Small businesses can compete, even in a most challenging economy such as this one. But they have to innovate. They have to take a chance. By thinking differently, you can get results that the big boys might not get.
Back in the mid-'90s, when I was working for a manufacturer of small business telephone systems, we had an older version analog telephone system product line that was on its last legs. It was a very solid and reliable phone system, but the newer, digital products were beginning to take away mindshare, and as a result, sales with our dealers. I noticed when traveling with our salespeople they rarely talked about this product line and instead focused on all of our newer products when meeting with our dealers.
Now this product line was still a substantial part of our results and we could not afford a sharp drop off in sales of this product. However, we were not planning on enhancing it in any way and we had already made a downward move in pricing to sustain sales. So we needed to do something to bring life to this product line for just a little longer.
It was during this time I was on a flight from Phoenix to San Francisco and I was reading an article in "USA Today" about the auto industry. The article stated how women were making more of the buying decisions for new vehicles than ever before. Because of this change auto manufacturers were beginning to cater more to women. All market research data clearly indicated that color choices were a much higher priority in buying an automobile for women than for men. As a result, the most popular new color for new car sales that year was a shade of slate green.
After reading the article I also knew that this dynamic shift was true for the telecommunications industry. Women were increasingly making and/or influencing the purchase decisions for new telephone systems for small business as well.
So, I thought, "green it is!" In a matter of a few months, we designed and introduced a new telephone in beautiful slate green. However, we did not introduce this telephone for our newer product lines, but rather for the older analog product line. And, guess what, because of the green telephone everyone was talking about the analog product line again.
Now we did not sell many of the green phones as compared to the more established conservative telephone models. However, sales of the green phones did meet our sales projections of about a 10% share of our total phone model sales.
And, more importantly, the introduction of the green telephone achieved our goal of bringing life back to a mature product line.
Sales continued strongly for this product line for a few years and I have always believed that the "green" phone helped us accomplish these results. Trying something new doesn't always work and there typically will be more detractors than supporters for new ideas. But you need to push yourself and your team to do it anyway.
Figure out what the "green telephone" is in your company and make the call.
Larry Steinmetz is president of XBLUE Networks, a provider of small business communications systems. He is also the author of Kansas Sense. You can reach him at (913) 599-2583 or .
