Invasion of Business Thieves – Business Owner’s Nightmare

If your company is in commercial or industrial sales, you are used to changing market forces. Sometimes your business gets ahead of the curve and experiences rapid growth. Sometimes you just stay afloat: you don’t lose ground, but you don’t make measurable gains either.

Revenue is the barometer that informs how the market measures the effectiveness of its sales, marketing, offers, policies and operations. And customers are at the heart of revenue. Customer feedback is the tool that assesses where you stand, why that is true, and where customers want you to make changes. Letting your customers tell you what they expect from you creates a wealth of information and helps your business manage its footprint in the marketplace. Three vital business areas that feedback helps shape are:

• Competitiveness.
• Client retention.
• Revenue growth.

Competitiveness, customer retention and growth are always being challenged by market forces. But the change in market strength that was easy to predict but hard to plan for is the retirement of the Boomer generation. What it took to successfully compete, retain and grow in the past will be obsolete once the generational “changing of the guard” reaches its tipping point in his market. It will feel like the commercial version of The invasion of the body snatchers.

generational change of guard. When they first entered the workforce, members of Generation X were characterized as spoiled brats who wanted to be given everything. Millennials are candid about putting their personal lives before their day jobs. Each of them was easy to fire when the oldest of their generations broke into entry-level jobs. By now he has made his own observations about how each group changes the workplace. Today, Gen Xers have matured into key roles, and Millennials are rising through the ranks. Perhaps you yourself are one.

Older Baby Boomers began dropping out of the workforce nearly ten years ago. Boomer generation business owners are starting to leave en masse with every downturn in the economy, whether it’s closing their businesses, selling to competitors (or private equity groups), or handing over the reins to Gen Xers primed to the stall and waiting in the wings.

competitiveness. Any change in the leadership of the companies you compete with and sell to subtly warns your company that status quo business practices can no longer create status quo dirty. This is a valid concern for leaders of all generations. But because Boomers are used to making everyone else fit in with them, the key message here is this: If you’re a Boomer not yet ready to sell or retire, stay nimble and stay on top of changes. that are about to happen. wash over you

• Your competitors and customers will increasingly be owned by Gen X leaders.
• Members of Generation X make decisions differently than their competitors and Boomer customers did.
• Individual competitors can change overnight from familiar adversaries to complete strangers after a change of leadership (or ownership).

Retention. The change also places new demands on what it takes to retain existing customers. New leaders in your clients’ companies may have different expectations of their suppliers. As with any new owner, they are likely to view the vendors they inherited with an unsympathetic eye. If you don’t communicate regularly and stay on top of why key customers buy from you, you may miss out on a shift in expectations that recategorizes your business. status quo business practices from “good” to “poor”. And change can come without notice.

The message here is this: Communicate and ask regularly in an open manner, where key customers see room for improvement. You never want to lose relationships due to a recent incident when you had no idea your company was the source of recurring irritants. Instead of making assumptions about why customers are loyal, ask key customers why they’re loyal, ask what would put the relationship at risk, and what changes they’d like to see. (You don’t have to follow all of their suggestions, but it’s better to know than not to know what customers think and want.)

Growth. Without knowing why your business wins new sales and retains existing customers, you weaken your ability to make growth plans based on factors you can influence. Without a clear view of how customers think, your business risks being an economic cork in the water that rises and falls with the pace of the broader economy. Power surges mask how well businesses are doing because some customers are forced to lower their standards and buy from whatever provider is available. On the contrary, falls reveal weaknesses; fewer decisions are made, competition intensifies, and customer standards rise.

Keeping pace with the economy isn’t your only option. If you have competitors who weather economic downturns better than you, they probably aren’t just luckier than you. Rather, they can be more diligent in evaluating and adapting to changes in the way customers make decisions.

At the center of every selection decision is a decision maker. Regardless of which generations are represented by the decision makers and influencers at your clients’ businesses, you need to stay in active communication with the people who know you best. One step you can take before the next recession hits is to hear how they chose vendors during the last recession.

• For companies that sell through distributors, how did your distributors drive direct sales during periods of low demand? What could your company have done differently to get better support from distributors?
• For companies competing for projects, how were competitors evaluated (time and material costs, project price, full-service offering, other approach)? What innovations did customers see that they would recommend offering to all competitors?
• For companies with long-term relationships, have your competitors approached your customers with attractive offers? What changes should you make to keep your relationships resistant to poachers?

The message here is this: learn how your customers made decisions in difficult times. This will help you better control your company’s growth through thick and thin. No one is surprised when customers ask for lower prices. Even when that’s not the driving factor, the pressure to keep prices low increases the urgency to reduce costs by optimizing technology, operational strategies, and agreements with your own suppliers.

And remember, every recession will create a stampede of resignations until all Boomers retire or sell their businesses. Expect to pay attention to changes in leadership at competitor companies and customers. for the next ten years. By actively monitoring what your most important customers think and want, you will always know how to:

• make it easy to do business with you,
• earn continued customer loyalty, and
• be chosen in times of lean cows.

Boomers have been a force to be reckoned with for decades. For better or worse, the business will not be the same without them. The challenge is to survive the transition.