Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs.

Winning in a Down Economy (Step 7 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 ten weeks that follow, we're covering the ten steps to getting your organization aligned quickly to a new market reality. This post is the seventh of ten. Steps 7-9 address the action plans you can take to create a quick win and better alignment to your market.       

Step 7: Launch a Practical Upgrade to Your Base
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

With your new roadmap in hand, it's time to start generating some quick wins that can get you and your organization back into the game with a different perspective. Tuned In leaders have found that the best place to start in a down economy is with the group of buyers you know best and have the best relationship with ... your existing customers. 

Opening up new conversations with the individuals or businesses that have purchased the most from you in the past is your fast path to stabilization of business in this market. One word of caution before your launch. The conversations you need to have will have many aspects to them but to be successful, you should align them to the four principles that Tuned In leaders follow:

1. They aim high in the organization. 
2. They're authentic and aligned to the realities of today's market. 
3. They introduce new value that is relevant. 
4. They focus on services. 

Going 'narrow and deep' with services in an area that you are already competent is the most effective for you to gain a quick win with existing customers. These service should not be designed principally as profit generators but rather as incremental value that serves the dual purpose of creating a new experience for your customers in today's context and increasing their loyalty towards you during these tough times. 

Customers who find that their vendors care about them in these times increase their trust of the company serving them. This alignment makes them much more likely to be receptive to the offers to upgrade or add-on solutions in the coming year. Most importantly, you will have changed the conversation from a transaction-based to solution-based. 

In a down economy, it's the low-cost solution provider that wins. Since your customers have already (typically) made the big investment in you, your service add-ons can become your competitive edge.    

Winning in a Down Economy (Step 6 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 ten weeks that follow, we're covering the ten steps to getting your organization aligned quickly to a new market reality. This post is the sixth of ten. Steps 4-6 address the areas of product and portfolio planning with an emphasis on increasing the relevance of your solution offerings.      

Step 6: Refine Your Roadmap
"The key to life? It's just one thing. All you have to do is figure out what it is." - Curly (Jack Palance) to Mitch (Billy Crystal) in City Slickers

Does your roadmap reflect the changes in problem priorities and buyer preferences that have occurred in the last 90 days?  Do you have a clear mission to communicate around how your business will generate a positive outcome next year?  Is it based on the things your buyers value most from you right now?  Is your organization aligned top to bottom and bottom to top around these priorities? 

Our research with Tuned In leaders over the past 60 days has surfaced a remarkably consistent time-line and focus for the companies they are running ... they're charting a new two year roadmap.  Two years is a perceptive and pragmatic choice that acknowledges a number of practical realities. It's long enough to enable their teams to think strategically yet also short enough to create a sense of urgency. It aligns well to the length of prior downturns. And it acknowledges the likely period of uncertainty throughout 2009. The strategy they are employing is simple:

Create a roadmap that forms a foundation for a building a new belief system about outcomes that matter and getting 'everyone' on the same page.   

Unlike many roadmaps that are built in a vacuum, this one needs a dose of pragmatism and buy-in from a broad set of stakeholders. The key requirement is an outlook that narrows the focus to projects that you can both execute and afford. The ones that have these five ingredients:

1. Addresses a #1,2 or 3 priority problem in the market that is relevant today. 
2. Emphasizes solutions that provide measurable incremental value to your core customers. 
3. Invests only in areas where you own a distinctive competence.
4. Utilizes resources and capabilities that are proven and available today.
5. Provides positive profit/cash flow throughout the two year horizon.  

The successful roadmap will serve as a catalyst for action across your organization and align all of your stakeholders (employees, partners, customers and influencer's) to your plan of attack. The best leaders we talked to took a highly collaborative approach, involving these networked teams in the full assessment, analysis & design, planning and implementation processes. They used a broad set of perspectives to help them score and weight priorities and options.  

The net result of this exercise is that decision making was crisper and more timely. Communication was frequent and out in the open. And alignment was quick and decisive.  For the participants, they were almost shaking their heads at the speed of the process. 60 days was not an uncommon time frame for teams to go through a comprehensive realignment. Their advice:

• Narrow your focus. 
• Think incremental and service-oriented. 
• Go 'all in' to create maximum force.   
• Focus on tangible outcomes.

Your company's success will rise and fall based on the ability of your organization to align coherently.  The best part of engaging on this process is that if you've completed Steps 1-5, you'll come into it prepared and confident. Your roadmap will be data-driven vs. opinion-driven!

Winning in a Down Economy (Step 5 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 ten weeks that follow, we're covering the ten steps to getting your organization aligned quickly to a new market reality. This post is the fifth of ten. Steps 4-6 address the areas of product and portfolio planning with an emphasis on increasing the relevance of your solution offerings.      

Step 5: Find the 'Bright Light'
"Some people think they are concentrating when they are merely worrying."
- Bobby Jones

What's your plan of attack to get through the next two years? The leaders we've talked to have already identified that what was good enough to get their companies to where they are today is not going to be good enough to keep them there. Some key aspects of their business will need to change, and quickly. And while they may not know exactly what the changes are yet, most have established a frame of reference for this transition ... creating a new two year plan.   

If you've followed our recommendations from Steps 1-4, you've gathered a large amount of market data to sift through. The buying environment, customer problem areas, test results from new solution proposals, investment priorities the market demands, even your ability to execute ... should have all been profiled by this point. Now the challenge shifts to analyzing all of this data. 

This is where tuned in leaders shine and separate their businesses from the rest of the pack. Identifying the patterns that make sense and an innate ability to filter through the useless to focus on the things that matter most is their gift. How do they gain these insights? 

They ignore everything but the bright lights. 

The data you've collected will have lots of bad news in it. Buyers are locking down budgets, cutting staff and freezing investments on all non-revenue generating purchases. Your sales may be down and the future outlook uncertain. Progress on a new product or a new initiative you launched may have stalled completely with evaluators. It can get pretty depressing when you take it all in. Tuned In leaders absorb these data points to be sure but they also possess two characteristics that push them past all of the obstacles they present:

1. They know from experience that there is always a plan for success available so they keep digging until they find it.   
2. They focus more on what's working than what isn't. 

The bright light is the set of data that is showing a positive trend. Perhaps it's the services business that you hadn't been paying much attention to. Or, a particular area of your website where visitor traffic has grown significantly. A channel of distribution, geography or product line that is outperforming the rest of your business. Or, maybe an external trend that has just recently emerged that lines up to a competency you have but have not yet exploited. Find it and you've got the first brick in the foundation towards your recovery. 

In every market segment that we researched, we found companies who ignored these trends and allowed new competitors to emerge and in some cases claim leadership of their segment. In a very high percentage of these cases, the start of this breakout occurred in a down economy. While the leaders were all tuned out, focused on cutting costs, and ignoring the bright lights that existed, new entrants were fixated on them and built businesses that resonated.  

Don't be afraid of being called an optimist. Now is the time to find the good things that exist in your business. Build your plan to connect to them and your opportunity will come into a much clearer focus. 

Winning in a Down Economy (Step 4 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 ten weeks that follow, we're going to cover the ten steps to getting your organization aligned quickly to a new market reality. This post is the fourth of ten. Steps 4-6 address the areas of product and portfolio planning with an emphasis on increasing the relevance of your solution offerings.      

Step 4: Rate your 'Incremental Impact'
"A prudent question is one half of wisdom." - Sir Frances Bacon

How many of you would have predicted the turnout we had in the recent presidential election if we had asked you a year ago?  The environment changed dramatically in the last 12 months didn't it?  For that matter, in an issue even closer to home, how many of you would have predicted the changes you have made in your investment and life management strategies in the past 30 to 60 days? As we've talked with friends and associates, it seems that many have reconfigured dramatically while others have at least taken a good hard look at the potential value of everything they are spending money on. What seemed like a good idea even as short a time ago as this summer might be completely out of step with the market today. So you did the prudent thing, got some fresh advice and re-prioritized.  

Why don't we do the same in our businesses?

Your company has it's own portfolio of products and services to sell to your customers. Your time and investment dollars are precious. You want to ensure that you're spending that capital wisely ... on the types of solutions that resonate and draw the crowds. Anything else is too much of a risk.

Rating how well your products will sell next year doesn't have to be as hard as most make it. But, when we get stuck up in inside-out discussions like ... can we achieve the same growth rate as last year? ... you're focused on the wrong end of the analysis. Start with a simpler test instead. How much of an 'incremental impact' does each product in your portfolio offer today? The best way to do this is to take the outside-in approach of identifying the problems your offerings solve and then surveying your customers, evaluators and potentials, asking them to vote on:

1. Their priority for investment in solving specific problems? 
2. The impact to their businesses of solving each one?
3. The time line it needs to be solved in to have an impact? 
4. What the 'perfect solution' would look like?   

This snapshot will help you plot the urgency, pervasiveness and willingness of your buyers to pay for each of the solutions you offer. The ones with the highest incremental impact will jump out of this analysis. Are they the same today as they were last year? last month?  Quite likely that the answer is no. Market conditions have changed. Just because you have had a star product in the past doesn't mean it will continue to be. Similarly, others that have been sleepy might be a higher priority right now. A third category of potential solutions might be those that a minor amount of work can help you create the 'perfect solution' that will trigger new sales opportunities. 

Rate what you have and identify solutions you can create that require only a small amount of investment for you to offer an upgrade that resonates. You might be surprised by the results and be able to focus on the high impact offering that will get through a tough environment in 2009.     

Lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign: The Tuned In candidate prevailed

When we were researching and writing Tuned In during the early part of 2007, one US Presidential candidate struck us as being particularly tuned in: Barack Obama.

At the time, it was very early in the campaigns. There were over a dozen candidates from both parties jockeying for position during the primaries. But we included only one Presidential campaign in our book, writing about Barack Obama and his tuned in candidacy as one of our mini-case examples, saying:

"The tuned-in politician understands voter problems and the reasons why people vote for a particular candidate. Barack Obama's campaign raised more than $102 million in its initial phases (through the end of 2007) second among all U.S. presidential candidates). His platform centered around powerful ideas, 'the Audacity of Hope' and 'change', has attracted more than one million contributors to his campaign, a strong indicator of a grass roots movement. At this writing, the primary season is just starting, and Obama is not the front-runner. But his upstart candidacy clearly resonates with many voters."

These are not political observations, but marketing ones. It doesn't really matter who you supported or voted for to learn from Obama's victory. (In fact the three co-authors of Tuned In had very different and very passionate views on the Presidential candidates. To be honest we fought a lot…)

Well, despite our political differences, we three are not at all surprised that the most tuned in candidate has prevailed.

Over on my Web Ink Now blog, please check out Ten marketing lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign for additional observations about why Obama was elected to be the 44th President of the United States.

As Phil wrote in a comment on this post: "Not only did he leverage the right mediums and messages, he did what no one since Reagan was able to ... create a coalition that broadened his market. The dramatic increase in young voters that voted overwhelmingly for him was quite likely the difference.

So, the next time someone asks what this new rules stuff, social media stuff is all about and why you should spend time on it, two words will suffice as the ROI. Barack Obama."

Winning in a Down Economy (Step 3 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 ten weeks that follow, we're going to cover the ten steps to getting your organization aligned quickly to a new market reality. This post is the third of ten. Steps 1-3 address the areas of assessment and increasing the reliability of your decision making.     

Step 3: Re-prioritize Market Problems
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

Most businesses will make one of two mistakes in the coming months. They will do the same thing they've been doing because it's all they know or they're in denial. Or, they'll jump immediately on to a new strategy that they believe is tailor made for a down economy ... albeit one they have no experience executing.

There is a simpler path to take. 

Whenever a major change in the market hits, start analyzing it from the foundation level up. And in this case, that starts with re-answering the question of -- what problems does our business solve for buyers?  What worked for you in the past may no longer be relevant. Offerings that require major infrastructure upgrades are not likely to be embraced right now. Revolutionary solutions that require major cultural changes to embrace will suffer a similar fate. And continuing silly business practices like 'passing on a gas surcharge' for services will get you behind the 8-ball pretty quickly. 

We need only look at the last downturn in tech to see the examples of this. The winners and losers are easy to see in hindsight:

   Losers

1. Infrastructure companies in IT and Tel-co spaces saw their upgrade business evaporate overnight.
2. Revolutionary .com businesses that were dis-intermediating traditional business practices fell out of favor pretty quickly. 
3. Systems Integration firms that that charged premiums for change management services found themselves losing contracts to more tactical initiatives. 

    Winners

1. Apple launched a new device and service for music lovers (iPod and iTunes). 
2. Google began to take share from the major portals.  
3. Salesforce.com gained significant share in the CRM space, for all intents and purposes unseating Siebel as a leader. 

The common links for the winners were that they possessed the kind of quick win, full solution orientation that the market craved. In short, they solved problems people had. What problems does your business solve today?

• Ask the market. You can create a simple survey that lists many of the same problem areas you've explored in prior surveys (plus a few new ones) and compare the change in emphasis. 
• For particular areas where the results show an interesting or hard to explain trend, call a few prospects directly and dig in further asking why. 
• Match the priorities to available market solutions from you and your competitors.  Do any jump out as an 'unresolved problem' that are new? 
• Acid test a solution proposal with a small subset to determine the viability of a new positioning, feature, package or even a new product to solve this problem. 

Resonators can be identified in down markets. In fact, some of the best grew from bad market conditions because most companies focus only on survival, not on improving their market alignment. 

Your business would benefit greatly right now from a re-assessment of the problem priorities that you solve for buyers. You may find a dramatic shift in the urgency, pervasiveness and willingness of buyers to pay in both directions. Let this be your guide for planning.