5 Things You Can Do To Grow In Today’s Economy

Demand for your products is down and the sales pipeline is thinner. Marketing budgets and headcount have been cut, and cut again. Stress is at an all time high as fewer people carry a heavier workload. Revenue “stretch” goals seem out of reach. Are the problems that challenge your business mounting while you have fewer resources and energy to address them? Don’t surrender just yet.

Here are five things you can do to sell more of the products you have and deliver new offerings that impact customers most.

1. Review Pricing Strategy – Demand for many products and services are down. Automotive industry demand has dropped more than 50% in the last 12 months. Orders for durable goods in the first quarter of 2009 are down 28% from the same time period last year. Many companies have slashed prices in an attempt to increase sales. Cutting price does not increase demand or grow profits. In fact, cutting your price while demand is declining only erodes profit margins. Review your pricing strategy to learn if your pricing is still appropriate in today’s economy and competitive landscape. It may make sense to raise prices, offer alternative value products, or reevaluate the viability of certain market segments and products.
2. Realign Your Product Team – Because reduced headcounts are a reality for many businesses in today’s economy it may be a good time to review your organizational structure and alignment. Reducing the size of a workforce results in lost focus as reporting structure changes take effect. The only way to gain economies of scale with fewer people is to narrow your focus, redefine and clarify roles and responsibilities across the product delivery continuum. It is critical that your product team is aligned proportionately to new goals and objectives.
3. Conduct a Marketing Audit – For years studies have revealed that over 90% of leads generated by marketing go untouched by sales, not to mention most of the sales tools created by product marketing aren’t used by sales. Assess what’s working and what isn’t and focus your energy accordingly. Double check your messaging. Is it all about you with little or no focus on buyer issues? Stop building tools and campaigns that don’t work and get the most from your downsized marketing team.
4. Clone The Rainmakers- Organizations need to look at the real reason the top-performers are driving the majority of revenue. Many times, the top sales people have figured something out about the market that no one else has. This isn't simply product knowledge; it’s an approach and a set of actions that few people are imitating. Business leaders need to understand their winning ways, interests, what makes them tick and certainly hire more people like them. These are the folks to retain, nurture and support. Develop training materials that can spread the secret sauce across the entire sales team. Imagine a whole team of top performers. It’s simple; any company that infuses their sales team with rainmakers will grow their business.
5. Build Relevant Products – Too many businesses today continue to struggle because of a product portfolio that has lost touch with their target customer base. General Motors managed to lose an entire generation of car buyers to the competition before going bankrupt. Recently, a reborn, government owned GM promises to”focus more on customers”. Microsoft is facing ever-increasing pressure from Apple and Google largely because they have become “cool” while Microsoft is being portrayed as out of touch. General Motors and Microsoft each earned a dominant share of their market through innovation; then each seemed to lose touch with their target buyers. Does your product portfolio still resonate with your target audience or have you become so “company” focused that you have lost touch with the market? Align your thought process with your target customers first, and think about products second.

Don’t sit back and wait for the market to turn around and return to normal. It never comes out of a recession looking the same as before and neither should you. Most innovative products born today are an incremental improvement of something that already exists. Think TiVo, iPhone and flat panel TV’s.

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to discuss how our consulting services can help you spur new growth.  If your positioning and messaging is too focused on product features, sign up for a Positioning & Messaging workshop to learn how to articulate value in the language of the buyer and deliver what people want to buy most.

No one makes it easier to align your organization to the market than ZIGZAG Marketing.

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