"The Turnaround" on CNN

I've been turned on to an interesting show on CNN called "The Turnaround". The show takes a small business owner with a struggling business and pairs he or she up with a mentor from a similar field/industry. Usually at a much larger scale. This week, for example, a small general contractor was paired up with a multi-billion dollar home builder.

With the exception of the Kathy Ireland show, this has been a great series. The mentor usually brings his crew along to break down various aspects of the business. Usually, the big themes are marketing related. Are you priced right? Are your materials professionally done and up to date? What kind of analysis are you doing on your data? Are you even collecting data? Do you know your customers? How well? Are you surveying them? What does the survey look like?

The pareto rule plays a big part in this series. Each mentor usually makes the business owner understand the 80% of revenue comes from 20% of the customers. Niche! Big on selling to the niche! Big on making people PAY for your expertise/quality/level of service, etc. All things that we are ALL about here at diligentia.

I recommend using your Tivo on this one though. A LOT of filler. Lead-in and lead-out bumper filler material. Lot of re-capping that is not necessary. If you tivo, you only really have to watch about 25 minutes of show. Go check it out.

Technorati Tags: The Turnaround, CNNTV, marketing, small business