Given the choice of ‘pushing on an open door’ or ‘pushing water up hill’, what would you choose?
I imagine that most of you will go for the open door, especially if the outcome is likely to be better.
Defining a strategy to create +10% growth can often feel like pushing water up hill. But why? It can be a real challenge to achieve double-digit growth when your business resources are the same as last year’s and when there is little or no change in market conditions. Typically, you’re trying to be more effective and get better results but working within the same dynamic.
But you can smash the +10% growth target – and it requires no greater effort and no additional resources. And it’s all about pushing on open doors – something that several brands have done very successfully over the last few years. Both Trunki and Micro Scooters have done phenomenally well. These brands are totally focused on creating memorable customer experiences for both parent and child – experiences they, and others talk about. As a result, both brands are growing impressively at the highest price segments of the market. They are ‘reassuringly expensive’!
So what is it that these brands are doing that could benefit your business or brand?
I’ve have six tips to share with you:
1. Focus on your most valuable customers. Define what ‘most valuable’ means for your brand and business – it’s not just about the sales value of these customers every time they purchase. ‘Value’ goes beyond financial worth, it’s also about connecting to customers who will strongly recommend your brand. By identifying and understanding their attitudes, needs and behaviours towards what your business does best, you can then identify how your brand can be the best solution for them. Then your brand will be pushing on an open door. Behind that door is an ever-growing tribe of customers who strongly recommend your brand to others.
2. Focus on what you do best and develop it further. This makes you more valuable (and desirable) to your most valuable customers. Find new and different ways of feeding their appetite for what you do and you’ll retain their commitment to your brand for longer. Plus they will continue to actively recommend your brand to others.
3. Have absolute clarity about your brand’s big idea, values and sense of purpose. Why? Brands are about people identifying with – or aspiring to – what they represent. Your brand needs to connect ‘what you do’ and ‘who you are’ to your most valuable customers.
4. Connect your most valuable customers to what you do best by utilising powerful value propositions that flow from the brand idea. Your brand will then become the very best solution to them at times that are most valuable for them and you.
5. Work on creating brand fans, an ever-growing tribe of customers who will recommend your brand. It’s the most effective and profitable way to grow your business (excluding acquisitions) – businesses that nurture their brand fans grow 2.5 times faster than competitors that don’t.
6. Create a high performance culture that is right for your business, and one that is closely aligned to your brand values and personality. Because people buy people, and having the right talent in place will see your business thrive. Promoting your brand isn’t just a commercial activity aimed at grabbing market share, your employees need to buy in to your brand as well. What it stands for and promises.
And that’s what pushing an open door is all about – focusing your resources on delighting customers who already love what you do for them – your brand fans – and finding more customers who think and behave like them. It’s the same principle applied to your people – create a culture of brand fans internally and watch your business fly to the next level.
These six points I’ve covered here are all significant topics that will be covered in future blog articles, so keep reading!
Want some help right now?
Get in touch and let’s start talking about how Brand Success can work with you to achieve that all-important 10x growth by pushing on open doors.
Image courtesy of Chaiwat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
