You may have heard this quote: “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer” -Peter Drucker
One of the best presentations I attended at the Scaling Up Summit in October was by Christo Popov, a coach for fast-growing businesses in Europe.
He started with that quote, and simplified strategy down to three crucial elements –
- What is “the market” for your goods and services?
- Who is your ideal customer?
- What do customers need?
-> and then figure out your most profitable offering: “What almost no companies offer but [most] or some clients care about.” [credited to Kevin Daum of the Awesome Experience.]
Sounds so SIMPLE right?
Yet according to statistics Christo shared:
- 75% of businesses have not clearly defined their capabilities
- 90% admit to missing opportunities
- 80% of employees don’t understand their strategy
- 8% of those with a clearly defined strategy actually execute it well!
The moral of the story is that this lack of strategic focus and execution planning by your competitors is leaving a potentially underserved client-base for you.
This is the concept of a “niche” business.
When you offer something your competitors do not and your customers want it… you have more pricing power and higher revenues and profits.
This is far preferable to being a tiny fish in a big ocean of companies with a commodity competing on price. Based on economic theory, they beat each other up on price until it’s “perfect competition” – meaning very small profits. That’s not the ideal business to be in.
The framework we like to use with our clients is the “Core Customer” exercise that outlines your “Sandbox” (who you help) and your “Brand Promise” (how you define your differentiated product or service).
If you can clearly define these two strategic elements, you will stand out in the eyes of your customer, as well as make business decisions to keep focus on delivering the best experience for your customers.
Resources
To see the list of all “7 Strata” layers to built into your market dominating strategy– click here to download the Scaling Up 7 Strata worksheet.
Watch my video recording summary of Christo Popov’s full “Fast Track” strategy method: “Re-Position Your Products and Services for Emerging Trends & Competitive Advantage” Video link [22 minutes]: https://vimeo.com/419957867