Finishing Strong in 2010
Due to the sluggish economy of the past couple of years, businesses have been hard pressed to grow and to expand. Many businesses have been forced to get leaner – less people, improved processes, and have taken other measures to reduce costs. However, there are just so many places to cut.
Today’s climate creates an opportunity to grow and to look externally, to increase revenues and profits. Finish strong in 2010. Now is the time to look outward to the marketplace and all its constituents. It is a time to develop, pursue and execute smart and sustainable growth strategies.
Growing your business in the last two quarters of 2010 encompasses eight core strategies:
- Retain existing customers
- Grow existing customers
- Reclamation of former customers
- Acquire new customers
- Build strategic partnerships
- Expand into new markets
- Add new products or services
- Acquisition of a new business
Integral to the success of these strategies, is the ability of the companies to fully understand and articulate the value they bring to the client relationship. It is also important for business leaders to realize that what they did to achieve success might not be the right initiative to achieve success in the future. Businesses that rely merely on transactions find themselves behind the efficiency curve. They work incredibly hard to continuously re-sell customers over and over for each transaction and to find new customers and revenues. Also, the transactional business model breeds no loyalty between customers and the business.
Success in today’s businesses market is built on relationships. Relationships are built upon trust and decision makers seeing “vendors” as “partners” who bring value to the relationship:
- Understanding the inner workings, strategies and issues facing the client in the future
- Putting the client first
- Bringing new and innovative solutions and ideas to the table
- Deploying all available resources on behalf of the client
- Sharing market trends and information
- Challenging conventional thinking by asking the right questions
To grow successfully in 2010 and beyond, and to meet clients’ demands in today’s marketplace, businesses must first:
- Understand the basic difference between the features and benefits of its products or service
- Be able to translate that difference into the unique value it provides its clients
- Understand how to communicate and convey that differentiating and unique value
- Insure everyone in the company understands and knows how they impact the value to the client
- Communicate the value and be consistent with this message in all communications vehicles (people, printed materials, electronic, all media, etc.)
For purposes of this discussion, let’s move forward with a few more details on the first growth strategy:
Retain existing customers.
It is universally acknowledged that for many sound business reasons, this strategy should be the first step. Your account database is one of your biggest assets, and it is imperative that you manage each account to its fullest. The fastest way to grow is to cultivate your current clients through “Account Management”.
Many of today’s business strategies attempt to foster the best relationship possible and to maximize results with each client. Account Management is that step that converts CRM, cross-sell, up-sell, into practical actions. It employs a more strategic approach to each client relationship versus a tactical (1 sales at a time) approach.
It costs 5 times more to acquire new customers than to service and retain an account. Sometimes we pay less attention to what is going out the back door of our business to our competitors – lost opportunities after we have spent all the time & money to acquire new clients. And, rarely does a business capture all potential revenue from a client in the first transaction. Money is still on the table and available from:
- Selling more products and services over time
- Building a relationship that helps retain the client for re-orders and re-occurring revenues
- Providing better service eliminating competitors’ entry and opportunity
- Securing referrals
| NOTE: Frederick F. Reichheld, author of the widely read The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits and Lasting Value, showed that making loyalists out of just 5% more customers would lead, on average, to an increase in profit per customer of between 25% and 100%. Reichheld's analysis showed that the cost of acquiring new customers was five times the cost of servicing established ones. |
The following information is a sampling of possible tactics that might be employed specific to implementing “ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT” strategies. Account Management starts with establishing a complete profile and a total understanding of the entire account - knowing their people, their roles, their business objectives, etc.
- Conduct a comprehensive account analysis
- Understand the client’s industry trends, market and value proposition
- Develop individual client strategies
- Assign accounts to appropriate sales channel
- Create a link between the existing, “good” business and new business leveraging knowledge and success
Summary
This information presents a sampling of Rahal Consulting’s philosophy and approach toward sales and business development. With extensive and successful business experience accrued over numerous engagements across multiple industries, we are poised to help business leaders prepare for the future.
Rahal Consulting seeks to initiate a dialogue with business leaders and to objectively assist in the development and implementation of growth strategies and tactics.
To initiate a more in-depth discussion and for additional information, please contact:
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