Strategy

Back in the day, dealership agreements were territory-based. You were THE dealer for a product in a city. But, as the industry grew, they started dividing up those territories, making them smaller and smaller until there was no longer any territory — there were 2, 3, 4, or 40 dealers for the same product in the same city.

So, dealers started adding more products as they lost territory. They assumed that more products equaled more value to the buyer.

But it doesn’t.

I doubt you can name anyone right now that is still doing this strategy successfully… except Amazon.

Why?

For the rest of us, product is not a strategy.

We ask these “what if” questions because they grant us insight. The more time we spend in these types of questions, the better understanding we’ll have about what our strategy needs to accomplish for us.

These questions help us understand what people think us from the outside, a.k.a. our “branded perception.”

Developing a strong strategy begins by understanding what you’re already doing.

With strategic questions, there are no wrong answers. There are just answers that guide us towards developing a strategy that works.

So, think about how you handle new business opportunities as you answer these two questions:

Updating your strategy is no small task.

In fact, it’s not really a task at all — it’s a journey. It’s more than a to-do item on a weekly agenda.

Creating a strategy is a process of discovering who you are as a company and how to best serve your customers.

If you want to update your strategy the right way, you need to answer these six questions about yourself and your organization before you get started.

We have to understand that strategic planning is engineering what we want to happen based on what we think will happen, and we have to have a firm grip on both of those things to be successful.

That’s because strategy is not the actions we take; it’s the reason we take them.

Last September, a client asked me, “Tom, at the beginning of January, can you give me some resolutions for the upcoming year? I want to start 2019 off with a bang!”

After thinking about it for a second, I asked him, “Why does everyone wait until the beginning of the year to write their New Year’s Resolutions? Let’s do it now!”

As we talked through the resolutions, I realized just how relevant they are for all of my clients. And since “Resolution Season” is in full swing, it seems like the perfect time to share them with you.

Here are the top 5 things you should do right now to kick off 2019.

Who’s your ideal client? If you plan on describing someone in the C-Suite of Fortune a 500 company, let me get out my calculator. This is going to get expensive. Almost every day I hear from owners that want to grow, work on big projects, and cut out the middleman. “We want to deal directly with the buyer – the Decision-Maker.” What’s your beef with the middleman? “They take too big of a cut. That’s money I could be making. Plus, it adds another gatekeeper. We need to communicate directly with the economic buyer in order to meet their needs.” Ah, now I understand. You don’t realize that middleman exists because your ideal buyer doesn’t want to pay you that “extra” money. They are buying insurance against – well, you. Now, you want to tell them that you are all the insurance they need, how wrong they are? Awkward. And I suspect that the middleman is keeping you at arm’s length precisely because you covet their customer. Basically, you are not trustworthy. You are not respecting the sales channel. But let’s look at this another way. The middleman is providing a valuable service to you. Agencies, Producers, General Contractors, Architects, Designers, […]

I’ve been a Marriott customer for a long time. When I started my solo career as a consultant, my travel agent encouraged me to pick one chain and stick with it. At the time I chose Hilton, stayed mostly at Hampton Inns and was unimpressed. The hotels were often tired and the points system was not very generous.

Then I stayed at a Residence Inn somewhere I don’t recall, but I clearly remember walking in and seeing a message board that welcomed elite guests by name. At the front desk they were thanking guests for being an elite guest. Recognition.

I switched.