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Strategic Planning: Rich Schefren, Johnny Rotten And Keith Levene.
A report from 'The Family Business School'
John Lydon and Keith Levene appeared on the Tom Snyder's American T.V. show in 1980. John Lydon was popularly known as Johnny Rotten, his alter ego from his days as a musician with the punk band 'The Sex Pistols'. Keith Levene was a early member of 'The Clash' another punk band. By the time these clips were recorded 'The Sex Pistols' had disintegrated and Lydon and Levene had formed a company in the U.K. called Public Image Ltd.
Most people saw Public Image Ltd as a band, but this is a mistake as Tom Snyder discovers. Lydon and Levene really had learned much from their early days as musicians and recognized how important it is to own your own work, and to manage your own destiny. Not that this is easy, or that necessarily having a vision and purpose leads to automatic success, it just makes it more likely.
In the event Public Image Limited split in 1983, which is a pity because in these videos Lydon and Levene show some promise as business minds, even if their communication style was not to Tom Snyder's taste!
According to Rich Schefren, President of Strategic Profits, Vision + Strengths + Passion + Resources + Alliance Partners + Powerful Tactics + Action Plan = Success. When one of these key ingredients is missing you don't have a sustainable business.
It is for this reason that larger organizations out-perform smaller start-ups. The larger institution is more likely to have identified all these key ingredients and have teams working on them. Sometimes this 'work' may seem like days of interminable meetings, but when these enable a business to develop workable policies and an infrastructure that delivers the goods that translates to productivity and profits.
Vision
Vision is who you are, or how you want to be. If you have no vision you have no idea where you are going, or how to behave. You are a rudderless ship tossed and turned by the tide of everyday events. This is a recipe for disaster in business practice because like any boat in a storm you will soon become overwhelmed and either sink, or maybe be forced to put into an unfriendly port.
Strengths
Unless you build your business around your strengths you will find it difficult to organize. Every successful business owner know her, or his strengths, and takes care to engage people of high caliber whose strengths are different but complimentary. In this way a business becomes more than the realm of just one person's strength and expertise.
Passion
It is a truism to state that a business owner without passion for his company, or product, will be a very sad character. Passion drives business just as petrol, and in the future more ecological forms of energy, fuels automobiles. How often have you gone into a restaurant offering a superb menu only to be put off by the surly manner of the proprietor? I am sure you can find a host of similar examples.
Resources
Passion is, of course, just one of a number of business resources. But a business needs more resources than passion if it is to thrive. If your business lacks key resources you become frustrated, rather than passionate. Soon demoralization sets in, and with it the business slowly withers. Resources are what get jobs done. Even if you're a great copywriter, or book-keeper, or great at sales it's impossible to do everything yourself. The trick is to hire the right people, preferably ones with intelligence and initiative who can help the business to self-organize in healthy ways.
Alliance Partners
Alliance partners are people in your business, or non-competing related businesses with whom you cooperate. In Japan it has long been the policy for the heads of rival corporations to meet and share 'trade secrets', in this way Japanese industry profits overall. In America direct mail companies rented their mailing lists to each other, but in Europe this never occurred. The result is that American companies rule the direct mail industry. Alliance partners allow businesses to share development, marketing, and distribution costs. They also add valuable insider information to business intelligence helping it prepare for changing patterns of economy and technology.
Powerful Tactics
Without powerful and effective marketing tactics no business can succeed. If you are a shop you need to be on the high street where people with cash pass, not on the fifth floor of some shopping-mall. But what if you are on the fifth floor? Then you can only use savvy marketing tactics to either, bring the customers to you, or treat your shop as office space and communicate with your customers by some other means, such as a web site, a catalogue, a mailing list, or good old-fashioned print advertising. All this costs money, and so marketing needs to be planned and effective if it is to provide a satisfactory R.O.I.
Action Plan
Finally, you need an action plan. This is your road map which takes you from where you are now to the vision of your dreams. Your action plan isn't written in stone. It's a road map, rather than a railroad. What's the difference between a railroad and a road network. Quite simply if your train is derailed you can't go anywhere by train. Driving off-road however can be fun, provided you always ensure that you're headed in the right direction.
Remember though this plan is all about 'action'. Unless you act upon your plan all your preparation will be wasted.
What happened to Johnny Rotten? He's made T.V. shows in America, appeared on the Richard and Judy Show in the U.K., featured on reality T.V. in England, created an entire show about insects and creepy crawlies, and now is back on the road with 'The Sex Pistols'!