Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I give up. What are "negative flows into the management system?"

We can help, but we need to understand the problem first. Then we need to understand your target audience in some detail.

Who/where are they? How do they make the decision on who supplies their oxygen (or other gas products)? Why should they buy from you instead of one of your competitors? What important need of theirs do you address? What unique benefit do you provide that sets you apart from competition?

Trying to change your "image in-order to gain [y]our credibility back and expand [y]our market" is likely to take too long, especially if you're selling a commodity product that's overpriced.

Imagine you're a brand new startup, selling the same product. Who would you want to sell to TODAY? What could you offer them that others couldn't or wouldn't? How can you add value to a commodity sale?

I know this is a case of "When you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail," but this is a very serious situation, and you need outside professional guidance if you're going to rescue this company.

There is no way we'll be able to give you the kind of in-depth assistance you need in a few short sound-bites on this forum.

You're going to need to re-position the company -- possibly even rename or create another company name -- and that's "heavy lifting" in the professional marketing world.

Where are you located? What geographic market do you serve?

Private offline response OK if this is sensitive information. Use the contact info in my profile.

Family situations are excruciatingly difficult. The striff, if not resolved, will make even the most brillant marketing strategy useless. Clearly, dealing with the striff is the first priority. That having been said, here are a couple of suggestions for the second priority, the marketing strategy.

Step 1) USP: Interview some key customers and ask them (a) specifically why they buy from you and (b) what problems have, or could have, occured These interviews are the initial homework for thinking about a USP. The standard definition of USP is "unique selling proposition." I prefer "unusual selling propostion."

Step 2) Positioning and Branding: Get a copy of the classic "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Al Reis and Jack Trout. Some of he examples are dated, but the laws are not. Each chapter begins with a cartoon. In meetings both students and senior executives have responded well to my having used half a dozen or so of them (as hand-outs, as Power Point Slides) to guide the discussion. These meetings included ones about how best to re-position a company, to increase the power of an existing brand.

If the major price undercutting competitor is a firm much larger than yours, consider creating a "David versus Goliath" marketing story. (For a while Apple did very well positioning itself as a "David" versus the Goliath of IBM, until becomming a Goliath itself.)

Step 3) Now go back to your key customers and have them CO-DEVELOP with you the new strategy. First, their active participation increases the quality of their input. Second, the act of co-developing makes their "buy-in" to its implementation much more likely.

Regards, James Hamilton

I have to agree with Mr. Hamilton especially on the creation of USP. I like Geoffrey Moore's positioning statement (google it) which is much like USP in that it defines your unique offering compared to what you think your competitors are lacking PLUS the statement can serve as a guide for your advertising marketing.

However, your very first step should be to solicit outside mediation for the family issues and focus especially on methods of conflict resolution that will serve you well in the future. I don't agree with the aforementioned suggestion to change the business name. Brand image takes a long time to build not to mention that it's your grandfather's legacy. The effort put forth in a name change, e.g., paperwork and fees, would be better spent building those critical customer relationships. As Mr. Hamilton advised, give the customers a sense of ownership in your restructuring.

Finally, you may have meet competitor prices until you can win the spot of market leader and command your own pricing. Otherwise, you have to really work on sales and convince customers that the value you provide is worth your price. Other factors in customer purchasing decisions are things like quality and reliability. Can you deliver that?

Good luck. Anne Gerber.