
Some companies had successful products or services. New ones were being launched. But what looked exciting at the ‘engineering’ stage failed to translate into sales. The breakthrough came when we adapted the proposition. In many cases, we turned dry product features into mouth-watering product benefits that connected with customer needs. The marketing spark returned, the audience ‘got it’ and sales lit up. Whether you add a new product management function or restructure your marketing and sales capability, any new product or service needs to be brought to the market in a way that focuses on customer benefits and not product / service features. Ingredient #2: How customers do business with you
Sometimes you’re so close to your own business, so familiar with its quirks and nuances, that you don’t realise how ‘doing business’ feels from the customers’ perspective. But what if there’s something going wrong at the process level and you’re missing it? How would your company cope if business took off massively in multiple countries? If the answer isn’t effectively, one way you can address this is by introducing new customer relationship software and management tools to help streamline business processes, enabling your team to deliver a great customer experience and cope with a surge in demand. Most times, it takes someone from the outside to see what’s going adrift in the customer journey — and help you fix it. Ingredient #3: How you track and report key information
Do you want customers to tell you when problems exist — or do you want to fix them before anyone notices? Placing key performance indicators at strategic points across your business will tell you where today’s logjams and other issues need attention. This can be the secret to unlocking productivity, being able to scale up rapidly, and where to spend most effectively. There is always a danger to growing quickly as, more often than not, a business can become a victim of their own success. However, by implementing a managerial reporting system you, and your colleagues, will be able to spot logjams and other problems early. So, if extra workers or equipment is needed, they’d know exactly where to put them. Ingredient #4: Refreshing your vision and team
Most of my clients’ success has been due to the talent of their people. But sometimes a great team starts to misfire, people clash and effort is wasted. The answer is to refresh your company vision, mission and values — turning this into objectives, deadlines and priorities. Then get everyone to align behind your common goal, so they can move ahead confidently. If they refuse, then maybe your company isn’t the best place for them — and a few new faces could improve everything? By updating your vision, mission and values you are able to translate these into clear objectives for both yourself and your team. Try opting for a performance evaluation system to help everyone to stay focused on the tasks ahead. So how does this make a difference when put into practice? Megatron Sensors, founded in 1992 and based near NapolI in Italy, designs and manufactures temperature sensors for coffee, vending, and slush machines; boilers, HVAC, refrigeration and temperature control systems; food and medical equipment. The family-owned company and its 10 employees were turning over a healthy €1.5M per year. But new CEO Luca GrimaldI recognised that revenues had flattened out and the firm needed to sell beyond Italy. Megatron knew that expansion was about more than simply winning international orders. For growth to be sustainable, the company needed to become more flexible, scalable, streamlined and focused. Working with pan-European business expansion experts Eggcelerate, the Megatron team made key changes in the four key areas above.