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Knowing who your competitors are, and what they are offering, can help you to make your products, services and marketing stand out. Your growth strategy needs to include competitive and customer intelligence to be successful. A competitive advantage is anything that gives a company an edge over its competitors, helping to attract more customers and grow market share.  Do you know, with certainty, what your competitive advantage is?  If not, what’s the best way to determine it? Here are three elements that can help you drive your competitive advantage.  A competitive advantage differentiates a company from its competitors and typically contributes to higher prices, more customers, and brand loyalty. Establishing this advantage is one of the most important goals of any company and is essential for business success. To find a lasting competitive advantage, look for something that your competitors cannot easily replicate or imitate and something your customers and targets require and desire. 1. Competitor Insight… Start by looking at your competitors and their overall operation including the products and services they offer, the prices they charge, the way they deliver their goods, how they sell and support their customers, their branding and marketing strategies and campaigns and customer reviews– this

It seems many companies have been impacted by the “great resignation” as a side effect of the pandemic.  This has left organizations scratching their heads to figure out why this happened and scrambling to replace team members and often restructuring their businesses. The same questions continue to be asked: “Why did they leave us?: “Where is everyone going, and Why?” Understanding why employees are leaving is critical insight that can be used to stabilize the organization, improve operations, culture and engagement and ensure the rest of your team stays put, happily! Exit interviews can provide that insight and have been an important part of human resource processes, but often get overlooked since they can be awkward and difficult to conduct. However, there are four key insights you can learn that would make it worth your effort to conduct exit interviews, slow down the great resignation, and improve your business. Four Key Insights: #1:  What triggered you to begin searching for another opportunity?  Kick-off the exit interview by asking the employee why they’re leaving. Knowing why people are leaving will help you prevent others from leaving in the future.  Are they moving or going back to school or do they feel your

As another year ends, companies are gearing up to launch their business plans and strategies for the new year. How much effort is put into marketing campaigns and sales strategies targeted to drive new business and new customers for your organization?  But what about your existing customers?  Are you missing out on opportunities by overlooking your current customer base? We’ve all heard this statistic:  Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer, right?  But what about this fact:  The success rate of selling to a customer you already have worked with is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is only 5-20%.  Obviously, to grow your organization, it’s important to add new customers, however, a major part of your growth can come from selling more to the customers you already have.  By selling more to your current customers, you immediately increase your probability of success.  Here are three steps to go about this: Know Who’s Satisfied … Don’t assume that every customer is happy!  It’s important to gather feedback from your customers to confirm their satisfaction with your products and services — it would certainly be hard to sell more

Using Net Promoter Score® can be a great metric to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty.  But what’s the impact to your bottom line… especially if you have lots of happy customers? Here are three opportunities to find the dollars in your NPS data… Sales Opportunities… Identifying who your Promoters are will allow you to sell more products and services to customers that already love you allowing you to increase your share of wallet and referrals with your Promoters.  This is definitely low hanging fruit. Operational Opportunities… Identify what your customers truly care about across every stage of their journey with you, and then prioritize efforts based on what will have the greatest influence on their experience based upon their needs and expectations.  When you know and act on customers’ needs and desires, you keep them coming back for more. It’s that simple. Marketing Opportunities… As the economy and customer expectations continue to shift, it’s critical for companies to identify what makes them unique to their customers, and …against their competition.  Understanding these components will help you position your organization to deliver on your promises and build loyal, satisfied customers.  Whether you measure repeat purchases, continued subscriptions or other indicators, a

The key to your business growth may not come from adding new customers but rather from customers that are leaving you.  Companies put a great deal of time, money, and resources into getting new customers.  The more customers, the more growth. Think about how much of your company’s budget is dedicated to sales and marketing with inside and outside sales reps, advertising and social media campaigns.  Quotas and goals established to attract and capture new customers to build the business.  But how many companies pay attention to the customers that are lost or inactive?  Are you leaking customers and losing revenue and profit as a result? Let’s talk about three steps to win-back your lost or inactive customers…  Need to know who… If you’re losing just as many customers as you are bringing in each year, you’re going to be challenged to grow your business.  Knowing who has stopped buying from you altogether and who’s sales have continued to drop over time is the first step to stop the leaking.  Determine who falls into what category and look at the data for patterns such as what division or region are they in, what product or service do they use? Can