You will never drive sales at the maximum velocity until you define who you are.
You will never attract the best candidates until you define who you are.
You will fail to write compelling marketing content until you define who you are.
I could go on but you get the picture.
You don’t have the right to look at pricing problems, quality of blogs, recruitment policies, business models any of that stuff until you define clearly who you are.
HP and J.C. Penney were in the news this week for the wrong reasons. Struggling with turnaround efforts. There are a plethora of operational priorities in these businesses but the most urgent priority – Positioning. Who are they?
Stuck in the middle of the envelope with no clear definition of who you are is risky not safe.
High growth companies spotlighted in the Inc 500 are clear who they are and have translated that positioning in their prospects head (Al Ries & Jack Trout Advertising legends, book Positioning).
As an example from a recent stock market entrant – Carbonite are growing very fast because they have defined a clear identity in prospects heads. Automatic efficient back up of your hard drives – because your life is on your computer.
The web, blogs, all social networks cry out for tags to describe yourself. The whole search engine industry is saying — please define yourself very carefully because we can then send lots of pre-qualified prospects your way.
Defining your unique niche allows you to consider strategies to monopolize it. Play by your rules. Why play by a competitor’s set of rules? Sales and marketing campaigns, speeches, white papers are all so much easier to execute when you know who you are! The acquisition of new talent and the motivation of existing talent is certainly easier with a clear compelling story. Product road maps have a driving vision. Best of all, sales conversations have greater traction.
The next five years are a great opportunity for companies to stake out their unique market, claim their space and work tirelessly to open huge gaps on the competition and emerge out of this recession, a world class, high growth, remarkable business.
