Maximizing Revenue by Managing the Problem

Maximizing Revenue by Managing the Problem ....
... instead of the Symptom

Part one:

Toward a Customer Focus

All companies talk about being customer-focused. The phrase is almost obligatory for corporate vision statements and strategic marketing plans. No one will argue with its absolute necessity. What’s often missing, though, is an operational understanding of what it means, and a plan for achieving it.

The solution to becoming customer centric is simple once you realize that the only source of revenue for provider products and services is by addressing the problems and /or opportunities that customers want to address better than the competitor Problems does not necessarily mean “fire drills” or crises, but anything actionable that impedes the customer’s company from achieving its goals. In other words, the things companies worry about and aspire to are the issues that they try to address through actions that result in purchases. In other words, purchases are made by companies as an action taken to address issues that may be either a concern or an aspiration.

Customer focused strategy occurs when a company thinks about itself in terms of the customer problems it chooses to solve better than anyone else does, and not just as the purveyor of a certain product line. This thinking has implications for all the key aspects of the seller’s organization: it determines what core capabilities are nurtured; what products and services are developed; how these are aggregated for the market; and what is said to the market about them. Any business that cannot identify its top 10 customer problems and/or opportunities (which represent 80% of revenue) that they address better than their competitors do cannot have a customer-centered company strategy.

Needs versus Applications

What, then, is the key customer “problem” that produces revenue for your company? The obvious answer is that customers need your product. But this is superficial; companies don’t exist for the purpose of owning products. They exist to generate their own profit. They buy products and services because in the course of generating that profit, they have an actionable requirement for the result your product delivers. It is this actionable requirement that enables your products to be sold.

Appealing to generic market needs is not enough. To be relevant, you must address the specific application where the customer perceives the problem. You can then advocate the evaluation criteria that will lead to the best solution, and show how your company’s capabilities best meet those criteria.

In temporary staffing, for example, the customer need can be defined “replacing or augmenting staff.” But the specific client applications within that need are where relevance, and the possibility of customer action, really start:


Generic Need More specific need identification
Augment/replace staff 1. Unexpected absence (illness)
2. Planned outage (vacation, maternity leave)
3. Add staff for peak season (add capacity)
4. Add staff for specific project (add capacity and skills)

Against these 4 more specific customer need descriptions there are now 4 specific criteria that anchor the capabilities of any soution being proposed:

1. High level of broad generic office skills
2. Pre-training in specific office processes with pre and post meetings “bundled”
3. Some individualized capabilities, rapid trainability
4. Specialized individual capabilities

This emphasis on specifics enables clients to see a clear, actionable path to address their specific problems, and to then recognize the relevance of what you have to offer. The result for your company is a better response from the focused marketing campaigns, easier qualification of good prospects, and a shorter sales cycle.