April 19th, 2012
Now is the time of year when many businesses are planning their leadership retreats and corporate strategy weekends. Here are our best tips for planning a successful executive leadership retreat.
 Narrow Your Focus
When you narrow your focus, you can harness power like a laser beam. Therefore, consider choosing only one or two areas to focus on during your retreat, in order to produce specific results and action steps for the most important business challenges your company faces. Consider the impact of a powerful, direct action plan designed to completely resolve two serious issues . . . as opposed to smattering of suggestions and possible improvements for a whole host of issues.
Set the Ground Rules
This is good information for any kind of group meet: Decide on the ground rules, share them at the beginning of your event, and insist that all participants adhere to these guidelines. If you want more buy-in, decide on the ground rules as a group – that way, you’re creating ground rules based on what is most important to the group members. Some examples might include: when sharing challenges with specific employees, do not share the employee’s name; only one person gets the floor at a time; what is shared in the room is confidential and doesn’t leave the room; etc.
Less Is More
Do not fall into the temptation of over-planning your leadership retreat. When you narrow your focus, you will see that you do not need many “activities” to plan a balanced, productive and well-rounded retreat. Facilitated conversation, team building, problem solving, and action planning should encompass the key components of your retreat. But remember to build in extra time for participants to get to know each other in a relaxed out-of-the-office setting – this is important for strengthening the team and facilitating a cohesive working environment that can continue long after the weekend has ended.
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
While planning your leadership retreat, always keep in mind your main goal. Author and speaker Stephen Covey is famous for saying “Begin with the end in mind,” and this is sound advice for planning your event. Before adding any activities into the schedule, ask yourself “is this necessary to accomplish our overall objective?” If in doubt, leave it out. Begin with your theme in mind, build value-added activities for the group, and if possible, have another set of eyes review the agenda before finalizing the plan. This will help to ensure that nothing is missed, and that the objective of the retreat is duly accomplished. Otherwise, it would be a waste of resources and valuable time.
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April 9th, 2012
For many businesses, April 1 marks the start of a new fiscal year. In fact, April 1 is the second most common fiscal year start date, second only to January 1. But why do some companies choose to start their year in such a non-traditional manner? There are several reasons why this choice makes sense.
Seasonal Businesses
Companies who receive the majority of their income in the spring, and most of their expenses in the fall may choose this second quarter start date. Alternatively, there may be tax advantages that allow a firm to shift income and expenses to a month that falls outside of the fiscal year (which can help to decrease the company’s taxable income).
 Tax Advantages
There are no true tax advantages to choosing a different start date for a company’s fiscal year, but the laws do not allow this to be changed from year to year. Once a company chooses a start date, they must stick with it. However, a company can choose its start date to make itself appear more attractive to investors or shareholders, if it chooses to start its fiscal year around any periods of seasonal increased expenses or revenues.
Federal Government
The Federal Government’s Fiscal Year runs from October through September. This gives newly elected officials times to conduct the budget process for the following year, as well as giving Congress sufficient time to approve the budget. If the budget is not approved, certain government offices must shut down until the budget is resolved. You have likely seen the press about this in recent years.
Regardless of when you’ve started or ended your fiscal year, now is the perfect time to rent a projector from Projector123.com. From board meetings to budget planning and sales forecasting a rental projector helps you get your point across in a bold, effective manner, with only the highest quality equipment at competitive pricing.
Not sure where to find a great projector? Projector123.com has a large selection of inexpensive rental projectors. Click here to learn more.
March 30th, 2012
Nowadays, it is more important than ever to brand your business. We recently ran across an excellent article that addresses this topic. The original article by Ken Chandler can be found here at SmallBusinessBranding.com
Use continuity in your branding by enhancing your corporate image with a rental projector for any business event. Click here to visit Projector123.com and start exploring branding options.
How to Avoid Blurry Positioning
by Ken Chandler
If you find yourself in the role of consultant, how you express that role speaks to your brand. How you position your brand, is what defines it. Ideally you should embrace the services that best show your passion to your audience. I recently had this discussion with a client of mine. Their consulting services were equally divided between two audiences. Essentially the same solutions but to two disciplines. They had a passion for one, and a responsibility to another. This intrigued me.
I wanted to know why they felt it necessary to split their attention between the two. The client felt that because they were two distinct audiences the service should also be split. On the surface, this seems logical, but from a brand perspective it divides the message. In order for your brand to stand out, it should have a singular thrust. The more fractured the message the larger the risk of confusing your audience. You really want to fine tune your discipline. Choosing one strong direction absolutely focuses your consultancy. I advised my client to choose the avenue where they were most passionate. I felt that that would be the most powerful. They would also enjoy themselves more. And shouldn’t you have fun in your business?
I showed them that if they embraced their passion and put all their energies is succeeding in that area, their clients who are entrepreneurs would by nature bring their other businesses into the fold.They would get all their business naturally. Initially, my client felt that targeting the two areas was the better strategy, but now focusing on their passion gave delivered their ultimate goal more organically. It was also a more honest and natural approach. My client is now much more focused and excited to take their brand in a distinct direction. Compared to their competition, they are no longer a generalized service but a differentiated one. They will be seen as a strong leader in a category populated by generalists.
All too often businesses feel the urge to be all things to all people. This is fine when you have the customer through the door. But the process leading up to that awareness is a little more refined. In order to capture new business, you’ve got to distribute a message that resonates and gets them to notice you. This is where branding shines if done properly. Strategically. Keeping focus pays off. Avoid the temptation to sell everything all at once. One caveat of this strategy is that if you forget to mention it – you don’t do it. And for every service mentioned you also invite competition for that that service. Focus the message reduces the competition and delivers your brand powerfully.
February 17th, 2012
Trade shows are ideal for networking, displaying your latest products or services, attracting new business, educating the public and acquiring leads. Most trade show booths, however, are often plain and unattractive. This can cause you to lose potential business since trade show attendees may simply walk past your setup. You need to stand out from the crowd. A great way to do this is to get a rental projector that visually displays all that you have to offer.
Visuals are Better
Study after study has proven that people pay more attention to visuals like photos and videos, and a projector is a great way to catch people’s attention. When setting up a projector in your booth, be sure that it’s not blocking you in any way. A common mistake is that trade show vendors will set up signs or screens near the booth’s entrance. This hinders your ability to speak with trade show attendees. Further, you want attendees to be able to walk freely around the tables inside your booth without tripping over the screen.
Decide on the Presentation
Next, think about what you want to show on your projector screen. Do you really want a full presentation with a soundtrack or talking? If the booth is unmanned, this may be a great option. On the other hand, if the video or slideshow has sound, you may be forced to talk over it, which can be difficult if the volume is too loud.
There is also a compromise to this dilemma. You can leave the sound turned down for most of the show. If, however, you have a strong lead that sincerely wants to learn more about your company, the video may be the best outlet. In that case, raise the volume on the video only for the short time that the potential customer is around. Depending on the size of the show, the trade show floor may be considerably noisy.
When selecting a rental projector for your booth, consider the size of the space that you are renting. You don’t want to rent a projector and screen that takes up the entire area, leaving you with no room to interact with attendees. Rent a smaller screen and a short throw projector — preferably a rear projection setup — that you can place a table or area behind the screen.
Lumens
Look for a projector with at least 3,000 lumens. Trade show lighting varies by location. A projector with this lumen strength will compensate for varying lighting conditions.
If you’ve never used a rental projector before, you need to rent one from a trusted company. Projector123.com is a reputable company with a wide selection of quality projectors. Learn more here.
February 7th, 2012
Company dinners often involve speakers or lectures. For example, an employee dinner may coincide with an educational training seminar. Having educational dinners is a great way to reward your clients, potential clients and employees while still providing them with valuable information. These dinners, however, often pose a bit of a challenge for the speaker. If the lecturer is simply standing on the stage while everyone is eating, there’s a good chance that no one is going to pay attention to him.
Visual aids, however, increase the chances of your audience listening to what you have to say. Rental projectors offer you an opportunity to add a visual aspect to your lecture.
 Picking a Projector
Projectors are not all made the same. They all come with different lumen settings and features. While this may sound like Greek to you, you have to take the lumen strength into account when selecting your rental projector. Generally, for a large gathering, you need a projector with at least 5,000 lumens, and you should opt for an HD projector. HD projectors have a 1920 by 1080 resolution that makes the images on the screen easier to see than lower resolution projectors, especially in difficult lighting situations.
One of the main problems that presenters run into is that the rooms are never dark enough for the audience to see the images on the screen. The higher lumens and HD feature will combat this problem.
Create Your Presentation
People sitting at an educational dinner are never going to give you their full attention, so keep your presentation simple. The slides on the screen should have as few words as possible and should be image heavy. Also, don’t pack too many slides into the lecture. You will probably only have the full attention of half the audience at any one time. The rest will be paying attention to their food or possibly chatting with their neighbors.
Avoid the temptation to cycle too quickly through slides. You are probably going to have all of your data burned on to a DVD that automatically progresses through the presentation. So, talk out your speech beforehand. Time how long it takes you to cycle through each section of the talk, and then add a few additional sections on to that total. Then use this as the time between slides.
You usually have custom and preset settings in slideshow programs. The settings determine for how many seconds or minutes an image stays on the screen. Don’t use the presets; use the custom time settings so that the slides match up with the length of each section of your talk.
Setting Up
Get to the place where you’ll be giving the presentation early. Set up the projector and screen, and test to see if the images are large enough for people in the back of the room to see them. Then tape down any cables, and ensure that the projector is in a spot where no one will trip over it.
Want to rent a projector for your next event? Go to Projector123.com to find the best selection of rental projectors online
January 26th, 2012
Renting versus buying a projector is a big decision for sales people and organizations. Most sales people work on a relatively small budget, which limits their purchasing power. Renting a projector is not only less expensive than buying one, you also don’t need to worry about maintenance costs. You must, however, figure out what type of project works best for your situation.
 Why Use a Rental Projector
Studies have proven time and time again that nearly two-thirds of our population learns better visually. For sales professionals, this means that you can elicit an emotional reaction from your audience. Your potential client may not be able to envision your product or what it can do for their company with a flat presentation with no visual aids. Visually, you can walk the client through the advantages of purchasing what you are selling. A projector will help you close the deal by showing a client how they can be happy with your product.
A projector also forces you to think through your presentation long before you actually present it. You need to create all the visuals ahead of time. This gives you time to think about your audience, what objections they may have and how to overcome those objections.
Types of Projectors for Sales Professionals
A sales professional is often on the go. This means that you need a projector that is lightweight and portable. Larger projectors are also difficult to carry in your luggage if you have an out-of-town meeting. Look for units that are seven pounds or less (or rent a projector when and where you need one) and fit your audience, which includes taking into account the brightness of the screen.
Generally, you will be set up in a room with a lot of ambient lighting. If this is the case, use a brighter projector. For most situations, a rental projector with 3,500 to 5,000 lumens will work for the average size audience. If, however, you are presenting in front of a much larger audience, consider renting a projector with at least 5,000 lumens.
Consider Resolution and Contrast Ratio
Your projector may be lightweight and bright. If it has low resolution, however, your audience won’t be able to properly see what you are selling. Consider renting an HD projector, which has 1920 x 1080 resolution versus the standard 1280 x 800 resolution of the Wide XGA projectors. The HD projectors are also clearer and provide more detail in your projected images, however, they are more expensive as compared to LCD projectors.
Another item to consider is contrast ratio. The contrast ratio refers to how white your white shades are and how black your black shades are. If a projector can’t adequately display certain shades, then your image will look very pixilated when blown up and projected on to a screen.
The best rental projectors have color control settings, which let you adjust the displayed. You can tweak the color based on your personal preferences or the amount of ambient light in the room. Usually, LCD projectors display colors more naturally than DLP projectors. The latter, however, gives colors a more vibrant look than LCD projectors.
The Takeaways
Projectors give you an edge over your competition. You’ll look more professional with a good visual presentation, and you’re more likely to impress your potential client, helping you close the deal.
Projector123.com offers you the most professional, versatile projector for rent on the market, at a surprisingly affordable price – a perfect for your next sales meeting. Click here now to learn more.
January 5th, 2012
Your sales force can be the lifeblood of your company. They help you get new customers and ensure that customers are happy with your service and product. Keeping your sales force content is a must. An unhappy salesperson may lead to unhappy customers. Furthermore, you want to keep the best people around for as long as possible.
Get Their Input
Your sales force knows best what your customers want and need. Before introducing a new product, ask for their input, including how they would market and position the product. Your sales people will feel that their opinion matters, and it creates positive interaction between employees and managers.
Keep Challenging Your Team
Nobody likes to be bored! A bored salesperson may start looking for another job or be less successful in their position. Develop goals that are attainable, but challenge your sales people. Make them work a little for that next commission. Just don’t put the commission permanently out of their reach.
Always Offer a Helping Hand
Sales calls can be challenging at times – even for a seasoned field professional. Ask your sales person if they would like help making those calls. They’ll appreciate the help, and this may make them an employee for life.
Keep the Commission Competitive
Companies don’t want to go broke with commissions and bonuses, but you also need to keep up with your industry. If a competitor has a better commission structure, you may lose your best employees to them. Try some sales contests with monetary rewards for either individual sales people or teams.
Institute these contests on a quarterly basis so that your sales force can make some extra money throughout the year.
 Create a Culture of Trust
Trust is an important part of any company. Employees need to trust each other and their managers. Have an open-door policy. Your sales professionals should feel comfortable coming to you with any questions or concerns that they may have.
Commission and bonus structures shouldn’t be a mystery. If necessary, put together a PowerPoint presentation of this structure, or a PDF that explains the compensation in explicit detail. Schedule a time when you can get all of your sales force together, and use a rental projector to visually display how sales people get their commissions/bonuses.
Show Off Their Accomplishments
Periodically, acknowledge achievements. This may be as simple as giving a monetary reward for their work to having your own awards ceremony for outstanding work. Record or photograph these events. If you have an annual party, get a rental projector, and show off slideshows of photographs, or play the videos throughout the evening.
Bring in a Motivational Speaker
Motivational speakers are trained to help encourage and motivate your sales force. Hire one to get your sales force excited about their job, new products or the prospects of the upcoming year or quarter.
If you need to obtain a rental projector for your next event or speaking engagement, Projector123.com gets you your rental projector the day before you need it. Click here now to find out more.
September 14th, 2011
Now we return to the conclusion of our three-part series on strategic planning made simple. In this final installment, we’ll tackle strategy implementation, evaluation and control.
Step 4: Strategy Implementation
Plan your work and work your plan. Strategy implementation begins with a viable action plan. Whether you use a flowchart, project management software or tool, or a simple spreadsheet, be sure to include all of the following:
Task description
Start date
Any prerequisites that must be completed prior to completion of each task
Deadline
Milestones
Responsible party(-ies)
Necessary resources
Status update
Be sure that all parties involved have access to the document, and can provide regular updates and track progress of the action plan as a whole. Form teams and ad hoc committees as necessary to complete tasks in a collaborative and timely fashion. If you’re creating an action plan for a small business, look for tasks that can safely and cost-effectively be delegated, so that you can focus on more critical action items.
Implementation of the strategy would also include:
Budget creation
Policies and procedures
Organizing the company’s resources
Keeping staff on tash
Step 5: Evaluation and Control
It is shocking how many companies take the time to implement all prior steps, yet drop the ball on this most critical of components. Though it can be a bit tedious, it is positively essential to track progress of the plan – not only its implementation, but also to measure whether or not it is creating the desired affect by accomplishing the firm’s goals and objectives.
 Evaluation and control would include:
Measurement – what and how to measure, benchmarks, and tracking.
Desired Targets – know what specific targets you are aiming to hit
Comparison – compare your actual results to what was predicted or anticipated in the strategy
Adjustment – adjust your action steps as necessary to ensure that all objectives and targets are met
When you take your plan to the staff or to the board, be sure to put your best foot forward with a slide show rental projector rental from Projector123.com. Easy, fast, reliable and professional – Projector123.com is the top choice for LCD rental projectors. Click here now to find out more.
September 12th, 2011
Welcome back to part two of our three-part series on strategic planning made simple. In this segment, we’ll tackle two key elements of strategic planning: environmental scanning and strategy formulation.
Step 2: Environmental Scanning
Essentially, the environmental scan includes an internal evaluation of the company, an analysis of the industry (including market trends), and evaluation of the competition.
Perhaps the most commonly used internal evaluation is simply the SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This is a quick and easy tool for evaluating the overall assessment of the company’s current status. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, while opportunities and threats are external factors. Strengths and opportunities focus on enhancing what is already working for the company (what can only strengthen the company’s position), while weaknesses and threats emphasize what needs to be changed or altered in order for the firm to remain competitive.
An external evaluation of the company focuses more on the industry itself: advancements or changes in technology; legislative/regulatory issues; market trends and shifts; market opportunities and threats; consumer buying habits; changes with regards to verticals or suppliers; the economy itself; and other outside influences that impact the company.
The third element of environmental scanning involves a thorough evaluation of the competition. This can be tricky, as it is difficult to set aside preexisting opinions about the competition. Sometimes it may be necessary to hire an outside firm to perform competitive analysis in your industry. However, at the very least, competitive analysis would include:
- a complete list of your competitors, from strongest to weakest with regards to their ability to effective solve your customer’s problems
- brutally honest list of strengths and weaknesses for each competitor, including your firm
- a rating system that ranks your company against the competition. Ratings would include price, efficacy, speed of delivery, ease of use, customer relationship, product leadership, innovation, etc.
This step will allow you to see how your company measures up in the marketing place, and where improvement or focus is needed.
Step 3: Strategy Formulation
There are many factors to consider in the formulation of your strategy, including:
- competitive position in the market
- marketing budget
- marketing strategies
- public relations strategies (if pertinent for your industry; includes goodwill activities)
- distribution channels
- sales process
- brand strategy
- pricing strategy
- new product rollout
- etc.
 Each of these steps builds upon the prior step. Therefore, you will use the information gleaned from the environmental scan (as well as the company’s objectives) to create an overall strategy for the firm. Ideally, the company will play to the identified strengths and opportunities, proactively address the weaknesses and threats, and take steps to gain a competitive advantage. The next step is strategy implementation.
Will you need board of director approval for the final version of your strategic plan? You can rely on Projector123.com to provide you a professional grade, affordable PowerPoint rental projector. Click here now to reserve yours today.
September 9th, 2011
Whether you’re looking to dramatically expand your current business or simply improve operations and the bottom line, strategic planning is an essential activity for successful business owners and managers. But if you have no business training or background, you may feel inept about the particulars of this key component. In this three-part article series, we simplify the strategic planning process, making it more accessible for small business owners and new corporate execs alike.
Ideally, strategic planning would be conducted annually, usually about three to four months prior to the end of the fiscal year. This allows time to begin to implement the plan no later than the start of the next fiscal period.
 Step 1 – Mission and Objectives
Unfortunately, for some companies, the mission statement is nothing more than ink on paper, as opposed to a real driving force for the forward momentum of the company. The mission statement should include a founding principle upon which the company was created, and remains the foundation for all that the company does. The mission statement is an unchanging purpose, set from a visionary perspective.
Part of strategic planning involves getting back to basics – evaluating the company’s mission statement, not with the intention of changing the mission, but rather, for the purpose of focusing the key business activities on the foundation of the mission statement. For example, if your company’s mission statement is to provide better solutions, are you doing that? If not, it’s time to innovate. If your company’s mission statement includes integrity in an otherwise challenging industry, are company executives, representatives, and policies acting in accordance with this mission? Take a hard look at the founding principles and make necessary changes to align actions with mission.
Along with evaluation of the mission statement comes objectives – specific, measurable targets or goals. In other words, what is the company trying to accomplish? Unlike the mission statement, the objectives may change from time to time, but with the same general purpose. For example: gaining market share, becoming (and maintaining status as) the industry leader, national or global recognition, awards (perhaps for safety, innovation, etc.) and other objectives related to market share, reputation, or the company’s position in the industry.
Objectives should be specific and measurable, and action items in the firm’s strategic plan should be designed to accomplish these broad objectives. For example, if “being positioned as an innovative leader within the industry” is one of the firm’s objectives, then specific action steps would be related to research and development of innovative products, services or technology, testing and evaluation, marketing and public relations to gain positive press for the new innovations, etc.
When it’s time to present your plan to the board or to the employees, trust Projector123.com to provide you with a reliable, affordable slide show rental projector. Click here now to learn more.
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