What is the value of something? That depends. In the industrial economies, mass outputs mattered. Andrew Carnegie created his wealth through the control and management of raw materials and resources. The rule of the industrial age was, the more you made and shipped out the door, the more you could invoice (efficiency of outputs). Matter, weight, mass and volume was king.

Today matter, doesn't matter! Information used to be more valuable than physical assets. Now it is innovation and creativity that rules the day.

1990's Business Development Strategies

Cultivate an External Focus: What does the customer want? Organize your business and web site around the customers' desired ends! i.e. solve a problem.

Total Customer Satisfaction: The relationship between the producer and consumer is critical! Internet producer is the web site, information and content, as well as the relationship with the web site owner.

Maximize satisfaction by eliminating and/or reducing the number of people between the producer and consumer (prosumer).

Reduce time between need awareness and need fulfillment.

Focus on deliverables and intangible benefits in your web site design and content.

Value of a Deliverable = Information and Mass

Add more intangible services to the tangible product. Add more tangible products to intangible services!

Strive for simultaneous delivery and consumption.

Examine your delivery chain and look for the amount of time occupied at each point in the value-added chain. Look for ways to add more value through access of information and shortening the time it takes to perform those functions at the point where the value-added is the greatest in your business.

21st Century Business Development Strategies

This will require a fundamental shift in thinking away from control of people and things toward collaboration, cooperation and connection.

Now more than ever we truly need to approach business as collaborators, directly tied to each other's success because happy employees create happy clients and are successful people.

Increasingly the relationship between employee and your company derives its strength from the team because employees are more like peers, partners, or fellow contemporaries.

Management must focus on training, mentoring and coaching. Remember, cooperation, collaboration, and connection - that is what employees, customers, and the business needs - every employee becomes a major contributor to the company's consciousness, awareness, and achievement.