The Side Note

I just returned from a compelling conference in Palm Springs, Calif. One of the keynote speakers at the event was Steve Mckee, author of the new book, “When Growth Stalls”. His presentation was an overview of general business and marketing issues that may derail your company or prevent your company from growing. I recommend anyone who is concerned about his or her business growth stalling, or wants to prevent that from happening, consider reading Mckee’s book.

Below are the highlights, based on my point of view, from Mckee’s presentation:

You company will cease to move forward when any of the following four things occur:

1.    Your business suffers from a lack of consensus – Your board of directors, executive team and managing personnel need to be in agreement on where the business is going and how you are going to get there. Any break in that unity will derail your plans.
2.    You lose focus on your business model – This concept should be taken to heart, especially in our current economy. Remain true to your core business model. Sure, you might need to tweak it some – you should be doing that regularly anyway. But trying to do everything for everybody just to get business…? You won’t do anything right or well if you take that approach.
3.    You lose your nerve – This issue can arise in many areas of your business, but most importantly in your pricing. Mckee said it takes two minutes to cut your rates and two years to get them back.  I recognize that many companies are currently reducing fees to gain sales, but be careful how you market the reduced rates or you could suffer the consequences when there is more money to spend down the road. Remember, don’t sell your service or product short just because you are afraid.
4.    You are inconsistent in you business and in your communications – From a marketing and public relations point of view; remember to make sure your message is integrated and consistent so that your target audience hears you loud and clear. If your current campaign is working, don’t make big or random changes to it. Make sure your public relations message and your marketing message are integrated – consumers don’t differentiate between a message they hear in paid placement (advertising) versus earned placement (public relations), so make sure you are consistent in what you are telling them.

Regardless of the size of your business or the type of product or service you are selling, you might want to consider if one ore more of these issues exist within your company and if it is holding you back from reaching your growth potential. McKee stated that recovery begins when you figure out where you are failing and you fix it. If your growth has stalled, how are you going to jump start it?