The greatest gifts as a coach… actually welcome to the podcast. By the way.

One of the favourite things I love about being a coach is being with clients in the hard times. Because it’s great being a coach in the good times, right, because you’re like, yeah, look at what we’re doing here. But in the messy times, the difficult times, the flat times, I actually love those.

That’s where I know having business coaching support is worth its weight in gold. So much more than the good times.

Because having someone help you navigate during those periods is really, really important. And particularly being able to use strategic methods and not having so much emotion within them, it’s also really, really, really important.

So what I want to share with you in this podcast is what to do during periods of flat sales. So, you know, navigating market challenges.

So what we know is that business goes through cycles, right? It’s natural. It’s really normal for, you know, business to go into cycles at the moment.

While you’re listening to this, there is a little bit of a market challenge at the moment happening around for people in New Zealand and some industries and it’s really looking and exploring ways to maintain your business.

So even trying to maintain that growth despite those market challenges and how we do that is we focus on diversifying revenue streams and actually strengthening our existing customer base.

So one of my amazing clients, we actually went through this process recently and one of the first things we did is we really focused on how can we keep her key team members.

Like we need to retain and keep them because she’s done so much work to get herself off tools and be able to have a break and recently she hasn’t been able to actually work. And so having her key team members be able to take on the running of the business has been, it’s huge.

So, so first of all, how do we, you know, we want to maintain them? So that’s the first thing we did is where can we look after them and recognise their values in the business.

And the second thing we went to go and do is the strategic approach.

Now I love swots and all those quite old school ways because they actually really just help you get factual information while bringing your intuition through. Because usually when you use these quadrant models for strategy, it’ll be like, oh yeah, I was thinking that. So sometimes bringing the strategic approach will help you see you do actually know what you’re doing.

So one of the matrixes that I like using is the hands off matrix A N S O F F. I always think it sounds like someone in an English accent going hands off. Anyway, bit of weird humour for you.

So it’s a strategic planning approach that can identify growth opportunities. So it actually amplifies what you’re currently doing and what’s working and then helps you prioritise what you do need to go work on.

So it kind of hurries you up to finish the shit you probably haven’t finished yet. But it also helps you identify some gaps.

So the first thing that this matrix looks at, so like if you had a, A4 piece of paper and you drew line down the middle and then a line across that. So like a cross and you’ve got yourself a matrix on the top left we have what you call market penetration. So that’s basically where you’re at. So existing product or existing service to your existing market. So your current product, your current offer in your current market. So if you really review what is actually happening with your existing stuff. So review your marketing, review your advertising if that’s what you’re doing. Review your what can you improve on with your marketing? Where can you improve? Where can you enhance? What are some gaps?

So through the one we did with my beautiful client, we actually realised that she had a really great newsletter, she had a great, great open rate. But where could we make that better and where were we not being consistent? But also where else could we share this newsletter? Because if it’s just going to your database, could we be getting to be shared on someone else’s as well? So we wanted to look at that.

But a gap that we found here in her existing product, existing market was that she actually didn’t have some up to date competitor analysis. She had some kind of outdated, this is what this person does. And I said, oh, actually I feel like you’re comparing apples to popcorn. Like they’re so different. I never would have expected you to have chosen that person as your competitor. I would have thought it would have been this and that.

So I don’t, you know, I’m a big fan for mindset wise to not go see your computers and see what you’re doing. But actually sometimes when you are in a period of flat sales, you sometimes do need to go and see, okay, what are they doing? Because often they’re going to be doing the stuff you need to be going doing as well. You just may not be doing it.

So we identified for her she needed to actually go and conduct a competitor analysis and just really identify what were they doing that she currently wasn’t. That she needed to be doing, for example.

And listen this is all depending on what your type of business is. But if you’ve got high traffic to your website and you’re not retargeting them, but your competitors are, well, they’re probably gonna go hop down into their funnel or go and buy their stuff.

So what happens next to that? So you got market penetration, existing product, existing market is. Then we go, okay, where can we develop? So you take your existing product, existing services, and you go, what new markets? What is a new market I could go to?

So if we use this analogy for me, and I was having flat sales, I could be like, okay, I’ve got some existing stuff. Where could I go? Just expand into a new market. But an obvious new market. So for me, that would be. That I would open myself up, not just being for women. I could be like, hey,  I also work with men or business partners. I could target a little bit of a different demographic. And so where could I develop that?

So that’s the second one, market development. Where could you take something that’s already working and cross it over to new markets?

Because if it’s already working well in one market, it could potentially work well in another one. So you gotta be careful that you do that in this right time of business, because otherwise you’ll have a lot of unfinished projects, right? Unfinished loops. And we don’t actually want that.

So for her, when we did her existing products in new markets, we could actually see that she could stop attending these networking events, which kept her within her existing market. And we had a look at where she could actually go where another new market of people were sitting. And actually we looked at some different cultural demographics that she had on her list to go do, but hadn’t actually gone there yet.

So we started to look at, you know, like I was saying to you at the beginning, that amplification and prioritising.

So that’s what you’ve got on the left and the right of your matrix. Now, underneath market penetration, you’ve now got product development. So new product, new service, existing market.

What else could you be selling to your existing market? Now, a lot of people miss this within their business. When I come in and look at someone’s. I call it a sales ladder, or it could be your menu.

When I come in and have a look, I actually can see what people have is a lot of orphaned offers, which means there’s one thing and that’s it. And they just kind of float by themselves. Where if you can keep reselling to your current customers, your current clients, it’s a lot cheaper. To do so.

So she was able to look at a product range that she’d been wanting to do for a long time, but perhaps has been a little bit tentative about it. And we were like, actually, no, now is a good time to go do that.

And so that actually became the second priority for her. And so the same for me. Once I have a client or once I have a customer base, I’m then like, okay, what else can I be offering them? So it might be where, you know, come and grow with me. Like, I can help your teams or come on a retreat, or you can also buy this training from me. So it’s just product development.

So new products, new services, existing market. And then the other one is, the last one is hopefully what you’re thinking. It’s diversification, which just means new products, new market.

So where can you enter new markets but with new products? And this can come with some risk because if you’ve already got some flat sales and you’re about to go into something brand new, it can feel a little bit like, oh my gosh, do I have the resources? And is it actually feasible?

So what we did with this client though, was actually looking at something that she had already been doing that was a new product, new service to a new market. And where could we amplify that?

So where could we actually keep developing that and seeing that that was already working this diversification part of her matrix and go, okay, actually, because we were so busy over here with existing market and existing products, we hadn’t had time to come back and develop.

So for her, that’s what we’ve gone and done. So do the ands off ansoff matrix for yourself. So let’s just run through them again because it’s really powerful.

And remember, it starts with market penetration. So existing product, service to existing market. So how can you increase your market share with your current stuff to your existing market? So you know, where can you enhance your customers, where can you have repeat, what are some opportunities, where can you improve your marketing, all that stuff?

And then number two, which sits across from that is your market development. So existing stuff to new market. How can you introduce your existing stuff into new market? So is it a new geographic region or a customer segment? Is it a. And actually the best way to do that is to do that competitor piece, which I think’s really, really important.

And then the third one is, okay, I’ve got an existing market and people already buy from me, but how can I introduce some new products to them, some new services? So what’s evolving. What do they need? What can I see where they’re buying somewhere else, where actually I actually have the capacity and capabilities to offer it to? And where can you keep leveraging your brand?

And then the fourth one is everything’s brand new. Brand new product, new market. And how can you enter new markets with new products? Just remember that there are risks associated with this part of that matrix. But it could be where for future business cycles when there might be some tough economic times around that if you built this new diversification piece, it could actually do, do really well.

So an example of where I diversified about 18 months ago in my business was so a new product for me was paid keynote speaker. I was never, I’ve always done speaking, but it was never keynote paid keynote prices. And so I’ve entered new markets. So I’m actually not always just talking to a room of established women in business. I’m often in a room of corporates and teams and men and their teams. Right. So quite a new market and a new product for me. But by diversifying for me, I’m able to, I’m able to have increased a different revenue stream there.

So what I’m hoping is if you are having a period of flat sales, you’re able just to take a moment, kind of detach from yourself emotionally and use this strategic approach. Let me know how you go.

If you know that another amazing woman in biz needs to hear this information. Share it. Share it loud. Share it wide. Catch you guys on the next one.