Larry Girouard | The Business Avionix Co. LLC president
They say a rising tide raises all boats, and as the economy boomed over the last several years, the future was bright for most businesses. Then the storm hit with alarming speed. Category 5 hurricane “CV-19” brought most businesses to their knees. While every crisis presents opportunities, what will it take for a business to bounce back?
With uncertainty around every corner, businesses must understand what can be controlled as their focus. Three key questions must be asked and addressed:
n Why should anyone buy your product or service? In a world of similar-looking products and me-too services, businesses must be viewed from the customer’s vantage point in order to define differentiation opportunities.
n What do customers really buy? Customers look for timely response to quotes, on-time delivery, quality, value pricing and other customer-service criteria that can be metric driven. Internal company activities must be focused on optimizing these metrics. The foundation for quantifiable differentiation resides here.
n Who drives company performance? Empowering employees to define and improve the processes that support each of the identified customer needs is the key to unlock a company’s competitive potential. Employees are the real untapped resource within your business.
Business owners must have the courage to engage employees at a much higher level than ever before, and trust that this empowerment will improve processes, and by default your company’s value proposition. This provides the needed differentiation for growth through market penetration.