Too many business leaders are searching for the holy grail of business solutions: the fad that will work – the business trend of the year. And they’re willing to spend big money to find it. Yet few do.
In our work with clients, we start by looking for how well they do the basics: responsiveness, relationship building, identifying and serving the customer’s real needs. The basics that many business leaders seem to take for granted and often overlook.
We believe that business solutions exist on a continuum. On the far left we have the low cost / low risk options; on the far right we have the high cost / high risk options.
In our opinion, and in our experience, too many business leaders choose to enter in the high cost / high risk range of the continuum, thinking bigger or more complex is better and will address everything. Please hear this: It is almost impossible to identify and implement a high cost / high risk solution if the business basics are not addressed. (Read: you will likely be wasting your time, money and resources.)
For example, we have a technology company client who was looking to increase sales of their software products. They sold nine individual products. We conducted a series of targeted interviews with IT consultants, small business owners, CIO’s and potential customers, and the feedback was consistent. The interviewees felt that the company had an impressive software solution (i.e. good technology), but they could not clearly understand what the company sold, who the buyer was, and what was the value proposition – that is, a concise statement of improved condition the client will realize (or can expect) as a result of purchasing the product.
We worked with the company to define their market (in this case it was the healthcare market), what they sold, their target customer (to whom they sold their products), and their value proposition.
As a result, the company now concentrates on two key product categories (in this case it is risk management and quality management) and the team knows and can articulate their target buyers, and have a clearly defined value proposition. All of these activities were on the low cost, low risk solution side of the continuum, which led to and resulted in their ability to attract and hire a seasoned sales executive.
Starting with and addressing the low cost / low risk options for improvement or growth just makes good business sense. So, we offer you our brand: Business $ense: Growth without Self-Sabotage – The Low Cost, Low Risk way to High Performance. We welcome your comments on the blog and our brand.
Copyright 2009 Kubica and LaForest
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