The Vision of The FAMEE Foundation The mission of The FAMEE Foundation is to advance excellence in entrepreneurs through ongoing education and consultation in marketing and customer management to build profitable, growing revenue streams and satisfied long-term customers in small to medium sized companies. Needs and Issues of Entrepreneurs The FAMEE Foundation addresses some of the important needs & issues faced by entrepreneurs today: 1. The single most necessary ingredient for business sustainability is profitable customer revenues. Solid customer revenue streams propel a company forward and create economic impact in both in the early phase and throughout the company's entire growth evolution. Wealth creation, employment growth, access to capital, and expanding the tax base all depend on sustained profitable revenues. Just as importantly, entrepreneurs who succeed with customers enjoy a tremendous sense of personal satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment.

2. Small businesses, through their marketing strategies, must connect quickly with the customers to support the ongoing financial requirements of the business. Insufficient revenue - either quantity or quality - hinders a company's development and may even "starve" the business. If a company cannot generate sufficient, positive cash in-flows from customers, it will perish.
3. Entrepreneurs must understand what marketing is and the powerful role it plays in their business. Many small business owners misunderstand the concept, and thus fail to capitalize on their opportunity. A "if you build it they will come" mentality can greatly cripple a company's ability-success in the marketplace requires marketing knowledge and proper action. Mistakes in this area are costly, frustrating, and limit the entrepreneur's potential.

4. Marketing education programs must cater to very busy small-to-medium size business owners and entrepreneurs. Successful programs to impart marketing excellence must:

* consider the time and financial pressures of small to mid size organizations, * use appropriate and easy-to-understand language, * provide insights which lead to action and change, * use relevant examples entrepreneurs can relate to in their businesses, * facilitate ongoing entrepreneurial development and lifetime learning, and * help with implementation over a period of time 5. Current programs in marketing education / consulting are limited, of poor quality, biased, gimmick-based, expensive, or unfamiliar. The more a company needs high quality assistance the less likely they are able to afford it. The FAMEE Foundation provides excellent marketing tools and education at a "price" any entrepreneur can afford. To date, excellent programs have not been available to every entrepreneur. This is a significant learning program any businessperson can utilize.

6. Existing business organizations, consultants, and educators are ideal providers of excellent marketing assistance and consultation, however, may require training, added confidence, and / or an affordable program to effectively serve their clients' full marketing needs.

These organizations include, but are not limited to:

* Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs)
* Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEPs)
* Main Street Organizations
* Extension Programs
* Women Business Centers (WBC)
* Non profit incubators
* Disadvantaged and minority owned businesses programs

Advancing Marketing Excellence in Entrepreneurs

To achieve the FAMEE mission, we help entrepreneurs understand:

1. What marketing is and what it means to the success of a business. Entrepreneurs must learn that generating strong customer revenues is a broad concept that applies to nearly every aspect of every business. The narrow perspective that marketing is just advertising and promotion hurts entrepreneurs.

2. Marketing success is built on long-term, quality relationships with customers. Successful entrepreneurs foster a "lifetime customer" marketing perspective to earn and develop ongoing relationships with clients/customers and the resulting revenues.

3. Marketing is a systematic process with a defined, logical approach. Marketing is as much "science" as it is art and as such any person can improve their marketing skills and plan.

4. Marketing success comes at more cost and with more effort than business owners assume. Just because you send out invitations and throw a party doesn't mean people will show up. With this realization, the business owner can take their marketing approach seriously and take actions to plan and implement so the desired outcomes happen.

5. The key is not where a business owner's marketing competency is today - but how they will be better tomorrow. Marketing competency occurs on a continuum of 1 to 100. If you are a 64 now, success occurs as you move up to 73. Most business owners are somewhere in the middle-achieving a 100 is rare and no one is a 1. However, good marketing skills don't develop overnight. Success requires consistent, ongoing, and serious dedication to improvement. Take it at your own pace, but never ignore it, and plan to be in it for the long haul.

6. Marketing success is a process that never stops. Through testing, learning, "tweaking" and continually improving your marketing program your business will become successful. Like the success poster says, it is a "journey, not a destination."

7. Companies often succeed when they identify an interesting marketing approach, then take it to another level. The greatest marketing concepts are straightforward and simple. However, most strong marketing approaches are executed with details that go beneath the surface level.

8. Fear of marketing is not an excuse. Businesspeople are often heard saying "I am not a marketing person," or "marketing scares me." Apprehension is OK but, failing to learn about marketing and take it on with a full effort significantly limits a businessperson and his/her enterprise.

The programs involved in the FAMEE system will reinforce these points and provide strategies to make these things possible.

Please contact us at info@famee.org for more information.