How Frameworks Improve Your Business Thinking

September 23, 2009 · Comments

framework What shape are your business ideas? How do you see the simple edges of what you’re doing? How do models improve your methods and actions?

The conference business is essentially a triangle. One one point are speakers (or content). On another point are the audience. On the third point are sponsors. That’s the conference business in the simplest of nutshells. It’s also not far from how magazines run. It’s a very basic and simple business construct that you can look at and understand the frame.

A consultancy is essentially a solutions and services business. The way to win seems mostly related to how to build replicable menus of services that a sustainable client set needs executed repeatedly and profitably. Keep value high, keep costs reasonable, maintain excellent client relations, manage the margin, and you understand the basics of the business.

Blogging and media making have several ways to be considered. My blog is an informational blog, that hopefully equips several of you to do new things, or to think about your own efforts differently. The business shape of my blog is to make connections, build community, and translate some level of lead generation into business value for me. Thus, I don’t advertise a lot. I don’t push for pageviews. I don’t have all kinds of gimmicks to get you to click through more and more hoops. That’s what blogs that hope to be media properties do.

When thinking about social media tools and how you’re looking to implement them in organizations, be sure to understand the frame of what you’re doing. Are you helping a company onto Twitter to build lead generation? Are you implementing a Facebook fan page and a blog for lead generation? What are the parameters of what you’re doing? How do you align them with the business goals of the company? And how will you lay the simple framework so that you can then build and remove components and complexities as the project continues?

This seems simple, and yet, it’s part of what many of us forget to do. There are lots of reasons to get into using certain tools and services. Understanding the mindset behind where we’re headed is important, and aligning your efforts to a framework of thought is a strong way to improve your chances for success.

What do you think? Have you given your projects thought like this? How else would you advise people to improve their business thinking?

Photo credit, Jonathan Gill

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  • Nice post!

    Here's a lateral thought for you good sir: as a one-time (6 string guitar playing) pro musician whenever I was stuck for song writing inspiration I would pick up my 3 string guitar. Playing with only 3 strings made me disrupt the patterns I usually think of and improvise until I found new 'solutions'. It worked.

    Still does. And I apply it to cracking client social media problems: First reduce the problem to its bare minimum. Define the shape (a triangle, a series of 4, pyramid, figure of 8 etc.) Then repeat that shape for each key business problem. By imposing a structure, framework, it forces you to think within a framework. And that gives you inspiration. New ideas. New ways of working.

    Hope this made even the slightest bit of sense ;)

    Steve Seager
  • The minute you said 3 strings, I thought of the Presidents of the United States of America.

    Very sensible. : )
  • How about this recipe (add spices to taste): work yourself into a frame where you know where you are, where you're headed for, and how to get there. How do you FEEL where you are, right now? How do you hope to be feeling when you get there, later? Your RESULTS now and later? Your HABITS now and later? Business models are unlikely to change how you feel about yourself. How you feel about yourself impacts your business model - whether you let it or not. Next, get going. Make adjustments and corrections as you go along, not before you start. Enjoy the trip. Consider the possibility to not end up where you want may not a bad thing. Seriously. Keep in mind, regardless of business model, if in the first place you're not doing whatever it is you're doing for anything but the sensation you have while doing it, why bother? Smile. Tell 'em you love 'em. Better yet, show them. And you know what? You might just find the frame suits you :-)
  • christinakatz
    Perfectly brilliant and exactly what I need to hear today as I create my business plan for 2010. Thanks, Chris!
  • thomsinger
    Remembering why you are doing anything is important. Knowing how it connects to your main business focus can keep you from going off on tangents (well, sometimes!). But also making sure you build your frameworks on top of a solid foundation is another important element. Too many people start building their "thing" (business, reputation, brand, etc...) without any thought to the foundation. Build on sand and you will see the frameworks tumble when they get too big. Foundations require time to be sure they are secure.
  • Nice Post Chris (as usual),
    I agree with the above analogies, but would add one other business proposition/thinking:
    USP, your unique selling proposition; that is, what differentiates you and your business from your competitors?
    Cheers
    Michele Smorgon (@maxOz)
  • belchingmonkey
    This can also be a framework. It needs to be the most flexible of any of your methodologies though, particularly in professional services where you are solving customized problems. But still, it's a series of building blocks or modules that you can swap in and out of the value proposition.
  • @ Michele I agree that the USP (unique selling proposition) is something that needs to be fully developed in order to grow into a stable enterprise. Unfortunately, it seems as though (from my experience) that this is the hardest thing thing to get right. You have to understand your product and its benefits to your audience.

    Then you have to ask yourself: Who is my audience?? And that, too, is not easy to figure out.
  • belchingmonkey
    Chris, allen & gerritsen (my employer) is absolutely thinking along the lines of not only frameworks, but the "productization" and scalability of its offerings. My background is in management consulting so I am used to overblown, bloated methodologies where clients end up spending money on documents they will never read twice. I loathe that- and so our frameworks are streamlined and we give our clients the information and documentation that is vital to their mission. We have repeatable offerings and products with tiers of service that allow clients to test into an offering and graduate to additional levels as they crave more information. Great post.
  • jasonstoddard
    Or a Pyramid based on the philosophical value hierarchy. :-)
  • Scheme-worthy response, sir.
  • My business is helping others improve Web performance. As a framework, what I've come to realize is that there are two primary activities for success (and you're not immune Chris): 1. increase business lead generation or sales leads conversion, and 2. grow traffic through superior keyword choices. The first is a strong rejection of your default conversion rate, with a commitment to improve. The second requires an epiphany that Internet advertising is all about the keywords you choose (whether on purpose or by accident - all roads lead back to Google and PageRank).

    Now, and don't take this the wrong way, because your post had the structure of a Velvet Underground song - I may be way off on my answer here! The other possibility is that I'm really flippin' tired! :)
  • I do #1 all the damned time. I do precious little of #2. (Er, um, and by that, I mean the two options you gave, not bodily functions.)
  • sytaylor
    With Business thinking, everything is on the table. If you bring value, and can demonstrate it you will be heard, even in a triangle framework.

    Simple is beautiful, any business idea has to come from a framework that could eventually take many forms. Often the final product is quite different to the initial vision. Experience and reality shape the end result. If your idea isn't tied to a technology, constraint or limiting belief it has scope to change.
  • Simon,

    Your quote on how "Simple is beautiful, any business idea has to come from a framework that could eventually take many forms." It's amazing on how much of the efforts we put into our work often amounts from a simple starting point, and if we don't push it too fast we will be more more effective and succeed far more rapidly!

    Great wording on that section :)
  • tammymcdaniel
    "Blogging and media making have several ways to be considered. My blog is an informational blog, that hopefully equips several of you to do new things, or to think about your own efforts differently."

    Chris: Definitely. I owe much of my growth in the social media arena to you and your Blog. As well as the videos you shot for/with HubSpot. Thanks!
  • I'm in the middle of writing a new business plan and this is a way of encapsulating the core of the business that makes great sense. Now, it's just how to cook down all the juicy details into this sort of format.
  • lisamurray
    I like to think of business in terms of business models - if you get the model right and implement well you make money - business really is that simple! As a business coach, I see lots of small business owners who never give this more than a cursory thought and then wonder why they aren't making any money!!

    Thanks Chris for sharing some interesting models - there's also heaps more ideas to explore if you google the wikipedia entry on business models... how much more money can your business make?
  • It's so easy to loose sight of your target when you are threading in relatively new and unknown territory, and when there are so many new tools and services coming up every day.

    This is the mindset I keep finding many businesses and the people behind them, experiencing today, when they look at getting involved with New Marketing tools.

    So thank you for bringing this up Chris and for sharing your thoughts on the subject. I agree that we need to look at our efforts with a defined strategy and as you mentioned, understand the framework of what we are doing.

    Excellent read. Keep them coming! ;)

    -Franklin
  • i think the process is simplified when a person or organization defines what they want and why they want it. answering these two questions helps one decide what tools are best suited for their purpose(s).

    it seems to me confused mindsets are often the result of not answering the what and why or having adopted a short-term thinking thought process.
  • I certainly think "why" is the imperative word out of your comment I take the most value from. I mean, people's assumptions of using social media is that "it's what everyone else is doing, so I will too" but if they can't understand "why they want it" for their business, or their own personal brand. They fail!
  • bobkreha
    Good post. I agree that simplicity is key to success. With respect to Social Media, I think the challenge, even if your objective is lead generation on Twitter for example, is distilling that message into 140 chars and still coming across as genuine. I don't think anyone wants to be "pitched" on Social Media, though it seems that's coming anyway.
  • Nice post, Chris. Frameworks are key to doing anything.

    Glad to see your mention of "social media for lead generation". There's still too many b2b companies doing "social media for brand awareness".

    Re: your event framework, I'd argue there's 4 points. Or it should be a square. In my previous startup, we focussed on helping others market their events by providing the media. We had an affiliate network of other businesses, sites and email list owners that would help. I didn't have enough runway to get it off the ground. But, the idea of providing exposure to event producers is very undeveloped. Most event producers must are at the mercy of their own reach or the reach they can barter with media companies.
  • I can't agree more.
  • toekneebee
    Speaking of shapes and business, there's another simple shape to go along with work you might be doing for a client. It is very applicable to me as a freelance designer. Imagine a triangle balanced on one point. The basic upside-down pyramid shape. Got it? Ok...I have my clients tell me, out of these three things, what are the two most important: budget, deadline, or features. Their choices go on the top two points of the triangle, while the remaining one gets placed at the bottom. If I were designing/building them a website and they chose "budget" and "deadline" as their top two priorities, then "features" would fall to the bottom. In a nutshell, if you want a quick, cheap website done, you can't expect it to be rich in custom, extensive features. If they would've wanted lots of features and wanted it on a quick-paced deadline, then "budget" would fall to the bottom and it would probably be a more expensive site. I hope this makes sense and is relevant to this post.
  • An important bit of advise to share: We must school ourselves in the metaphysical techniques of "Lateral Thought".

    www.twitter.com/aainslie
  • sokogoose
    I have to agree with John that eventually it's all about the numbers. Twitter falls into that catagory as a website that propogates short bursts of "hot air" that are completely worthless. At least to Twitter because they don't make any money by what they do. Yet this company is valued at how much? Why? Because the promise of its potential. That potential is soley based on the number of users, content is completely irrelevant as long as you have huge numbers.
  • scottcarpenter
    building on your framwork,Chris, I would ask my client several questions especially:
    1. What are their objectives?
    2. How will they measure success?

    These questions go to your sugestion to "align them with the business goals "

    Scott
  • Very helpful and insightful post. Very insightful comments as well.
    What I'm wondering, regarding the Unique Selling Point, is how much of that is about getting to know "Chris" or whomever as a person ( children, taste in food, what that person is doing on the air plane etc.) vs. the real business nuggets, like this post, that take a bit of thinking through? What is it that makes Chris looking out the airplane window interesting to a lot of people?
  • I think it's a lot like that, the "getting to know people" part of things. But that's what I'm advocating. I don't know that all businesses will think like this, and not at all levels but definitely, I think it's going to give us a new way to compete.
  • addytseng
    Thanks Chris! I love frameworks. That's how I think.
    Yesterday I talked about the membership business model to my group. Advantages? Level out the income stream so you can budget & schedule your time. Build a list. Fill excess capacity. Make services more affordable.
    This last one reminds me of the insurance model - spread the risk to make premiums more affordable.
    Netflix, gym memberships use the lure of "unlimited usage". Yes, it can be abused, but in reality, 99% of folks don't have that much time! Also, people lose interest. The people who don't use the gym much actually subsidizes the frequent users. That allows the gym to operate at 50%(?) of potential max capacity because not everyone is going to walk in at the same time.
    Banks operate that way too....unless something happns..then everyone rushes to withdraw their deposits!
    It is fascinating to look at different business models!
    @lisamurray I will check out wikipedia for business models. Thanks!
  • Very interesting about the membership model as a leveler. And I agree that @lisamurray has just opened my head up a bit. : )
  • I don't think I consider myself "lead generation", but I always encourage clients and partners to try new things. But I never introduce new ideas without a fair warning. Sometimes there are specific steps to take to delve into social networks without compromising privacy. Facebook apps to enhance your fanpage are a great example of these. Facebook does not limit who can develop apps and who cannot. Because of this, there are great ones out there and there are also a bunch of duds that just mine information from your personal profile and fans. :/ I encourage all who get into the more complicated technology to research well before taking advantage of the fabulous technology we have out there. ;)
  • Stupendously useful description for consulting business!

    I'll be spending some time sorting my capabilities into your consulting business model, just to see what pops out.
  • I can't really agree with this more.

    The very concept has been INSANELY useful for my business.
  • stevepoppe
    Agreed. So may I please have 3 lbs. of Twitter, one group of Facebook, 1,000 YouTube views and click through rate of 2%? And may I have that for $12,000 to go (quickly)?
  • i can see the triangle of the conferences...my gig has the shape of an viral machine...but in the simplest terms...one side is the client, services, end users, bloggers, and an open portal to the masses
  • Great outline Chris. I particularly liked your comment re your blog. I've certainly changed my way of thinking about my blog since its inception. When I first started it, I was intent on driving my traffic and retweets, and then hope I could build the list of thousands to market to. Quickly though I took a step back to assess exaclty what it was that I was providing.

    I, like you, love talking with people about my field and imparting knowledge I have taken from my experience, and this in turn informed the tone of my blog. With the blogging universe crowded with people offering advice and opinion, I focussed on trying to provide quality content that I hoped would speak for itself - if it's of value to one person, mission accomplished. Using that framework, I've had greater success with it now than in the earlier days, and has led to other opportunities. Sure, there are still hit and miss moments with what content I do provide, but that's certainly allowing me to fine tune it, creating greater value.

    Thanks for continuing to provide great insight and advice.
  • timdanyo
    Thanks for the insight! There's got to be a purpose everything you do in the social scape. If not, you wate time. That's very easy to do.

    I just read Trust Agents over the weekend. Time to read it again this weekend :-)
  • Well said beachcoach!

    Passion, Enthusiasm, a Genuine Love of Helping Others, Listening, Engaging, Flexibility, these cannot be put into any framework!
    Ultimately these will contribute to your frame
    Michele
  • In the current market, we've been looking for more and more ways to scale our services. Your concept of framework fits in with how we are scaling things. As the image accompanying this post suggests, we've basically taken our original framework, and shrunk it down, offer options of good, better, best while maintaining our core business structure. Without defining our framework, and scaling our framework, we'd be really hurting right now.

    Great post.

    -Brian
  • Very interesting thoughts, I don't have much to offer as far as advice here. However, it is nice to read informative articles like this that I can take into my business life, thanks for sharing.
  • Thank you very much,I have read it now.
    And welcome to my site,
  • Excellent post. I think frameworks are key to doing anything. Blogging and media making have several ways to be considered. Thanks for sharing such a great and informative post with us. Keep blogging.
  • Excellent post. Great article.visited your site for first time today,but i must say your write is of top notch and i will surely frequent your site. I would like to say thank you for sharing this cool article. Keep blogging.
  • Fantastic post. I agree that simplicity is key to success. With respect to Social Media, I think the challenge, even if your objective is lead generation on Twitter. I would like to say thank you for this cool and creative post.
  • tiffanyfeeling
    Accounted for a floor first, for a while and then to express their views www.tiffanyfeeling.com
  • Great post as usual. When working on a project I like to ask the client what they see as the framework first. How do they see their business, what do they want to do, and how does it fit together. Then as an outside set of eyes I look at the whole thing, make my suggestions and thats what we use as a starting point to create what ever they want or need.

    Whether you're creating an awareness, loyalty, lead generation, or brand campaign or just laying out a business plan having a framework is very helpful. It will help keep you from making some mistakes (but not all) and help create a path when viewing a large project pr program. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.
  • Chris: this is good advice not only for business/business models, but for business relationships and building your personal brand as well.

    You posed the question: "How do models improve your methods and actions?". People talk "endgames" and objectives for their business plans, but less talk about them for their business relationships or interactions.

    Any interaction you have is lead generation. Wether it be an interview, business meeting or a networking opportunity, I like to use a model for it. It is a descriptive model that at the least, keeps me on track so I know that I am not only "getting" but contributing so that person says, "ok, that was worth my time and will be in the future". The framework keeps me on the rails and allows me to make changes on the fly.

    My frame for doing this also has a few key triggers that compliment my personality...keeping it a fresh experience for new encounters and a continually rewarding one for those I know and work with often.

    Delivery is important as well. Contrived conversation is B.S. If you can't be yourself, don't be someone else. You'll be found out...

    Frames are great for business and even better for getting a personal message across.

    Thanks again.
  • tiffanyfeeling
    Some unseen fingers, like an idle breeze, are playing upon my heart the music of the ripples.

    http://www.hottiffanyshop.com
  • Best investment I've made this year. Frameworks is great. I don't know what else to say. Frameworks is the most valuable business resource we have EVER purchased.
  • A framework is a real or conceptual structure intended to serve as a support or guide for the building of something that expands the structure into something useful. So the purpose behind to establish framework is to start the business with proper visionary approach and run the operations smoothly ...
  • angelia110

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  • Hi

    Very good point. If anyone is looking for a great website for the use of frameworks, check out JD Meier's Sources of Insight. www.sourcesofinsight.com

    Juliet
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