When to reposition

Some problems can be fixed with improved effort, but some problems must be fixed the core of the business and can have a profound impact on your company. Here are some circumstances that signal it is time to examine the core of your business and refine your positioning.

• If you crafted your value proposition in a robust economy (you might be looking for a customer demand that does not exist); 
• If the general business sector you sell into is receding, experiencing layoffs, or in other financial trouble;
• If sales are down, or sales funnel growth has stopped and there is no turnaround in sight;
• If your sales funnel is full of prospects that do not meet your ideal prospect profile;
• If competitors have introduced a new disruptive offering;
• If servicing the growth trend fueled your growth(then you’ll need to find a way to fuel growth independently or accept that your business will recede).

Positioning on the move

With revenues flat (or down) and reduced access to capital, revenue improvement funding will mostly come from re-deployment of resources.  An analogy is that you need to tune up the engine while your car is moving.  Watch your fingers and here you go

• Invest and focus on how your business generates revenue, what activities are successful, why you deliver value, and how you attract and retain customers. 
• Simplify your business around the principles of attracting and retaining ideal customers based upon the current market and the likely future markets.  Who are your current and prospective ideal customer, what are their attributes, how do you find them, how do they find you and what percentage of your sales and marketing efforts are directed toward those customers?  Evaluate redirecting resources to revenue opportunities with ideal customers.

• Assess your sales pipeline trends to see symptoms of ineffective service or product lines.  Determine the cause of these problems and assess if these offerings can be fixed or redirect resources to your core offering.
• Capture credible feedback on what is working and what is not working for customers and employees, in terms of products and services, and relationships.  Identify and fix inefficiencies.
• Make it easier for your customer to buy from you by improving positioning and your sales process.  Your positioning must be empathetic to the decision maker by crafting a clear and compelling case as to why their company will benefit from your offering today and tomorrow.  Tailoring your sales process to fit their purchasing process saves both companies time, reduces effort, shortens sales cycles and improves relationships.

Pumping up revenue

It is critical to triage what problems exist and where intervention will impact revenue.  Target the interventions that you are in a position to begin in 30 days and that will deliver revenue improvements within 90 days.  The process will be an evolution, where you learn at each step, and continue to refine and improve how to connect your solution to customer problems.

Where possible work on re-positioning in the background, and have company resources execute the company’s current strategy.  Initially assign a team with sales, marketing and process expertise to work on the qualitative issues that they can extract by observing operations and analyzing data.  The team can then summarize and present the information to the management team and discuss the findings, implications, and identify strategic and tactical steps to take. 

The refined strategy can be implemented in phases, focusing resources and testing outcomes prior to full rollout, enabling an organization to tune their business while it is running.  Trade-offs between immediate revenue and longer term strategic account acquisition will determine focus and priorities for revenue improvement implementation.

Lead your Company to Revenue

While spending money on revenue generation does not reduce your burn rate, increasing revenue does. 

While the tactics of how your team manages a sales situation can usually be improved, sales strategy and product positioning (where and how the company deploys resources) based upon the changes in the last year are where most significant gains will be made. 

Cost cutting based upon recent events is a sound business decision.  Things changed rapidly, and while companies adjust, cutting costs to preserve capital makes sense.  Cost cutting is however a temporary solution; the path to profitability, capital and most successful business outcomes is paved with revenue.

Lew Altman is President of Sales and Marketing Executives-Bay Area and CEO of Dynamic Positioning Group, LLC, a revenue improvement consulting organization based in Pleasant Hill.  .  Reach him at lew@dynamicpg.com.