Thinking Profitable Growth Is Just A Change Away

If you are going fishing for business growth today, what are three rocks that you would look under to get a clue about what you should offer as your fat wiggly worms to catch your next big fish?

Current customers would be under the first rock. They have started to experience what it is like to do business with your company and are no longer simply recipients of your marketing information. They have real issues to deal with and they are using your product or service to get the performance they need to succeed. Think about the fairy tale of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” and you will come to appreciate the concern of only going with their suggestions. Their interest is to be sure their current needs are not jeopardized by any changes that you may take as a result of their telling you exactly what they dislike and sharing with you their unresolved issues.

Lost customers who have not purchased from you within the standard repurchase timeframe for your business would be under the second rock. This can reveal if they went to your competition, expanded their internal capacity to produce the product or hired the talent, abandoned the need for your service or product by taking a different strategy or simply lost interest in continuing to pursue the matter that required your product or service. Those who have been in business for some time will also come to see some of them close their doors, merge, or get acquired in the case of businesses and go through life changes in the case of consumers. Just to be sure you have a complete group, don’t forget to include the leads, prospects, and evaluators that did not purchase from you because the actions they pursued tend to be identical. By eventually learning what competitor they actually purchased from, you will begin to understand how you may do a better job of educating them about your ability to meet their needs and how you would need to change to be a solid choice in the future. Timing is a factor with these people because you will need to wait until they do make the purchase from a competitor before you could clearly draw any defining differences, thus this group as well may not be immediately helpful.

“Who’s left?” you may ask. All of those who are potential customers who have not purchased at any time from you and who are not in the evaluation stages of a purchase would be under the third and final rock. To be fair, this group is not everyone else in the world. It is selectively those who have market problems that your service or products can or could solve. It probably should not include your family members either because they always mean well when you ask them for their opinion, but they are in a delicate position of setting aside their biases, so their answers may be less valuable. This is not a time to look inside your firm to your employees either, because they have similar conflicts of interest and forget about even thinking you have all the answers if you simply ponder a bit more on the matter. Thankfully, this is the largest group of people.

Finding Those Fat Wiggly Worms
Get out there and really talk with the people under this third rock. Ask them for permission to meet with them for 30 minutes to learn about their problems and what you may be able to do to help solve them. People love to talk about their problems and if there is even the smallest inkling in their minds that you may be smart enough to actually do something about it, they have time to meet with you. You become a sponge and let the expert do all the talking. Hint! It ain’t you, so go in with an open mind to simply listen to what they have to tell you. Do not mention your company or its products. You are not there to sell. You are there to listen for understanding.

What makes sense to you and what you hear may range from pleasantly match to sending you into a state of being angry. It you don’t get even one person who raises red warning flags about issues you could be addressing or one that not only raises the red flag but goes so far as to wave it wildly in face in an effort to be sure you see it, then you are missing the point and not getting it. Keep after it until you truly achieve the range of discomfort with the responses.

Honestly, individual interviews may not be where your performance shines and you can get others to perform this kind of interview for you. You may even think you are too busy to be bothered with such a trivial task. Marketing is your first order of business if you are responsible for the results of your company’s future. Declare a time out from doing stuff and fill the time with getting valuable information. Ultimately, it is your duty to get their expert opinions.

Fishing for the Big Fish
You are probably best at solving the issues, so don’t let anyone stand between you and having your fun. Once you have your fat wiggly worm, get thee to the pond where the big fish swim. By virtue of the fact that you already know where some of the current customers are and what they buy, you should be familiar with those fishing ponds. Along the way of finding the issues, you will have certainly learned about a few new big fish.

By understanding more about the new fish, you will learn where to find them. Resist the temptation to force fit them into looking like your current customers and thinking they will be necessarily found in the same ponds. OK, maybe you did not have the nice fat worm that you will use for bait now, so go to the pond with the new wiggly worms. They may have been there all along and you could go home with better fish now. You may need to change ponds.

All the marketing required to land your new big fish with the wiggly worms is where Operating Sooner has the resources to be your best source to meet your online and offline needs and finding worms new worms. It specializes in helping customers through changes that bring in the big catch. Call 913-397-8071 and deal with the change today.

Becky Rawls-Riley of Operating Sooner, Inc. www.operating-sooner.com