FMCG Advice for Young Professionals: Master Basics, Respect Execution, Stay Close to Market

My brilliant friend Ling Koay 🫛 wrote this, and I will translate it into the Family Firm Advisor framework😎 Her compounding framework is written from the CMO’s chair, but I believe it translates beautifully into the world of family firms—where alignment, execution, brand, and rituals also decide whether growth compounds or chaos multiplies. Here’s my “Family Firm translation” 👇 #1 Mindset & alignment — where compounding starts • 🤍 Culture is your first growth channel. Family values are inputs, not the whole recipe—design them into how you hire, price, and decide. • 🤍 Clarity > urgency. Write down roles (owner/family/management) and decision rights before the next fire drill. • 🤍 Company first > individual brilliance. Founder heroics don’t scale; governance does. • 🤍 Communicate values simply. One page. Plain language. Shared often. #2 Execution — where compounding breaks or accelerates • 🤍 Inches decide outcomes. One product margin, one delivery promise, one cash routine—small wins stacked weekly. • 🤍 Intent > busywork. Trade “more fairs & sponsorships” for two measurable growth bets. • 🤍 Avoid the average traps. Don’t copy competitors; choose a few things to be world-class at. • 🤍 Hire for compounding, not convenience. Family loyalty is wonderful; competence is non-negotiable. • 🤍 Data is connective tissue. Three dashboards everyone sees: cash, gross margin, on-time delivery. • 🤍 Recessions stress-test execution. Pre-plan your -20% revenue playbook. #3 Brand visibility — where the market feels your compounding • 🤍 Brand starts inside. If the team can’t tell your story, the market won’t either. • 🤍 Build mental shortcuts. Define the 3–5 buying moments you must own (“custom doors in 10 days”). • 🤍 Different > better. Choose a promise you’re willing to be judged by. #4 Playbook & rituals — how compounding sustains • 🤍 Cadence builds muscle memory. Weekly leadership huddle, monthly owner council, quarterly family assembly. • 🤍 Play like a CMO without hiring one. Message house, 90-day campaign calendar, simple funnel metrics. Common myths that stall family firms (before professionalisation): • “Our family = our culture.” → Only if it’s operationalised. • “Speed beats structure.” → Speed without clarity multiplies rework. • “The founder is the brand.” → The company must outlive any one person. • “We don’t need data; we have instinct.” → Instinct + numbers = judgment. • “We’ll fix process later.” → Later never comes; start small this quarter. 👉 Now I’d love to hear your perspective. Reshare this post from your angle—whether you’re a founder, adviser, or operator. Tag me and Ling Koay 🫛 and let’s see how many intelligent additions we can bring to this already sharp list. #FamilyFirmAdviser #GrowthPartner #FamilyBusiness #Professionalisation #Governance #Leadership #Compounding

Selling principles for card collections include valuing condition, researching market prices, using multiple online and offline platforms, engaging with the collector community, creating high-quality listings with clear photos and descriptions, being patient for the right buyer, and building a positive reputation to maximize profit and ensure a smooth transaction. A leadership development strategy is a planned approach to growing leaders' skills, abilities, and mindsets to meet an organization's current and future needs of leadership development strategy for a small business guiding fundamental areas of leadership.Effective leadership requires developing a rich mix of skills and competencies including emotional intelligence, adaptation, and collaboration of gathering business development properties. Though a small business model is a plan for how the business will operate, attract customer identifies the products or services the business plans to sell by research development. Direct-to-Consumer based though create, deliver, providing insights processes product development purposes and analyzing data insights development strategies! Those business strategies success, guiding take-Off market opportunities though , a research a data framework guiding patterns guiding characteristics and functions market daily practices The ability , to get more customers, focus on a multi-faceted approach including enhancing your online presence with a strong website and social media, leveraging marketing strategies like content marketing development purposes guiding patterns small business model it's user-friendly digital, online or in person of business professional magin standards and descriptions developmental qualities improvement standards .

My Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman is a practical guide to understanding and applying essential business concepts without the need for a formal MBA degree. Genius!! highlight from this book 1. Value Creation: The foundation of any successful business is creating value for customers. This involves offering products or services that meet needs, solve problems, or improve lives. 2. Marketing and Sales Fundamentals: A great product alone isn’t enough. Effective marketing (understanding customer needs and positioning your offering) and strong sales strategies are critical to attracting and retaining customers. 3. Financial Acumen: To succeed, businesses must manage cash flow, profit margins, and expenses effectively. The book breaks down basic financial concepts, emphasizing cost control and revenue growth. 4. Human Behavior and Decision-Making: Understanding how people think and make decisions is key to business success. The book explores how to leverage psychology to influence customers and manage teams. 5. Operations and Productivity: Efficient business operations require smart time management, resource allocation, and team coordination. Kaufman highlights the importance of setting priorities, defining goals, and delegating tasks effectively. 6. Continuous Learning: The business world is dynamic, so ongoing learning through books, experiences, and practice is essential for long-term success.

God's blueprint for effective business long before MBA programs existed. 1 Corinthians 12:4–11 unpack. 1. Gift - The Skill or Advantage "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” This speaks to talent, ability, or unique strength. What you bring to the table that others may not. In business terms, your gift is your core competency. The thing that sets your brand apart. It could be creativity, storytelling, persuasion, empathy, or even technical mastery. Everyone has something the market can’t easily replicate. 2. Service - The Application of the Gift “There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord." “Administration” here means how the gift is used to serve others. In business, this is your offering. The product or service through which your gift becomes useful. It’s the channel or model you use to solve problems: A designer’s gift might find service in branding, web design, or UI/UX. A marketer’s gift might find service in consulting, campaigns, or content creation. It’s not enough to have the gift. it must be structured into service for the consumption of the people. 3. Operation - The System That Produces Results “There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who works all in all.” “Operation” points to process, execution, or systemization; how everything works together to produce consistent outcomes. In business, this is where strategy, automation, and scaling come in. It’s not just what you do or how you do it, but the engine behind it; your workflows, marketing systems, team structures, and growth levers. Gift Your unique talent or advantage Service : Your product or delivery model Operation: Your system and structure that drives growth God was simply describing what every successful enterprise needs: Gift - innovation Service - value delivery Operation - sustainable growth It’s like God gave the blueprint for effective business long before MBA programs existed.

Can a brand's inability to foster soft skills in its employees be a critical factor in losing business, even for well-established companies? Yes, absolutely. A brand’s inability to foster soft skills in its employees can be a critical factor in losing business, even if the company is well-established. 1) Customer Experience as a Differentiator In many industries, products and services are increasingly commoditized. The deciding factor often becomes how customers feel during their interactions. Employees lacking empathy, communication, and conflict-resolution skills can frustrate customers, leading to churn even if the company has a strong market position. Example: A customer may forgive a late delivery if handled with empathy and proactive communication, but not if met with indifference. 2. Internal Culture and Retention . Soft skills like collaboration, adaptability, and leadership are vital to creating a positive workplace culture. • A toxic or ineffective culture drives high employee turnover. This leads to higher recruitment and training costs and disrupts continuity — issues that can weaken even established brands. 3. Adaptability to Change • Businesses face constant disruption (technology, market shifts, crises). Employees with strong soft skills — resilience, problem-solving, teamwork — help the company adapt. • Without these, even strong companies risk becoming rigid and falling behind more agile competitors. 4. Reputation and Brand Perception • Today’s customers share experiences widely on social media. A few poorly handled interactions can damage a brand’s reputation, eroding trust built over decades. • Employees are the living embodiment of the brand. If they can’t communicate well, show emotional intelligence, or build rapport, the brand feels disconnected. 5. B2B and Stakeholder Relationships • In B2B, contracts and deals rely heavily on trust and relationships, not just the product. Poor interpersonal skills can lose multimillion-dollar partnerships, no matter how reputable the brand. Ford Business Solutions - India - you guys need to invest heavily in your employees from a communication stand point The brand has already shut down its operations in India A request to train your employees before it gets faded completely from the market.

Apply a simple logic to order and prioritise your growth strategies. If one scans through all marketing strategy books on the shelf, one must conclude that, in totality, these list an almost exhaustive range of methods to drive growth. Obviously, the challenge of growth is not to simply know all possibilities. Rather, it is to select the method that will work best for you, at this moment in time. At Growth Constructors, we apply simple logic to inform effective growth strategies that direct you where investment has greatest impact whilst steering you away from inefficient choices. Our first premise is clear: ‘if you cannot move it, it cannot drive your growth’. An effective growth strategy starts by focusing on drivers you can realistically influence. Our second premise is that every growth driver has a depletion point. The final 20% of potential is usually far harder, and less efficient, to achieve than the first 80%. These two premises alone help you order and prioritise your growth strategy. In FMCG categories, for example: • Distribution is the first gatekeeper of success: no distribution, no sales. If distribution is your growth driver, trade marketing is key to accelerating your growth. • But once distribution reaches a certain threshold, it becomes more effective to drive higher rotations than to chase wider distribution. Marketing and communication now plays a bigger role. • As rotation gains flatten, new product or range extensions may deliver more profitable growth than further distribution expansion. NPD now becomes a growth driver. • And when distribution, rotation and extensions all approach saturation, the next frontier becomes price, size and margin optimisation. Where revenue & yield management now takes the lead as the key growth driver. At Growth Constructors, we cut to the chase of business growth. We believe effective growth strategies depend far more on clear logic and realism than on ever-expanding data, flashier tech or high-profile consultants. If you're interested to learn more, please reach out to us at Growth Constructors. Growth Constructors: Growth Insights For Growth Leaders

Some brands thrive for decades. Others fade fast. The difference? Purpose. Not the hollow and empty kind plastered across a website. But the kind backed up by real actions - for staff, customers, suppliers, and communities. Purpose-led brands don’t just look good. They: – Attract and keep top talent – Build loyalty with customers who care – Win contracts because partners trust their credibility – Stay resilient when others struggle That’s what we see with companies like Marvel FMCG - Certified B Corporation® - proving you can grow market share and give back to people and planet at the same time. The truth? Purpose + Profit is a strategy, not a compromise. Watch this video to see why purpose-led businesses win in the long run - and how you can start embedding it into your own. And if you’re wondering what your purpose-led edge looks like, book a Green Gap Review. In 30 minutes, we’ll: - Uncover hidden wins already in your business - Spot 2–3 quick, practical steps for progress - Build your confidence to grow with purpose and profit Book your free session here: https://lnkd.in/dYf7wt9T What’s one purpose-driven change you’d love to make in your business? C2S Growth Consultancy

Though, development properties of properization given guiding quality functional value market research of business practices. Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing data about a business's target customers, understanding competitors, and industry demographics by guiding understand market needs and preferences, to reveal new market opportunities and potential growth areas for business development purposes.Yes, a good business should always research its competitors, as competitive analysis is a crucial driver of innovation. In which, though, providing insights into competitors' offerings and market strategies by , businesses can discover unfulfilled customer needs or segments that are currently underserved .As well Informs the design and features of new or existing products and services to meet consumer expectations by understanding of business practices and growth business development purposes. .Business market research is the process of systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data.Though ,small business models can be categorized by who the customer needs. The blend of organizational leadership, communication, and business strategy is a critical, integrated approach for achieving business success inspirational leader motivates others by aligning values guiding patterns leadership development purposes. In which, this helps towards wealth development properties helps often through platforms guid instilled skilled insights, though market research helps businesses make informed decisions by, first priority data framework research tools towards, competitors and industry demographic data guiding patterns, trends, and key insights for business development applications strategies and analyzing data objectives to meet enhanced outcomes of customers feedback and understanding market opportunities of trends of product based guiding services strategic decisions about product development, pricing, marketing, and distribution of industries finance operations ,though data framework though pricing optimization key steps of gathering , and lead to successful product development and marketing strategies. .

The word 'Strategy' In the business world the word strategy often carries with it a heaviness and often sounds like a lofty and intricate management jargon. But, the word strategy is not so complicated. Strategy simply put is the way or path you choose to achieve a goal that you have set. The path, way or method you choose to achieve your goal is strategy. As Jim Collins puts it, You have a goal to reach the mountain top. Reaching the mountain top is the goal. There are many ways to reach the top. You assess and analyse each way and choose the best path that suits you. That is strategy. The factors that decide which path of the many available your going to choose depends upon an analysis of your company's Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Say your company has a goal to attain leadership position in an industry in 5 years or to maximise sales in a particular region in 2 years or to introduce new products in the product mix in 3 years. The goal is clear, the strategy can be worked out by working on the SWOT analysis which will bring a clear picture as to where and how to start and the path to choose. This method can be applied to our personal life and goals too. After the SWOT analysis - The strategy to maximise sales may be through targeted ad campaigns or providing consumers with more benefits. The strategy to attain a leadership position in the next five years may be to introduce one new product each year into the mix or remove a few underperforming products from the market. Such kinds of paths one chooses to achieve his goal is strategy.