Winning in a time of major change demands an updated set of tactics and strategies. Just like football teams adjust their play calling each season and for each competitor, businesses need an updated “Playbook for Winning.”
Consider that a few years ago military planners recognized the number and nature of new threats were not only increasing, they were emerging from a new set of enemies who were leveraging modern communications technologies to prepare and execute their plans. The urgency for increased intelligence, rapid-response capabilities, and a more flexible and dynamic approach to organizing and focusing resources to respond gave rise to dramatic changes in every facet of our national defense. The new world of asymmetrical threats was born.
Business competition today presents similar asymmetrical threats. For instance, rapidly forming situational partnerships of multiple competitors have effectively unseated long-term suppliers. In some cases your suppliers and customers may even become your biggest competitive threat, as tightening financial conditions force them to find ways to lower costs and become more efficient.
At the same time, the fundamentals of communicating and persuading are changing. As Michael Maslansky points out in his book “The Language of Trust,” we are now in a “post-trust” era, in which once-respected authorities and market-share leaders no longer have the benefit of the doubt. Getting a message, any message, through is increasingly difficult, as prospects are assailed with a barrage of competing claims of superiority.
Tomorrow’s winners use positioning and communication tactics that open an honest dialogue with prospective customers and leverage new channels to get their message through. Instead of claiming superiority or a lower price, they make the customer feel in control. Building on the customers’ input, the winners collaboratively create value propositions that address unrealized needs in new ways, filling in real and perceived gaps in value from current suppliers.
• Smarter buyers. The competitive IQ of your prospect has never been higher. From real-time Web updates on every detail of your product category and your industry to savvy and well-placed “educational” information from your competitors, your sales job just got much more difficult.
• Higher risk aversion. In challenging financial conditions, companies tend to become more risk averse. Staying with the devil you know rather than switch is the safer choice unless the business case for changing is crystal clear and compelling.
• Less attention, more control. Today’s business buyer is also likely a switched-on consumer whose eyes and ears are tuned to rapidly scan the fluff, ignore the noise and choose the key information. Traditional marketing and sales methodologies will increasingly fail to “connect.”
• Creative packaging. From new business models such as Netflix to bundling of products and services for one-stop shopping, unrealized customer needs are being strategically targeted and met.
How do you build your new playbook to win?
• Educate or evacuate. Winners in tomorrow’s world from politics to products will take the time to educate their audience with the facts and the context in which those facts have relevance.
• Market share starts with “mindshare.” In the 1990s marketing classic “Positioning” by Ries & Trout, the concept of winning “mindshare” to win market share was identified as the real game of marketing. Fast forward to 2011. The value of mindshare is greater than ever. Get attention the right way, with substance and information and well-crafted messages that position your company as a subject-matter authority.
• Creative collaboration. From geopolitical diplomacy to the IT markets, competitors one day are collaborators the next. Understanding and aligning interests can often produce more attractive and profitable outcomes than escalating investments in fighting with more competitors. Increasingly, you see stores within other stores, overnight delivery services partnering with Web retailers and IT solutions bundling their offerings to increase one-stop convenience. In fact, finding a collaborative way to drive new mutual value with your current customers almost always trumps competing. Internally, increasing collaboration between departments and personnel who have contact with customers on a regular basis can produce creative new insights and new opportunities. •
Christopher B. Coyle is managing member with CBC Group in South Kingstown.
