The Lemonade Stand — A way of thinking.

There they were in the distance waiting for what would probably be the first customer of the day; as I continued to walk up the street the tentative excitement became palpable Three little girls and their lemonade stand — A card table, a pitcher of lemonade, a stack of foam glasses and a hand written paper sign that simply said "lemonade 25 ¢". 

When I say framework, what I am referring to is the basic mental structure and process I use for situational understanding, problem identification, and ultimately solution development. 

As I mentioned the "Lemonade Stand" is one of my frameworks, while the other two are the 4P Marketing Mix* and the 7S Model*. It is by using these frameworks that I have been able to focus my thinking with regard to understanding a situation, identifying problems + opportunities, and quickly working through the many connections that make up a business when internal and external factors come into play.

• Product or Service:  What is being sold or aligned with the customer's needs.
• Price: The price of the product or service that reflects its perceived as interpreted by the customer. (The customer perceives the benefits of the product and aligns against the price that he/she is being asked to pay... and that determines value).
• Place (distribution): How the product or service gets to the customer
• Promotional Mix: The messaging that is used to communicate, develop awareness, and influence the customer to transact with the company that is in line with its goals (which more often than not is revenue generation). (Sales, promotions, PR, trade shows, social media, et cetera)

It is with the four P's that your thinking can be grounded regarding this "interaction", either towards the customer or back into the business. These components are the ties between the customer and the business.

My last mental framework is the 7S model... 

• Strategy: The strategy the business is using to achieve its vision and goals.
• Structure: The organizational structure used to run and manage the business.
• Systems (and processes): The systems the business will use to administer the business.
• Staff: The people needed to execute the business.

The next three are the softer components of the model but in my opinion they are the ones that take a business from good to great...  these speak to aspects of leadership in my mind.

• Skills: The knowledge and skills needed to effectively run and manage the business.
• Style: The manner in which the business does things.
• Shared Values: The established business values that are shared by all people involved with the business defining its culture.

                        Have these 11 components been established?

                        How can they be optimized?

                        What is impacting them negatively? 

Business is rather complicated (to say the least), so I am not suggesting there is a magical check list to cover it all, but this does help to frame thinking, develop an understanding of the situation, support planning, as well as solution development for identified problems. It has been very useful for me over the years.

What ever happened to that lemonade stand you may ask? 

The operations expanded to 100 little kids and 30 stands aligned to high foot traffic areas (with an expanded offering of lemonade, fruit punch and apple juice) Management is concerned with shortfalls in revenue, and I suspect it's due to supply chain issues as the structure and supply chain just didn't keep up with the growth. Of course this is speculation on my part.

iamgpe

www.gpestratagem.com 

* 4P Marketing Mix was proposed by marketer E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960, which has been used by marketers throughout the world ever since.

** 7S Model is a management framework developed by well-known business consultants Robert Waterman and Tom Peters.

*** This of course is simplified and also assumes responsible financial and legal management.