The Bad Economy Can’t Kill the Beast

December 18th, 2008 Chris Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

We run a 1 Oct to 1 Oct fiscal year. That means that we are about to wrap up our first quarter of the new fiscal year. We’ve been nervous for the last couple of months – concerned about all the economic turmoil and its impact on the business.

We’ll the results are in and there is good and bad news, and an important lesson.

First the bad. In the biggest lines of income, year over year, sales are a bit down. We’re not particularly surprised as the biggest bucket, custom training, is one of the first places that organizations cut when they are concerned about their numbers. Relatively big ticket discretionary spending is usually the first to go.

The good news? Over the last year we’ve leaned into (aka invested) in additional lines of income. Coaching, events, web class are areas that we put some sales and marketing behind. Heck – even I got off my ass and did some training (however, that was a mistake, ad passim).

The results – we’re up year over year, met our targets and will be closing one of our best quarters.

Now, let me knock on wood and hope it’s not just luck – but I don’t think it was… It was a direct result of creating additional revenue streams so that if our mainstays are impacted, it’s more than compensated for by others.

Now – anyone that worked with me in my former life knows that there is a huge concern when people start to talk about doing multiple things. What’s the word – Focus! The old adage that you can’t do anything well if you do too many things.

I still agree with that – hence why I feel my own forays into training were a mistake. That didn’t leverage our existing assets and distracted me. But that’s different than creating new streams of revenue by new creating products and services that leverage common assets. In other words, stuff that doesn’t take that much work to tailor or modify and deliver in a different way that will be valuable to customers.

Now – just because it doesn’t take a lot of new product or service “development” doesn’t mean that you can skimp on sales and marketing. That’s the resource that you have to manage and ensure you’re giving each of your “lines” an opportunity to succeed.

Oddly enough – it’s a very different constraint than I’m used to dealing with. In the technology world – the conversation on resource constraints is often about development resources. Here, at least in our micro business, we work hard to make sure that’s not the case. And ultimately that is our way of ensuring focus.

Here’s a challenge: grab a beer or glass of wine over the holidays, put your feet up and think of one additional way you could generate additional revenue next year – without creating a new product or service from scratch. Then, repeat – at least the first bit…

C.