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It is no secret that our business landscape is changing, from the declining profitability of many businesses, a plummeting stock market, to the tightening of financial instruments and the paralyzing fear in people.
Since hope is not a strategy, now more than ever, understanding our market place and developing an effective plan that fits current market conditions is of paramount importance. We need to adapt or run the risk of becoming extinct. ANALYZING YOUR MARKET To find out which companies are successful in this economy, we contacted several employment agencies within a 20-mile radius from our office, seeking info on which companies and given industries are actively hiring. We shifted our marketing team’s efforts to target those selected industries, assuming hiring activity indicates profitable, stable and potentially growing businesses. The challenge of locating a profitable business with an owner contemplating a sale is like finding a needle in a haystack. They exist; they just require intense effort, creativity, and persistence to locate them. EVALUATING YOUR TEAM Evaluate your team in light of current realities and long-term goals. Ask yourself: “Knowing what we know now, would we hire this person for this role?” If the answer is no and you’ve invested in training them, you can keep things the way they are and hope for better results, or you can make a change to improve your position in the market. In evaluating Plethora’s team, we discovered that the best approach to expand our market share was not to hire more agents, but rather, to invest in expanding our internal marketing department. Even though this involves the risk of taking on fixed overhead and an investment on our part, we feel that in this economy increased lead generation is vital to our success. EVALUATE WHAT WORKS AND DETERMINE WHAT BRINGS THE BEST RESULTS
Prior to making contact with potential sellers, our marketing department goes through great effort to identify, from our buyer’s database, the specific buyer’s needs, be it an individual or a PEG with whom we have developed a relationship. Having a focus target empowers our marketing department with creditability as they search the specific industry / business type to fulfill the needs and requests of our buyers. Sometimes adversity helps because it draws us back to the core of our business. Difficult times demand new thinking and courageous execution. Revising and adhering to your business plan with discipline and boldness now more than ever requires daily attention. Leverage your strengths and directly address your weaknesses to minimize their adverse affect on your business. Does your business plan need a touch of reality? As Dr. Henry Cloud put it, “Reality is always your friend.” by George Lanza, CBI, M&AMI, CSBA
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