Posts Tagged ‘Corporate Message’


SQUEEZE THE LEMON, GROW THE PIE – PART 2

 Friday, October 9th, 2009

Well, I hope you enjoyed the first part where we talked about squeezing the lemon. Of course, it’s rare that a sequal ever lives up to the original – but I’ll give it a go.

So this time we’re going to consider the pie; how to grow the pie, specifically. The first part talked about the lemon as your customer base, and the anology of squeezing the lemon was how to get the most juice (business) out of those lemons and not let the lemon shrivel up in the fridge.

So, squeezing the lemon was all about getting the most from your existing customers in a more direct and short term way, and growing the pie is about maximising profit and creating value for both customers and suppliers as part of a longer term strategy. This is done by;

  • Differentiation – what makes you different/better than your customers? Look at; product, pricing, distribution, advertising and promotion, selling, core competencies, competitive advantage, USP’s
  • Added Value – what aspect of your product/service adds real value for the customer?
  • Value Chain – monitor and feedback performance up stream and downstream to continually improve.

The key elements of growing the pie are;

  • Constantly strive to deliver value for the customer by improving your overall proposition.
  • Understand the supply and value chains and learn how to leverage key aspects to create added value and differentiation.
  • Change the mindset of both your company and your customer base. This is more important than immediate short term gains.

So what does The Corporate Gifts Company do to grow it’s pie? Good question, and a challenging one too.  Well, we talk to our customers constantly about how they find our service and product, what they liked and what they didn’t like; we encourage testimonials (good or bad) and we have used that feedback over the past 18 years to hone our service and quality levels so that we give our customers exactly what is most important to them; reliable service, consistent quality (we have the international quality standard ISO9000), appropriate and quality promotional branding, and responsible business practices (see our CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility – policy.

Thanks to The Cranfield School of Management’s BGP (Business Growth Development) programme for inspiration.

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SQUEEZE THE LEMON, GROW THE PIE – PART 1

 Friday, October 2nd, 2009

At the world famous Cranfield School of Management’s Business Growth Development programme they spend a lot of time talking about a couple of tasty food analogies; “Squeezing the Lemon” and “Growing the Pie”. As part of the marketing part of the programme these two ideas are at the heart of the growth of any business. So what’s the story behind these culinary concepts for success? Let’s start with the lemon.

The lemon signifies your customer base, and who amongst us can put hand on heart say we get the most out of all our customers? Do we sell as much as we can, are there other products or services we can sell to them, do we sell to all divisions and departments of our customers’ businesses? No, well that’s actually the story for most companies and to add even more zest to the analogy think of your average customer like this; if we’re using a lemon at home more often than not we cut into it and squeeze out what we need and then stick it in the fridge – great, the poached salmon tastes great. The problem is when we go to use the lemon again (sometimes after weeks sitting lonely and forgotten next to the eggs) it’s wrinkled and dried and all that juice has been wasted.

And that’s what happens to new customers; we fail to squeeze the maximum amount of business out of them. After the initial order is won, we don’t pay them enough attention until eventually they go and find another supplier. And if you didn’t know already, it costs up to seven times more to aquire a new customer than look after an existing one. So the moral of the analogy is; get squeezing - before your lemons dry up or someone else does it for you.

Of course, in the light of the above blog, it would be remiss of me not to mention that The Corporate Gifts Company supply a comprehensive selection of promotional items and advdertising merchandise that are perfect for communicating with your customers in a tangible and cost effective way. Whether you want to reinforce your brand values with items such as business card cases or clocks, or say thank you to key customers with an appropriate promotional desk item or personal accessory, The Corporate Gifts Company can help you squeeze your lemons.

Look out for “Growing The Pie” next week!

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