Reasons to be Cheerful. Part One

In July 1979 Ian Dury and the Blockheads released a single called “Reasons to be Cheerful. Part Three”. There never was a Part One and Part Two so I thought now based on the current economic outlook and recent events was a good time to address that.?

In July 1979 the UK had recently survived the winter of discontent, Margaret Thatcher had been elected in May and inflation was still running at a ridiculous 13.3% a lot lower than it had been, but still unsustainably high. There are now definitely parallels to those less than halcyon days, with potential strikes and disruption in front of us, another new PM and yes inflation driven in part by an energy crisis

Let’s hope we get a change of vision, some positive action and things to be cheerful about at a macro level so we can walk through the lavender fields of business with only a lightweight and not industrial umbrella to protect us.

So, how does this affect you and your business??

Well, in Part One, we'll look at a potential strategy and In Part Two, which you can enjoy later, I'll go in a little bit more detail on the tactics.?

Most CEO’s and CMO’s won't have guided businesses through inflationary times because we just haven't had it for 30 odd years. So, what is there that you could possibly be cheerful about when your staff are clamouring for more money, when the unions are going on strike and when the costs of running a business are growing exponentially.?

Inflationary and recessionary times though are full of opportunities and in business and you should always be looking for opportunities. You must look for things that differentiate your business from the run of the mill. In times of trouble, times of chaos those that can think differently to the herd increase their chances of success.

We may have survived the pandemic but that was with unparalleled support and government interventions. There is a help coming to limit the energy crisis but it is unlikely to save us from a recession. In fact it is many of those earlier interventions that have help to stoke the fires of the problems we now face.?

The is fact that as a business owner or CMO or CEO of a large or even multi-national brand you should be looking for opportunities that clearly differentiate you from your competitors.?

So, let's look first at overall positioning and how you communicate your message. Having a positive attitude and yes even being cheerful is going to dramatically increase your chances of success, especially if your competitors are moaning about the fact that everything's going pear shaped and it’s not their fault.?Customers want your help not your problems.

Positivity alone though won’t create a difference; you've got to really think about numbers & metrics and not just the standard but also those that are counterintuitive.?

Let’s think about pricing?

What is it that you can control in your pricing, and what is it that you can’t? If you are importing, using lots of raw materials, have a got a factory or have processes which involve the burning of electricity or gas your margins are going to get hammered as prices rise unless you pass these problems onto the consumer. But stop and think first and look at the opportunities that exist outside of those costs the elements you can control. Put in place strategies to manage these and see if this enables you to increase prices less than your competitors, whilst still maintaining quality and service levels. Even more radically can you offer to fix prices for a period and give certainty to your customers whilst giving you certainty around income streams in return? It is possible you just need to think strategically and from your customers perspective.

Think less about marketing and selling and more about helping

Your customers and prospects are feeling the pinch as well and anything you can do to help them will increase your opportunities and ability to ride out the recessionary and inflationary times.

Think about what you can do to engage your customers, your suppliers & those that you would like to have buying from and change your strategy away from “push marketing” to “help marketing”. You must keep on marketing, but the messaging needs to be different and focused more on solving today’s concerns, so it helps customers survive to thrive and it needs to be really focused on the value you create.

Many CMO’s will be fighting to maintain budgets as costs are cut and this is understandable but they should use these times to review and pivot budgets to work more effectively and to remove the waste that always builds up.?Often less ends up being more. You need to be focused on knowing where you spend most precious resources as I discussed in the?Lean Mean Marketing Machine?article a few weeks ago.?

Your strategy needs to be even more customer centric so that they feel comfortable buying from you and place their concentration elsewhere knowing you have their back covered. It's all about helping to take the pressure off them.?

Strategically therefore you need to focus on your ideal customer, increasing life-time value even if that reduces short term profits and really understand your pricing and how it can help you drive a real competitive advantage. I don’t mean discounts, that is a negative approach but more of that in Part Two.

But remember the main reason to be cheerful is that in adversity the truly great survive, they think strategically and outwit the competition by helping others through creating certainty while all around there in uncertainty.