September’s ”Twelve Seasons” asks the question:  what if your market is dead, just isn’t there? 

Well, it is very hard to take market share away from others, but let’s do that first, and let’s also go another route by broadening your market definition.  How to gain market share?  Clearly not easy, but this always boils down to making more calls on competitors’ larger accounts, finding out specifically why they buy from them and then finding out what else they want and providing both of those things.  Every business is different here, but re-read those words and point your selling mechanism at that concept.  Of course, your “selling mechanism” might be salespeople but more probably is the “what causes sales” we’ve talked about so many times (see www.ceotools.com, click on New Tools Catalog, and scroll down to last tool).

How to broaden your market definition?  An example is:  instead of limiting your construction to building homes, remodel them, get into commercial, pursue office building remodels, etc.  If you are a remodeler, what about showing folks how to become Do-It-Yourselfers (but do charge for certain aspects of doing that), providing them with special tools, techniques, even designs or just the parts they don’t want to or can’t do (e.g., tile work).  The thought here is to broaden our thinking!
Focus on just those two areas, and we’re pretty sure you’ll see that your market is there, just differently accessible.

With best wishes, Kraig

Get and keep customers through this protracted economic recovery – so, which customers do we bet on, which will survive and which won’t?  First, keep good credit records on your customers…get financial statements from smaller companies, get them from Dun & Bradstreet and credit raters for larger clients.  Know which will go chapter. Tighten up credit methodologies — see our blog on Abe WalkingBear Sanchez for great ideas. Next get more customers by asking for the order sooner, offering customers price-payment trades, giving more attention than competitors (including after-hours & weekends ways of reaching you).  See our BLOG posting on Top 10 Customer Tools for tips. Best customer wishes, Kraig