Over the years, we’ve recognised something very important. We’ve recognised that when a business owner tells us about their challenge, we must work with them to translate that challenge into what it really means. Some business challenges are described in terms that are too broad to be useful. In some cases the business owner is completely focussed on the wrong task. Consider these common challenges:
- I have a staff issue.
- We’re constantly competing on price.
Let’s translate these issues into what they really mean. After some questioning ‘I have a staff issue’ becomes:
We hire great staff and we get really busy working to complete the jobs we have on. A few months later the work dries up and we just don’t have enough work to keep the staff on so we end up having to put them off. A few months after that the work comes in and we have to go and find new staff. We’re always training new staff when we’re already very busy.
So is this a staff issue? Not really. The business is able to get good staff and train them but they lose them because when they get busy their marketing suffers. If this business worked on a marketing approach that worked well and was consistent, the so called staff problem wouldn’t exist!
‘We’re constantly competing on price’ becomes:
We do get enquiries but generally by the time we get an enquiry the customer has already had three quotes. We don’t spend a lot on marketing so when we get an enquiry it’s like gold and we have to have a very high conversion rate. In order to keep our conversion rate high we have to keep the prices low.
So again, it’s not necessarily a competitor problem. It’s important for business owners to control what they can control rather than worry about external factors. In this case the enquiry rate needs to be increased so that they can afford to lose some quotes and preserve their profit margin. Their sales tactics needs to be addressed too. Being proactive about sales means that you bring people into a buying cycle before they start shopping around. While they will probably still shop around, you will get the opportunity to build a relationship with them and sell them on other things besides the price.
Talking through challenges makes a huge difference and while you should never expect a miraculous turn around on any issue, getting a different perspective on it and understanding the root cause of any problem is the first step in being successful.
