How Nike got it wrong – inventory up 65% – and the implications

Many business leaders find sales and marketing a complex space to navigate. It is a rapidly changing, data-driven, high-pressure environment. 

Success – new revenue growth depends on succeeding at

Lead-generation

Your operation needs to 

• Attract and know their ideal buyers,
• Create valuable content that educates their potential buyers,
• Deliver exceptional service,
• Know where they hang out on social,

Educate your potential buyers

• Educate your potential buyers about your business’s unique point of view – your core value proposition. 
• That accelerates trust in your business. 
• That delivers valuable content that increases your business’s authority and expertise around your business.

Global research across 400,000 businesses over ten years across 47 countries identified five pillars – the difference between – the fastest growing, high-performance businesses and the rest. 

The fastest-growing businesses excelled at these five pillars. The pillars are 

1. They significantly focused on accelerating trust with their ideal buyers -they built new trust assets into all they did. 
2. They answered their ideal buyers’ key question – why should I only buy from your business rather than your competitors? 
3. They distilled this into a sharp elevator pitch (strategic pitch) of a sentence or two. 
4. They expanded this into a strategic narrative that told a bigger story than just their product and services.
5. They knew which marketing levers to pull to deliver a high-performing lead generation and convert those into new revenue. 

Marketing now has, for most – social media strategy at its core. 

Can you answer these four questions:

• What are you trying to accomplish?
• Whom are you trying to reach?
• What resources do you have?
• How will you measure success?

For many – The “SMART” acronym is a great, simple starting place for goals.

• Specific: What are you targeting – attention, engagement? Conversions? Followers?
• Measurable: If you can’t measure, it’s not specific enough.
• Achievable: You’re not getting to a million followers overnight. Be realistic.
• Relevant: Your marketing goals should tie into your business goals. 
• Time-bound: Know when you’re checking in on your goals. Daily? Monthly? Quarterly? Annually?

Nike is scrambling to reduce its stock levels – up 44% company-wide and 65% in North America.

It is an industry-wide issue – Levi’s last week reported a year-over-year stock level increase topping 40%.

The problems are:

• A slowing retail economy.
• Higher interest rates.
• No real wage growth.
• Supply chains that have been broken since Covid – delivering stock in spurts. 

It is indicative of a fragile retail environment. The problem comes when Nike pivots from bricks and mortar to Direct-to-Consumer – a digital-first approach. At the same time, pandemic-level demand has rapidly slowed. 

It is time to ACCELERATE communities of PASSIONATE NEW BUYERS by fuelling and facilitating their insatiable hunger for authentic content and conversations – so your business captures enormous attention and engagement – influence and sell more.

Now the most valuable asset in the world today is attention.

The FASTEST growing businesses have one thing in common they get more attention on multiple social media platforms – every day. 

• More attention first 
• Next More engagement 
• Influence and Sell More. 

Our business reflects the human truth: we are a social and human-first digital agency built on strategic narrative and pitch across platforms.

We accelerate powerful buyer insights gained through micro-content that ultimately influences actual business results. 

Your ideal buyer truth is our lifeblood – we are loyal to it, defend it and accelerate it.

There is no longer a single, generic message served to a mass audience – now drive buyer attention and revenue growth by speaking specifically and differently based on who they are, by listening and understanding more.

If you have read this far, thank you for your attention. 

There are over 160 free previous newsletters – like this one at accelerateyourbusiness.today – look for the tab – How to Influence and Sell More.

It means a lot. I hope this helped you even a little bit in better making sense of this topic. If so, please, share it with a friend who might also benefit from it. 

Thanks for reading, 

David