Sustainable Success
For those of you who have been with us for a while,
you know that we are strong believers in sustainable
advantage. From the publication of Mitch's first book,
It's Not Rocket Science: Using Marketing to Gain a
Sustainable Advantage, we have focused on
marketing/sales practices that produce sustainable
results rather than the "fad of the day" or
marketing-hype approach. This has not always made us
popular
with potential clients.
Why is it so hard to build a sustainable business? Even
companies who "get it right" often fail. A review of
In Search of Excellence finds that most of
the "excellent" companies aren't anymore. Studies show
that only about one company in ten can sustain "above
average" growth for more than a few years. Clayton
Christensen, among others, suggests that success is
the worst teacher of success because what is "right"
for now may not be "right" later.
We believe that sustainable success comes from two
critical drivers of the future: (1) Understanding your
customer (remembering to "think like a customer" as
opposed to hoping the customer thinks like you) (2)
Recognizing the underlying theory that is at play which
cannot usually be determined from a backwards look at
data.
Using accounting and financial data to drive a company
forward has often been described as driving while
looking in the rearview mirror. While data and history
are important, they do not necessarily reflect your
future situation. Gaining sustainable advantage
requires "predicting" the future, or at least adapting to
it quickly.
We continue to believe that the best way to do
that is to make sure you spend time with your
customers understanding their future. While we agree
that customers may not be able to tell you what you
should do to help them with their future needs, that
doesn't mean they don't know what they will need.
Your "job" is to translate their future needs into your
future actions.
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Dear Mitchell,
Welcome to the April 2004 Customer
Manufacturing Update. This month's white paper
focus is on brand loyalty and brand insistence. Brands
and branding are still hot topics. The illusive idea of
brand loyalty and how to measure it is still a key issue.
We have taken a somewhat different approach by
suggesting there may be an alternative view.
To learn more about our view on creating valuable
brands to gain a competitive advantage, be sure to
read this month's white paper.
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| Brand Loyalty vs. Brand Insistence | | |  The concepts of Brands and branding are driving most
marketing programs these days. More money is being
spent on Brands and branding than ever before. The
concept has moved beyond consumer products to
business-to-business products.Despite this increased effort, more brands are becoming
commodities than commodities are becoming brands.
What's wrong? Maybe the focus of marketers trying to
build brand loyalty and brand value is in the wrong
place.
This month's white paper, Brand Loyalty vs.
Brand Insistence, suggests an alternative focus. Download this month's white paper... | | |
| Investing for Growth | | |  The market has turned for most companies and we are
hearing from many about a new focus on growth (which
is more fun than focusing on survival). That being said,
what to do to accelerate growth is always a subject of
debate. You probably know what to do, the question is
which of the things you "know to do" is the right one to
do first.Before investing large sums of money and time on
activities that may not be the right first choice to
increase sales, consider using constraint analysis to
determine where the real bottleneck or constraint is
to increasing your sales. If you would like a fast,
economical and proven "second opinion" to make sure
you know what to do first, consider using our
MarketSharp service. It works.
If you'd like to learn more about MarketSharp, click
the link below. Learn more about where to invest for sales growth... | | |
| Closing Thoughts | | | We appreciate any feedback you can provide to help us
make sure these Updates give you value each
month. Feel free to respond to this e-mail with any
comments or suggestions for future topics or ways we
can make these Customer Manufacturing
Updates more valuable to you. Thank you for your interest, and if we can provide any
additional assistance in sales, marketing, strategy, or
innovation to help you increase your sales,
let us know. Our mission is to help you improve the
performance of your System to Manufacture
Customers®. | | |
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