“This is a very accessible, inspiring book for entrepreneurs and managers. It is filled with timely examples.”
Walter Kuemmerle, President, Kuemmerle Research Group, Ltd. and former Professor, Harvard Business School.
“Putting the customer at the centre of your company strategy isn’t new. Nor is articulating the value of strategy itself. But simply ‘knowing’ isn’t ‘doing’. What Paul O’Dea does in this book that is so important is to give entrepreneurial teams simple, pragmatic tools to enable them to define, refine, communicate and execute on that strategy. Teams with high-growth ambitions should read and use this book.”
Brian Caulfield, Serial Entrepreneur, VC and Angel Investor
“This book is a great read. It is not just a great read; it brings superb clarity to how to answer the big questions that must be addressed to be successful in business, whatever stage your business is at. Essential reading at least once a year for anyone involved in or interested in shaping a company’s direction.”
Bernie Cullinan, CEO, Clarigen
“Paul’s new book, The Business Battlecard presents a post credit crunch blueprint for a re-start/think. It encourages businesses to deeply question, take stock, align & re-energise. It amplifies the notion of ‘we’ not just ‘me’ in leadership & business. Pragmatic and practical, it provides a synthesis of techniques and process gained from significant hands-on experience and notable business academics alike. Successful companies need to get clarity and alignment on who they are and what they want to be – The Business Battlecard skillfully provides a process to those looking for such guidance.
Intelligent use of skills, imagination and time has never been more relevant for future prosperity. So is it a time to rely wholly on your instincts to start anew or perhaps let a little of the outside in? Paul’s book provides a process and framework to help businesses on their way – followed well it will provide answers to questions too poignant to ignore.”
Ed Cordin, Consulting Director, IDC EMEA
“Extremely good distillation of frameworks, templates and practical roadmaps for planning and implementing ‘go-to-market’ business strategies. Has a very high ROI”
Wasim Azhar, Lecturer in Marketing Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley
“The Business Battlecard starts out by asking the kinds of questions that most of us know are important, but don’t ask ourselves often enough. It then provides a mechanism to answer the questions.
Based on work with a wide range of customers over many years, the concepts and exercises in the book have the ring of authenticity to them. You can always tell when someone has actually been directly involved with a topic, and when they are merely repeating the ‘right’ answer. Paul has obviously been through difficult times with key customers, he’s assisted them to articulate and then execute on fundamental concepts, and now, with The Business Battlecard, he is sharing his experience with a wider group. Who could have thought that discussing strategy could be this much fun?”
Larry Chisvin, COO, Nasdaq quoted, PLX Technology, CA, USA
“Without a solid go-to-market strategy in place, nothing layered on top—not a sales methodology, nor a partnership strategy, nor a marketing campaign – will get the job done. In The Business Battlecard, Paul serves up a practical solution, from soup to nuts – the step-by-step, proven path on which the senior management team can collaborate to ensure every step taken is not only forward, but a step in the right direction. This book is a ‘must use’ for every small company CEO.”
Dave Stein, CEO ES Research & featured sales columnist Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, USA.
“Paul O’Dea’s new book, The Business Battlecard, fully delivers on its opening pledge – to ‘show you how to devise a clear strategy to grow your business; get your team aligned around it; and execute it’.
Strategy is the keyword throughout. A clear strategy that the whole company – not just the exec team – unites around, is absolutely vital for a growing company. Leaders of growing companies will find Paul’s new book a concise, clear and very usable ‘Battlecard’ for strategy creation, execution and continual improvement as they grow their businesses.”
Kieran Conlon, Regional Vice President Sales Europe, Globoforce
“Reading The Business Battlecard an old Japanese proverb kept coming to mind: ‘Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare’. This book helps you avoid the nightmare scenario by turning your vision into an executable strategy that will deliver value to your customers and grow your company. Sustaining growth is a constant battle and effective strategies that are well targeted and easily understood are crucial to winning this battle. So it’s apt that Paul has used the term ‘Battlecard’ to describe his innovate approach to the strategy creation process.”
Barry Murphy, Vice President, Business Development, Oracle Communications Global Business Unit
“There are books that tell you what to do and there are books that show you what to do. This book shows you what to do. It gives you the simple, practical tools which you need to manage and grow your business.
After reading some business books, I come away thinking: What should I do next? How should I do it? This book starts there – it shows you ‘what to do next’ in a very simple, easy to use framework that doesn’t require expensive consultants to do the implementation!”
Riaz Merchant, President, Mertech Data Systems, FL, USA
PUBLISHED BY
Oak Tree Press
19 Rutland Street, Cork, Ireland
www.oaktreepress.com
© 2009 Paul O’Dea.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-904887-28-7
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, without written permission of the publisher. Such written permission must also be obtained before any part of this publication is stored in a retrieval system of any nature.
Requests for permission should be directed to Oak Tree Press, 19 Rutland Street, Cork, Ireland.
Printed in Ireland by Nicholson & Bass Design by hexhibit.com
Winning Moves for Growing Companies
Many people, companies, advisors and academics have influenced the content in this book, none more so than the CEOs of growing companies, whom I have had the privilege of working with in the years since moving from entrepreneur to ‘strategy consultant’. Their challenges, stories and experiences guided me throughout to focus on delivering a book that was ‘usable’.
Thanks to the people working at companies mentioned in the book, like Salesforce.com, Google, Prêt à Manger, Zara… you set great examples to draw on.
I am particularly grateful to all those who reviewed early drafts and whose honest feedback and encouragement made this a far better book. There are listed here in alphabetical order: Wasim Azhar, Tammy Billington, Richard Bryce, Joe Callery, Bernie Cullinan, Donal Daly, Paul Dooley, Ina Foley, Justine Emoe, Jackie Fitzgerald, James and Charlotte Helm, Colin Hughes, Maeve Kneafsey, Walter Kuemmerle, Claire Mc Bride, Bill McCarthy, Cormac MacFhionnlaoich, John Nolan, John O’Shea and Dave Stein.
Particular thanks to my colleague, at Select Strategies, Emer O’Donnell who made an immense contribution and helped refine many of the key ideas. Major thanks to Bridget Hourican, a great editor, who I couldn’t recommend highly enough. She improved this book’s flow and content greatly. Special thanks are due to Alastair Keady whose insightful approach produced excellent graphics from rough ideas.
The following also provided invaluable assistance:
Finally to my wife Clare (and chief editor) whose contribution I am proudest to acknowledge – your support and guidance has been invaluable. To Sean, Maria and Ross – each of you made your contributions and yes, Dad’s book is finished!
To my Dad, Paddy.
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1 Commit to Shared Vision
Chapter 2 Select your Sweet Spot Customer
Chapter 3 Create Measurable Value
Chapter 4 Beat the Competition
Chapter 5 Crack the Channel Code
Chapter 6 Execute The Business Battlecard™
Glossary
Battlecard Toolkit
Entrepreneurs and business leaders never act alone. Success, when it comes, is built brick by brick upon a foundation of believers, supporters, teammates, customers, and family and friends. In the early days – and through the trying nights – of doubts and contradictions, the struggle of building a business is made easier by supporters labouring side-by-side with you to make the great dream come alive.
In this book, Paul O’Dea gives you the tools to earn that support. By gaining the advantage of a clear and concise ‘battlecard’, you stand ready to get your team firing all its bullets at the same target. There is nothing like a unified team to make the infinite challenges in building a business seem surmountable, because with a unified team, those challenges are surmountable. And there is nothing that excites customers more than clear vision and clear leadership.
Unlike many authors, Paul understands that leadership may begin with an individual, but if it ends there, very little of value is created. In this book, he highlights the importance of the team in ‘forming and norming’ around the Business Battlecard.
True leadership is not the oft-imagined lone entrepreneur/manager making every decision and being the sole creative force, but instead is an empowering collaboration of team talent. True leadership isn’t about creating followers. It’s about creating leaders.
I have spent over twenty years starting, building, managing – and mismanaging – a wide variety of businesses, mostly in the technology sector, ranging from companies that employed a handful of people to organizations that employed thousands. Several of these have succeeded, several have failed. What I know for sure is that American writer James Oppenheimer had it right: “The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet”.
What you’ll learn in this book are specific ways you can work with your team to get everyone fully engaged in the process of refining the vision for your company, defining your markets, and sticking to the mission.
Strategy must be acted out here and now, rather than put off to a far corner, as a dusty notecard tacked up onto a wall, or the goal of some future quarter. It must be as vibrantly alive and powerful as a football match or an action movie, and evident in the daily actions of the entire staff of your company.
Most start-up businesses are not necessarily happy places throughout all their phases. Fun places, they can be. Challenging, certainly. But happiness comes when people and teams converge to produce results, to guard each other’s backs – to bump, set and spike each other’s points to victory. This only happens in the aligned team.
Patience and persistence are what it takes to become a world leader in your chosen field. As Dr. Seuss might have put it: ‘Yes you can, you can indeed, build great products and a market lead. You will win in business and soar to heights, have victorious battles and fight great fights.’
But it takes more than dreams to get there. It takes an absolute dedication; a ruthlessly simple and repetitive honing of a competitive advantage and strategy.
Somewhere after the start but before the business has ‘made it’, there comes the darkness: a point where nothing is certain, where in-fighting or finger-pointing frequently occur, where a customer pulls out or a financial crisis starts. If Thomas Paine had tried to start a business and not a revolution, he would have said that these are the times that try men’s souls. In mythology, it’s called the hero’s journey. And it is at this time when your strategy is most needed, to make it through to the other side. The journey may be long. It will be hard. But if it ends in triumph, its rewards defy imagining.
Then again, for business purposes, perhaps that should be called the ‘heroes’ journey’ – plural. For there is never one hero in the creation of a great business, but many, acting in concert.
Paul and I met through a board on which we both serve. I hope you find in this book what I have found in Paul himself: a trusted advisor and confidant. Sharp insight combined with smooth, clarifying process.
Good luck in battle. May your journey be heroic, and your strategy sound.
Sean O’Sullivan
Kinsale, Ireland
December 2008
Sean O’Sullivan is general manager of Avego, executive chairman of Mapflow, and runs SOSventures, a $100 million venture capital fund. He was a founder of MapInfo Corporation, NetCentric Corporation, JumpStart International, and is an award-winning documentary filmmaker.