Oprah Winfrey’s business secrets for success

According to Business Brief.com, here are some of the business takeaways of Winfrey’s success that any exec can use:

1. Avoid deals that could compromise your brand
2. Use your own company’s resources (e.g., Web site, blogs, social networking sites, newsletters, etc.) to strengthen your brand and stay in touch with buyers:
3. Specialization spells success:
4. Stay one step ahead of the competition by knowing what’s about to change, and using it to your advantage:
5. Convey the image of a consummate professional:
6. Take the people you admire and give them an opportunity to succeed:

If history’s any indication, it’s a safe bet Winfrey will use her own show to announce what that next move(s) will be. She’s an ace at using her own marketing channels to promote herself. But she’s also a woman who turned her name into a global brand – a brand that’s about to enter a brand new era.

Click here to read the entire article on the BusinessBrief.com website.

Tips for Holding Effective Practice Meetings

According to a recent article of the same name by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (12/01/09), there are a number of strategies that practices can follow to ensure that meetings are shorter and more productive.  Some of these are:

• Advanced scheduling of meetings.  This is critical for large groups.
• Hold meetings on different days.  Meetings should be held on different days or times so no one doctor is regularly inconvenienced or a no-show on account of office, surgery, or call centers.
• Set the agenda. All group members should be surveyed by the practice manager about a week before the meeting so that an agenda can be set.
• Appoint a chairperson.  One person–the president or managing partner–should be appointed chair of the meeting.
• Stick to the agenda.  The agenda must be adhered to unless an emergency crops up.
• Don’t get bogged done in the details.  The meeting should concentrate on the general view rather than every individual component of the financial statement.
• The minutes.  Take care to ensure that the minutes of the meeting mirror not only what happened, but also the session’s tone.

Luxury products showing a rebound

Discounters and off-price stores were the real winners in 2009 as bargain-hungry shoppers gobbled up inexpensive clothing and sale items. Meanwhile, luxury goods were pariahs, stuck on shelves as well-to-do consumers re-evaluated their stock portfolios and played it conservative. But that scenario could be turned upside down this year. With the Dow Jones industrial average up around 25 percent over last year and businesses expecting modest growth, affluent shoppers are feeling confident and venturing back into stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, picking up designer sweaters, pants and dresses again.

“We started to see the luxury segments show better performance at the end of the holiday season, and I suspect that will be the area that will be the strongest in 2010, in part because that was the hardest hit during the last recession,” said Michael Niemira, chief economist and director of research for the International Council of Shopping Centers. Luxury goods will see stronger recovery starting in mid-2010. “It is part of a cyclical story,” Niemira said. “You may end 2010 where JCPenney and Sears and Target are doing a lot better, but you might see a softening in the dollar stores. That type of rotation will play out as the economy improves.”

In general, Niemira said, the retail year for everyone will be choppy in January and February, gradually picking up speed and starting to hit its stride in the third and fourth quarters of this year. The ICSC predicts that chain stores will experience a 3 percent to 3.5 percent increase in sales this year, compared with a 2 percent decline in 2009.

ADG&A believes that optical retailers should be encouraged by this trend toward luxury but that it is too early to move away from their efforts to establish more value in the products they are selling.

Source: California Apparel News.net

Managing your brand? Create better realities

A Bain & Co. survey notes that 80 percent of CEOs believe their product to be differentiated, but only 8 percent of consumers agree. And Y&R’s recent Brand Asset Valuator found a 90 percent erosion in brand differentiation over the last 10 years. These are not just sad examples of illusory superiority, but a staggering statement of retailer’s failure to add value in the past decade.

It’s critical that marketers realize that the product or service itself is the most powerful brand-building tool. We’ve all heard it before: “innovate or die.” But today’s hyper-connected society adds a sense of urgency to this broadly accepted mantra because mediocrity is getting extinguished with increasing speed via social networks.

Because reality always trumps image, marketing needs to create real value versus just adding a perceived value. Marketers need to shape the offer — the product, service and experiences consumer buy — not just communicate it. Marketing becomes the product and the product becomes the marketing.

Because eyewear and routine eyecare are largely considered undifferentiated products by most consumers, ADG&A continues to advise its clients to create value propositions and to revise them regularly.  Once a differentiation strategy is adopted, then it must be clearly and regularly communicated to patients/customers.

Source: Brand Week

Report shows a changing African-American population

Though many marketers are focusing on how the 2010 U.S. Census will show growth in the Hispanic population, a new study argues that the African-American community presents another great opportunity. The report, commissioned by BET and based on U.S. Census Bureau data, shows that black Americans are both more well-off and more suburban than previously thought.

Overall, the report, entitled “African Americans in 2010,” finds that the black population is growing 34 percent faster than the population as a whole. When the U.S. Census tallies its 2010 numbers, demographers expect it will show that there are about 50 million Hispanics in the U.S. and around 42 million African Americans. But though there are fewer African Americans, the population is changing in ways that make such consumers more attractive to marketers, namely:

• African Americans are nearly six years younger than all consumers; 47 percent are between 18 and 49 years old, which is considered the top-spending age demo by marketers.
• Black households making $75,000-plus have increased 47 percent in the last five years—1.5 times faster than the general population.
• If current trends continue, by 2015 more than half of all black Americans will live in the suburbs.
• Although their population is smaller, there are more African-American households in the U.S. than Hispanic households because the latter tend to have larger families.
• Forty-two percent of black adults have never married compared to 26 percent of all adults. This trend is increasing among younger age groups.

Source: Brand Week