At CBD, we aim to help other firms boost their sales and marketing productivity. One of the main ways we do this is to help the firms that we work with think strategically. Strategic business planning is really important to us here, as recent posts on corporate identity, competitive difference and business focus will testify to.

I was reminded of this just the other day as I was talking to David Crick, our MD. He was telling me about a meeting that he had with another MD of a major regional building firm based around Northampton. This was an established firm; it had been in business for more than twenty years. It has a very respectable turnover, however it was going through a rough patch.

The reasons for this were two fold. Firstly, the construction market in the UK has not been particularly active over the past few years. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this firm has not devoted as much time to marketing as it should have. If their been fewer competitors, this might not have been much of a problem. However, their rivals have taken advantage of their failure to market and have subsequently eroded some of their major individual business strongholds. Forced into this position, they called CBD to see we could help them regain some of the territory that they had lost.

As David explained the plans for the future, it became very apparent that the marketing approach taken was going to be far less about advertising, and far more about strategic thinking. Part of the reason for the firm’s situation is that their competitors had out manoeuvred them. The new competitors had defined their areas of expertise clearly, making an established firm appear second best. It is clear that if our client is to recapture some of their former dominance, they also should define their areas of expertise.

This is indeed what they plan to do. Our client aims to become an industry expert in several specific fields, including the industrial development and the care home markets. Both of these areas have been chosen strategically. It is estimated that the care home business is going to grow substantially in the years and decades to come. By establishing themselves as market leaders in this area, our client is hopefully going to get repeat business into the distant future. Similarly, while the industrial development market is at the moment rather disappointing, it will no doubt be bustling along in a few years time. Thus, our client plans place themselves in a competitive position now, so that they will reap the rewards when the market advances again.

But how will this be achieved? It is at this point that CBD steps in. We aim to facilitate our client so that they may achieve these goals. We will align this building firm with the major suppliers of care home facilities. This includes setting up high profile meetings with our extensive range of contacts and working out which major conferences their MD should attend. The goal of all this is to acquaint our client with the care home industry, allowing them to build relationships with industry insiders. This will be a strategic shift from their current business model. Our client will become a market expert, operating with a consultant mindset.

The best part is that this will not be achieved through some blitz marketing campaign. Nor will the changes be outrageously expensive. Instead, this plan involves the basics. Our client will work towards building others trust, ‘the fundamental in every relationship.’ This strategy is also all about earning the respect of potential customers. Our clients are out to prove that they can be experts in certain fields. As Geoffrey James writes “if customers are going to respect you, you’d better be able to add value to their business.” They are certainly going to do that.