Unless you are the owner of a franchise, your business is most likely the product of evolution. In the promotional marketing/specialty advertising industry this is almost universally true. Both distributors and suppliers, large and small tend to have evolved to the point they are today. That process which works well in nature when coupled with the survival of the fittest, is not necessarily the best idea for your business.
We all know the story of evolution – started in the garage doing everything yourself, needed to hire someone to help out, needed a bigger space, added more equipment, found more customers, started to advertise, added some marketing, more employees, more space, can’t find the order, do we have the inventory, who was supposed to take care of that, they want it when?
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When evolution builds your business to the point that complexity in management and production becomes an issue, it may be time to let creation take over! There are many ways to begin the creation process. I have seen that a good starting place is current job descriptions provided by the people doing the jobs. You might find out that you have duplication of effort, overlapping authorities, missing responsibilities, waste, inefficiencies and other aspects that do not add to your business success. This is even more damaging when your business has more than one division or area of work focus.
For example, many suppliers provide goods to the promotional industry as well as to retail channels. Custom imprinted water bottles for our industry might be identical to stock printed bottles on the retailer’s shelf. Some suppliers will have evolved with two completely separate businesses and others will “share” employees, equipment and other resources between the two channels. There is no right or wrong but there is usually a ‘better.’ Are employee loyalties to one part of the business having a negative effect on the other? Do you see power struggles between departments? Are priorities well defined and carried out as instructed? Honest appraisals can be very revealing.
Last year a supplier business with third generation ownership and management had differences between two family members. One who had been operating as the company president for several years knew that it was time to implement more creation to guarantee the continued success of the company. The other gentleman, the company VP, was in the “this is the way we always did it” corner! Their impasse was settled with a buyout. Time will certainly tell if doing the same things the same way will produce a different outcome!
They waited too long to evaluate the development of their business. If the hard look and analysis took place earlier, perhaps at the time of the last generational transfer of management, there may never have been the impasse.
The religious creation/evolution argument has creation taking only days with evolution taking millions of years. Unfortunately business creation doesn’t go that quickly, but it won’t take a millennium either. In reality you will be starting the “evolution of creation.” By identifying what works well and expanding on that, and applying resources in that direction while remediating or eliminating things that are not contributing to success, you will start your business evolving in an improved direction. It may also be the time to look forward and decide if the character, scope, client base and market position of the future is different then today. If there is a desire for any aspect of the business to change, put a plan in place – create the change – don’t expect that you will simply evolve.
Get your clients/customers involved. A very effective marketing exercise is developing a sense of involvement, importance and relevance in the mind of your customers. Ask them in a survey “What three products or services would you like us to consider offering in the near future?” The information certainly will be valuable but the opening of the discussion allows you to provide ongoing dialogue. You can thank the customer for participating and include an imprinted thank you gift. You will send periodic updates on what is changing based on the suggestions they and other customers provided. If applicable you can invite clients to an open house to view the new products, services or processes you now offer. Once you tell your customer that their opinion is important, the relationship with your business becomes stronger.
As Shaw suggested, creation is the final part of the process of evolution. Without a well organized future mapped out, evolution alone will begin to cause your business to meander just like an old river. Instead of a fast and free flowing channel you will have twists and turns to navigate, to slow you down. And if you let the turns get too tight, you may not be able to navigate them at all.
Gregg Emmer is chief marketing officer and vice president at Kaeser & Blair, Inc. He has more than 40 years experience in marketing and the promotional specialty advertising industry. His outside consultancy provides marketing, public relations and business planning consulting to a wide range of other businesses and has been a useful knowledge base for K&B Dealers. Contact Gregg at gemmer@kaeser-blair.com.