I’m often told it is to do with firing staff, or parting ways with a co-founder. Or maybe it’s taking the difficult decision to fire a client, or decline a re-pitch? Or deciding whether or not to sell?
Nope. The hardest decision – and the most consequential – is to decide on your commercial strategy, by which I mean:
- Deciding which segment(s) of the market to serve
- With what distinctive, valuable specialisation
- Delivered in what way
Too many people fall into the trap of thinking that if they keep their offer broad, they will have a much wider base of potential clients to go after, and have a much broader range of services to offer.
Trouble is, if you do that, you immediately have a much broader base of competitors to deal with, and the broad range of services starts to look generic in the eyes of a client.
Truth is, there are thousands of marcomms businesses out there, all claiming to be better and different, but who are basically offering pretty much the same.
And if you are a client faced with a large number of competing businesses, offering generic-ish services, the rational way to choose between them is on price. And there will always be someone out there, desperate to sell and so happy to undercut you. Before you know it, you are locked into a spiral of decline.
But even if you have thought about it and made the decision to specialise; you have thought about where to compete and how to deliver the service, it doesn’t stop there.
You have to keep improving your offer and how you deliver it. You have to keep adjusting your commercial strategy as the commercial world evolves; what was a distinctive niche today may be evaporating tomorrow. The search for a great commercial strategy never ends.
So if you haven’t yet taken the decision on where you are going to compete, with which distinctive (and valuable) offer(s), delivered in what way, better get started.
How to do this?
Work out which of your market segment(s) look like they offer the best returns (it’s always easiest to start with segments you already know, than taking a flying leap into an area you know little about). Which has the deepest pockets? Which has the greatest growth opportunities? Any offer barriers to entry?
Next,
- Work out what it is your firm does best; that clients think is really good; where you know you are better than your competitors. There must be something…
- Work out what services your clients value most, whether delivered by you or someone else.
Think about how you can marry these two together. Then look around and see how others – maybe folks outside of the immediate marcomms arena – are providing these or similar services, only better. Crib from what they do (I have found the output of the big management consultancies really helpful here, in topics as diverse as the customer purchase journey, and change management) in order to make your operations even better. Frankly, this is a continuous process of improvement.
And finally, you have to decide how to deliver your services. Think small operational matters (e.g. doing away with contact reports and moving to real-time, on-line project status apps) as well as the big ones (e.g. Partner-led services, or highly leveraged service using juniors).
I say finally, but there’s one more step, which is to phase out – ie terminate – the generic stuff you currently offer. Big bang is not good here, but you do eventually have to shed the stuff that clouds your commercial positioning.
This takes time and will give you many a headache. But if you don’t make the decision – the hard decision – where you are going to be distinctive and offer high value services, the market will eventually decide your fate for you.
As always there’s much to do and time is short, so good luck and get cracking.