Define which markets you will, and will not, compete in.

Perhaps the most crucial step in your entire corporate strategy is determining the right markets to compete. It’s difficult to grow revenue faster than your industry’s growth rate and faster than your competitors. The Revenue Growth Diagnostic interactive tool will help you determine if you are likely or unlikely to make your number.

 

Why is important? Being in fast-growing markets is the largest driver of revenue growth. Least important is market share growth. Yet, many executive teams tend to focus most of their attention on gaining share in their existing markets. While it is necessary to maintain, and sometimes increase, market share, changing your company’s exposure to growing and shrinking market segments should be a major focus.

 

What does it mean to define your markets? Define which markets you will, and will not, compete in.

 

What problem does the Markets phase solve?

There are too many markets to choose from, and too little money to spend on them. To make sure you’re getting the most out of your budget, choose the markets that are most important to your company objectives.

 

If you don’t define the markets in which you will compete, you leave it up to each individual employee to make that decision. That just leads to conflict and competing priorities. By identifying key markets beforehand, you give employees the tools they need to beat the estimates next year.

 

How do we solve that problem?

In order to identify the best markets for your company’s goals, your Corporate team must be able to answer these 10 questions:

 

  1. How big is the overall addressable market?
  2. What is the growth rate of this addressable market?
  3. What % of this market is penetrated today?
  4. What is our “sweet spot” within this addressable market?
  5. What is our growth rate as compared to the growth rate of the addressable market?
  6. Who are our competitors in this addressable market?
  7. What is the current growth rate of each competitor in this addressable market?
  8. What is our market share as compared to our competitors for each market segment?
  9. What are the current and projected demand drivers of this addressable market?
  10. What are the traditional routes to market in this addressable market? 

     

To apply these questions to your organization, come see me at The Studio. Selecting the right markets is not easy to do, and I can guide you through the process.  The Studio, SBI’s multimillion dollar, one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art executive briefing center. Sessions at The Studio are experiential and are designed around the principles of interactive exercises, hands-on innovation, and peer-to-peer collaboration. The Studio is a safe haven for learning and after just a few days clients leave with confidence and clarity on what they need to do to grow revenue and how to do it.

 

The Studio Executive Briefing Center

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Staples

Leads teams of highly qualified experts, all relentless in their pursuit of helping you make your number.
BIO
ALL PEOPLE

John is the global leader of SBI’s account management business unit. As such, he and his team help clients across 19 verticals drive top line growth and operational efficiency in sales and marketing.

 

John’s marketing, sales and product expertise span a multichannel strategic approach. He has an unyielding focus on strategic and key account development, which enables strategic alignment between all functional team members in order to reduce acquisition cost and increase lifetime value.

 

His broad experience in sales, marketing, product and engineering allows him to bring a unique problem solving approach to his team and clients. As he has discovered through decades of experience, clients are often distracted by the symptoms of a larger problem and overlook the root cause of it.

 

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