You might think that your customers select you because of price- at least that is what they tell you. Or that is what your staff thinks. Or, better yet, that is the prevailing wisdom of your industry. But, here is the question—is your product any good if your customer or prospects won’t pay more for it?

For example, in the highly competitive online car parts industry, one company gets a premium price for their parts because they offer a lifetime, no-questions-asked warranty on everything they sell—even motor oil!

And a manufacturer of high-end construction tools earns industry-leading margins because it “rents” tools through a subscription service that promises that customers will always have the right tools, at the right place, at the right time, which makes their construction projects more profitable.

Raising prices starts with extreme customer empathy. It comes from deeply understanding how you can help a customer get their job done better than anyone else.  So, as with my blog last week, go talk to your customers.

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

Today, most customers know more about your competitors than you do.

They know how the products and services they use fall short of their expectations.

They know what change they are seeking as they move into next year and how (or whether) you have a role in helping them create that change.

Customers know a lot. Get curious and go talk to them. Don’t sell to them. Just listen.

With this year shortly coming to a close, it’s not too soon to begin communicating the most important thing that you want your leadership team to focus on next year. Not sure what to focus on? Try this:

1. Ask your team to bring their answers to the following question to your next leadership team meeting:  If we could only focus on one thing next year, what might it be?
2. At the meeting, make everyone’s answer visible on a flip chart or white board.
3. Collapse and combine the ideas as needed to create a few clearly articulated directions.
4. Have your team vote on the single most important thing.
5. Then, define the metric(s) that defines what will happen if you successfully focus on that one thing.
6. And finally, write down who will do what, by when, to make sure that the one thing actually happens.

Please send me the one thing that your team came up with as I always love hearing from subscribers to my blog.

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

For most, your website is your first impression to the world. And for most, that first impression is fuzzy. It’s not clear to the visitor what you stand for and for whom. Let me explain.

First, websites are mostly inwardly focused—here is what we do, how we do it, want to buy? Secondly, the purpose of the website is not clear. Are we trying to change minds? Help visitors find a better solution? Create leads? Teach?

And finally, they are often generically targeted towards such a broad set of potential visitors, that they do not serve any one segment particularly well.

But, unclear websites with unclear purposes targeted towards a broad set of visitors, is a symptom of a more fundamental opportunity. This opportunity is to create a more differentiated competitive strategy and value proposition, that allows you to win in the vital few markets in which you compete.

Once your winning strategy is clear, it is much easier to build a website that works.

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

If you are finding it hard to catch fish because your current fishing hole is crowded with other boats, find another place to fish where there are less boats. Where the fish might be more difficult to catch for some, but where you may be better equipped to catch those fish. These fish may even like what only YOU are able to offer them.

Sometimes, we create our own competition by doing what everyone is doing. And, without a unique fishing approach, it all comes down to price.

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

In the early stages of our business, we insource most of the activities that allow us to deliver on the promise that we make to our customers.

Now that we are bigger, two things have happened:

1.     Our back-office activities that drive the front-office value proposition have become more complex and costly. And we’ve evolved to add measurable value to some, but not all, of these activities.
2.     And, the number of companies that offer specialized services that can offload key activities have exploded.

So, this week, think about the few key activities that are critical to the delivery of your value proposition. Which ones really set you apart? And which ones are more mechanical and could be improved with specialized expertise? Things like shipping, payroll, warehousing, assembly, and lead generation are a few that come to mind.

And then, imagine what it would be like to focus your time and attention on what you do best and leaving the rest to an expert.

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

Our customers buy our products and services in order to help them make progress in their work and in their lives. Yet, most websites, outboard marketing, and selling activities focus on our products and services. While a potential customer cares about what we offer, they care more about the progress that we can help them make.

So, stop selling products and begin asking better questions. Find out the success they are seeking, and what’s getting in the way of that success. Then, figure out how you can remove those barriers to the success they seek, in a way that would get them to say, “I would be a fool not to buy you!”

The bottom line is to sell progress, not product. Stop selling and begin asking.

If you would like a process to have better conversations with your customers, send me an email and I will send you a discovery guide that can get you started.

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

 

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

We all have gotten into that trap. The situation where we have attracted customers of all sizes, in various industries, buying different amounts of our offerings, and then our ability to serve these customers becomes stressed. I see this currently happening a lot, as many of my clients are seeing record sales due to the strong economy.

But, stressed or not, serving and attempting to please all customers equally is a recipe for not pleasing any customers at all.

So, this week, determine the customer profiles that generate most of your profits. Run the numbers. Then, consciously begin to shift product development and/or customer service resources, to help these customers solve their current problems better, or find new problems that these customers have that are going unsolved. Or, just simply serve these ideal customers differently. But, make the shift clear, decisive, and noticeable.

 

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

The word ‘strategy’ is often bandied with various meanings. Here, I am defining strategy as ‘a clear articulation as to how you will win in the markets in which you compete’.

But, in the clutter of the day-to-day and urgent activities, our employees are often not focusing on your strategic agenda. Said differently, defining, measuring, and reinforcing a few key performance measures that define the success that you seek, is critical to getting what you want from your business.

Taking a lot of liberties with a Yogi Berra quote : “If your employees don’t know where you’re going (and what it looks like when you get there), you will end up something else.”

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

 Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!

We are built to keep our options open. It’s how our brain works. Chasing several rabbits (yet never catching any) seems less risky and less stressful because we didn’t have to decide. But, this indecision costs us by keeping us from focusing. It deters us from getting better at the important things that matter most, to ourselves, and to our organizations.

So this week:

• Help your leadership team decide on the three (and only three) critical issues they will focus on in the next quarter.
• Decide on only one primary customer that likes what you offer and where you have competitive edge. Then organize around serving that primary customer.
• And, for you personally, decide on one or two ways that you want to be different 12 months from now. And create a plan to get there.

Is your team aligned and rowing together in the same direction?

Looking for a way to see how aligned your team is on your direction and strategy? Have them take this 3-minute strategy assessment and use the individual scores to get the conversation going!