What CEO’s wish they knew

So the crisis, per Wall Street, is coming to an end and Q3 looks promising – really think so?
So why is that that businesses are just beginning to feel the pinch of layoff pressure, pricing downturn and market share concerns?
I have a theory. One that many of the Senior Leadership of varying sized companies will say aha when they read this (It’s that 20/20 thing) and take note on ways to avoid the many problems facing their business models of late.
Here are the problems many are facing (please feel free to comment on and add to your specific issues – you know who you are)
- Marketing Programs aren’t working like before
- Sales Cycles have increased, dramatically, in some cases
- Online Marketing hasn’t returned on investment as planned
- Revenue, Profit and Costs have all been disappointing
- Market Share seems to be going to competitors (probably not)
Here is what you are doing
- Sitting around Board Rooms wondering how to fix the problems
- Looking to replace the entire Marketing Department
- Firing Salespeople (They aren’t able to sell anymore)
- Soul searching for answers to keep your job in tact
Now, I may not be dead on here, but probably close. (Again, feel free to hammer the reasons why in your comments below). These conditions are so dramatically different than you have ever dealt with, or have the experience to deal with, leaving you to many months of non-decision moves. This, for now, may not be a bad thing, but soon enough it will become a very bad thing in time. As companies take advantage of easy layoff decisions from a PR perspective, as everyone expects this tactic, many are not preparing themselves for opportunity when the time comes and markets turn around to beat the competition.
So, why am I writing this, when so many Senior Leaders of organizations, big and small, want to believe they have the answers? Because they know different. They know they need help in developing new highly creative ideas, solutions, products and ways to capture consumers and businesses attention. As I reminisce about the last 3 issues of the IBM CEO Studies over the last 6 years, whereas the many CEO’s interviewed knew and acted upon and engaged their key leadership groups to bring about change to their business models, both large and small organizations, are winning – even through these challenging (for most) times.
Here are a few (there are many more) ideas that you can do today, taking advantage of downtime in your business, to prepare your organization for positive outcomes and market-crushing profits in the coming years:

- Understand the new shift from old school sales strategies (push strategy) to marketing strategies (pull strategy)
- Know your customers, inside and out, their industries, challenges at all levels within the organization (better than they do)
- Research is critical here, bringing senior leadership at a prospects organization, key trends, facts or competitive insights will pay off handsomely
- Create a culture between sales and marketing that is based on collaboration, not just stating it to your employees, but living it in practice everyday… this means opening yourself as Top Dog to ideas from your senior leaders, and employees to spawn fresh new ideas (they have great ideas but are afraid to bring them forward)
- Bring your Data and CRM systems up to speed to allow insights into what is working, where the gaps are, sales cycle times and close ratios so that you can measure the process along the way
- Start looking at automation within your process to help sales and marketing maintain key touch point communications with customers to maintain low churn ratios and high loyalty and satisfaction scores
- Take the time to allow sales and marketing teams to learn. Many sales and marketers are working in a vacuum, with only their experiences against what they currently are doing today – give them time to search out what others are doing in the industry and promote the notion that new ideas are rewarded not expected
- Social Commerce, Social Networking and Social Media: (Take Note here) Understand what this area is, what the opportunities are and how you can bring this new medium into your everyday work environment. LinkedIn for instance is not just a place for ego’s anymore, or a playground to see how many connections you have, but most importantly, a place for finding other look-alike prospects that match your current Profiles of Best Clients and to reduce sales cycles by 80% or more (Yes-I am able to do this, just ask me for help)

So… there are many more areas to cover here, but this will help reduce your risks and exposure to profit creep and competitive pressures during this downturn, which by the way, has not affected my business at all, it’s actually produced more opportunities than ever before.

What are your thoughts or comments?

This Plot Chart represents your customer segments of Value to your business and where they fall in the 4 quadrants. The ones to note are:
- High Risk – Low Reward (Quadrant 3): This is where you want to watch how much time you spend investing in customer business, shed the ones that may be slow pay (AR Creep Days past the Mean Peer Groups)
- Low Risk – High Reward (Quadrant 2): This segment is one to stay very focused on the customers you have, know what their Profile is, i.e.: Industry, Employee Size, etc… and find more customers for your salespeople to call on that fit this Profile
- High Risk – High Reward (Quadrant 4): Watch this segment for AR Creep, percentage of your business that is in this segment, the Industries that are in this segment and avoid adding too many prospects that are in this segment to balance the portfolio
- Low Risk – Low Reward (Quadrant 1): This is the “keep the lights on” segment, where risk is low and so is the rewards, but you need this group as a commodity type customer base.

The Process to take to Plot your Customers:
1. Profile your current and past customers (Don’t know how-contact me)
2. Overlay Demographics, Firmagraphics and Industry Intelligence
3. Add in the Future 2-5 Year Price to Earnings Growth of each Industry
4. Plot these companies to determine where the risks are inside your customer portfolio
5. Reduce the High Risk – Low Reward Customers
6. Find more of the Low Risk – High Reward Customers
I know… this isn’t normal everyday business practice, but that’s the point here. It’s not what most other companies are thinking about doing – which is what will put you in the front position now and when things do turn positive in economic conditions, you will propel growth at 2-3 times the speed of competitors.
So… to bring some closure to the strategy proposed here, let’s get to work in fixing the root of some businesses, begin to take charge of who you do business with and grow revenue with less risk.
Contact me to understand what Risks and Opportunities your company faces.