Business Strategy

Business Strategy:  Advertising, Marketing, Sales

• What does this have to do with AI?  Strategy starts with data and AI is a member of your team for data collection and analysis.
  • Advertising
    • Digital advertising (Amazon, LinkedIn, Meta, Pinterest, YouTube) both in-house and with agencies
    • Email
    • Ad view-to-purchase pipeline
    • Referrals and networking
    • SEO
    • Search (Google, Google Analytics)

• • Marketing
    • Blue Ocean
    • Data analysis, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Ideal client persona development

• • Sales
    • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
    • Lead development
    • Strategic alliances

Learn more about me HERE

Door-to-door fresh flower sales.

That was the first company that I started with my little sister when we were in the early part of our elementary school education.

Our mission was simple:  raise enough money to purchase a small Lego set that we had our eyes on.  Wildflowers cost nothing and our venture backers (our parents) agreed to lend us the gardening tools required to cut the flowers as well as a cart to transport the flowers around our neighborhood.

We made a lot of mistakes but it was also a great learning opportunity about how to sell to people.

• We only sold the best wildflowers that we could find.
• We quickly learned that by improving the presentation of our product we noticeably increased sales.  In our case, we took old coffee cans and used them as vases for our flowers.

And yes, we did earn enough money to purchase our Lego set.

Later, when I was in undergraduate school for mechanical engineering, I launched my first technology business.

Good News

I teamed very experienced engineers with young designers who could rocket through computer-aided design (CAD).  There’s nothing like being part of a team where experience and new ideas are openly and enthusiastically shared.

More Good News

We were successful and my first company helped pay for my undergraduate degree.

Bad News

But like many businesses, the automotive and aerospace industries were a roller coaster of feast or famine and we hit this lovely thing called a recession.  Fortunately, we were able to sell our firm to a larger company.

Secrets to Success

Obviously I wasn’t happy with the overall outcome of my first technology company, but I learned what I knew and what I didn’t know.

1. Teaming experienced people and people new to the industry was a system that I would adopt for all of my businesses.  Focusing on people as opposed to cutting edge technology was also important knowledge.
2. Education:  I also recognized that I needed more finance and marketing experience so I earned my MBA and also worked on projects and for companies that gave me hands-on-experience in these fields.
3. Entrepreneur:  Most importantly, I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur because frankly, it was a lot of fun!  In the ensuing years, I’ve started numerous successful businesses in the technology (automotive, aerospace, semiconductor), business (finance and marketing), and entertainment companies (books, music, live productions, movies) sectors for both myself and within large corporations.

Often, the position of an entrepreneur within a large business meant that I was part of a business incubator, which is a fancy management term for an entrepreneur–in essence, we started new companies and the larger business acted as our investment banker.

Teaching

I’ve always believed in giving back to the community by teaching other entrepreneurs what I’ve learned.  Everything from webinars to keynote addresses at places like Disney World for over 1,000 people.