Revenue Journal®

When your market changes, your company must change with it. This seems so obvious - when you're an outsider looking into someone else's company. You can plainly see that buyers have changed what they are doing, and conditions have changed, but the people inside the company are behaving the way they have always behaved, as if nothing had changed.

When you're inside one of those companies, you can tell that something is different. You get hints. But it is so much easier to continue doing what you've always done. You would rather ignore the changes you sense, than admit they are happening - and deal with the changes you know you will have to make.

New players will come into the market, while the market is in its new state, and think, Ah, so this is how it is. OK, I will behave accordingly. They don't have to change their current behavior or infrastructure. They will simply start doing what makes sense.

The leaders of the companies-in-denial either wake up and take action at this stage, or continue to sleepwalk. I don't have to tell you what happens to the sleepwalkers. They walk right off a cliff, never to be heard from again.

As a consultant in Silicon Valley, where technological progress and changing consumer behavior caused massive and frequent market upheavals, I watched this happen over and over again. Now that technology has pervaded the consumer world, and instant communication has made it commonplace for whole industries to rise and fall in a matter of a few years (or even months), sleepwalkers are even less likely to survive.

To survive now, you must be fully aware, and ready to change when your market changes. You must be able to transform your company to match the new behaviors and preferences of your buyers and other influentials.

If you want your transformations to be effective, there are three areas you must focus on: your goals, your behavior, and your processes. You can also think of this as "what," "who," and "how."

Let's look at each one of these areas, starting with goals.

Goals.

There is nothing more destructive to a company than having the goals be unclear, or, worse, contradictory. There can only be one overriding goal, with all the other goals designed to implement the main goal.

Are you going to make sure all customers are satisfied, no matter what? Then you can't have managers who surreptitiously tell the staff, "Screw the customer. They're all a bunch of complaining idiots anyway." The stated goal will become a lunchroom joke, a cruel lie that demotivates and demoralizes the best employees.

Over time, the passionate, dedicated people will bail out. The CEO will find himself managing a group of people who don't trust him, don't respect him, and who are only there because they don't have any better options. They will treat customers with distain.

The best, most motivating goals are customer-centric goals. Customer-centric goals help the people inside the company take their minds off themselves (which decreases political bickering) and focus on what the customer wants. When the customer's needs and preferences change, companies that have customer-centric goals are more able to sense and respond to the change.

What do customers really want from you? What is their core desire? What are they most concerned about? What is the experience they are hoping to have when they come to a company that sells what you sell? How have they been burned by other such companies in the past?

Your goal should be one that motivates your employees to give customers what they are looking for. It should be a simple goal, not one of those ridiculous, generic "mission statements." It should be something that makes everyone proud and happy, because it makes them feel like they are making a difference for others, helping others (customers) achieve their goals. People are happiest when they are helping others; this is an ironclad truth.

Behavior.

People are consistent about their behavior, usually at one end of an extreme or the opposite. They either have a sense of urgency or are completely laid back. They are either always on time or always late. They are either persistent or give up easily. They are either truthful or full of it.

The most interesting and inspiring thing about behavior, to me, is that people can actually change. It's not wise to assume that they will, because they must choose to change - and not everyone does. But a good manager will always give an employee the opportunity to change.

Let's say Andrea needs to change something about her behavior. A good manager will meet with her in a private conference, and tell her what she is doing wrong. If Andrea accepts this information, (and most of the time, this is the case - most people are actually relieved when you make it clear you know what they are doing wrong), then the next step is to discuss, together, how she can improve.

This has to be a two-way conversation, because Andrea is most likely to change if she comes up with the methods by which she can improve. The manager and Andrea will then agree on the methods, and the manager will make it clear that he will do everything he can to help Andrea carry out her new processes. He will also be watching to make sure she succeeds. And, he will let her know if he sees her either backsliding or succeeding.

Companies are comprised of departments, and departments are comprised of people - led by a manager. If the CEO is not sleepwalking, but understands that his market has changed, he will sit down with his managers and discuss what the company must do to adjust to the change. In a sense, it will be the same kind of conversation I just described.

The managers will understand that their current behaviors and processes are not going to be successful in the new market. They will help the CEO identify the "old" and "new" behaviors and processes. They will figure out how they will help their employees change their behavior and processes, and then set to work.

There are all sorts of behaviors that must be addressed in any department. There are personal behaviors, such as an employee who is always late or always negative. There are group behaviors - such as the tendency of the group to make fun of anyone who tries really, really hard to do the right thing.

Here's a concrete example. Right now, buyers are more likely to inquire via email than by phone. That means that the most successful companies, now, are going to be the ones whose salespeople respond immediately to email inquiries. If the customer sends out an email to three competing companies, the one that responds immediately will be most likely to get the conversation going, and make the sale.

Those who respond in a couple of hours - or, more disastrously, in a couple of days - will be like the couple arriving a day late for a party. All dressed up, bottle of wine in hand, they will be greeted at the door by a post-party hostess, who won't be thrilled to see them. The party's over, and she's in a completely different frame of mind now.

The party-goers will do what every salesperson ought to do in this situation: Realize they're too late, apologize, and leave.

Processes.

Once you have agreed on your customer-centric goal, one that addresses the needs of the current market, and you have identified the behaviors that will be most successful in this environment, you need to put processes into place to establish, facilitate, reinforce, and reward those behaviors. CEOs who get the other parts right - customer-friendly goals and behaviors - often get tripped up by poor processes.

They think that it's enough to identify the new direction, have a frank talk with their managers, tell them to "make it so," and give them an encouraging slap on the back as they leave the conference room.

It's not enough.

Even if the employees and managers are willing, the overlooked infrastructure will not be up to the task. A weak infrastructure can only lead to frustration, and frustrated employees are mere shadows of their peak-performance selves.

Every company should have a process fanatic, someone who is constantly looking around and asking, "What is needed here, for peak performance, and how could we be doing this better?"

In the most effective companies I've worked for and with, the CEO is that person. Jeff Bezos is a perfect example, as is Michael Dell, and as was Bill Hewlett (of HP), in his day. In the stories that employees tell, it's obvious that these CEOs were (and are) always focused on how things can be done more effectively.

Good processes are simple. They can be explained in seconds and understood by everyone. They are well-documented - not with 3-inch binders, but with step-by-step instructions that can fit on one page. They use tools that are intuitive, so even a new employee can understand and start using them right away.

We are all working in a screen-based world now. Every single day, billions of workers (and customers) are clicking on an icon or link, and looking at the next screen that comes up. How easy it is for them to "take the next step" is becoming the true test of a company's processes.

The backend of these screens drives the front end, and the success of the front end is determined by the intelligence, empathy, and organization of the backend. If the backend is confused, the front end will be a disaster - one of those screens where you stare at it for a few minutes, and think, "I have no idea what do to next," or, "I know what they want me to do next, but it's really stupid and really time-consuming. I'll go with the other company."

Concrete example: Those shopping sites where, instead of a screen filled with pictures and little clumps of text, with clickable categories in the left nav, instead you are faced with fixed catalog pages, which you must navigate through by clicking page numbers or alphabet letters. This is a classic case where the customer changed the way they want to buy (web pages versus printed catalogs), and the vendor refused to adopt. Instead, they simply scanned their catalog pages into their website and considered the job done. WRONG.

When your buyers change, you must change also, if you are going to survive. Use what remains of this cycle of economic uncertainty to focus on your goals, behaviors and processes, and improve where needed. Customers will recognize and reward your improvements.

And remember, customers would rather give their business to an established company that "gets it" than to a new company that "gets it," especially in uncertain times. So the wind is at your back, if you start moving in the right direction.