• What are your unique differentiators?
• Where do you have a competitive advantage?
• What is your reputation?
• How are your people regarded?
• Is your offering, be it a service or product, modern or distinct enough to be a “must-have”? How vulnerable is it to new offerings or new technology?

Granted, every company will have different points to emphasize in the selling process: better flavors, more attractive fashions, a superior finish, faster service, healthier ingredients. The key is to really understand each and every way in which your company leads the competition and to sell these together as the value of your brand.

If you can learn how to sell value, showing ROI and highlighting benefits, you will feel less pressure to compete on price alone. Sure it’s a poker game, but the more of these you win, the sturdier a foundation you can build for the rest of the company.

No, I mean a check in the business market in which you or your clients operate. An organized session of brief interviews with customers, suppliers and industry experts can tell you who’s surviving, who’s thriving (if anyone), who’s doing new things to move product, who’s operating differently, and who’s going after new markets or seeing different risks.

These Strategic Conversations will generate new ideas and new insights that can have an impact on how you conduct your business. This will be especially important as we enter the uncharted waters of the next eighteen months.  Mike Oleksak  2008

• What are you doing of high value for the client? Is it high value because of creativity, relationship, or knowledge of the client’s business from years of collaboration? What services of high value and quality can you develop further?

• Does your client appreciate your unique knowledge? Will this knowledge be easily transferable to foreign collaboration?

• Are you geographically close to your client? Do you take advantage of this nearness to hold strategy sessions and exchange observations about the market? Can this proximity partially offset the allure of lower costs from a cheaper supplier?

• Are there processes in your company that are routine and boring? If they do not represent high value to you and your customer, you should spend some time rethinking. Can you do the process better or should you get rid of it and outsource it yourself?

• Are there niches up-market and/or down-market where you can penetrate to add another skill or service offering to your clients where off-shoring is not as advantageous?

Don’t get caught on the losing end of outsourcing, move to higher ground.

- Michael Oleksak  2007

When this happens, companies typically go through a number of stages:

Stage I: Denial – They cannot believe that this is happening to them. They often ignore it for a while, convinced that their clients will wake up and realize that the quality at 25% of the cost will put their company at great risk. The clients, however, see it as a higher risk not to test this cheaper alternative.

Stage II: Disagreement – They spend long hours documenting for their clients and anyone else that will listen all the ways that off-shoring will fail, and why their approach (and cost) is justifiable. The clients still feel compelled to look elsewhere.

Stage III: Adaptation – They realize that they cannot change a global trend that is fueled by sound economic logic. They look at their position, and they decide to learn and adapt. Not everyone gets to this point—some businesses never learn from the lesson and their sales begin to erode.

You may read this and think that, “it would never happen to me.” But it is happening on some level to every single business. Rather than letting it happen to you, get proactive. Adapt. Read on for some tips on how to do this from Michael. -Mary Adams   2007

In the first quarter of 2001, sales collapsed. Tucci, who had seen the collapse at Wang, did not believe his managers who said it was a one-quarter event—that purchases were just being postponed. Tucci felt it was more than that and wanted to get to the heart of the matter. He started having strategic conversations with his C-level peers, as well as the CEOs and CFOs at his clients. The cumulative answer was that the economic slowdown and excess capacity in telecom were forcing changes at his customers’ businesses.

Tucci used these conversations to get quick market feedback and make significant changes throughout his organization.

You can read about this story in significant detail in Confronting Reality by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan.

The first step may be to sit down with the management team, collect their input on the topics mentioned above and develop your contingency plan in case of an economic downturn. Some of the questions to ask include:

• In a recession, which of your customers or clients would be most vulnerable and how can this affect your relationship?

• What about your key suppliers and/or partners?

• How elastic are your resources? If you lose somebody through attrition, should you replace them with short-term or outsourced labor?

• Have you taken a close look at your cash cycle: inventory, accounts payable and accounts receivable? Can you tighten up there by applying different methods? Tighter inventory and more timely receivables mean more cash, less debt and smaller interest expenses. The opposite is true of payables.

Beyond speaking with your internal team, you might also consider strategic conversations with key customers and vendors about their views on the economy. Your conversations may or may not prompt a change in your plans for this year—but they will definitely prepare you for whatever may come along.

- Michael Oleksak  2007

Feeling a little scared, senior management took a step back. They considered a number of new initiatives. They weren’t sure what to do next. As part of the process, we helped them perform some strategic conversations with key customers. The feedback that was gathered brought home the strengths that the company had (and a few weaknesses). It helped them understand their worth to a whole array of new and potential clients. The plan of action seemed almost obvious.

With new energy and clarity, the management team made a few changes in the substance and appearance of their business. They tightened up their marketing message and took it to some new audiences. Today, they are glad that they lost the old client and have taken on many new ones. They are adding people and moving to a new office. Being stuck was an opportunity that this company exploited to great advantage.

Your employees, customers, and prospects are in the market every day, talking to one another, meeting with your competition, and measuring the market players. They know what companies are doing and who’s doing it best. They are great sources of information about industry trends as well as your own firm’s strengths and weaknesses.

When added to your own knowledge and experience about your company, you can analyze, synthesize, and plan your action steps to implement the changes in 2008 that your company needs to get it back on track and growing profitably.

Gathering this information may be both illuminating and painful, but it likely will help you to face the challenges for the coming year. - Michael Oleksak    2007

This book doesn’t have a magic formula for success.  However, it does have some great stories that will stick with you (stories have a way of doing that), and one or two that may inspire a change in attitude, thinking or action that will make you or your company that much more successful.

Read more about this book.

• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• Stories

There is no way to summarize the many, many great stories in this book that help you understand and remember these concepts. There isn’t a businessperson around who wouldn’t benefit from this book.

To learn more about this book, visit the authors’ website.