Is your company selling itself short?

Yesterday I was in a meeting with a client when word came that one of our competitors was going under. The reaction among us was mixed. Someone said hoorah and someone else said now we can raise prices, but the group’s tone then became muted. That competitor has families and people we know. That competitor could have been us. Unlike us, for a long time now that competitor has been trying to become the lowest price option.

Offering the lowest price can be a smart tactic on occasion. But when it becomes your internal brand identity, when your own people come to see that this is the mission and message, then your brand image in the marketplace will also become just that and only that: You are the low price option. And in any market, there may only be room for one low price option, so you had better be built for it, otherwise, here is the risk…

Companies don’t fail, their leaders do.

To be clear, the people who are expected to lead their organizations, they fail when they fall out of touch with their customer segments; they fail when they fall out of touch with themselves, with their own companies’ greater capabilities and potential for creating value.

Leaders fail, when they do not use their positions of power to bring about a greater understanding of expectations to their people and to the people who would thereby become better customers.

jb