You worked hard, closed all possible deals and even brought some deals forward so you had a nice end of year bonus. Then at the beginning of the New Year, you’re receiving your new target in a market that’s over-saturated. You suspect that the target will note that. But NO it’s all about growth and you received a very challenging new target. Overall message: Grow, grow, grow… Your funnel is almost empty, nothing new to close on short term and you can’t bet on “luck”. But where do you need to get that revenue from? Does this sounds familiar to you?

This is a very common scenario for business people. Therefore Marketing and Sales always goes hand in hand. If we take the Telco industry, an over-saturated market with enormous maintaining, licensing and network costs are very normal. Lots of competition. So if you need to grow, you need to go after your competitors and get a piece of their market. And yes, the same applies for your competition. OUCH!  A new price strategy such as lowering your price or create an all-in-one package for a very low price isn’t something you would like to start with! Because that will ruin the whole market and finally 1 or 3 providers will stay alive.  On top of that, you also have to deal with the impacts of an OPEX / CAPEX that is even worse, than before. Definitely not the right strategy here.

So what will help? You need to be FEARLESS! Step out of your comfort zone and think out of the box. That’s easy to say, lots of people forget to think differently. Even researches shown that after the age of 5 year, we are less creative. For most, creativity has been buried by rules and regulations. Our educational system was designed during the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago, to train us to be good workers and follow instructions and not to try different things and to be different.

Growth mindset

But there is some good news Creativity can be taught. Not from sitting in a lecture, but by learning and applying creative thinking processes. And yes you can make mistakes, from mistakes you will learn!

TRY, STAND UP, LEARN and finally grow! A baby is a perfect example, look to their process of how they learn to walk, see how many times they fall and stand up again and never give up and finally can walk. Take a closer look to your business. Arrange brainstorm sessions, to create a new proposition conjointly with your strategy and vision. If you stick to your current way of doing business from over the past years, you will definitely get eaten up by your competition. There are loads of examples of businesses who did very well and finally are not existing anymore or have been acquired.

Eastman Kodak an American technology company that concentrates on imaging products, with its historic basis on photography (they where the first and best) didn’t took their business to the next level! They didn’t believe in Digital and tapped in to the Digital market too late! Finally they went bankrupt.

Montblanc on the other hand has just introduced a digital pen and paper combination to the market, which includes the pen and their digital paper. The Montblanc’s smart pen will be able to store whatever you write down in the notebook that comes with it. Great example of being disruptive and not giving up.

Now with the IOT – Internet Of Things developments you could easily step into any market, but be sure to have a clear vision. Create a kind of service that your customers will love and like. There are lots of other offerings that you could think of to challenge your company, brand and customers. Like I said, be FEARLESS and DIFFERENT if you want to survive this competitive competition.

Find the right sponsors and don’t kill any weird idea where you maybe think of “oh no that’s nothing”. Open yourself and start writing the ideas, brainstorm and don’t forget, to implement at least one of your ideas within 1-4 weeks. It’s all about EXECUTING!! EXECUTING!!! EXECUTING!!!!

Remember:

No guts no glory:)

Be Disruptive..!!

And Get it DONE!

Love, Marietta