Your Path to Business Success:#6 Attract Customers by Optimizing Your Offerings

Do your products and services still hit the mark? Customer needs are constantly evolving. At least once a year, it's necessary to step back and assess whether your offerings are optimized for today's landscape. By tuning in to your customers, analyzing economic trends, and diving deep into your data, you can refine your offerings to boost sales and profitability. Here's how:

Analyze Your Current Offerings

Uncover hidden insights by gathering data from every corner of your business. You likely have more information than you realize! Explore these sources:

• Website analytics: What are customers engaging with most? Where are they dropping off?

• Social media: How are prospects and customers engaging with your content? What is working, and what is not?

• Sales reports: Which products are top performers? Which are lagging?

• Financial reports: Where are your most significant profit margins? Where are you losing money?

• Customer information: What are their demographics, purchase history, and feedback?

• External data: What are the latest industry trends and competitor activities?

By analyzing this data collectively, you can identify patterns and opportunities that might be missed when looking at each source in isolation.

Pro Tip: Ask your favorite AI tool about trends and innovation within your industry. Use what you learn to evaluate growth opportunities for your business.

Understand Your Data

Rank your products and services based on these key factors:

• Total Revenue: Identify your cash cows – the offerings bringing in the most money.

• Profit Margin: Pinpoint your most profitable products, those with the highest difference between cost and revenue.

• Velocity: Uncover your fast-moving products, the ones people seek most.

This analysis reveals the unique role each offering plays in your business. Some products might be designed to attract new customers, while others drive profitability or generate consistent cash flow. In a perfect world, every offering would excel in all areas, but the reality is that each plays a specific part in achieving your overall financial goals.

Pro Tip: Pick your favorite AI tool and ask it to review the websites of top companies within your industry and provide a recap of their products and services. 

Identify Unmet Needs

Revisit your current product and service offerings and assess how customers' needs have changed.

• Are there gaps in your current offerings?

• Have your capabilities expanded, allowing you to introduce new products or services?

Keep a close eye on your competitors.

• What are they offering?

•  Can you draw inspiration from their innovations and create even better solutions for your customers?

Remember, the first to market doesn't always win. Often, the companies that refine and improve upon existing ideas achieve the greatest success.

Pro Tip: Ask your favorite AI tool to review your company website and recommend products and services you can add to drive incremental revenue.

Define Product and Service Roles

Be intentional about the role of each product and service.

• Will it be a loss leader to encourage trial?

• A niche offering that allows you to stand out in a crowded marketplace?

• A premium offering with a high-profit margin?

Your pricing strategy and range of assortment is a critical lever in maximizing revenue and profitability.

Experiment with pricing adjustments and track the impact. For example:

• Hypothesis: "If I reduce the price of Product X by 10%, I'll see a 20% increase in sales volume."

• Experiment: Implement the price change for a set period and monitor the results.

• Evaluate: Did the increase in sales offset the reduced profit margin?

• Next Steps: Based on the results, adjust your pricing strategy accordingly.

Pro Tip: Conduct an After-Action Review when testing price changes. Include multiple stakeholders in the discussion to ensure that you capture learnings from different perspectives.

Narrow Your Assortment

While diversification is essential, offering too many products or services can lead to operational complexity and inefficiency. Regularly evaluate your offerings and be prepared to eliminate those that no longer serve their intended purpose or contribute to your profitability goals.

Start by

• Identifying products or services that are not profitable

• Determine if eliminating the product or service would lead to more profitability

• If so, look for ways to reduce the cost associated with the product or service

• Test increasing the price to improve profitability

• Eliminate the product or service if profit margins can not be improved

Pro Tip: Set a product assortment goal, and habitually delete a product or service when you add a new one.

What activity do you need to spend more time on?

• Analyzing Data
• Building Test
• Identifying customer needs
• Optimizing Assortment

See All Options

Closing Summary

Refining and optimizing your offerings is an ongoing process. By regularly analyzing your data, understanding the role of each product and service, and staying attuned to market dynamics and customer needs, you can ensure your business remains competitive, profitable, and poised for growth.

Thank you for reading our latest article on building business success. If this is your first time reading our newsletter, we encourage you to go back and read the first 5 articles in this series. At Your Path Coaching and Consulting, we aspire to provide small business owners with the knowledge, support, and motivation they need to succeed. If you have any questions about this or any other topics related to running a profitable business, email Executive Coach Dorian Cunion at dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

Why Market Research is Crucial For Small Business Owners

Running a small business is like navigating a ship through uncharted waters. To steer your business in the right direction, you need a reliable map—and that's where market research comes in. Here’s why it’s essential:

1. Understand Your Customers

Market research helps you get to know your customers better. By understanding their needs, preferences, and pain points, you can tailor your products or services to meet their expectations. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also fosters loyalty.

2. Identify Market Opportunities

Through market research, you can uncover new growth opportunities. Whether it's a gap in the market or an emerging trend, staying informed allows you to capitalize on these opportunities before your competitors do.

3. Reduce Risks

Launching a new product or entering a new market involves risks. Market research provides valuable insights that can help you make informed decisions, reducing the likelihood of costly mistakes.

4. Stay Ahead of Competitors

By watching your competitors, you can learn from their successes and avoid mistakes. Market research enables you to benchmark your business against others in the industry and develop strategies to stay competitive.

5. Improve Marketing Strategies

Effective marketing is all about reaching the right audience with the right message. Market research helps you understand where your target audience is and what resonates with them, allowing you to craft more effective marketing campaigns.

In conclusion, market research is not just a one-time task but an ongoing process that can significantly impact your business's success. By investing time and resources into understanding your market, you can make smarter decisions, seize opportunities, and ultimately, grow your business. So, set sail confidently and let market research be your guiding star.

Feel free to share your thoughts or ask any questions!

Your Path To Business Success: #5 Research Competition

One of the best ways to drive incremental revenue for your business is to study the marketplace and identify ways to generate additional value for customers. All companies share the goal of generating profit while serving customer needs. The better you understand how others in your industry are solving problems, the better positioned you will be to communicate how your company is different and why someone should choose to seek products or services from you instead of other options in the marketplace.

Define Your Competition:

The first thing you should do is define your main competitors. Start by identifying 3 to 4 companies that provide similar products or services as your company. The US Chamber of Commerce recommends that small business owners take a customer perspective when conducting competitive research. This will help you see why a customer would choose to purchase from your competition.

Your research should include local and national companies. Start with a Google search focused on your #1 product or service. Explore the digital footprint of the top-ranking companies in your search results. PWC research has found that 55% of consumers rely on search to pre-screen which companies they should purchase products and services from. Examining your competitors' websites and social media can help you to determine how to position your offering for success.

When defining competition, ask yourself:

• Who else in the marketplace is offering similar products and services?

• What alternatives do customers have for solving the problem that my company solves?

• What unmet needs exist that my company could serve?

Example: If you do a Google search for executive coaches, Korn Ferry and BetterUp are at the top of your search. Both are huge organizations with big marketing departments paid to study the marketplace and convert prospects into clients. Their websites can be an example of what you should do to market your business. Both have bold images, clear messaging, and direct paths consumers can follow to learn more about their company.

Pro Tip: Once you have identified your competitors, ask your favorite AI tool to review their websites for strengths and weaknesses and provide a summary.

What AI Tool do you use for research?

• CoPilot
• Gemini
• ChatGPT
• Claude

See All Options

Customer Experience Exploration:

Now that you have defined 3 to 4 companies, you can review and explore their websites like a customer.

• What things do you like about how they talk about their company, products, and services?

• What images resonate with you?

• How do they nudge prospects from consideration to close?

The goal of this research is to understand your competitors' customer journeys. In doing so, you can capture ideas for improving your own. For tips on documenting a customer journey, check out this resource from User Interviews.

If your competition has a mailing list, sign up for it so you can understand the frequency, messaging, and calls to action it uses to attract and retain customers. Marketing is a multi-level process. You start by building awareness and then creating interest, which leads to consideration, with the ultimate goal of a customer making a purchase. Email campaigns provide visibility to companies' methods of walking prospects through the sales process.

You should also follow the company on social media. Examine how frequently the company posts, what it talks about, and how people engage online. By following your competitors, you will gain valuable insight into their reputation, customer perspective, messaging, and positioning. The more you understand how your competition communicates its offerings, the easier it will be to identify potential weaknesses.

Example: When Nintendo developed the Wii console, it intended to create an easy-to-play system that the entire family could enjoy. It studied the market and learned that many children and older adults did not purchase their competitors' consoles because they were too complex. By understanding their competitors' strengths and weaknesses, Nintendo could exploit this weakness and tap into a new market.

Pro Tip: Ask your favorite AI tool to review Google, Yelp, and other customer review resources and provide feedback on what customers say about the company.

Know Their Strengths.

Defining the strengths of your competition can help you determine your strategic objectives. Start by writing down the strengths you observe while reviewing their digital footprint.  Paying attention to what people like about your competitors. Prior customers may say things like

• "The service is affordable."

• "the customer service is responsive."

• "the company is dependable."

These are all attributes your customers are looking for. Your goal is to identify which attributes you can match or exceed. One of the best ways to acquire customers from a competitor is to communicate how you can do what they do, but better.

Knowing and communicating your strengths is vital to attracting new customers. People want value, which can come from a lower price, better quality, more convenience, an easier buying process, or customer service. Defining and communicating your strengths makes it easier for customers to determine when they are better off purchasing your products and services.

Identifying attributes that customers value but are your brand's weaknesses is equally essential. These weaknesses could come up during the sales process. Despite the weakness, be prepared to explain why a customer should purchase from you. If your offering has too many weaknesses, it might be time to build new competencies or exit the marketplace.

Example: Over the last decade, many American car manufacturers have shifted their focus from sedans to trucks and SUVs. This shift was partly driven by Asian car manufacturers, who began making equally, if not better, cars that were perceived to be a better value. American manufacturers determined their competitive advantage was in building larger vehicles, so they shifted their focus to a market they believed they could win.

Pro Tip: Identify your competitors' strengths and rank them against yours. Identify things you believe you can do better than your competition, and focus on those aspects with your marketing and outreach.

Discover Points of Dissatisfaction:

When customers take the time to write a negative review, they tell the market that they will spend their money with someone else. Your role is to listen to those customers and communicate how you can better serve them than others in the marketplace. Look for comments such as

• "they did not honor their commitment."

• "seemed expensive based on what I received."

• "I found the company to be unresponsive."

Complaints are signs from customers to companies that their needs are unmet. As you identify unmet needs, you should break them into two groups.

• Needs we can meet now

• Capabilities we should build for the future

When you have products or services that are better than your competition, your primary focus needs to be raising awareness. There are many ways to raise awareness, but all methods are linked to communication, marketing, and promotion.

When you see a need that is not being met but cannot be solved, you must consider whether you want to allocate time, money, and resources to expand your capabilities. Broadening your capabilities can be done through research and development, acquisition, or strategic partnerships.

Each method for expanding capabilities carries risk, and many companies disrupt their financial viability by chasing opportunities outside their wheelhouse. Consider the risks and the benefits of strategic pivots to your business model. Remember, not all opportunities are worth pursuing. But if you see a glaring weakness that no one else solves, you could capture market share by satisfying an unmet need.

Example: Illy, a premium coffee brand, identified that consumers had a growing desire to purchase coffee from ethically sourced companies. Seeing this demand and a lack of focus from other coffee manufacturers on ethical sourcing, they decided to build environmental and social responsibility into their strategic plan. They put processes and procedures in place to ensure the beans they purchased were ethically sourced. Communicating this commitment to customers has led to consistent year-over-year sales and profit growth for the company.

Pro tip: Create a someday maybe file where you keep ideas for new products and services. As your business evolves, you can review this file for ideas to implement when the timing is right.

Summary

Conducting market research is a great way to develop ideas for improving your revenue and refining your value proposition. Driving revenue growth is a two-step process.

• Step one is to identify the unique problem your company can solve for customers.

• Step two is to communicate your solution to prospects effectively.

Competitive research can raise your awareness of marketplace opportunities and give you ideas for improving your positioning, messaging, and customer journey.  

Thank you for reading the latest installment of this 15-week blog series about Your Path to Business Success in 2025. If this is your first time reading, we encourage you to go back and read the first four articles. Next week's article will be on refining and optimizing your offerings.

If you have any questions about this topic, feel free to email me at dcuion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com.

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