We were recently asked by the South West Manufacturing Advisory Service to address an audio-visual networking session in January for SMEs, which they were running here in the South West.
Some thirty plus companies were involved in this peer group session and all keen to improve their sales performance in these difficult and uncertain times.
It was a tricky assignment, in that the likely needs of every SME attending would be very different, and there wouldn’t be the opportunity to discuss these individually.
So, I centred my talk around an issue that might be applicable to all present – the need to plan where growth might come from in 2021.
To help me achieve my objective, I used the famous Ansoff model, created by Russian academic Igor Ansoff, which acts as a guiding light in marketing.
The Ansoff rule states that sales growth can only ever come from four key areas as follows:
- Marketing existing products/services to existing customers/markets (market penetration)
- Marketing new products to those existing customers/markets (market innovation)
- Marketing existing products/services to new markets (market development)
- Marketing new products/services to new markets (market diversification)
Each area carries with it different risks and not all may be applicable at this time, but for some businesses they are very relevant.
Each area will require a detailed plan aligned to vision and key objectives, but the beauty of this model is that, like a road in thick fog, it will lead you to your destination, as long as you have a clear vision as to where you want to get to.
I used pictures to illustrate a story using two real life case studies of successful entrepreneurs, both of whom had applied the learning with great success.
Importantly, the feedback from the session was excellent.
