In our recent conversations with private equity firms and business owners, we are hearing this question again and again: Have we done the right things to get ready to thrive when the recession ends?
The first question I always respond with is, “Have you figured out what will be different about the new post-recession world and how that applies to your business?” The old way of doing business may not still be the right way. If you haven’t figured out the key characteristics of The New World and how they apply to your business then you have some serious work to do.
While each industry responds to the pace of economical and technological changes differently, there will be identifiable facts and characteristics that have emerged to define how The New World affects your business specifically. The challenge to business leaders and their management teams is to discover what those characteristics are.
This is important not just to thrive post-recession, but to survive until that time comes. When we are asked by business owners why their new initiatives are not met with success, we are surprised at how often we see them actually practicing an evolved version of the “same old same old.” In almost every case the entire sales system is broken. It has not been reinvented for The New World. Case in point, for most industries, trade shows have become nothing more than a trinket spree and place to collect hundreds of business cards and yet companies servicing those industries still spend tens of thousands of dollars to sponsor these shows, erect impressive booths and monopolize their sales team for days at a time. If so much attention is turned to top line growth, why is it often being approached without acknowledging or incorporating the reality of The New World? Companies are looking in a mirror, refining what they already know, what they familiar with, because it worked in the past.
Everything has changed: customers buy differently, banks lend differently, employees have new goals and expectations, and technology is changing the rules of the game. Evolving your existing sales system to meet the needs of The New World may be burning time and money. To prepare for post-recession success, we encourage proactive business owners to approach their business plan from scratch; to ask themselves, “If I was starting with a blank canvas today, how would I structure the core components of this business to serve our growth strategy?” There are probably many elements of your existing business that you are wrongly hanging onto and evolving due to emotional ties or prior financial investments that have yet to pay off.
Make the commitment to find New World answers to what your customers need, how they expect to fill that need and what information is required before they do, where they want to go to find that information and, finally, how they will measure the success of the solution. You answer those and you have one foot firmly planted in The New World.
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Media Contact:
Margo M. Ten Eyck
Client Relationship Manager
(847) 291 9944 x119
margo@forteone.com
