As a nation, we are searching earnestly for new opportunities of growth in products and services. We are diving in more deeply, searching for new opportunities with a strategic process. The differentiation companies are fighting to achieve has turned to a point of survival, not just another growth plan initiative. The critical component to success and sustaining growth while managing competition falls on understanding that “the grass isn’t greener.”
A good friend of mine, a chief strategy officer at a Fortune 100 company, has shared with me before the frustration of the amount of data the company has accumulated, but has not utilized in order to gather learnings and set a strategy. This has led to underutilized space, lack of space efficiency, and missed collaboration opportunities based on culture environments. The lack of collaboration may have also caused global innovation issues as well.
Here’s an excerpt taken from “The End of Solution Sales,” a recent Harvard Business Review article: “…one of the firm’s top sellers, who asked to give an RFP presentation, quickly commandeered the meeting to his own ends. The seller began with, “Here is our full response to your RFP—everything you were looking for. However, because we only have 60 minutes together, I’m going to let you read that on your own. I’d like to use our time to walk you through the three things we believe should have been in the RFP but weren’t, and to explain why they matter so much.
Have you ever heard someone say,” I work better under pressure.” Or better yet, “My team works great under pressure.” I’m sure we all can relate.
Some companies come through hard times stronger than ever. As I was perusing a recent issue of my favorite magazine—you guessed it, Harvard Business Review—I found an article that touched on three companies that have beaten the odds through growth, productivity, and healthy profits.
Recently, Lawrence and I were calling on a national firm, who has been more than successful over the $1 billion mark. The innovation, coupled with the operational excellence and the mixture of consumer insight research and execution, has created a future of success for their current and future growth. As Lawrence and I make an effort towards consultative selling excellence, we know the importance of understanding what kind of company we are engaging. I do not mean just understanding their industry, what they sell or how they are organized, but a more in depth understanding of what their strategic growth platform looks like, how they intend to grow over the next 10 years (implementation of growth characteristics), how will their growth or the growth of others effect other industry leaders….
The audacity to know what your customers want before they do, delivers an inference of not listening to our clients to a point of understanding their needs. However, the authors of the HBR article entitled Know What Your Customers Want Before They Do, states that advances in IT, data gathering and analytics allows us to deliver propositions, ideas, strategic influences better than what our client advises...