BIZBUZZ: Gary Hamel: Competing For The Future

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to episode 13 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations in order to challenge business owners to Be Different and to Act Boldly.

The following video highlights some content from Competing For The Future, written by Gary Hamel. I enjoyed reading this book and it offers some interesting observations on the subject of differentiation, which is one of my favourite topics.

http://youtu.be/8MCbRuKBEgI

I am going to highlight three of Hamel’s suggestions that I find particularly noteworthy.

The first one deals with return on investment (our return/our investment). Hamel contends that we spend too much time obsessing over the denominator (the amount invested). In an environment where our competitors are growing, denominator reduction with steady revenue is simply a way to profitably sell market share. Hmm. Do we know how well our competitors are performing?  Are we paying sufficient attention to what is happening with the numerator?

Secondly, Hamel suggests that tomorrow’s competitive advantages must necessarily be different from today’s. Companies must be capable of getting different. He further states that laggards follow the path of least resistance.  However, challengers follow the path of greatest opportunity. Which are we?

There are numerous other interesting tidbits in this book but I’m going to end on Hamel’s assertion that it is not necessary to be a seer to discover the future but it is absolutely vital that you be unorthodox. Now if that isn’t a call for differentiation, what is?

Well, that’s it for Competing For The Future.

Thanks for watching.

Your comments are always welcome.

Stay tuned for more BIZ BUZZ.

How to Win the B2B Price War

In this world of high speed communication and 140 character limits, we seem to have become infatuated with short forms and acronyms.  It isn’t too hard to draw the comparison between our communications today and the game of horseshoes. In other words, we use vocabulary with less precision than a given word actually conveys, but that’s okay because getting close seems to be good enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or is it?

 

 

What has this got to do with pricing you might ask? We invariably talk about the cost or price of a product or service that we are either buying or selling. However, when we are ‘on our game’, we’ll use the word investment or introduce the idea of value. Unfortunately, old habits die hard and it is very easy to forget to reinforce the result that one can achieve from an investment that has been made.

Now, we might ask ourselves, “what’s the big deal?” In my mind, the big deal results when we think about the behaviour and attitude that are generally attached to the words cost and investment.

Costs are generally meant to be controlled. Costs tend to be something that we either want to avoid, reduce or, at a minimum, hold constant.  The word cost tends to cause us to think in terms of such adjectives as “expensive”. If ‘how much does this cost‘ is an early question asked by the prospect, then chances are we have not established our value proposition with this person.  It will also be difficult for us to know how to clearly articulate our value proposition if we have not identified the emotion that underlies a prospect’s initial interest in our product or service.  Without this knowledge, we are simply ‘pulling on levers’ without knowing if the levers are connected to anything of meaning to the prospect.

So, … we’ll be in a much better position if we can not only understand the prospect’s stated need, but also the underlying emotional reason for this need. With this understanding firmly in hand, we can speak much more confidently about the return that is possible with the investment being considered. We’ll understand how our product or service can address the emotional need of the prospect. We’ll be able to speak about the value to be derived from the investment being contemplated.

If we’ve made the emotional connection with our prospect, then the level of trust that the prospect ascribes to us will be much higher.  A trusting relationship supported by our understanding of the emotion driving the prospect will greatly diminish any focus on price and solidly centre the conversation on value. Price may not be part of the discussion.

In the parlance of horsehoes, a ‘ringer’ could be just the next ‘pitch’ away.

To Be Different or Not (at Your Peril)

It’s easy to talk about being different.

We can all sagely nod our heads and claim that we fully understand the importance of differentiation. We all get the notion that we need to be different in our offering, in some meaningful way, if we are going to successfully attract and retain customers.

The next question is the one that seems to cause us some issue.

Do we actually implement some type of differentiation in our business?

My informal, non-scientific observations suggest that our understanding of differentiation frequently gets parked at the door. We seem to be so immersed in the day-to-day minutiae of running our businesses, that we overlook what it takes to stand out from our competitors. Prospects can buy from us; buy from our competitors or not buy at all. If we don’t focus on maintaining some type of compelling differentiation within our business, why should anyone care?

In Harvey Thompson’s book Who Stole My Customer, he claims that the top two major reasons for losing prospects or customers is lack of courtesy followed by lack of competence. These are both staff related issues. Both speak to skills that can be learned. Both suggest areas where a differentiation strategy could pay significant dividends to the business.  [learn more about Who Stole My Customer in episode 10 of BIZBUZZ]

Phil Kotler (of marketing fame) states that the company that stops getting better gets worse.

Getting better is a conscious decision taken by the business owner. It involves a focus on differentiation.  Better must, by definition, indicate a better experience for our customers.

Are you engaging in a periodic review of your differentiation strategy, in this very crowded space that we occupy?  If you’re not, beware!

 

Olympic Lessons

We are in the thick of week one of the 2014 Olympics.  There have been numerous highs, lots of thrilling competition, some moments of despair and lots of smiling faces.  In spite of the controversy that led up to the beginning of these games, the general impression seems to be overwhelmingly positive.

It strikes me that these games are the source of a tremendous amount of inspiration.  While you might think that I’m suggesting that you immediately get off the couch and start your knee bends and toe touching, I actually have something else in mind.

Here is what I’m thinking.  The athletes exhibit a number of common characteristics or habits that contribute to their ultimate success in qualifying to compete in the Olympic Games.  These characteristics are worth emulating if we want to maximize the likelihood of succeeding in our businesses.  Specifically, I would identify the following attributes as noteworthy:

1.  The commitment to excellence

2. Passion

3. Goal attainment

4. Consistency

5. Perseverance

I also think that some other worthy characteristics get displayed during the games and we’ve seen some of these already.  My list would include:

a) Empathy

b) Humility

c) Compassion

d) Team before individual

During the next ten days, we’ll continue to witness events and happenings that will make us proud of our athletes and their accomplishments.  We’ll see the ‘other guy’ win when he or she deserves the victory.  We’ll know that preparation and fortitude contributed to the outcomes and we’ll be amazed.

But, before the last flake of snow or chip of ice has settled, I’d suggest that we should all reflect upon the above characteristics and decide how we would feel if they were part of our daily businesses.  What kind of outcomes would be possible for us in our respective businesses if we prepared the way an Olympic athlete prepares?  If we displayed a similar passion?  If perseverance was one of our watchwords?

Is a gold medal performance something that we hope for in our businesses or is it something that we are actively striving towards?  The choice is ours.

BIZBUZZ: R. Whiteley, The Customer Driven Company

This is episode 7 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations that challenge business owners to consider new possibilities and to Act Boldly.  The following video highlights some of the content from Richard Whiteley’s book The Customer Driven Company that made sense to me.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZ BUZZ.

I’ve chosen to comment on The Customer Driven Company, by Richard Whiteley.  Not surprisingly, this book deals with the relationship that we have with our customers.

I’d like to highlight four observations from the book that interest me.

The first deals with vision.  I know that this is a repeat from my most recent BIZBUZZ episode, but I believe it bears repeating.  Whiteley defines vision as a source of inspiration and a guide to decision making.  How often do we use our vision statement as a litmus test for decision making?

My next observation expands on vision statements.  Whiteley encourages the reader to communicate the vision constantly.  He stresses the need to establish challenging goals that are driven by the vision and to embody it in our everyday behaviour.  How many of us act on this advice?

Comment number three is specific to our customers.  The suggestion is that we should make it easy for our customers to complain to us about our products and services.  That might sound trite but do we even have a method for customer complaints?

Finally, I’d just like to mention that Whiteley identifies what he calls the seven essentials that are the game plan of winners.  Here they are:

1. Create a customer keeping vision

2. Saturate your company with the voice of the customer

3. Go to school on the winners

4. Liberate your customer champions

5. Smash the barriers to customer-winning performance

6. Measure, measure, measure

7. Walk the talk

That’s it for The Customer Driven Company.

Your comments are always welcome.

Stay tuned for more BIZ BUZZ.

BIZBUZZ: D. Sanders – Built To Serve

This is episode 6 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations that challenge business owners to consider new possibilities and to Act Boldly.  The following video highlights some of the comments from Dan Sanders’ book Built To Serve that resonated with me.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZBUZZ.

I’ve chosen to comment on Built To Serve, a book written by Dan Sanders that deals essentially with the subject of leadership.

I’d like to highlight three observations from the book that interest me.

The first deals with vision.  Sanders contends that vision is about an organization’s purpose.  It’s the heart of an entity.  It has more to do with significance than success.  I couldn’t agree more.  Too often vision statements get used to paper over cracks in the lobby wall.

My next observation deals with mission statements.  I’ve found that people sometimes treat vision and mission as synonyms, when in fact Sanders identifies mission as ‘what you do to achieve the vision’.  How does your organization view these two statements?

My final comment deals with Sander’s contention that leaders interested in long term success should regularly ask themselves these three questions:

1. what have we done for our customers?
2. What have we done for our employees?
3. What have we done for our community?

If we are built to serve, these three questions seem very logical.  They might be logical but do we do anything with them?  Do we see them as central to our role as leaders?

That’s it for Built To Serve.

Stay tuned for more BIZBUZZ

Your comments are always welcome.