For the previous a number of years, I’ve written just a few posts every fall that handle some facet of selling planning. With the fourth quarter of 2023 starting right this moment, many entrepreneurs could have began (or quickly will likely be beginning) their planning for 2024.
Final week’s put up mentioned how entrepreneurs can use the jobs-to-be-done framework to outline their market and decide how their services or products create worth for patrons. This framework helps entrepreneurs pinpoint what is going to inspire their prospects to purchase.
The next put up describes a framework entrepreneurs can use to establish what sources of income progress are (or will be) obtainable to them. Figuring out sources of potential income progress is an important a part of a sound planning course of.
I printed this put up in 2019, however the content material of the put up is as related right this moment because it was 4 years in the past. What follows is a frivolously edited model of the unique put up.
The Authentic Submit
Driving constant, worthwhile income progress is among the best challenges that enterprise and advertising and marketing leaders face. The important thing phrase in that sentence is “constant.” Many firms can produce substantial income progress sporadically or over a brief time period, but it surely’s exceptionally troublesome to constantly generate above-average progress over the long run.
Enterprise and advertising and marketing leaders should carry out two distinct however associated duties to maximise income progress:
- They have to establish what progress alternatives are (or will be) obtainable to them and decide which of these progress alternatives are most tasty.
- They have to discover the proper stability between short-term and long-term progress alternatives.
On this put up, I will concentrate on how enterprise and advertising and marketing leaders can establish progress alternatives.
Structural Sources of Progress
Step one in figuring out potential progress alternatives is to know the dynamics of income progress – the way it occurs or, extra precisely, the place it originates. There are, in truth, a number of distinct sources of progress. These structural sources of progress should not depending on how an organization is organized or on the varieties of services or products it sells. As an alternative, they’re primarily based on the enterprise and advertising and marketing methods that an organization makes use of to faucet into every supply.
- Gross sales of present merchandise in present markets (market penetration technique)
- Gross sales of present merchandise in new markets (market growth technique)
- Gross sales of new merchandise in present markets (product growth technique)
- Gross sales of new merchandise in new markets (diversification technique)
- Persevering with gross sales to present prospects (base retention)
- Gross sales gained from the competitors (market share achieve)
- New gross sales in an increasing market (market positioning)
- Gross sales from increasing into associated markets (adjoining market enlargement)
- Gross sales from increasing into new, unrelated traces of enterprise (diversification)
I’ve used each of those fashions when working with shoppers to border our discussions about the right way to develop. However over time, I’ve expanded on these fashions to create a extra detailed framework of the choice methods to generate progress. The present model of my framework is proven within the following diagram.
This framework is an effective software for exciting your excited about the right way to develop what you are promoting and for figuring out the expansion alternatives which can be (or will be) obtainable to what you are promoting. When utilizing this framework, it is necessary to maintain a number of issues in thoughts.
First, the excellent news is that these structural sources of progress are all the time current, a minimum of to a point. Their existence is not dependent in the marketplace circumstances an organization is dealing with at a specific second in time. Nevertheless, the quantity of income that an organization can acquire from every supply is enormously influenced by the market and aggressive surroundings.Â
So the framework identifies potential sources of income progress, but it surely does not let you know in regards to the relative attractiveness of these sources. You will want to make use of conventional market and aggressive evaluation instruments and strategies to carry out that analysis.
Second, no single supply of progress is probably going to supply all of the income it’s worthwhile to attain your progress goal.
And third, every supply of progress has distinctive attributes and dynamics. So you will want a selected technique and sport plan for every supply of progress you select to pursue.
*****
