Guest Commentator: Tracy Donofry, CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Highwater
What steps can businesses take to help close the gap between 2019’s momentum and 2020’s obstacles to come out on top in 2021?
For many organizations, 2019 saw tremendous economic growth. Now that 2020 has slowed the whole world down, it’s time to figure out how to regain that momentum, step by step. The first step being to know your data, and to have a deep understanding of what it means. If your organization was growing in 2019, there’s usually a clear reason for that growth — the cause and effect. This cause and effect is what we call a lever and you must understand this lever in order for your data to lead you to positive outcomes. Otherwise, you’re just making assumptions, which is the single greatest misstep you can make when it comes to growth.
A healthy business model can seem complex, but it’s usually just about connecting the dots between areas that can be improved on and opportunities to improve, which often starts with determining KPIs. A KPI is a Key Performance Indicator. Organizations set KPIs as solid measurable goals to meet overarching business objectives. If the KPIs you set lead to your objectives, then you will understand your growth patterns. You know how to control the levers. But if you’re finding that the KPIs aren’t showing results, then it becomes clear that you’ve made the wrong assumptions. But don’t worry, there are steps you can take to get back on the right track.
If your 2020 outcomes aren’t what you desire, take the top 30% of clients and begin reverse engineering each relationship from the sale backwards. During this analysis, you need to dig deep and map the entirety of those engagements. This will present you with the actual journey, and details of the levels of effort that were required to produce an outcome. As you do this across numerous relationships, you’ll begin to identify consistent areas of success. These areas develop into your formula for moving forward with new client relationships.
Be careful not to fall into the trap of becoming fixated on single areas of engagement (for instance, relentlessly A/B testing a landing page or postcard). This is usually just one small part of a journey and doesn’t help you to understand the “why” that comes with understanding the entire journey. If you’re able to map the true “why” behind the engagement points, then you will gain insights. Between your journey analysis and mapping of the decision-making cycles of your end user, your formula for what it takes to generate success will start to become clear.
Once you have the formula and understand the levers, you’re able to create new paths of engagement that can drive very high rates of success. I love performing this exercise with clients because they often go from thinking their business derives from a particular given method and client, to knowing exactly where it comes from, who they need to speak to, and what to say. And when that happens, the excitement behind really understanding the truth in the data turns business owners into kids looking for — and finding — treasure!
The Chamber’s COVID-19 Information Hub offers our 11-county community the resources needed — including legislative updates, crisis support for businesses, and resources for restarting — to support your business during this unprecedented time. We invite you to use the hub for daily updates and members are encouraged to submit their own resources to the From Our Members section of our website.
