Robert Stover

You can’t always save a bad product…

It is often possible to take an abysmally performing product and actually turn it into a star through a little breakthrough imagination. You can alter your target markets, the sales process, the channels you sell through, the positioning, packaging, modify major elements of the value proposition and a dozen other high leverage plays.

But sometimes…

You need to face reality. You can’t teach a pig to sing. It frustrates both you and the pig.Read More…

I heard a quote this weekend…

“The grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence. It’s greener where you water it.”

I see so many businesses that face a set-back or competitive challenge or look at what another business is doing and they immediately start throwing time, attention and resources into a new venture or product or direction.

Instead of getting a nice dividend. They often end up losing two opportunities.

The opportunity to grow their existing situation — and the opportunity to reap a harvest with the new one.

Here’s why…Read More…

Strategy will always have an attitude of seriousness…

After all, you are running a company where hundreds or thousands of lives depend on the decisions you make and the actions you take. During times of change and challenge, the decisions you make can mean the difference between success and failure, surviving and thriving.

So, it’s understandable that your team doesn’t approach strategic thinking like a couple of kids in an ad agency, sitting in bean bag chairs, tossing Nerf balls at each other and wondering if they should use a blue monkey to deliver the pitch.

On the other hand, all of your competitors have access to the same industry facts and trends as you do. So, analytics and metrics alone can never be the answer. At the end of the day, you have to take a hard look at the same facts everyone else sees, and see something different. And that is the realm of imagination.Read More…

A few months ago I posted an article titled, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

Well, just yesterday morning I was reminded again of this truth – and it’s price.

I was in a coffee house getting a cup of morning inspiration. The owner of the shop was starting a new, unrelated venture and had created a display of his new product on one of the tables. At a glance I saw a couple big problems with his marketing and packaging efforts. One of the biggest errors was that he had failed to mention any benefits or results or a USP in the headline on either the package or the flyer. Instead he had used his name and the description of the product: Pete’s Widget.

From work with my clients I know that a solid USP or customer-focused headline (or a name that implies a benefit) can kick up sales and response rates by 150% or more.Read More…

Before you can take your company to the next level, you need to take your thinking to the next level.

Einstein said, “We can’t solve our problems at the same level of thinking that created them.”

And we can’t grow our businesses or capture more market share or create more sales growth at the level of thinking that has gotten us, or is keeping us where we are now.

Rarely is the key to breakthrough growth simply doing more of what you are doing now.

That means that we have to think and act differently.Read More…

Fact: We don’t know what we don’t know…

So, huge, HUGE opportunities to create breakthroughs slip through our fingers everyday. Opportunities to increase profits, increase market-share, gain customer loyalty, improve our products, open new markets, discover profitable new channels and many, many more.

All lost because we just plain don’t know what we don’t know.

One Example:

I worked with a company that didn’t understand the simple power of A/B split testing headlines or ads against each other. When they heard the concept the executives thought it was a waste of time because they “knew” which concept was better. Finally they gave it a try. The month they conducted their first test they increased their sales 150%. This company happens to be one of the largest banks in the world. So, that simple test created tens-of-millions in extra revenue.

And that is just one small drop of know-how in a universe of possibilities for jolting your revenues upward.

What is the cure for not knowing what we don’t know about?Read More…