Winning at times of uncertainty – like NOW!

May 29, 2019 by Malcolm Gallagher Leave a Comment

Hello, its Malcolm Gallagher host of the BizVision.co.uk network of online business channels.

The words worry and uncertainty are looming larger than ever in UK business at the moment.

Yes, there’s a lot of frustration and annoyance but what is concerning is very little action being taken. Inaction causes decay. Coming up are my ten principles of winning at times of uncertainty.

Get the right mindset – times of uncertainty brings an opportunity to build your business. I know I’ve been around long enough and done it.
Don’t assume your business category will behave like all the others. Are you paying attention to the trends and what’s happening in your sector? There’s lots of information out there for you to grab & use.
Run what I call “opportunity scans” to inform & strengthen your win strategy. Too many businesses are too introvert and don’t think laterally enough. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes works wonders in seeing the opportunity.
Raise your game at the Point of Purchase. How are you helping your customer make the decision to buy you? Or let me put it another way, where, or how, are you preventing your customer from buying. You’ll likely need an honest approach to manage this one!
Know who your priority customers or buyers really are and what they are doing, thinking, feeling right now. How important to them is what you make, do or offer? How can you remind them of this importance so that you are NOT downgraded in their purchasing priority?
Watch your competitors even more carefully and act against them decisively. Don’t be soft here as they are likely to be predatory in these uncertain times. I wrote and filmed recently about how to stop them from stealing your customers by using my negativity strategy. Click here for the “stop them stealing your customers” post
Maximise your Marketing Mix – be flexible and experimental. Marketing is constantly changing in its channels and reach. Customers are constantly changing in their behaviour and needs. Don’t just stick to what you have been told is the norm. Make sure that, at the very least, you are measuring your marketing effectiveness with sound KPIs that are focused on the pull through to revenue.
Spend and act smart – make efficiency and effectiveness your watchwords. Allow no waste and no complacency. What’s your conversion rate from enquiry to a customer? Is it slipping or improving? What’s the average spend? How long are sales taking to get through your sales funnel? Make sure you employ my favourite assistant here. She’s called Ruth Less!
Prioritise keeping current customers over getting new ones (unless you can manage both!) Make sure you are ring-fencing existing customers and giving them all the benefits you would give to a new customer. Think creating a community or tribe to draw in their loyalty.
Show leadership (both internally & externally) Show it with your close team, your broader company, your influencers, your customers and especially your suppliers.

I constantly see a lack of leadership in businesses but what I also see is the decay happening to that business and the missed opportunity from inadequate leadership. I’m not blaming those leaders, many of whom may not have ever experienced uncertain times. My grey hair testifies that I’ve lived and survived through a number of them!

So get stuck into the ten principles. Add or subtract as you want but at least do something! Have I missed any or have you got any to add?

Stop them stealing your customers – a 2-in-1 strategy

May 21, 2019 by Malcolm Gallagher Leave a Comment

In tough or uncertain times, like now, then its quite normal for businesses to get predatory on their competitors. They do this by attempting to lure the competitors’ customers says Malcolm Gallagher of Bizvision.co.uk

The key question is what are you doing to keep your competitors out of your best customers?

And a second question could be what are you doing to attract the customer of your competitors?

Coming up is a 2 in 1 strategy you can use to answer both questions

First, let’s address keeping your customers out of the hands of your competitors.

Sometimes the loss of a customer comes with a great shock. You may have a great and long track record with them, you may excellent customer service ratings from them, and you may have felt secure in your relationship.

And then suddenly they sign with a competitor. Worse still it may be a competitor you have not seen before or one who cannot offer the depth of service and expertise that you do. You’ve been blind-sided.

However, you shouldn’t be surprised that it happens!!

Long term relationships usually breed some form complacency. Too much familiarity for example, or not spending enough time connecting across your customer and its people is another.

That’s your “failure” reasons but you also need to consider the cunning or strategic approach by competitors.

One of the ways I coach people to steal customers from competitors is to develop an outflanking strategy.

Often you CANNOT steal a competitor’s customer in straightforward like-for-like situation. So you need to become a game changer.

For example, you may like to help your target prospect evaluate how they buy your type of goods or services. You can do this effectively, informatively and persuasively with white papers or articles or videos or blog until you can get to make a meeting and presentation. Of course, you always insert into such material the criteria that play to your strength!

Aim to change the focus of your discussion away from what has been the traditional approach to their buying whatever it is you make or offer. Look carefully at the validity from a buyer’s perspective of your Value Proposition ( you do know it don’t you?), how they “see” your offer and its ROI for them.

Now you need to do something that most businesses will not. Most will run away from doing this which is great for you provided you are not a runner also!

The best way to stop your competitors being stolen is to think NEGATIVELY. Yes, I did say think negatively, half-empty, gloom-mongering whatever you want to call it!

It’s about deep diving into what could go wrong.

I coach people to first assume the role of their competitors and then to plan an attack on their own customer base!

It’s not easy to do this as you are likely to get all defensive but surely it’s better than losing customers?

Do an honest SWOT analysis. You know Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. SWOT is an oldie but goldie tool. Remember you are deep diving into negativity so truly critique yourselves against your competitors.

Oh, by the way, you do know your competitors don’t you and you do know their strengths and weaknesses? If not you better get started. Build a “Comp Set” of your top 5 competitors along with an analysis matrix. (mail me if you want a simple spreadsheet one )

Now get yourself and your team into a “blue sky” session to think about how, as one of your competitors, you’d steal one or more of your customers away. Here are some prompts for your thinking session:

What could your competitor say that may cause concern or doubt about your company?
How could your competitor show or highlight your weaknesses?
How could you be different or game-change so you wouldn’t have to compete head on?
What could your competitors do to sneak in so you don’t spot them?
Who else at your customer might get involved in the decision to select your competitor?

It can be a really enjoyable exercise if you get your team really involved. Over the years I’ve facilitated many a session for clients and I’m now not surprised what arises! Your people will love the opportunity to have their say. But don’t do it, or lead it yourself if you are not prepared to have an open session, to genuinely deep-dive and to fully explore your dangers.

Once you are clear about your, let’s call them vulnerabilities, it’s time to develop strategies and action plans to do something about them. Over to you!

Now for part 2 of this 2 in 1 strategic approach.

So far I have helped you prevent the loss of customers. Now you can “reverse engineer” my approach to create a strategy of stealing your competitors’ customers. Think about it!

Remember in tough and uncertain times your competitors will want to steal your customers. Don’t be soft. Toughen up and don’t let them. Go for theirs!

Start connecting to deliver results

April 18, 2019 by Malcolm Gallagher Leave a Comment

Connecting better than Networking, says Malcolm Gallagher

Do you want bigger and better customers? Do you want to get into bigger companies? Is your networking NOT working? Connecting can be your answer. It’s much more effective than plain old networking! Start connecting to deliver results. Here’s how!

This is one of my short, incisive SpotLearn from BizVision tips.

Use the format in the image below (right click to copy the image and make into your own template) then you can commence connecting to get to where you want to go. (There are two goals here, A&B).

Start with your 3 years ahead vision and then work backward listing the who and what you need to connect for you to reach your goals.

Or you can vary it by reducing the time.

The KEY is to picture the goal, the business person you want to connect with and work backward from there.

3 steps to great decision making

June 21, 2018 by Malcolm Gallagher Leave a Comment

You want to make the right quality and timely decisions. You can’t afford to wait and see. So your decisions need to have velocity alongside quality.

I was intrigued to read recently that the Consultants, McKinsey, said that businesses who make decisions well use 3 ingredients. How are you performing in all of the following 3?

McKinsey found first of all that winners use SPEED as part of their process. Those winners will often make a decision with just 80% of the necessary information rather than waiting for it all and possibly lose out to a competitor.

Its sensible here, as the business leader, to identify what decisions ONLY YOU can make and delegate the rest. Make sure your decision process allows you to move good ideas forward quickly.

The second ingredient of decision winners, says McKinsey, is that they favour interaction amongst themselves over the process of deep analysis. Good interaction sparks off great ideas and it also has the extra benefit of heading off biases with the result that everyone is in tune together.

And the third ingredient is to what they call “Choreograph the decision process”. Hey, if you have been to a stage show or even watched Strictly Come Dancing you know how effective and impressive good choreography can be. Without choreography, your decision making could become turgid with countless reviews and approvals. Craft it so the decision process is made in one place.

So that’s a brief look at a key soft skill of decision making. Sharpen your process now and you’ll be more fit to compete for any business opportunity. Are you using all 3 steps?

Ready for business growth? 6 key questions

June 20, 2018 by Malcolm Gallagher Leave a Comment

Ask yourself these 6 key questions to see if your timing is right for growth

says, Malcolm Gallagher of BizVision,

A key question at the moment should be “Is your business ready to grow”? Irrespective of what is happening in the bigger “Brexit” picture at the moment. In growth, timing is crucial.

You need to decide if your business is in what I call a sensible position to journey on a growth strategy. To help you make this decision, coming up are just 6 deep dive questions to ask yourself.

How is your business performing against your budget in sales, and costs? I hope you are using some key ratios here. If not then email me mg@bizvision.co.uk and I’ll send you the top 3 ratios for small businesses
Thinking of your available resources, how is your business using those resources to generate profit? Or is it not? Sometimes resources such as assets are bought and they lie unused or underutilised. Also, have you sold off old equipment (say on eBay)) – a few pounds is better than nothing
Is your market sector expanding or contracting? Or where is it changing? We have seen horror stories about retailers recently and problems about construction businesses. But these changes usually mean there is opportunity elsewhere. Are you missing it? Is your radar working to seek out opportunities?
How are your competitors behaving? Rationally or not? What are they saying publicly? If you don’t know, you need to start what I call a Comp Set. Take your top 5 competitors and monitor them, benchmark your elf against them, keep a watch for news on their website with RSS feeds or use services such as Mention.com or Talkwalker.com to get a hold of what they are both saying and doing.
Ask yourself the truthful question of how much cash have you got that is readily available to fund growth. Likely it is not enough so you need to go searching for funding. Do it soon not last minute.
How well do you use your working capital? Funders will want to know but you should know this NOW not when you want more money.

Okay, there’s your six key questions to get you truly ready for growth. Armed with the answers you can make your growth decision. Which are the most relevant to you? Have I missed any key ones?