Can You Pivot & Transform?
FACT: The best time to diversify your business is proactively in advance of a crisis.
However, if you find that your “go to” target market is vaporizing before your eyes, do you have the flexibility to adapt and evolve?
There is an art to the pivot and planning towards transformation. Otherwise, it’s “Ready, Aim, Fire!”
Some organizations are like large ships and require a lot of energy, time and various levels of approvals to turn. They are the antithesis of being nimble. Is that your organization? If it is, are there even small changes that you can incorporate?
If your company is more agile, can you strategically identify the steps necessary to quickly advance your ability to capture other market share? Without a tactical and deliberate plan, then you’ll waste a lot of precious time.
4 Steps for a Smart Pivot & Transformation
Engage & Empower the Team
I’ve always found that engaging the organizations’ teams at various levels maximizes success. However, there is such a thing as too many cooks in the kitchen.
For the plan to implemented fully, it must include and empower the voices of those charged to execute it. These folks are in the trenches and have the most current finger on the pulse of your client and market base.
Get Reflective & Realistic
What do your best clients say about you? How about your most challenging clients?
Now’s the time for your troops to rally around those clients who treat you best. Go above and beyond for them, even if you don’t make any profit right now. This will be an investment in your company’s future.
What can you learn from your most challenging clients? No company, or its teams, are perfect; there is always room for improvement. There’s no better time to update your QA/QC processes and procedures and strive for a superior client experience.
What differentiates you from your competition?
Truly reflect upon your strengths and weaknesses versus your competitors’. Unless you’ve worked recently in your competitors’ organizations, you won’t know them completely. I’m amazed at how much is assumed and underestimated when regarding the opposing team.
Who are you now?
Examine the referral sources from your largest accounts. Where can you double down to garner more opportunities from those influencers?
Examine areas of non-success. Is there a universal pattern to those? If so, then consider “no going” future opportunities.
Analyze profitability by account and referral source. Like the previous bullet, declining now will ensure future successes.
Who would you like to be in the future?
Review your prior company experience (including the various unique characteristics of each project) and conduct in-depth conversations/interviews of all technical employees. This will help you to develop a realistic picture of other markets that make sense for pivot value.
One caveat is that your self-evaluation of your organization must contain a rational representation of your capabilities to target other markets given your existing experience. Otherwise, you’re wasting a lot of people’s time — but most of all your own!
Align with Marketing & Public Relations
Early and often involvement of this plan and new market strategy hinges on the involvement, feedback and follow-through of your marketing and/or public relations team members.
Can they develop your company qualifications, web site, project sheets and team resumes to appeal to the new target industries?
Are there direct email activities, as well as social media, professional and community outlets/channels to promote your company and your capabilities to deploy quickly?
What else do those creative minds suggest? Let them brainstorm freely. You will be amazed at what they present back to you.
Set Achievable Goals & Work the Plan
To maximize your accomplishments, the plan must include measurable and accountable goals, tactics, and actions. It must be thorough enough to tell the story about your organization, but not be so thorough that it’s overbearing, clunky and a chore to maintain.
Once you have a plan, then customize a process that works for you and your team to update it (whether it’s monthly, quarterly, etc.) Revisit and revise it annually, based upon your achievements.
No plan is perfect. However, you wouldn’t start a construction project without a budget, schedule, etc. It’s the same for business development. Without a plan, you’ll just wander aimlessly in the wilderness – wishing for positive returns!
Lastly, morphing your company and its brand perception into a new market takes time. Be realistic in your operational expectations because this is a marathon, not a sprint. Clients will want to test your capabilities out on the small deals before they give you a shot on a whale project. Their own careers ride on it…
Highs and lows are inherent in times of uncertainty. No doubt about it, it is often darkest before the dawn. However, the common denominator in successful companies who can ride out the storm is an ability to retract, retool, pivot and transform to evolve their super star employee base and service offering to market demands. Solid companies consistently become even stronger because of it. As with anything, we grow through the forging of the fire.
Are you foreseeing a need to pivot and transform your business? A positive perspective is crucial as you lead your teams through this time.
If you’d like to discuss any of the content from this post, then please contact me at dlandry@authentizity.com. Happy Metamorphosis!
NOTE: To access prior Authentizity Business Development blog posts on related topics, please visit: https://authentizity.com/business-development-blogs/
