You’ve been leading your organization for quite some years now. Growing your business over time, expanding your portfolio and the markets you serve. Satisfied customers in a specific industry, so you’ve gotten to know your target group and other market players really well. Your gut feeling got you to the comfortable position where you know what to expect. And then Corona hit.
Sweet spots have moved
Sales results are influenced by many factors. By the local market situation, with its regulations, buyers and competitors and by how well your offer fits the needs and desires in that specific market. We’re all looking for the markets where our offer meets buyer requirements perfectly. So getting them to buy our product or service takes less convincing. But the pandemic managed to change this market fit overnight. Buyers have switched to online channels, regulations have changed and your competitors are changing their approach. The new challenge is determining where your sweet spots are situated now and that takes a comparison of all your products and markets.
How to keep the overview
The human brain is extremely sophisticated. We can see, analyze and interpret, and make unique connections. But with a restricted capacity. Research from Walsh and Mitchell shows that we can compare maximum 7 products properly. That is, if the information about them is limited, clear and straight to the point. That’s why so many websites will only show you a limited number of products. Or use filters that let you select a variety of factors to easily narrow down the selection of products you need to review.
Market research can be complex
The same principle goes for market research: we can only compare a limited number of factors and information. With more elements we simply cannot oversee the input anymore and our brain blocks when we try to define conclusions. I’m sure you have tried comparing information about your competitors or products at some point. How many different players and factors did you manage to compare properly in an Excel sheet? Or even worse: in a Word document or Powerpoint presentation? Was the conclusion clear for you? And was the process time efficient?
The market has many influencing factors
The number of factors that affect your business definitely exceeds the number we can process in our mind. There are macro, meso and micro elements to evaluate and consider. And even though elements are often combined into business models in order to be able to oversee them, each model contains several factors. Such as the PESTEL (or DESTEP) model for the macro situation, with which you analyze the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal trends. You’ll need to assess the effect on your business of a changed factor, but also their relative position on all other elements. This is hard enough in a normal situation, let alone in a pandemic.
Validate your assumptions about the new market
Trust your intuition, or gut feeling, in combination with the experience you have built up in your industry. It has brought you this far. But the Corona pandemic has had a huge effect on the market. If your assumptions are misled, you may lose substantial revenue. Maybe it’s time to validate your gut feeling. Compare it with others within your organization who have also gained valuable knowledge and experience in the market. The process will be refreshingly insightful and motivational for your team and extended colleagues!
Interested in validating your gut feeling? SpotOpp provides a clear solution to help you with issues in this area. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you want to know more.