Business Strategy

18 Oct 2017

80/20 David and Goliath: The Power of Ideal Clients

By |2017-10-18T17:15:20-06:00October 18th, 2017|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

80-20 David Goliath - Power of Ideal Clients

Your prospects naturally compare your business to what they perceive as your competition. If you want to get leads and acquire customers efficiently, you have to choose your market and ideal clients carefully.

It turns out how we feel about our achievements is relative to how we measure ourselves. How we perform in the future, is impacted by how we relate to the results of the measurement.

Harvard or MIT

If you graduate at the top […]

9 Jun 2017

5 Ways to Win Survivor Alberta – Business Edition

By |2017-06-27T14:23:25-06:00June 9th, 2017|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Oilfield Pulse|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Win Survivor Alberta - Business Edition - Whitewater Rafting

The key to being the ultimate survivor in business in an extremely competitive landscape is to have a strategic plan. These five components will help you thrive.

Before I stopped watching television, I used to watch Survivor. One of my favourite scenes was an episode where Rupert stole shoes and other items from the other tribe, and then they used the pirated loot to trade for more useful – and untraceable – […]

19 May 2017

3 Questions To Ask Before Cutting The Marketing Budget

By |2017-05-19T12:49:17-06:00May 19th, 2017|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Team Meeting - Questions For Marketing Budget

Most starting and early growth entrepreneurs are focused on costs. Shifting your mindset about marketing budget can change your results dramatically. These 3 questions help you do that.

The First Questions People Normally Ask

If you own a business and someone says you should use some powerful integrated marketing software that costs $800 per month – what is your first thought?

If an online marketing firm comes to you with a proposal to increase traffic and lead generation from your website and it will cost $4,000 a month […]

15 May 2017

Get Serious About Defining Your Ideal Clients

By |2017-10-18T16:52:05-06:00May 15th, 2017|Categories: Branding, Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Define Ideal Clients - Strategic Marketing - Business Collage on Cube

One of the keys to strategic marketing is to make the best use of your limited resources for the greatest results. One of the most powerful drivers of marketing results is to define your ideal clients precisely.

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The best way to show how this works is to take you along on my latest journey to do just that for the online marketing services portion of our business.

A good strategy is just as much about what you will not […]

2 May 2017

Change or Die: Thriving In Turbulent Times

By |2017-05-02T00:37:18-06:00May 2nd, 2017|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Oilfield Pulse, Working on the Business|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Innovation and Thriving in Turbulent Times - Movie Scene Clapper

The oil and gas industry is notorious for riding the boom and bust cycles inefficiently. When oil is over $80 a barrel, the profits are large enough companies choose to ignore innovation and spend on growth instead. The problems compound the faster you grow until you can’t survive below $70 per barrel.

When prices are low, there is a slash and burn reaction because the company was never set up to be efficient. Now, the money and resources are not there to support creating efficiencies. […]

12 Apr 2017

5 Powerful Exercises to Rehab Your Business

By |2017-04-12T16:44:29-06:00April 12th, 2017|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Oilfield Pulse, Working on the Business|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

5 Exercises to Rehab Your- Business Think Outside Box

In rehab, you engage with experts and specialists to get through the first few stages of recovery. You can also speed it along by outsourcing to clinics outside of the public health care system.

At some point, you have to do some of the work on your own. If the exercises are too complicated or time-consuming, most people won’t do them.

So here are some simple but powerful exercises you can do to rehab your business. You will get stronger faster, by pushing the exercises […]

9 Feb 2017

3 Times You Really Need a Good Financial Model

By |2017-04-12T11:13:07-06:00February 9th, 2017|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

Business Growth and Financial Modelling

Running out of cash is the biggest risk a growing business faces. There are three instances when the risk is much higher.

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We’ve been in business for over 16 years. I’ve been studying what makes businesses successful (or not) for much of that time. These are the lessons I’ve picked up.

You have a much better chance of survival if you can anticipate problems with your business strategy, planning, and operations. Unfortunately, many business owners rely on very simple projections and assumptions when planning. […]

6 Dec 2016

The Mystery in Marketing

By |2017-04-03T11:06:36-06:00December 6th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Oilfield Pulse, Sales|

Alien Spaceship X-Files

The Truth is Out There

This month’s theme (Oilfield Pulse) is about conspiracy theories. This theme immediately got me reminiscing about the X-Files television series. It is possible, that somewhere behind all the woes we are facing as a province and industry, there is cigarette smoking man who is somehow in on it.

Or, maybe the truth is more mundane.

It could be that we still don’t have those pipelines because people don’t want them in their backyard for an abstract benefit […]

3 Nov 2016

Fear, the Sounds of Silence, and Some Marketing Strategies

By |2017-06-12T14:25:51-06:00November 3rd, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Oilfield Pulse, Sales|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Like many people, I’ve been following the U.S. election. It has become nasty and full of hate. The Internet, the media, and social media are amplifying the effect. A year ago, we watched the Conservative Party try a few...

6 Oct 2016

The Hidden Costs of Failing to Innovate in Sales

By |2017-04-04T17:45:18-06:00October 6th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Oilfield Pulse, Sales|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

What are you doing to innovate how you market and sell your products and services? If you are trying to survive and even thrive at today’s oil prices, these two functions are the key to competing and staying profitable.