Articles
|
|
Articles |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home About News Services Case Studies Business Surveys Articles Seminars Contact Us |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Growing Your Business, Part 3 of 3 Parts. Developing New Customers - The Third Key To Business Growth This article was published in the "New Hampshire Business Review" as the third part of a three-part series. The most exciting and dynamic means for growing your business is attracting new customers. Adding new customers is the single most important thing you can do to assure the continued success of your business. This is the third article of a three part marketing series on how to make your business grow. The focus of this article is developing new customers. Radio talk show host Bruce Williams frequently provides callers with practical business advice. He advises one caller interested in starting a new business to "find a need and fill it." Of all the advice a business can get this is the one that's most important to long term business success. It's important at the outset of a business and every stage thereafter. Most new businesses are started because the founder knows about a market need and how it can be exploited. The business begins with a clear sense of direction and aggressively goes about creating customers. Most businesses do not progress beyond their first idea. The business succeeds in capitalizing on that initial insight. But in time the growth stops or even reverses. The business succeeds at exploiting one market need but doesn't discover new needs to fill. A man moved from New York to Houston. Among the things he took with him was a copy of the New York Yellow Pages. When he got to Houston he compared the Yellow Pages. Since Houston was smaller and less developed than New York he found several business categories missing from the Houston Yellow Pages. He supposed, correctly, that there were unmet needs for some of these missing businesses in Houston. Soon he established a successful business based on this simple research. McDonald's success is based on continually developing new customers and satisfying new needs. Beginning in the '60s McDonald's was a chain of garish, free standing, 19 cent, take out hamburger stands. Since then it has adopted an attractive eat-in format, greatly expanded the menu, added breakfast service, and opened outlets through the world. Lately McDonald's has begun to provide food service along interstate highways and opened storefront outlets in office buildings and airline terminals. Each move had been calculated to create new customers for the chain. A Massachusetts metal stamping company was sold to a new owner. The business had been declining for several years. The new owner revitalized the business by seeking out new customers. He conducted a nation-wide search and found over 50 new customers for his existing product line. He looked for and found companies having needs his products could satisfy. What does this mean for your business? Have you reached the point where your business has stopped growing? If so, how do you reverse the situation? How do you develop new customers? A business owner or manager should devote at least 20% of his working week to the process of developing new customers. Of course this is more easily said than done. Owners and managers are under constant day-to-day pressure of running the business. However, management expert Peter Drucker says, "the purpose of a business is to create customers," and "all of the other functions such as accounting and production re just expenses." In the face of that insight, can any owner or manager afford not to devote the time needed to create new customers? One of the first things to do is to carefully research your market. Get to know your competition. Take the time to understand the changes taking place in your market. Ask yourself, "what's changed during the last few years?" You must take the time to talk directly with your existing and potential customers. Don't delegate this responsibility. It's astounding what you can learn from existing and potential customers if you ask the right questions and listen to the answers. Carefully document what you learn about your market and from talking with your existing and potential customers. You should be able to pinpoint unmet needs and opportunities to create new customers for our business. If you can't you should continue to study your market and talk to more of your customers and potential customers. From among the unmet needs you should focus on one or more specific opportunities. You can't be all things to all people. You should limit your efforts to opportunities that are realistic for your business. Once you have targeted a market need you must figure out a way to take advantage of it. Your response to the need will differ according to the business you are in and your abilities and resources. For example, when gasoline prices rose sharply, many businesses responded to the consumer needs to cut gas costs. Retailers offered gas saving gadgets, manufactures produced fuel-efficient cars, and direct mail merchants had a field day selling anything and everything by mail. These businesses responded to the same need. However, the ways in which they responded were different. You should respond to the market needs you discover in ways that are sensible for your business according to the resources that you have available. I know of a distributor that serves the textile manufacturing industry in a southern state. The textile industry is declining due to foreign competition and restructuring. As a result the distributor's sales are flat and profits are being squeezed. However, new businesses such as bio-medical, electronics, and financial services firms are moving into the area. The distributor does not serve these new businesses. "We know the textile industry," says the manager, "these new businesses are foreign to us." It is essential for this manager to get to know these new businesses and find out what they need. There's a good chance that his business has valuable skills that can be used to meet the needs of the new businesses. The manager must proceed with research to pinpoint needs. Analysis to translate these needs into a product or service, and investment to develop new customers. Despite the difficulty of the process, the manager has little choice if he wants his business to survive. He needs new customers. This has been the final article of a three part series on how to make your business grow. The first article told how to hold on to your customers by keeping them satisfied. Customer service was identified as the key factor in customer's satisfaction. In the second article we discussed ways to increase sales to your existing customers. In this last article we have discussed attracting new customers and satisfying their needs. Bradley E. Hosmer, CMC, heads The Beta Consulting Group in Concord, NH, specializing in improved sales, marketing and new business development for generating profitable growth. For further information please contact Mr. Hosmer at Beta Consulting. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
© Beta Consulting Group, Inc., 1995-2007. All rights reserved. Produced and powered by: Sitesurfer Publishing LLC |
|
