We all need a reminder that businesses are a complex system where sales performance is an outcome of what you purposefully build and operate. No one thing can ever make enough difference on performance, but many small things, implemented well across the business, most certainly will.
Why I never practise positioning in isolation
Which is precisely why I don’t practice positioning in isolation any more. On paper, positioning can only have abstract value, hence I’m usually found working in the company of great turnaround agents like global sales lead Chris Boys and commercial legend Alex Ball. Positioning, sales and finance in equilibrium, it truly takes a multi skilled team to ensure that implementation happens.
The real challenge: keeping momentum when the excitement fades
As we end the year, I’ve been reflecting on just how hard it can be, even for a multi disciplinary team, to get full commitment to change. To bake in the benefits of a new market position, any business has to adopt new practices, processes and develop new relationships. It sounds so banal, yet keeping the momentum of change after the first excitement really is challenging.
I’m sure many of you can relate to this frustration.
How do you convince your own business to remedy soggy product-market fit, when you’re being pushed to just get it into your next market? You’ll be told that stepping back to update your market fit while building a Go-to market plan can feel like the ultimate momentum killer, but you know the cost of not doing it will be felt for months to come.
Three ways to make change stick
1. Get everyone to agree there’s a real problem
Firstly, it’s important to get everybody to agree that there is a problem worth addressing. I always repeat the most common symptoms of poor positioning, too hard to explain, too slow to convert, too similar to competitors. Ask your team across the business for evidence of these, then reframe it for them.
2. Make positioning a cross functional process
Secondly, make positioning work cross functional and a reason to bring the whole business together. Give everybody a role in the process, from customer insight, to product roadmap, to pricing and commercials.
3. Turn change into a learning process
Then finally, make learning the reason you commit to keep implementing change. Test and learn on every change you make, committing to action in manageable 100 day chunks. When you make teams accountable for gathering evidence about what is changing, then bring it back to share and feel part of something bigger than their own roles.
Making implementation of a new market position a “Learning” process, rather than a “Change” process, takes the emotion out and puts the excitement back in. Breaking the future into 100 day sprints gives everybody a goal to achieve and subconsciously makes change feel less arduous.
Psychology eh! It always comes back to this, but when your numbers are down, and you have a business to turn around, every little trick matters.
