If you ever watched Family Feud, you are familiar with the phrase “survey says?”. Contestants guessed the most popular answers to surveys taken of a relevant group and won prizes for the most accurate answers. Vistage surveys its Members with less than $20mm in annual sales and you can find the August report here.
The big “ah-ha” for me was how many firms were looking for new suppliers to lower their costs or improve through-put. If you are a distributor or manufacturer listen up. This appears to be the time to increase marketing and directly reach out to potential customers who may have said “not interested” in the past.
Why are they looking now? Well, demand may be stagnant but costs have gone up. So they can’t sell their way out of the profit crunch. They have to be smarter about their costs. Organizations are holding on to their people, although it has become a little easier to hire. That leaves improving processes and reducing materials to get better margins. Most small businesses have reduced capital investments due to increased interest rates so buying new software for process improvement has to have a quick ROI. The easier path right now is to reduce costs through negotiating with vendors.
Vendors are not happy to hear this of course, but there is opportunity to find better customers who might appreciate how you save them overall costs even if your prices may be higher. That buyers are really searching for new vendors is the big take-away here: they’re ready for you to reach out. Don’t miss out on the opportunity. Go to that trade show, post more news on LinkedIn, call on past customers and prospects, look for new ones.
This week, review your outreach strategy and get moving. If you don’t do it, you hand that potential new customer to the competition. Survey says: bad strategy.
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Image courtesy of WSJ-Vistage survey-August 2023.