6 Things You Should Be Doing Now to Gain Market Share

In the last few weeks, I’ve begun to hear more about companies who grew revenues healthily during the recession, and are exceptionally well positioned for the economic recovery.

A major manufacturer I spoke with shared “Competitors have cut costs, and their service has gotten worse. They’ve focused on the short term, and stopped investing in product performance. As a result, we’ve taken a lot of business from them. And, because we’re more cost-effective than the regional players at serving multi-site accounts, we’ve gained share as customers have gotten more aggressive looking for cost savings.”

Though the economy is beginning to rebound, funds are still tight, new business is scarce, and employees are stretched thin. Gaining market share requires discipline and a keen eye on investment pay-back.

The Six keys are:

1. Know who your best customers are, and treat them royally. Aggressively shift resources away from markets, accounts and products where you are not making money.

2. Keep investing in innovation. Focus on markets where you can stand out from competitors and provide differentiated value to customers.

3. Be smart about pricing.

• Intimately understand how customers think about and measure the value you deliver.
• Understand what drives your fixed and variable costs, where you are making money, and where you are not.
• Create disciplined pricing policies, decision rights and processes.

4. Know your competition, and know yourself. Understand your competitive advantage, or lack thereof, on product performance, service, cost, relationships, quality, delivery, brand and other buying criteria. Understand what these are worth to the customer.

5. Don’t take talent for granted. Even in a weak economy, strong performers can be wooed away if not recognized and rewarded for their performance. Hang on to them like gold.

6. Communicate your strategy regularly and widely within the organization. Done right, this will help employees at all levels make intelligent trade-offs when allocating time, attention, capital, and funds. And, in a time of few perks and pay raises, a shared sense of purpose is doubly important in motivating employees to deliver great customer value.