Lots of small businesses suffer from what I call Isolated Marketing Deficiency (IMD). Often these deficiencies are quite minor; a missing sales brochure, a key piece of information that hasn’t made it to the website or some neglected social media. Maybe the parking lot needs to be striped or a quick change in merchandising will yield profitable results. IBDs are hard for small business owners to recognize and easy for almost everybody else.
Honsa Ergonomics is a premier manufacturer of pneumatic tools which reduce workplace repetitive stress injuries. The sort of injuries that would occur from operating an air hammer all day long, if you can imagine. Honsa Ergonomics has figured out a way shield the human from the violent, business end of the tool.
The company engaged Marigold Resources to write a value building strategic plan. My focus was sorting through all the business data and projections, so I wasn't looking for it, but once I didn't see it, I couldn't not see it. There were no human beings pictured in the company's advertising or sales material. A company that manufactures ergonomic hand tools and their were no hands using them.
When I questioned the CEO, he explained, "We try to take pictures but they never turn out. It's our customer's factory, we don't want to take up too much time, there's never enough light, some people don't want to have their pictures taken. I just considered it one of those things that wasn't going to get done."
Which is typical of many small business owners, they have to focus on staying afloat, if they're lucky they can make some long-term plans. Identifying and fixing IMDs is a luxury.
Solving In Honsa Ergonomics IBD was straightforward: hire appropr
