How many times have you heard someone say – “here is your $64,000 question?” And how many times have you failed to have the right answer?
If it was easy, the original TV series would never have existed; so, we all know it is difficult to find the answers to some really challenging questions, such as “where will I get my next contract from?”; “where can we get significant growth for our financial backers?”, and if you find it, “how will you go about activating it?”
Every industry sector has its own unique challenges so the answers may be slightly different, but – and here is a piece of insight for you – I think there is a consistent and repeatable way of finding the answer to everyone’s $64,000 questions.
Still with me, or not a believer?
We were given the challenge recently to provide the answers to three fundamental questions, in an industry sector that was highly competitive, highly regulated, and used by almost everyone in daily business life.
Here we go:
- Question number 1 – how can I identify where I can get significant growth from? And by significant, we mean the challenge was to grow by 50% within 3 years. Whoa …
- and question 2, if you could find it, who in my organisation is best placed to deliver it?
- and question 3, if I have the right people, how will they deliver it for me?
Big questions, worth way more than $64,000 if only we can get to them!
So here we go with the answers, and today I shall provide the answer to question number 1.
To identify growth from your market, you need to know what the market thinks of you – how good is your service, the customer experience, and levels of satisfaction with your proposition. In summary, an assessment of the current quality of your relationships, providing segmentation that means something (are they Ambassadors for your business, or Opponents for example), and putting a real value to each segment so that you know where you stand and what the potential opportunity is. But more importantly, getting actionable insights into why you are doing well, not so well, and doing something about it. And that allows you to focus upon your proposition, your sales teams delivering the right messages to convert opportunities, and an organisation that delivers the product or service seamlessly.
So, the answer to “how can I identify where I can get significant growth from?” is to activate the Customer Attuned CRQTM (Customer Relationship Quality) which provides granularity by customer segment of what is working, not working, and the output of which is used as the foundation for a performance matrix to assess the current business against potential for each segment. And allows you to make decisions about how to direct resources to make a real difference.
But as we all know, just knowing the source of significant growth is only the start – next up will be the answer to question 2.
