Part 13 in a series of articles from Sales Through Service: How to make customers want to buy again and again and again (because you’re so ‘great’!) by Guy Arnold
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Issue Number 11 – Shrinking Margins and Getting a Fair Price for your Goods
As the global competition bites, your margins have been shrinking: markets that used to be protected are now wide open and new inventions are now copied almost overnight.
This is completely normal and happening to everyone, and there are ways to deal with it.
Counter intuitively, you need to accept the customer is in charge (and will be less and less inclined to be loyal to you), and that this increased pace and ferocity of competition is in fact a good thing: it will force you to get brighter and smarter and quicker and more effective in what you do.
So what can you do in reality?
Remember that the key differentiator from a customer’s point of view is ‘experience’.
This will become more and more important as product differentiations reduce, global choice increases and customers become more and more powerful through social media and feedback.
Therefore, the answer is of course, to have a clear Customer Focused Mission, align all your processes and systems through your customers’ real needs (both internally and externally), adopt the ‘Go the Extra Inch’ process, manage your people brilliantly through systems and have simple lead and lag measures aligned to everyone’s personal goals and targets.
There is no other way: accept that the customer is in charge, accept that global competition is here, embrace it and use it to drive excellence and continual improvement through the processes and systems outlined in ‘Sales Through Service ®’.
|
Remember: it is not the strongest of the species that survive, but those most responsive to change. |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next time: Issue Number 12 – Getting Great People at a Sensible Price
