MBA Series Ep.15 – Strategy I: Positioning
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Designed to support emerging leaders courageously creating an economy that benefits all life, the Next Economy MBA online course was born out of LIFT Economy's 10+ years of work with more than 250 social enterprises and organizations. In this episode of the MBA Series—where we share the content from our course in an open-source, bite-sized format—Shawn Berry and Ryan Honeyman discuss business strategy, specifically how to position your offering in your chosen market.
Tuning in, you’ll learn the importance of distinguishing between needs and known needs, investing time and energy into educating your customer base, and applying build-measure-learn cycles in developing your product or offer. We also look at some of the ways that you can benefit from collaborating rather than competing with other Next Economy entrepreneurs in your industry and how you can evolve your core value proposition over time, plus so much more!
For further insights and innovative examples that illustrate the key elements of strategic positioning, make sure to tune in today.
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Key Points From This Episode:
The importance of market and industry research: needs versus known needs. [0:02:22]
An example that illustrates the benefits of education-based selling. [0:06:21]
Build, measure, learn: a look at the product management lifecycle loop. [0:09:25]
Why differentiation is a key aspect of strategic positioning. [0:12:51]
How WholeTrees demonstrates the segmentation, targeting, and positioning model. [0:15:09]
Complementing rather than competing with other Next Economy companies. [0:22:09]
What we mean when we say “perception is reality.” [0:25:37]
Crafting your core value proposition to resonate with and educate your target market. [0:27:19]
Recapping the key elements of strategic positioning. [0:36:52]
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Tweetables:
“You might firmly believe that your community would benefit from healthy, nutritious, organic, regeneratively-grown food and this is a clear need, but whether it’s a known need in your community might be different.” — @HoneymanConsult [0:03:14]
“A synonym or a key aspect of [strategic positioning] is: how are you differentiated in the marketplace?” — @sd_berry [0:12:57]
“If you’re a Next Economy company, there are often unseen benefits to value-aligned partnerships with other Next Economy businesses.” — @HoneymanConsult [0:23:15]
“One pitfall we’ve seen is, once your core value proposition is identified, it’s fixed for all time. [We see] organizations that are thoughtful about this be adaptive and flexible to change their core value positioning as the market changes.” — @HoneymanConsult [0:32:41]
“You need to find some traction, but if your vision is beyond the initial product or service that you’re gaining traction with, then you can launch some of these parallel efforts [like education] and build on that success.” — @sd_berry [0:36:30]
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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Seedles — https://growtherainbow.com/
WholeTrees — https://wholetrees.com/
Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees — https://www.lifteconomy.com/blog/amelia-baxter
Tanka Bar — https://tankabar.com/
Ryan Honeyman on Twitter — https://twitter.com/HoneymanConsult
Shawn Berry on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sd_berry
Preorder The Next Economy MBA: Redesigning Business for the Benefit of All Life — https://www.powells.com/book/-9781523002573
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Next Economy MBA
This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.
What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).
The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.
Join the growing network of 350+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.
Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.
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Show Notes + Other Links
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