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The Start-Up Essays
This collection of essays will make start-ups and existing businesses think about what it is that you are trying to do. Robert’s style is challenging honest and goading, dare I say, provocative.
After payment the essays will be emailed to you within one working day in PDF format. The licence enables you to make print-out/copy of the PDF for individual use only.
Price - £10.00. When you have completed the Paypal paying procedures your copy of the Start-up Essays will be sent to you as a PDF.
Bright Marketing -
Why should people bother to buy from you?
In today's increasingly competitive marketplaces, people have a choice. They can buy from the 'me too's or they can buy from the market leaders. Bright Marketing argues that in a world full of mediocrity it only takes a five percent difference from the competition to stand out.
NB All postage and packing quoted is for delivery to UK - overseas orders will be despatched at cost.
Kick-Start Your business - 100 Days to a leaner, fitter organisation
Signed Copy
Written by Robert Craven with a Foreword by Sir Richard Branson.
Running a business can sometimes feel like running up the 'down' escalator. Unless you can get your business to work for you.
Kick-Start Your Business uses a practical, hands-on approach to putting your affairs in order.
'Robert Craven’s Kick-Start Your Business covers an essential part of running a business… which will turn your business into a powerhouse by recovering some of the passion and nimbleness… to make your business more effective and more profitable… the business in question often needs a boost – a kick-start to greater success in the future.’
Sir Richard Branson
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RRP £10.99 - plus £2.50 postage and packing. |
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Customer is King - How to exceed their expectations
Signed Copy
If you are the same as your competitors, then why will anyone want to buy from you? And, therefore, how do you separate your business from the rest?
In a world where, increasingly, profit rules Customer is King is about putting the emphasis back on the customer - what happens to your customers when you do business with them?
"In Customer is King, Robert Craven says that your 'whole business hinges on what your customer gets from you'. I agree wholeheartedly. Customers and customer service have long been essential to Virgin - from new customers to customers who have been with us for years - but, as every business should, we want to build on that. Whatever our official job titles, we all work in customer service." Richard Branson
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Buy both books together
Buy both books together for £18.00, including p&p.
The Directors' Centre Coaching Programme
What are the workbooks?
A series of comprehensive workbooks that you can use on your own, with your consultant or with your team to work through a specific topic in your business.
Why should I buy them?
Owning the workbooks enables you to use the actual materials used by DC consultants with their clients at one-to-one sessions and at workshops.
What's the style?
In true Robert Craven/Directors' Centre style, the workbooks pose straight questions in a straightforward and unpretentious manner. This is not for those that want to go in for intellectually stimulating but irrelevant high theory.
What's the benefits to me?
If you want to use the DC materials in your own business then this is a great way of accessing the tools. This is for those that want to understand and develop their businesses.
Coaching Materials
101 - Just How Good Are You?
Before you can talk about what you wish to become, you need to have a clear idea of where you are now… and, what your potential to grow, your capability, is like.
Contents include:
- Commentary - Just How Good Are You?
- Exercise - #1 FiMO
- Exercise - #1 RECoIL
- Exercise - #1 SNOW Workshop
102 - Where Do You Want to Go? (Vision Setting)
Vision, mission and purpose statements have fans and enemies – some clear indication or statement of direction is required because if you don’t know where you want to go then any road will do! If your vision is to be taken seriously, then how do you create one that you really can believe in?
Contents include:
- Commentary - Where Do You Want To Go?
- Exercise - #2 Vision Setting
- #1 Thinking It Through In Your Head
- #2 Thinking It Through On The Flipchart
- #3 Thinking It Through On Flipcharts
- #4 Thinking It Through BHAG
103 - Where Do You Want To Go? (Strategy)
An introduction to strategic thinking – that is, thinking about strategy in a way that can help your business.
Contents include:
- Commentary - Strategic Thinking
- Commentary - Strategy Schamtegy
- Exercise - #3 Key Questions In Strategy
- Exercise - #4 Business Purpose Audit
- Exercise - #5 Market Environment Audit
- Exercise - #6 Competition Audit
- Exercise - #7 Individual Competitor Audits
- Exercise - #8 Industry Attractiveness
- Exercise - #9 Culture Audit
- Exercise - #10 Long Term Plans
- Exercise - #11 Organisation Structure Plans
- Exercise - #12 Short Term Plans
104 - Kick-Start Your Marketing
If marketing is so important then why is it that so few people really understand what it is and how to do it? It is time to get back to basics. First, a quick explanation as to why marketers have been so bad at marketing marketing! And then, the sort of issues that a bright marketing approach will ask of your business.
Contents include:
- Commentary - Marketing
- Commentary - Bright Marketing
- Exercise - #13 The Bright Marketing Workout includes:
- What Does Your Brand Say?
- What Are The Benefits?
- What Business Are You In?
- Who Is The Product For?
- Identify Your USP
- What Is Your Position?
- What Is Your Brand Positioning Statement?
- Guerilla Marketing Audit
105 - Kick-Start Your Numbers
There are some key fundamentals that you must really come to terms with in managing the finances of your business. Ignoring these numbers makes the business vulnerable. This commentary will not tell you how to ‘do finance’ in your growing business. It will not make you into an accountant. But it will focus you on the key financials that you must pay attention to.
Contents include:
- Commentary - Finance Workout
- Commentary - Balanced Business Scorecard
- Exercise - #14 Finance Workout
- Exercise - #15 Balanced Scorecard
- Exercise - #16 One Page Business Plan And Action Planning
- Exercise - #17 Your Best Year Yet
106 - Innovation and Business Plans
The future of your business depends not on doing the same as everyone else but on being different. In the future it will be the innovative businesses that succeed while the laggards will eventually disappear. The problem may not be how to get innovative thoughts into your mind. The problem might actually be how to get the old thoughts out of your mind because it is the old ways of thinking that are stopping you from moving forwards.
Contents include:
- Commentary - Innovation - Getting Out of Your Box
- Commentary - MORFA - Looking at Business Projects and Business Plans
- Exercise - #18 Just How Good Is Your Business Plan?
107 - Success – Psychology and Habits
There are certain things that the successful entrepreneurs do that the others do not. It is as if there was a secret way of the successful. The literature on entrepreneurship is agreed that there are certain traits that most successful entrepreneurs adopt, intuitively or deliberately.
Contents include:
- Commentary - The Psychology of Success
- Commentary - Habits of the Successful
£20.00 including postage and packing
108 - Obsessions of the Successful
Business failure is attributable to one key factor in 99.9% of cases: the owner-manager or the management team. In other words, YOU! You hold the key to your business success and you hold the key to your business failure. The highly successful have an obsessive focus on three key things – do you? And finally, why do most businesses ignore the obvious?
Contents include:
- Commentary - Three Obsessions of the Successful
- Exercise #19 - How Obsessed?
£20.00 including postage and packing
109 - Leadership and the Board
Here we use the concept of business leader as being like a jazz band leader or a surfer! This is no substitute for a thorough examination of leadership as you would find in a dedicated human resources book, but it does provide a good grounding for our overview.
Contents include:
- Commentary - Leaders and Band Leaders as Surfers
- Commentary - Running the Business
- Exercise #20 - Leadership Checklist
- Exercise #21 - Board Performance
£20 including postage and packing
110 - Crunch Questions
Good questions can elicit good, thoughtful and insightful answers. Bad questions tend to generate bad answers. The quest is to be able to select the right questions for the right time. Here is a list of questions that I find incredibly powerful – they precipitate a further analysis of a series of issues and often challenge a series of assumptions, a shaky foundation upon which a whole empire may have been built.
Contents include:
- Commentary/Exercise - Crunch Questions
- Commentary/Exercise - Crunch One-Liners
- Commentary - Running the Business
£20.00 including postage and packing
The Workbooks - Special Offer
You can buy Workbooks 101, 102, 103, 104 and 105 as a set of five for £75 per set - this offer applies to a minimum purchase of three sets. See below for the contents of each workbook.
Just launched - buy now at special price of £10
No time for a seminar - then buy a workbook
Tiny improvements... have a significant effect on your bottom line
Surviving the downturn - THE hot topic