Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business

by Gino Wickman

Once your core focus is clear, your people, processes, and systems can be put in place to drive it with consistency. Until you have exhausted every opportunity in your core focus, don’t allow yourself to get distracted by the shiny stuff.

Now that your core values and core focus are clear, the next question is this: What is your 10-year target? Where do you want your organization to be a decade from now?

That’s one of the main differences between a 10-year target and any shorter ones you might set. This is the one larger-than-life goal that everyone is working toward, the thing that gives everyone in the organization a long-range direction. Once your 10-year target is clear, you and your leadership team will start doing things differently in the here and now so as to get you there.

HOW TO SET A 10-YEAR TARGET Meet with your leadership team and discuss where you want to take your organization. A word of caution is in order here: While your core values and core focus are already present within your organization, the 10-year target will be different. I’ve never seen a team land on the same page with a 10-year target on the first go-around. Be patient in your first attempt.

recommend starting off by asking everyone how far out they would like to look. I would then ask everyone what they believe the revenue size of the organization could be at that point. This is a particularly fun question, and you’ll probably get a wide range of responses. These different figures should start to get everyone talking and ultimately in sync with each other. Once those two questions have primed the pump, ask everyone what they believe the target is. It may take a few meetings to settle on a final answer.

Once that decision is made, confirm that everyone is motivated by it and on the same page. As with all goal-setting activities, your 10-year target must be specific and measurable so that there can’t be any gray areas. You will know the right goal when you have it. It will be the one that creates passion, excitement, and energy for every single person in the organization whenever it’s repeated.

A mother, her young son, and their donkey are taking a long journey through the countryside. The mother is riding the donkey with the son walking alongside as they enter a village. All of a sudden, the village people gather and start stoning them. The pair run away and manage to escape. The mother is dumbfounded, and as they approach the next village, she thinks, “Maybe they thought it was inappropriate to have the son walk,” so they switch places and prepare to enter. But once again, they’re stoned by the village people. At a total loss, she thinks, “Maybe it’s the donkey. Maybe they worship donkeys in this country.” So before entering the next village, they decide to pick up the donkey and carry it, but it proves so heavy that as they cross a bridge, the donkey falls over the side, lands in the river, and drowns. What’s the moral of the story? If you try to please everyone, you’re going to lose your ass.

The intent of this section is to create a laser-sharp focus for your sales and marketing efforts. Many companies waste thousands of dollars on consultancy fees, inconsistent marketing messages, printing, and time, all because they failed to establish a clear strategy from the outset. A focused effort will enable you to sell and close more of the right business. It will become the foundation upon which you create all future materials, plans, messages, and advertising. This enables you to be different and stand out to your ideal customer. All of your people will have clear direction on who your ideal customer is, what you’re supposed to be doing for them, and how you will do it. Ultimately, you will know which customers you should and should not be doing business with. That means you can stop trying to be all things to all people.

Marketing strategy is made up of four elements, which are contained in the fourth section of the V/TO: 1. Your Target Market/“The List” 2. Your Three Uniques 3. Your Proven Process 4. Your Guarantee

YOUR TARGET MARKET The first element of marketing strategy is your target market, or “The List.” Identifying your target market involves defining your ideal customers. Who are they? Where are they? What are they? You need to know their demographic, geographic, and psychographic characteristics. By identifying your target market, you create a filter. Out of that comes The List of perfect prospects for your organization and sales team to target.

A problem for most companies is that they take a buckshot approach to sales and marketing. By defining your target market and creating The List, you’re abandoning the shotgun approach for the rifle approach. As a result, your sales and marketing efforts will be much more efficient.

How to Make The List Have everyone on the leadership team brainstorm what they believe to be the following: • The geographic characteristics of your ideal customers. Where are they? • The demographic characteristics of your ideal customers. What are they? (If you’re marketing business-to-business, consider characteristics such as job title, industry, size, and type of business. If business-to-consumer, then age, sex, income or profession.) • The psychographic characteristics of your ideal customers. How do they think? What do they need? What do they appreciate?

With the answers to these questions, go to work on creating The List, which consists of the key contact information for each prospect. I won’t kid you—creating The List will take some work. It involves a combination of examining your current prospect lists, generating referrals from existing clients, reading trade publications, purchasing lists, asking around, and telling your salespeople to keep their ears to the ground. You have to harvest and then stockpile these names in a database. Once they’re compiled, your sales/marketing manager has a list of all of your prospects in one place or at least knows where they are and manages them accordingly, confirming that the sales and marketing efforts are laser-focused on them.

Determine the best way to reach these people by using your newly clarified marketing strategy, which you will complet...

companies realize that the best way to reach their newly clarified target market is through referrals, using their clients to connect with their prospects. You have a variety of options to reach your target mark...

Once you’re clear on your core values, core focus, 10-year target, and marketing strategy, the answer should present itself. With this clarity, you can move forward with a targeted approach to your sales and marketing efforts. That will create a growing snowball until you reach a point at which the sales effort becomes self-perpetuating. The task of generating new business will then require considerably less effort than it did in the beginning.

YOUR THREE UNIQUES Other common marketing terms for this are “differentiators” and “value proposition.” Plainly put, these are what make you different, what make you stand out, and what you’re competing with. If you line yourself up against 10 of your competitors, you might all share one of these uniques. Some of you may even share two, but no one else should have the three you do. You need to settle on three qualities that will truly make your company unique to the ideal customer.

Again, what you’re creating here is focus. The most common mistake that most organizations make involves competing in too many sectors, markets, services, or product lines, and trying to be all things to all people. It’s a game you will not win.

you believe in your Three Uniques, and you believe they matter to your ideal customer, you should never apologize for them.

How to Choose Your Three Uniques For this step, you might consider including your sales team in the marketing strategy sessions. List everything that you believe makes your people, company, product, or service. What do your ideal customers think is unique about you? Ask them—it’s a 10-minute phone call.

Through the process of elimination, make some tough decisions. Debate and decide which are the three that truly make you unique, and which matter to you and your customer. The individual uniques don’t have to be different from those of your competition. It’s the combination of all Three Uniq...

YOUR PROVEN PROCESS My dad always teaches, “Never tell someone something you can show them.” In most companies, when salespeople are meeting with a prospective new customer, they normally try to win new business by using countless words and visuals in the form of pages and charts. When it’s all said and done, they end up looking just like everyone else.

There is a proven way you provide your service or product to your customers. You do it every time, and it produces the same result. It’s what got you where you are. What you need to do is capture that process in a visual format to guide your sales team. It should be encompassed on one single piece of paper, it must illustrate your proven process, and it must have a name. It should show each step, from the first client interaction to the ongoing follow-up once your product or service has been delivered.

There are typically three to seven major steps in any company’s proven process. The EOS Process is shown on the next page as an example. Creating a standard proven process to use in selling situations will give you two very powerful advantages. It will increase your potential customers’ confidence and peace of mind in doing business with you. Second, as most ot...

An ancillary benefit of creating your proven process is that it will help your organization internally. Each person in the organization will know how his or her actions affect the customer and why his or her step in the process is important.

How to Create Your Proven Process Step 1 With your team, illustrate on a whiteboard what you believe are the major steps in your proven process and then give each step a name. These major steps are the touch points with your customers when you interface with them. The rule of thumb is three to seven steps.

Step 2 Once your steps have been determined, add two to five bullets under each item for your salespeople to use as talking points when selling to a prospective customer.

Step 3 Give your proven process a name. If you cannot come up with a name, simply call it “Our Proven Process” or “The (your company name) Difference,” as many EOS clients do.

Step 4 Once you’ve hammered out your proven process, turn your work over to a graphic designer to give it a visual based on your company’s colors, logo, and look and feel. As a result of all the work you’ve done, this should be relatively inexpensive. The graphic designer simply needs to design your proven process in a way that is appealing to you, your people, and your customers.

Step 5 Have it professionally printed, in color, on a heavy stock, and/or laminated. This will increase the perceived value considerably in ...

YOUR GUARANTEE The fourth and final element of your marketing strategy is your guarantee.

A guarantee is your opportunity to pinpoint an industry-wide problem and solve it. This is typically a service or quality problem. You must determine what your customers can count on from you. If you guarantee it, that will put their minds at ease and enable you to close more business.

You will not go out of business without a guarantee, but you will attain your vision faster with one. You’re actually closing less business now because you’re not entirely putting your prospective customers’ minds at ease. If you can do that, you will gain more customers.

Your guarantee has a secondary benefit. It forces all the people in your organization to deliver on it. That in turn forces you to look inward and make sure you’ve got all the right people, processes, and systems in place to do so. If not, you’ll be forced to improve upon it. Your client will never need to make good on that guarantee if you’re at your absolute best.

How to Select Your Guarantee

Brainstorm with your leadership team and list what you believe to be the biggest frustrations, fears, and worries for your potential customer when doing business with you. The ideal guarantee is backed up by a tangible penalty if you don’t deliver on it. Your guarantee must drive more business or enable you to close mor...

It’s a good idea to ask a few ideal current customers or prospects for their feedback. Sometimes my clients have a hard time with the word “guarantee.” In these cases, call it a pledge, commitment, or promise. ...

List all the possible guarantees you’d be willing to offer that will put your potential customers’ minds at ease and close more business. From there, choose the best one. If it meets all of the above criteri...

You may not get this one on the first try. Be patient and the right guarantee will come. The awareness alone will star...

Go after all of the prospects on The List, communicating with them why you’re unique, showing them your proven process for doing business, and offering them your guarantee. This incredible precision in your sales and marketing efforts will increase your sales dramatically.

With life and business moving as fast as it does in the 21st century, there is little value in detailed strategic planning beyond a three-year window. A lot can change during that time span. For the investment of time and money into that kind of planning, there is typically very little return. It’s still valuable, however, to create a picture of the future organization three years out. This will accomplish two vital objectives. First, your people will be able to “see” what you’re saying and determine if they want to be part of that scenario. Assuming they do, if they can see the vision, it’s more likely to happen. Second, it greatly improves the one-year planning process. With the three-year picture clearly in mind, you can more easily determine what you have to do in the next 12 months to stay on track.

Schedule an hour with your leadership team. Once you’re assembled, have a copy of the V/TO placed in front of each member. Begin by selecting a future

date. I recommend keeping it within the end of the calendar year, thus making it easier for people to envision.

Next, determine the revenue picture. Start by asking your team this question: What is the annual revenue going to be three years from now? This is always fun, because you find out if your leadership is in sync with how fast you want to grow. You wi...

The next step is to agree on the profit number. This will be a similar conversation, but should be settled much more quickly. After that, you’ll want to determine your specific measurables. Measurables give everyone scope and size. Every organization has one or two very specific figures that are a telltale sign of the size of the organization. It might be a number of clients, large clients, units, or widgets produced.

Once you’ve determined your numbers, have everyone on the leadership team take a few minutes and write down bullet points of what the organization will look like on that date three years from now. Factors to consider include things such as number and quality of people, added resources, office environment and size, operational efficiencies, systemization, technology needs, product mix, and client mix.

Combine these results, and after some discussion and debate, your three-year picture will typically contain 10 to 20 bullet points that describe what your organization will look like. In addition, each person on the leadership team should verbalize his or her vision for his or her individual role in the organization in that time frame. You’ll gain some interesting insights into people’s motivations and help get everyone’s expectations in line.

You cannot move on and finalize your three-year picture until everyone on the leadership team sees it clearly. At this point, everyone in the room should close his or her eyes as one person reads the three-year picture out loud. The picture must be visible in each person’s mind. Each must believe in it and ultimately want it. After all, they are the team that needs to make it happen. In this session, encourage people to speak up, debate and go back and forth, but ultimately th...

We’re now going to the traction side of the V/TO, which is about bringing your long-range vision down to the ground and making it real. That means deciding on what must get done this year.

Remember, less is always more. Most companies make the mistake of trying to accomplish too many objectives per year. By trying to get everything done all at once, they end up accomplishing very little and feeling frustrated.