As Australia enters a likely consumer recession in 2023- 24, the focus is on how to increase demand. Generally, the choices are
- Improve the core business differentiation, strategic narrative, product and services,
- Improve communications – marketing to capture attention, engagement and sell more,
- Improve social selling – everyone is on social media. It’s all about how to sell more on social,
- Enter adjacent markets – new geographies, markets, new products and services,
- Fire-up new breakout businesses,
- Improve the trustability, authority and credibility rapidly of the business with your ideal buyers,
Leadership matters: As McKinsey regularly reminds us – leaders that adopt a growth mindset are 2.4x more likely to outperform. It is a clear choice – grow or not.
- Set bold, actionable ambitions,
- Develop a culture championed by all stakeholders.
- Growth leaders generate 80 percent more shareholder value than their peers over ten years,
Differentiation matters: Mckinsey reports that differentiation improves your gross margin faster than 70% of your industry through your business model, segmentation, and value proposition (pitch).
When businesses don’t have a clear differentiation and market position from their competitors – a way to stand out – that is meaningful to a target audience, often the only effective tool they have left is lowering prices – a dead-end game.
- Positioning is the place you hold in the mind’s eye of your target audience.
- Differentiation is how your firm differs or stands out from your competitors on a non-price basis.
Business leaders would only enter a new market if they knew they could stand out – differentiate clearly from competitors.
These six steps are part of the differentiation playbook -it is a checklist – how does your business perform?
- Branding – ensure buyers feel positive when viewing your branding,
How?
• Create specific emotion(s),
• Stand for a mission or purpose that intersects with your ideal buyers,
• Be seen a lot more than your competitors to build recognition, attention, credibility, and trust in your business,
• Be known as the expert or thought leader within your vertical,
2. Pricing – make it easier for buyers to pay,
• Offer buy now pay,
• Create pricing that positions for growth,
• Offer a cheaper price campaign – that stop and start with clear end dates,
3. Customer Experience – ensure buyers love every interaction with your business, How to stand out,
• Exceptional onboarding experiences,
• Create best practise user experiences that buyers love to use,
• Use every engagement as a stepping stone to building stronger relationships & accelerate your businesses brand equity,
4. Networking for growth: Building relationships with ideal buyers changes rapidly when your average price exceeds $10,000.
• Ecosystem: create integrated solutions working together to deliver better results,
• Distribution: make it easier to buy your solutions,
• Partnerships: integrate with ideal partners so customers gain a fully integrated solution,
• Inbound lead generator: create content to build relationships with customers so they call you
5 Solution – Create products and services that solve significant unmet buyer needs or are a multiple of 5x to 10x better in some way than competitors,
• Make it likely that you’ll get better results
• Make the solution last longer
• Solve the problem faster and more straightforward,
• Get more significant results,
6 Niche vs Total Addressable Market – Narrow or widen whom your business serves. Many variables depend on which approach will lead to more revenue. At the heart of decision making – deeply understand the intersection of ideal buyers, product and services differentiation and the Blue Ocean opportunities or not. The mass market works for many. However, specialist niches may work too – or not.
The ultimate aim is to excel – exceed your competitor’s deliverables in your ideal buyer’s mind, as a general rule – better, faster, simpler, cheaper, or all of these is how to achieve this.
Focus on achieving 10x better at one or more of the above to attract more buyers.
More newsletters that may shed light on how others have achieved significant growth today.
Regards
David
