Go To Market Strategy

Somewhere along the way Woody Allen was attributed with saying “eighty percent of success is showing up.”  I don’t know if he really said it or how he reached such an empirical conclusion, but most the business owners who just “show up”, don’t ever have much success. 

Instead, the businesses that succeed have a clear strategy for how to position themselves in their market by creating more value for customers, by outmaneuvering their competition with superior promotion and salesmanship, or by outsmarting their competition by grabbing some economic or regulatory advantage.  They definitely do not just show up.

A great Go To Market strategy is a description of how you plan to succeed.  It emphasizes the key differentiators that you have chosen to focus on and should make your decision making much easier.  Explaining go to market strategies is difficult, especially in a blog.  So let me share some examples:

I work with a construction company who has a clear strategy to develop deep strong relationships with about 180 home owners in a single exclusive community and to leverage those relationships to be the maintenance company, builder, and re-modeler of choice for those 180 families.  Those families have many millions of dollars of construction work that needs to be performed every year (as I said, this is an exclusive community) and almost all of it goes to my client because they trust him. His quality is great, but so are other builders.  His customer service is excellent, but so are other service companies.  His prices are competitive but never the lowest.  Everyday he wakes up knowing asking himself, how can I improve relationships because that is his go to market strategy.

I also work with two bakeries in different cities who each have a strategy to be the best in their product categories.  They each win national awards and recognition and they each have long lines during peak seasons.  They each wake up every day and challenge themselves and their teams to make better products, to make their products more consistently, and to increase awareness of their quality.  They don’t worry too much about price and they don’t spend much at all on advertising.  They succeed on the quality of their products and that is enough.

I work with a healthcare provider who wants to provide the most amazing experience for customers.  She focuses everyday on eliminating unpleasant paperwork, improving the in-take process, spending more time with patients, making her facility more welcoming, and increasing communication.  She charges as much as she wants, she doesn’t take insurance, and she provides the same tests, diagnoses, and prescriptions as countless of other providers.  But her patients choose her because of how she makes them feel.  So every day, she focuses on making people feel good.

Finally, I work with a retailer who wants to provide the best customer service in his channel and who wants to connect with his customers everywhere they use his product.  He invests in event marketing everyday and spends significant effort on training employees and ensuring that they follow procedures.   His strategy has seen him achieve double digit growth for 8 straight years while his competitors have suffered and gone out of business. 

So what is your go to market strategy?  What can you do that will set you apart?  What will you focus on so that your customers will choose you because you are clearly the best at…