Accelerate Your Business Growth

Regardless, of where in the world you operate your business from. It is likely that your sales are down or at the very least at risk of decline. 

Business today is not responding to its past cyclical boundaries, missing all analytical and econometric models and strategies developed last week, month or ten years ago are being questioned.

 Everyone today is looking for the quick fix, yet at the same time we have written off assets, closed plants, laid off millions of people around the world. In addition, the life line to sustaining sales, that is marketing and staffing have been reduced to save costs. And we ask why we are still struggling.

 Every media business network is talking about the next recovery, so while they wait to report its arrival perhaps the rest of us that either run a business or own one can get to work and rebuild what has been lost.

 The one fundamental economic denominator is the ‘consumer’ waiting, waiting and waiting for the all clear signal to be called. What is the all clear signal? Job growth of course, layoffs and employee terminations getting scaled back. Then that same consumer needs the confidence to get back in the spending mode. Until that day whatever business you are in you will need to work five to ten times as hard to sustain what you have and grow from there.

 Having had the opportunity to work around the world these last 20 years has added a little more perspective for me of course. Excluding cultures most competitive attributes of conducting business remain constant.

 Why are some businesses thriving while others are struggling? For starters most businesses with financial issues have never managed their P&L and Balance Sheet as effectively as they should. In other words a lot of assets are unproductive or misaligned with poor strategies and execution. On the other hand outdated products and services are also at play, the world sometimes moves on to new ideas and some organizations forget to.

 On the other hand some businesses simply fail to have good pricing and margin models which leave them incapable to adjust their positioning altogether.

 How do you by pass all of these challenges and create a higher level of performance faster? Well we can’t each has to be a good fit for the business model we are trying to grow.

 The first is to understand your current position in the marketplace and whether or not it is right. When sales are down it is easy to first blame the economy, however your first investigative work should be on your competitors and then simultaneously followed by an assessment of your business model.

 I came across a retailer in Europe who had just posted +2.8% growth on sales and on transactions that were +3.1% up versus last year, yet profit for the first half were down by 7.0 million euros the cause for this was an increase in advertising of over 7.0 million.  One might ask was that a good trade off?

 First they are the market leader with a significant share of the business. Obviously the category they serve is sensitive to a downturn and price became the key driver to building traffic and transactions. So they traded off some profit to gain share of the market. Will this help?

 If you are in a leadership position of the category and have the means to drive transactions even at a lower average selling price, the trade off is worth it. Therefore, when the market turns around you have either eliminated key competitors or weakened them, either way you are in a position of strength.

 This strategy is competitively brilliant. However, what if you are the competitor under attack?  

 Ensure that your financial house is in order.

1. Re-evaluate your marketing strategies.
2. Understand the effectiveness and execution of your operating processes.
3. Recognize that matching offers is only one step and not the single answer.
4. Conduct local marketing warfare.
5. Know how far you are willing to go to get the business.
6. Educate your sales teams to the new approach in closing sales and in sealing contracts. 

 The only means to offset a major competitive attack is to take a good hard look at your ability to respond. A competitive response must be very tactical as the wrong direction and approach can easily lead to financial disaster.  

Staying in the game is a difficult task especially when consumers today are either trading down or looking for greater value for their money. And the best in the class of retailers for example are effectively providing quality, through low entry priced offers to new and existing customers simply as an opportunity to capture share and customer retention. 

Service

Service is one component that seldom costs money to deliver. If you believe in the product and the proposition you have to offer are of much higher quality than that of any competitor you have then prove it! Introduce a warranty, guarantee promise that separates you from local competitors. If necessary train and retrain your staff so that the service you promise is flawless and noticeable by customers. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising.  

Service strategies must be unique to simply mimic a competitor offers no differentiation. When it comes to service you must be uniquely different and consistent with what you do. Many times it is only a few extra personal steps which make all the difference in retaining and winning customers. Many top end hotels have learned that the details are everything service.

Price - Value Equation

Price alone as a strategy is a one trick pony, seldom creating customer retention and loyalty.

When consumers recognize a basket set of services which are offered through a product or service that is purchased you then begin to create differentiation. Differentiation creates return customers provided the service is planned and not an accident. Often it is through experimentation and a discussion with your staff that exposes weaknesses in both yours and your competitor’s service model.

Differentiation is a primary reason why businesses either fail to grow or succeed. If for example you enter a marketplace that has a rather large number of competitors in the same category let’s say Pizza Delivery as an example. Unless, what you have to offer by way of product and service is significantly better than that average priced large pizza which a customer is willing to pay for, you are not likely to grow your sales.

Often business models fail because the only person who is inspired, are its visionary founders who didn’t have the insights, money or experience to bring it to life.

Achieving Growth

A formula that I use to establish the possibility of accelerating and sustaining growth goes like this;

1. Product + Service = Right Brand Offering
2. Target Customer + Right Brand Offering = Demand (Growth)

In essence through innovation or visionary process we create the right product coupled with the right service features regardless of what you sell, leads building the right brand offering. By marketing this “right brand offering” to the right “target customer” will build demand.

It sounds simple however simplicity is at the heart of success.

This is by no means a complete approach to recovering in a downturn market however it is the beginnings of one.

Exec Guy