changed PM and PLM? How to make the target audience - customer - integral part of value creation? Has PLM function been absorbed into marketing? Where should PLM be in? Is product life cycle management an absolute prerequisite for success or only a luxury? How to blend the Internet tools in a community fashion to create virtuous cycles in value creation process? What is the concept of virtuous cycles?

Open Collaborative Innovation:
While most companies draw a fine line between company employees and customers, a number of innovative start-ups are demonstrating that you can create value through community collaboration. Learn how to adapt the open collaborative innovation framework to reduce the risk of innovation. Learn how to create brand advocates and converting brand loyalty into a competitive advantage.

Re-engineering Your Supply Chain:
Learn how the Internet and technology can provide new sources of competitive advantage. Framework for re-engineering your supply chain. What is disintermediation? Creating opportunities is highly consolidated industries.

Learn How To Reinvent Your Business Model:
For many industry segments and highly competitive sectors, the ability to change business models is vital to sustainability. Learn how successful companies have been able to ride the next wave of innovation by learning how to reinvent their business model. Learn how entry into new markets and the Internet can provide the genesis of new business models.

Venture Capital:
So you want to build a start-up. Learn how to increase your chances of receiving funding. What are your peers saying about various VCs. When do you start to seek investment capital? After generating sales, after writing the business plan, after building initial team, after researching the industry and target market? Where do you go to find capital? Different stages and types of capital? Do you have any leverage? Do you go for "smart money" first? Pros and cons of being bootstrapped? What you need to prep your pitch? Does my industry matter?