Launching CloudMaker: the 1st Tribal Tool-Kit tool

After years of development we’re very excited about sharing our software with you.

Tribal Tool-Kit is being filled with tools to help you get to know your tribe. The first tool is CloudMaker.

Visualise the language your tribe uses. Easily.

Uncover language for your marketing and develop business planning priorities.

Idea 1: Words your tribe uses to describe you.

Send an email, or ask in a survey, When you think of us, what are the first 3 words that come to mind?

Tribe Research did this recently. We put the words together and imported them into CloudMaker and developed our cloud.

Idea 2: Words your tribe uses to describe an aspect to your business.

Recently we asked on various social media: When you think of the skills needed in business, what first 3 words come to mind?

We put the words together and imported them into CloudMaker and developed our cloud.

Idea 3: Use existing data about your tribe.

Understand the spatial distribution of your tribe by exporting your contacts and importing into CloudMaker. You might have a hidden group that could use your services that CloudMaker would highlight for you.

CloudMaker allows you to edit your data once you have imported it, allowing you to easily: merge, delete, and edit words. You can export your revised dataset. Your cloud can be saved as an image to be placed in your documents, or HTML code so you can put the cloud on your website. The website option allows you to link the words to relevant pages on your website.

Now you can do the same. Tribal Tool-Kit is at: https://www.tribaltoolkit.com/

To have an account of your own, complete our enquiry form and we will set one up for you. The first 50 accounts we set up will be given 25 CloudMaker credits, valued at almost $100.

Happy exploring!

Peace offering: published pieces

To compensate for a blog silence in June and early this month, I’d like to make a peace offering – my video appearance on Kochie’s Business Builders and a number of articles I’ve recently published on small business development.

Each piece focuses on a different aspect of developing your small business via your relationships with each of your important tribal groups; suppliers, yourself, mentors, customers and stakeholders. I welcome your comments and feedback and trust they’ll provide you with some useful tips for your organisation. 

• Supplier Relationships: Supporting your brand, Tribe K, (2008) Flying Solo
• Solo business growth strategies, Tribe K, (2008) Flying Solo
• What I have learnt from my mentor, Tribe K, (2008) Flying Solo
• Seeking feedback from stakeholders to remain competitive and grow your business, Tribe K, (2007) Kochie’s Business Builders video:

 

 

Value for money consultants

One of the biggest problems for small businesses is managing time and cash flow. You can see the need for getting a consultant for developing your business in a specific direction, but you don’t put the time aside later to use the information you have gained from the consultant. As a result, you don’t realise the benefits of their advice and your longer term perception of the consultants’ value for money is decreased.

But that isn’t their fault.

The reasoning is that most consultants are advisors not doers. They will investigate the current situation in your business within their specialty (marketing, finance, business development, research etc) and then provide you with a report of what you should do to rectify or improve the current situation. If you have chosen the right consultant then it is all good stuff, but it doesn’t happen without your participation so the good stuff ends up collecting dust or taking up valuable disk space.

So next time, before you invest in a consultant, make sure you have the time available to digest and act on the information you receive. This will mean that the outcome has real value for you and your business.

Climate change

I was recently reading the October 2007 edition of the Harvard Business Review. Its key focus was climate change.

On page 23 Michael L Porter and Forest L Reinhardt say “A company needs to understand the emissions it causes its business partners to produce, as well as those it generate itself: Both types are important targets for reduction.”

For a while now, I have been an advocate of businesses improving their understanding of their relationships with their suppliers. So many businesses undertake customer/client and staff satisfaction research, but miss out on improving their understanding of their suppliers. As cash flow is one of the main ways that a small growing business can fall over, understanding and improving their relationships with suppliers is critical. If one of your key suppliers is changing their focus, producing in an environmentally damaging way or not aligned with your philosophy then these aspects could significantly impact your business through a change in quality, timeliness of delivery, service, or decreased customer/client satisfaction from an increased desire for environmentally sustainable suppliers themselves.

I suggest business leaders take an active stance on this by getting feedback from their suppliers either formally or informally. You can then assess whether they are the right supplier for you, and if they are, then you can use in your marketing that this is one of the selection criteria for you in selecting a supplier.

Tribes

What tribes are you part of? Or which tribal groups? You might be part of the tribe of a sport by being part of the tribal group of a player, spectator, or supplier of equipment. You are part of the supplier tribal group to your customers and part of the client supplier group for your suppliers.

Understanding these tribal groups is essential for the development of raving fans.

You can read more about our thoughts on raving fans and understanding each of these tribal groups in our Tribal Voice feature article for Spring 2007.