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Fighting to grow or survive?

Over the last three months during budget season, frustrated sales and marketing managers have asked me for advice on how to win support internally for a broad range of initiatives believed necessary to grow or stabilize their company. This frustration is no surprise, as I have seen it first hand in many companies and in many industries.

Watching a floundering company, no matter the industry or part of the channel, die or barely survive year in and year out is excruciatingly painful. Other companies may have done well by relying on a small number of loyal customers to maintain a status quo, but now find that a changing market requires locating new business. In both situations, management believes they do not have the internal culture or marketing support to do so.

I have been in four turnaround situations in three different industries. In all four. the issues were identical-there was no company identity, no product differentiation, and no noticeable long-term marketing strategy. There was nothing to establish memorable personalities for the company or their products in customers' minds. Subsequently, in a bad market, there was nothing to differentiate them from many of their competitors. Instead of maintaining or gaining market share, the companies slid into a downward spiral. In one case, they succeeded in making themselves a low-cost producer, but still failed to get to market and could not understand why.

In another case, after downsizing by nearly 50% to stay in business, the company had to begin growing revenues instead of continuing to cut costs. Production-driven, management thought that the sales force was useless. After all, there was a constant flurry of new products. What more could they do? The trouble was nobody wanted them, or if they did there was never a clear, coherent marketing message as to why they should want them. The same issue. yet in a different industry, was at a company losing 507o of its revenue. Someone coming in who actually wanted to invest in growing the business, and not slash and burn, was shocking and scary to many.

Time was at a premium in both companies, and there was nothing more to cut. It needed out-of-the-box thinking and strategy. Moreover, it needed a change of thinking and culture throughout the company from top to bottom. The focus needed to shift away from internal issues to emphasize that their offerings were not the same "me too" products, but products actually needed, that they would deliver and sell uniquely to the marketplace. It was about fulfilling not only our direct customers' wants and needs, but their customer's wants and needs. It was about repositioning our company away from just product development to investing in branding and marketing to create a new image to give our sales force a strategic advantage over competition. A very difficult challenge under the financial woes the company was going through, and one not done overnight. In one of these companies, the decision was to produce new products in four months instead of 12, all redesigned, all repackaged, all market tested, all produced in concert with trade and end users, and after reviewing all competitive products already in the market, and from intelligence as to what was on the way. The company was profitable six months later.

In three of the four companies, there was no comprehension of marketing strategy. Those very ideas often seemed offensive to some management and staff. In one case, the company had given up substantial market share to newer, more nimble competitors, slipping from No. I to No.4-and management just sat by watching.

In moving to a new company, it was only a matter of hours before I'd hear, "This is how we do it in this company or industry-and we have been doing it this way for years." I would rarely hear about the customers, except for all the problems they created. I would hear that we were in business despite our customers not because of our customers. Customers were an irritant, as was the sales force.

These were the times I realized the difference between a marketing-driven company and a production-driven company. While both styles can lead to success, if you're top management is not tied to the market, if you are not reviewing or reinventing yourself from a marketing perspective, but instead are tied to the product, once the tide turns, it is almost impossible to stave off going out of business or becoming a non-player.

If in your management meetings, sales and marketing strategies are not top of the agenda, and instead, it is always about investing in new equipment. investing in new production capabilities, talking about technical prowess, then it's time for change. If top management and internal staff see the sales force as a "necessity to tolerate," if the decision-makers do not have an equilibrium of managers coming from sales and marketing, who are listened to, then in my opinion, the company is doomed for failure. If the whole company is not standing behind the sales and marketing team and driven to build the business and do what it takes to win business, then the outcome is inevitable. That takes a state of mind and investment.

Production/manufacturing-driven companies win in the short-term if they have a product advantage. In today's world those windows of technical advantage last for shorter and shorter lengths of time. Marketing-driven companies win the battle in the lons-term.