Winning in a Down Economy (Step 1 of 10)

On October 11th, we introduced the idea that Winning in a Down Economy does not start with blindly cutting costs. Instead we outlined a strategy for tuning in that market leaders have adopted. In the next ten weeks, we're going to cover the ten steps to getting your organization aligned quickly to a new market reality. This post is the first of 10. Steps 1-3 address the areas of assessment and increasing the reliability of your decision making. A key starting point is to accept that no matter what you've done or not done in the past, today you are tuned out.    

Step 1: Embrace the new Reality
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees an opportunity in every difficulty."   - Winston Churchill

Your business is a different one today than it was 30 days ago. What should you do about it?  Interestingly, most will do nothing. It seems we're trained to think only in one dimension ... our plans for what we want to accomplish. We've seen this before. In less than two years after the stock market devalued .com businesses, a high percentage of them went out of business. Did they fail because their stock price went down?  Or was it when their buyers realized they had nothing of value to offer? And unfortunately, the root cause of this wasn't that they were a .com business (many did survive and thrive mind you). Rather, it was something much more sinister. 

Their leaders tuned out to a fundamental change in the market. 

Far too many .com organizations maintained exactly the same culture, perspectives on work style and outdated belief systems that traditional mechanisms of doing business would be 'disintermediated'. They failed because they never changed their perspective from inside-out ambitions about what they would accomplish to outside-in realities about how to align to their market. 

How do you accelerate this perspective shift?  Get passionate about embracing the new reality. One of my colleagues at Pragmatic Marketing, Jim Foxworthy, offers this simple suggestion ... go discover what it really is by getting out of the office and talking to some of your buyers.  In a recent post to his clients, he emphasized that it's more important now than ever. 

The Most Valuable Person in the Organization

The nightly news is obsessed with the downturn in financial markets. Pundits talk about a financial “nuclear winter” and advise business leaders to pack away a year’s worth of cash – perhaps in a mattress.

With all this negative news, it occurred to me that many of you will be thinking about your role in the organization, and worrying about the stability of that role. Should you lay awake at night and wonder if you will lose your job? Will “they” cut your pay? Maybe YOU are “they”, and you are wondering how to lead in such difficult times.

How do you know what creates the most value for you and your organization? How do you play a role to ensure the future of your organization?

Like many difficult questions, the answers are simple. Not easy – simple. Because the most valuable person in the organization is the one who represents the voice of the market.

Let me repeat that: the most valuable person in the organization is the one who is in touch with the market. The one who leaves the building and listens to your buyers, then brings that critical information back inside so others can make better decisions.

The most valuable person in the organization is not defined by title, but by task. And the single most valuable task in times like these is to re-establish your intimate understanding of your buyers and their problems.

At Pragmatic Marketing, we often echo the words of Peter Drucker, who wrote: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product fits him and sells itself.”

Folks we talk to sometimes scoff at this quotation, telling us that “marketing” doesn’t do that in their organization. “Marketing” is the department that builds the web site or produces the collateral.

But Drucker is not talking about a title. He is talking about a task. Who in your organization is seen as the one who “knows and understands the customer”?

THAT person is the most valuable asset in troubled times. As money flows tighten, and credit becomes less available, each and every expense decision will become more critical to your organization. Which means that each and every expense decision must be grounded in data not opinions.

Who is the most valuable person in the organization? In times like today, it is the messenger of the market.

Are you that person? Would you like to know how to become that person?

Jim is spot on here. Discovering and embracing reality is Step 1 and it's not just the job of the leader. It's the first action all of us should take to develop a plan that will work. Without an accurate assessment of where your business is perceived right now, you are out of date and potentially out of touch. The data you have now is highly suspect because it's based on the past. The data your organization craves is a real-time assessment of what the changes in the market really mean and what leading indicators they should follow.

Will there be bad news in what you find out?  Sure. But there will also likely be some new opportunities that will emerge that you'll find your organization can uniquely solve. They may just be the ones to get you through this downturn. Or, they might even be your resonator.

Go find out what they are!