Good for you! As we noted in part 1, admitting you might be a dumb company is the most important thing to do on the yellow brick road to enlightenment.
So what do you do next? In short you continue to:
- admit to every mistake you are making and do something about it,
- look for opportunities to improve that are logical next steps, and
- never, ever forget the timeless basics.
Today, we’ll continue with describing what you do when you identify, and admit to, one of the last five mistakes we chronicled in our re-introduction to our “dumb company” series and want to do something better.
6) No More Training
Start picking out your corporate coffin and writing your corporate obituary, because the minute you stop learning and stop improving is the first minute on your corporate deathbed. So:
- time your process throughput across corporate processes (and compare to industry averages)
- examine your SaaS utilization (on the SaaS apps you keep after you Get SaaSy)
- train where either can be noticeably improved
7) Tighten The Belt One Notch Per Month
You can trim the fat, but you have to stop trimming when the fat is gone.
If revenue is not increasing, it means that either your marketing or sales is not effective or your product is not appropriate. In both cases, you will have to invest further. In the first, to get some consulting from an expert low-cost guerrilla marketer as well as the educational assets you will need, and then some training on how to improve the effectiveness of your sales cycle. In the latter, expert advice on where to focus the development roadmap to make it more appropriate, and appealing, to your target market.
If there’s not enough cash, then you will have to wrangle more investment (even if the terms aren’t what you hoped) or, if you have revenue, take a loan (and keep your equity).
8) From 60 to 0 in Marketing
As already indicated, just because you wasted the entire $M marketing budget on overpriced events, email marketing, “analyst firms” and their maps, soundbite marketing, and a CMO who only cares about his jet-setting media-centric lifestyle, that doesn’t mean you can cut it to 0. If you do so, crawl in the corporate coffin as it’s almost time to nail the lid.
You need constant visibility as you have to be “the name they know” when your target customer finally gets budget and can invite you to an RFP or a contract negotiation. At any given time, half of your customers are going to be six months away from a potential budget. One fourth, nine months, and only one fourth will be close to a budget season, where they may not get budget, and then it’s fifteen months before they can talk to you.
Constant visibility doesn’t mean a booth at a 100K event every month and the media that comes from it, it means monthly educational content that not only keeps your name visible, but keeps you front and centre as they look for that content to consume, to learn from, and hopefully build their business case to buy your product.
9) Real Innovation is Too Risky
First of all, a lot of customer problems can be solved with evolutionary renovations to existing tech, and “innovation” is thus not as risky as you think.
Secondly, sometimes real innovation is needed to solve a problem, or at least do so affordably. While it’s risky (maybe you won’t solve it / get it right), if solving that problem is key to your corporate growth, and possibly your corporate survival, it’s definitely riskier not to pursue innovation. So do it, but carefully and in a controlled manner — don’t bet the bank on anything without a [very] high probability of success. Innovation should NOT be costly (beyond the innovator’s salary) in software-based tech. It’s just research, trial, and error. More than that, and you’re not doing it right.
X) Raise the DrawBridge!
You don’t know everything. And that’s okay. No one does.
But always remember: what you don’t know can kill you. Bring in an expert ASAP to do an analysis of your critical activities, identify weaknesses, and then, if necessary bring in an expert to address them. SI has been telling you for years consultants are cheap as the value a fair priced expert consultant will bring you is multiples of what that person will charge.
Next up: Avoiding the Graveyard if you are a Dead Company Walking! (Part 1 of 8)