In graduate school, one of the instructors (a business person, not a professor) told us something I have never forgotten. He said that business was relatively simple and amounts to this: Find a need, fill the need, and collect a check. Then he added: Don’t screw it up in the middle because most business owners screw it up.

As we begin this New Year it would be prudent to re-examine your current strategy and determine if it is still valid and true. Business is continually evolving and changing and the strategy you started 2020 with may not be the same strategy that will generate a successful 2021.

As a business owner, your job is to understand what the customer is trying to accomplish and determine whether you can solve their problem, meet their need, or relieve their pain. The only thing that a business really gets paid for is the results from meeting customer needs.

1. Find the Need: The heart of good strategy is to find the need, pain, or problem your customer is experiencing. This is what the customer wants resolved. Business success is about solving your customers’ problems or relieving their pain. Very few customers will pay for solving a non-problem. Strategy is the intentional focus and alignment of resources to deliver maximum results and value for your customer. To understand what your customers need requires you to be actively communicating with them. Knowing what problem you are solving and how you will solve it is strategy.
2. Fill the Need and Collect a Check: Once you the business owner have determined the customers’ need, it is then necessary to organize your company in such a manner to meet the customers’ need in the most efficient and effective manner possible. The only thing you really get paid for are results from meeting needs and solving problems. It is necessary to organize your company to solve the customers’ pain or problems, and this demands flexibility and the ability to meet challenges head on. It may require you to reorganize your organizational chart to ensure you have the right individuals in the right seats creating maximum value for your customers.
3. Keep It Simple: Strategy can become complicated and difficult to implement if you make it that way. I suggest you avoid making strategy overly complicated so that you do not avoid working on it. Keep it as simple as possible so that anyone in the organization can understand the strategy and your customers can understand it as well.

If would like to discuss developing your strategy for your business to ensure a successful 2021, give us a call. 503-312-3145

http://www.garyfurrconsulting.com

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Is your business organized to meet customer needs effectively and efficiently? Is your management team focused on meeting customer needs? Are you having an impact on the customer? What do they believe about your company? Have you asked them? Your customer beliefs about your company affect their actions which has a direct affect on your revenue. As a business owner, you need to know what your customer believes about your company and your staff.

I had a client who said that he was afraid to call his customers because he was not sure what they thought of the service he was providing. He was essentially waiting for them to call him with an order or a complaint. But wouldn’t it be better to know whether you are making a positive or a negative impression on your customer before they decide to take their business elsewhere?

Unfortunately, my client is not alone in this approach. Many business owners are waiting for their customers to call, but usually customers only call with a problem. Remember: If you are not talking to your customers, your competition probably is.

1. Focused Communication: The only way to truly know how your customers are feeling about your product or service is to seek them out and talk with them. The process of communicating, inquiring about your service and how you could make it better, will create positive results. Focused communication builds relationships that can provide some grace when there is a problem. Create opportunities for two-way communication with your customers to proactively build those relationships and learn how they think.

1. Customer Experience: The customer experience is everything. How well do you understand your customers’ experience with your company? Have you ever shopped your own company to discover how they treat the customer? Are you working on making it easier for your customers to do business with you? Revenue growth is an ongoing, proactive activity that requires constant outreach to your clients and customers.

1. Results: Successful business is all about positive results. Customers care less about how you go about meeting their needs and more about the benefits and results they gain by using your service or product. Are you exceeding your customers’ needs and expectations? In today’s competitive marketplace it is important to delight your customers. Meet needs and solve problems in such a way as to make it unthinkable for them to go elsewhere. The only way to do that is persistent communication with them.

If you need help increasing your customer impact, give us a call. We are experts in business growth. 503-312-3145

http://www.garyfurrconsulting.com

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In Seth Godin’s book The Purple Cow, he describes the experience of driving with his family through the European countryside and being enthralled by all the brown cows. He noted that their excitement did not last long, however, and he began to wonder what would happen if there were purple cows standing in the field. That would have gotten their attention. That is essentially what your marketing needs to be: a purple cow. What will differentiate you from the competition and make you stand out in the crowd?

1. Marketing: Marketing is about sowing seeds to capture someone’s attention and get the potential customer to notice you. Your marketing needs to be focused less on your methodology or how you do things and more on why you do what you do and the benefits and results for those who will purchase your product or service. A marketing plan communicates and educates your target audience on the advantages, value, and results of doing business with you. You want to make your potential audience curious about what you have to offer.

1. Sales Plans: If you want to be effective at selling to the potential customers you attract via marketing, it is necessary to have a plan for engaging the customer on how you will meet their needs. The reason we create plans is to generate consistent results. The larger your organization gets, the more important it is to have a clear, documented sales process to ensure your consistent success. In the current global market, all businesses are fighting harder and working smarter for their share of the market. A well-documented sales plan allows you to execute and create consistent performance. Don’t leave your sales conversation to chance and randomness, have a plan.

1. Revenue Growth: When a business owner tells me that they have a cash flow problem, I remind them that cash flow is a lagging indicator of marketing and sales.  The cash flow problem indicates something that should have happened but did not—often it reveals a lack of effective marketing and sales. Revenue growth is a proactive activity. You cannot wait for the business to come to you; you must go out and get it. A business owner needs to be proactive in marketing their business to make it stand out, and then actively go after the business. It is no longer possible to sit around and wait for the phone to ring.

If you want to achieve greater success in your marketing and sales increasing top-line revenue and bottom-line profit, give us a call.  503-312-3145

garyfurr@garyfurrconsulting.com

http://www.garyfurrconsulting.com

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