Companies who strategically invest during a recession are rewarded with growth that outpaces competitors who focus primarily on expense reduction and risk mitigation. Growth gurus including Blueprint to a Billion's David Thomson have studied the last century's economic cycle to prove it. His research, along with the experience of CFOs highlighted in a recent article on CFO.com, "Spending into a Headwind," clearly show you can't cut to greatness. At some point you start cutting into muscle, not just the fat.

2011 can be the year you make transformational changes in your organization. Aggressive, strategic acquisitions, coupled with investments in the marketing and sales programs that bring measurable results, can catapult your market position and financial strength. I believe the "Wall Street Darlings" of 2012 will tell you they implemented in 2011 the four, can't-be-missed strategies I recommend:   

1. Buy your way up the "food chain" of products and services valued by your customers. Periods of economic recession present the best time to acquire capabilities and competencies for which your top customers will pay a premium, but you currently lack.  Prices are simply lower.  Buy now before the value of acquisition targets rise back to premium, post-recession levels.  Not only will your customers reward you with their dollars, but the acquired employees at the typically troubled target company will reward you with their hearts.
2. Rebalance Marketing and Sales budgets. Marketing is usually the first to go in a recession because most executives struggle to measure any financial return from any specific marketing endeavor. This area of discretionary spending, therefore, is easy to summarily dismiss. What a mistake. Transform expenditure into investment by funding programs that focus on customer retention and account growth. These programs cost less than going after new customers, and you are rewarded with profitable revenue since you have already realized the costs of on-boarding.
3. Vet and invest in innovation.  Even in a good economy, innovation in a vacuum is disastrous.  And if you are tight on cash, placing your bets on products and services your customers don't buy will put your company in serious jeopardy. Instead, gather decision makers at your most important customers and prospects to discover and maintain alignment with market needs.  Uncover the transformational versus incremental moves your company must make in order to win the war, not just the small battles.
4. Keep it simple.  If you do have cash available, don't just add priorities and programs without understanding their contribution to sustainable, predictable, profitable growth. Maintain focus, discipline, and aggressiveness where the opportunities maximize returns, position, and margins. The Maximum should be no more than three organizational priorities!!!!

The articles in this issue's newsletter will discuss these topics further, both the theory and practical application.  My best to you in 2011.  Hope to see you ringing the Opening Bell soon!

B2B executives have the right to realize and measure a return on their marketing budget!

Can you measure a return on yours?  All too often, I have seen millions of dollars spent on tactics or programs that have little to no real return or impact on revenue growth.  Not only do these well-intentioned programs waste company resources, they distract busy executives and present a huge opportunity cost to the organization.  That is, if marketing hasn't been slashed altogether during the economic downturn as a way to reduce costs.

The fact of the matter is in the B2B world, marketing budgets are the primary source of funding to interact directly with your customers.  From focus groups, reference and loyalty programs, satisfaction measuring, and forums that interface with customer decision makers, the money spent from marketing can directly and dramatically contribute to sustainable revenue growth.  Knowing this, how can any company afford not to spend this money, and spend it wisely?  They can't, if they want to be a long-term player in their market. 

So, if your company has struggled to realize any measurable benefit from marketing campaigns and programs, 2011 is the year to transform marketing expense into a revenue powerhouse.  Start with 3 key questions.

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Rob Urbanowicz, Principle and Vice President Client Services

In my recent research of world-class Executive Sponsor Programs, one finding really struck me: most ESP programs start and restart several times, and many never get off the ground.  What a shame.  When planned and executed properly, an ESP is a tactic-of-choice to develop deep relationships with customer executives and increase your value to them.  For the best-of breed programs, an interdependency develops between you, your customer, and in some cases, the industry, which provides predictability, sustainability and profitability at an account level.  As shared with our team by an executive, "The relationships we have built with our strategic accounts enable us to help design the industry's future standard, not follow the standard...a much preferred position."

Make 2011 the year you launch your ESP program for the last time because this time, you have set the right expectations and planning in place.  At a minimum, you must incorporate the following in your planning process in order to make your program sustainable for years to come.

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Kelly Jones, Senior Consultant