Lets Meet Stu

Hi, my name is Stu Langley. I am an entrepreneur. I am a student of marketing and sales.  I specialize in helping companies discover and solve what gets in the way of successful business development.

It is so easy to get real comfortable in business as usual. All your people are experts at business as usual. But then the winds change- being really busy with business as usual can cause loss of perception. Imagine a lion with a poorly functioning nose. See how skinny he is?  A lion with a lousy sense of smell is doomed.

Are you chaffing under anemic business growth? Can you distinguish the cause or do you figure it is just the economic downturn? Markets and market expectations have changed. People are flocking to the Internet and social media to find their information.

This website is intended as a tool to help you figure out this new market. It is long-winded and certainly needs some video- to help vivify and simplify the critical message embedded here, but the issues are complex. There is a siren call of BS in the marketplace that can steer you into a ditch- steer you away from a critical path of understanding.

Who Do I Work for?

I specialize in helping service companies and contractors who serve the b2c and b2b markets. I am drawn to to local companies who take pride in their professionalism and how well they care for their clients. I am drawn to contractors who see business within a long perspective- take good care of customers, and they will take care of you.

I loath contractors who are willing to mislead, willing to hype up phony statistics and are willing to scrimp on specifications to make money on under-priced projects. Of course that assumes they actually know what they are doing in the first place.

I am annoyed with large technology companies that are in the lead selling business. “get four bids in 4 hours” type companies. These companies are very good with technology, not so great with making sure people get quality service. In fact, they sell the leads to whoever will buy them.

This concentration on easy bidding and low price is not good for Texas businesses or families.

People are financially injured when they are sold cheap half measures that do not really solving problems. There is nothing more expensive than a cheap solution that compounds the original problem.

My passion is watching out for single owner contractors and service companies who watch our for customers and plan to be in business for the long term.

So many owners are too busy working hard to keep up with technology, keep up with how markets are changing, and do not see the new opportunities around them. This is a liability because standing still creates vulnerability.

So many small service companies are so busy actually helping people- getting estimates made and getting stuff properly repaired or replaced that they don’t get to spend as much time reconnoitering on the ground as they should. They are missing the huge shift in the marketplace.

The marketplace is shifting because of technology and a shift in attitudes. People turn to the Internet rather than the Yellow pages. New technologies are connecting people and changing traditional ways to give referrals and share information.

Companies must evolve. Good strong companies are being hurt because they are not seeing the warning lights, are not adjusting to change. When things change- when markets and technologies evolve- it is not the strongest that necessarily survive, but those companies that adapt the best.

So that is the battle and that is why I am here.

So Who Are You, Stu?

I will not be baffling you with badges of distinction here,  but I have been a part of many companies srtiving to complete a variety of tasks over many years.

I am educated as an engineer and that means there is nerd in Stu. There is probably ample other evidence on this site.

The issues that cost your company higher profits are not rocket science. Everything you read on this site is self evident. You can probably improve on what is here- if you had the time.

I am much more interested in helping company’s create content- compelling content is the battle field of the 21st century- but I have learned there are lots of reasons why this is extremely difficult to do. Time is so critical. People’s days are full now. Who has time to create content?  We need to reevaluate what creates value.  Our ingrained attitudes are likely costing us big money.

And so the battle becomes a struggle for slack- identifying busy work and figuring out how to exchange out busy work to have time to do substantial work- the stuff that accumulates into new sources of revenue.

There is a huge battle to fight over what are the strategic objectives and when to find time for them in the daily tyranny of urgent but less important tasks that rise up to distract. There are tools to help keep focused on the strategic- to bring you back to the strategic when the daily tasks stack up and create stress and distract.

And so what probably could have been a simple site about creating compelling content and testing and figuring out what is compelling becomes also

• a challenge to help people understand the changes in the market and the activities which must be sustained to compete and prosper
• a battle for time and slack to make room for strategic efforts to improve productivity- and
• a challenge help people understand the technology that can assist with strategic endeavors and creating compelling content

Stu Has Special Powers

I have and wield the power of the outside observer. This is a powerful tool. Humans have very powerful brains. Our brains are very good at creating predictable tracks and patterns. These patterns serve us well- often. We become experts and understand situations intuitively because of experience.

On the other hand- or brains love patterns and habits and often we see new things in old patterns. This allows us to miss opportunities and misjudge impending threats.

A fresh viewpoint makes sense. Maybe the fresh viewpoint is not the perfect solution but on the pathway to discovering a new synergy.

• I have a lot of diverse experience. Not that incredibly unique but diverse. A diversity of ideas plays well on a palette for new ideas.
• I spend too much time on the Internet. I see and observe a wide variety of brilliance and a good share of BS.
• My experience might be a useful to tool in helping you save time deciphering what makes sense for you.

What does Stu  create value?

• I have helped busy people find more time for business development.
• I have helped develop and implement strategic business development plans
• I have helped create synergy between marketing and sales structures
• I help develop website and Internet based business strategies
• I help business teams tap their hidden assets and stories of success to create compelling content.

Everything I do is custom work to address the actual issues and engage the strengths and resources brought to the table.

How do we make sure Stu is worth the effort?

You need systems that measure results. Careful thought is required  to account for business objectives that count in an effective time frame.  Measuring money can be a very poor marker. What about the money you never see because your business systems hamper business growth?  What happened last quarter often reveals the accident scene not what lead to the accident.

Here is a horror tale for you. I once had to sit through (this was my golden time with the CEO – so doubly painful) a financial representation of the state of a multi-million dollar company. There were at least 75 printed-in-color pages with graphs ( ouch, I am way too cheap to print in color) elaborately describing the financial situation for the last quarter. The people around the table were speculating on the events they remembered in the preceding quarter which might have caused the ups and downs.

I was like fit to be tied. Can you imagine the allies judging how effective yesterday’s bomb runs were over Germany at the end of the quarter? Allied pilots risked their lives every day to get back hard data to make adjustments for improvement.

If you don’t know where you want to be and if you are not tracking regularly your path to getting there- you are distracted, your people are not effectively engaged, and it is costing your company lots of money.

And so in the process of improving accountability- we will figure out how to verify the genius that is Stu and verify that he is worth the investment.

In fact, the most interesting part of the financial arrangements I like to make, is a piece of the business development pie that I can pursue whole hog and get a commission on results. I always enjoy exploring opportunities. What would you like to talk about?