The G Point• How to Turn Your Business

into a Growth Machine

Growth

1.Want it

2.Frustration

AaaarrrrghAaaarrrrgh!!

Here’s the ultimate lack of growth

• Carbon paper• Typewriters• CRT tubes• Cassette tapes• Walkman• Payphones• Film processing• VHS tapes and players

Growth Machines

What do they do differently?• What is your business?• What is marketing and how do you

relate to your market?

• How close are you to your customers?

• How do you manage change?

The G Point

• Answering these three questions, they had a flash of great understanding.

• They reached their G Point – and knew how to drive the growth of their companies.

ITW Shakeproof

• The year is 1926

• They had purchased the patent for the twisted tooth lockwasher

• An applications engineer is off to Detroit

What does he see?

• A sorry man sitting at a bench putting one lockwasher on one screw, again and again

• A worker on the miraculous production line fastening trim onto the dashboard

• A puddle of screws and lockwashers on the ground by his feet

On the train back to Chicago

• An epiphany –

• The SEMS is born

What’s in it for their customers?

• Re-purpose the poor guy on the bench?• Eliminate wasted screws and washers

dropped on the line?• Cheaper than buying the two parts

separately?

Wrong!

What does ITW Shakeproof provide?

• You have to understand your customer if you are to understand what you do.

• Your understanding of your customer is the foundation of your relationship.

Defining their business

• ITW Shakeproof provides their customers better ways to assemble their products.

One more thought…

• What happened to the poor company that used to supply the screws?

Tess Plastics

• $27.5 mm• Injection molder of customer plastic

components• Impersonal marketing• Slooooowing growth

• “They value us for our precision.”

Customer’s viewpoint…

•HUH?

What the customers said…• Precision just is not critical• Short-run parts, routine• Tess is easy to work with• Reasonable price• Absolutely reliable

What the customers value• Get the little, routine stuff off my desk so I

can concentrate on what’s important

What Tess really sells

• Time• Time to focus on challenges• Time to focus on what will move my career

What’s Tess’ business?

• Precision?

• Career enhancement?

• Your basic marketing goal is to create and nurture customer relationships.

• Your business is defined by your customer

• Growth Machines do not “make something.”

• They build relationships by helping their customers accomplish something.

Smacked upside the head

GE Medical

• Leader in x-ray technology• Until Siemens introduced the CT Scan

OUCH!

Jack Welch’d

• New president• They built their own CT machine• Introduced the next technology – MRI

• Back on top

But not done yet …

• Developed “Customer Panels”• Learned what was the challenge of their

customers• Innovated new products to meet the

challenges • All based on the customer panels

GE Healthcare

• Leads in most diagnostic equipment

– EEG, EKG, etc.

• Purchased the leader in diagnostic pharmaceuticals

• Define their business as helping the doctor diagnose

• And it’s all based on the knowledge they continually seek through their panels

Life was not good

• Management had focused on selling company – and then withdrawn it from the market

• Competition was introducing new, exciting products

• Morale was terrible• Growth had come to a stop

Refocused on the customer

• Developed panels of architects, athletic directors

• With their direction, refined current products and began a steady stream of new product introductions

• Morale, growth and excitement all took off

$30MM $40mm $50mm

• You will not realize results from customer input unless you have already established a relationship of nurturing trust.

• Growth Machines help their customers accomplish their goals.

• Then customers help Growth Machines accomplish theirs.

•Growth Machines have intimate understanding of their customers’ goals and challenges.

Staying close…

• S&C sells switches and fuses for use in the distribution of electricity.

• Their sales personnel are engineers working side by side with the engineers of the electrical utilities

• Together they are planning systems up to 20 years out

Frustrating their competitors• And with this knowledge, S&C is

engineering their next generation of products; testing them; tooling them; having them ready on the shelf

• When GE or Siemens introduces a new product, S&C is ready to launch the next generation. They are always one generation ahead.

• Growth Machines celebrate change.

• Change in the market presents the opportunity to obsolete your competition.

• Drive change, don’t fight change.

Three Key Points

• The goal of marketing is to create and nurture customer relationships based on customer needs

• You must have intimate knowledge of your customer, their values, their aspirations, and their challenges.

• You need to celebrate change.

So what’s the G Point?• When your fully internalize these

three points you’ll experience an understanding of what really drives your business. That’s reaching your G Point.

• You’ll know how to turn your company into a Growth Machine.

Getting to Your G Point1. Commit to a true marketing relationship

– Count customers, not sales

– Value relationships, not transactions

– Fall out of love with your product

1. Gain and maintain an intimate understanding of your customer

– In-depth research

– Continuous learning

– Values, aspirations and challenges

Getting to Your G Point3. Celebrate Change

– Look for change in your markets

– Look for change among your customers

– Look for change in your technology

3. Reach your G Point and Grow

– Continually refine your products and services

– Create new products and services to excite your customers

Questions?

Insight Direction• Jack Trytten• President• Insight Direction,

Inc.• 200 E. Delaware Pl.• Suite 14C• Chicago, IL 60611

• (312) 944-1754