Think about it, when the economy (i.e., GDP) is off a couple of percentage points from prior year, or unemployment is near 10%, we’re quick to bemoan the terrible business environment. Yet, the fact is that 90+% of folks still have their jobs and spending is 98% of prior year levels overall. It’s clear, in spite of the bankruptcies, foreclosures, inventory adjustments, and reduced big-ticket purchases that many businesses are operating fairly normally. In fact, some niches are booming, and the necessary belt-tightening in many other sectors is fairly modest. Because we become complacent in good times, preferring to let things run comfortably on autopilot, the hands-on leadership required during recessionary times seems like a painful intrusion on our otherwise routine lives. In fact, we know from Scripture that such trials, discipline, and pruning is often used by the Lord to build perseverance, character, and hope, while drawing us closer to God to produce a harvest of righteousness (e.g., Jn 15:1-4, Ro 5:3-5, He 12:11). Think of the travails of Abraham, Job, Joseph, Daniel, and David… and how the Lord blessed and used them due to their faithful perseverance and obedience. Consider the powerful resulting testimonies that honor God and still inspire us today. We have that same opportunity, as these timeless principles are still in operation today in the arena of business. The problem, to paraphrase commentator George Will, is that we’re great creatures of habit, doing the same things over and over, while only occasionally interrupted by an original thought.

First, let’s stop to remind ourselves of a few provocative facts:

• What got you here won’t get you there. Things change, even when we resist, causing a compelling need for us to adjust our offerings, methods, and staff core competencies if we’re to continue to provide a compelling customer value proposition. Necessity is often the mother of invention!

• For the thinking business leader, there are no commodities! It’s easy, especially in a recession to think that lower prices are all that matter and our company’s offerings are indistinguishable from our competitors. Focusing solely on competitors brings sameness, bloody price wars, and a loss of focus on what it takes to thrill customers with truly differentiated goods and services. For example, some might view copper as a commodity, but think about the differing ways it might be used (e.g., Siemens power plants, Carrier air conditioners, U.S. Mint pennies, Ford auto radiators, etc.)… all leading to differentiated selling, packaging and logistical support.

• Now is a great time for fresh thinking and perseverance in relooking at how to best serve customer needs! 50+% of companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were launched during a recession or bear market. The prize for companies who do what it takes to survive major economic dips — keeping a highly motivated staff nucleus in place and remaining a visible presence — is being first in line to address expanding customer demand with a sharpened offering when the rebound happens.

• The fundamentals of successful business – identifying customer needs and filling them well – haven’t changed. For those who are feeling beaten down, tired and ‘last generation,’ take note that the age group with the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity over the past decade are 55-64 year-olds! Those who ‘get it’ and regularly engage customers regarding their needs and hopes in any technical or supply niche will routinely uncover breakthrough business ideas!

We must shake ourselves out of our self-justifying tendencies, seeing things through the fixed prism that we’re most comfortable with, if we’re to move ahead and not choke off the good forward-looking ideas of our customers and staff. We so easily become trapped by our own past successes, methods, reputation, and words. Consider stopping, today, to deeply reconsider some of the unquestioned ‘givens’ in your business. Deeply engage your staff, as well as thoughtful and aggressive customers in the process. Take in raw, objective, third-party input along the way as grist for the discussion.

It’s obvious that businesses must continually adapt and reinvent various aspects of themselves (e.g., methods, processes, product lines, key staff, bundling of goods and services to address target customer needs) in order to stay relevant and healthy in a changing marketplace. So what’s changed in your target markets?

What are some specific attributes of God’s character and ways?

How do we model them in the process of living out our roles?

Obviously, demonstrating the highest and purest standards for justice, ethics, honesty and integrity are a good starting point. These basic building blocks represent ‘101 level’ Christianity and are not even viewed as uniquely Christian qualities. We model God’s character and ways by:

• showing our respect for Him and His all-important place in our lives as we relate with others. After all, being who He is, He is worthy of being first in our lives in a manner which is tangibly modeled. One way we might do this is…

• being open with others concerning the time we spend with God and His Word. The people we touch through business share our own children’s perspective in understanding that importance is spelled t-i-m-e. The time we spend with someone or something speaks volumes to others about what we truly value. An important example of modeling what we value by how we prioritize our precious time relates to the time we spend with God in His Word. Our attitude toward Scripture’s importance and authority in our lives should model that of Christ. As we relate to the unique group of people our business attracts we naturally communicate the value of God’s Word to them.

• our marriage relationship and our attitude toward marriage in general. Many of the policies that we adopt can either support and enhance, or damage or destroy, the health of our team’s marriages. The way we pursue our own marriage and what we say about it are the most powerful influences we can have.

• our parenting and the priority we give to being a godly parent. The children of the world are perishing for lack of godly parenting. Youth crime and violence, rampant across our nation and globe, are the result of ungodly parenting and the rejection of God and His ways. Our level of commitment to our family and to parenting our children tells others a lot about our belief in God and His ways.

• our attitudes towards money and the pleasure of this world. Ouch! For those with some means, this can be a tough path to choose. As Christians – especially Christian leaders – we should have an entirely different set of values than the world does. If our behavior demonstrates a high priority on acquiring the ‘things’ that the world loves and seeks, something is radically wrong!

God has called us to a challenging and demanding role. It is costly and can seem very painful. It reflects a spiritual paradox: the easier it becomes to obtain worldly pleasures the harder it is to deny them to ourselves. To deny the flesh is never easy. It always hurts. But leadership in God’s Kingdom is a sacred trust. In this sense, nothing that we do or say is unimportant. To the degree that our lives and actions demonstrate our trust in God, and express His values and character, we succeed. To the extent that we express those of the world we fail to have a positive impact. The ultimate judgment of our work doesn’t happen here. This judgment doesn’t accept, nor will it ignore, our adopting worldly standards of hedonistic materialism. It will happen after our race is over and will be done solely according to eternal standards. Our effective use of the ability we’ve been given to influence others will be judged in terms that have nothing to do with worldly value. This is the stricter judgment spoken of in James 3. This is the higher standard we are called to reflect as we shine our light to a hurting world. This is, ultimately, our leadership responsibility.

Our pricing policies influence how buyers interact with us and actually help to shape their behavior, which is why training and discipline in this area is so important. Our sales and order desk people should work to engage and understand the buyer upfront by asking a series of questions to ‘profile’ their objectives, personal perspective and readiness.  Based on their answers, we’d alter our presentation to maximize the fit of our offer.

Understanding the customer’s exact role in the buying process, along with what and why they’re buying, lets us to zero-in on their expectations. This helps us to meet or exceed these expectations, thereby justifying a healthy price for our products or services. Taking the time to initially engage and profile the customer enables us to understand how they’ll buy. Remember, they buy emotionally and justify intellectually. We must satisfy both needs so as not to derail the purchase. Customers don’t like the feeling of being sold something. They like to buy while being confirmed in the wisdom of their decision. Even when our selling offer is fairly standardized, customers want to feel that we’ve tailored something for just for them.

A customer’s experience with us generally involves three dimensions: quality (i.e., brand reputation,  features, durability, fitness for use), service (i.e., responsiveness, delivery, warranty, field support, ‘moments of truth’), and price (actually perceived value). Quality is now a prerequisite for long-term participation in most markets. Without it, you’ll be discounting prices and incurring cost premiums just to stay in relationship with skeptical customers. It’s service excellence that often separates outstanding companies from mediocre ones. Think about companies such as Disney, FedEx, Lexus, Ritz-Carlton, and American Express. They’re all ‘premium’ companies, offering a superior service experience that enables them to set the price in their field. It’s easy to match someone else’s price, but tough to match a well-run company’s service! Consider these results from a Rockefeller Corporation study on why customers defect:

• 4% die or move away
• 14% buy from a friend or a competitor
• 14% are dissatisfied with an aspect of the offering
• 68% believe you don’t care about them

Face it, if everyone were price conscious we’d all be driving Hyundais or Kias. Most people aren’t price sensitive as much as they’re value conscious. Studies show that just 15-35% of consumers consider price to be the chief factor. More than 60% don’t consider price at all and 80% remember the brand, not the price. In every product category, ‘high-involvement’ buyers outnumber ‘price-fixated’ shoppers more than two-to-one.

With this in mind, for pricing to become a core competency in our business we must take specific steps with our team to understand and incorporate the ‘five Cs’ of value:

• Comprehend value to customers (i.e., understand segment-based value drivers)
• Create value for customers (i.e., create/deliver segment-based value solutions)
• Communicate the value you create (i.e., tell them upfront and reinforce it later)
• Convince target customers to pay for value (must profile/know them to do this)
• Capture value with strategic and disciplined pricing based on value, not cost

At the end of the day, what we’re selling is value. If we can’t communicate this value, our team can’t maximize it and capture it with price during each customer engagement. By ignoring what drives customer value, we give the customer the upper hand in negotiations, resulting in lower pricing and profits.

Taking Stock
What we do in the midst of a recession greatly influences our long-term prospects for being a high-performing company with an uncommon sense of purpose and teamwork. For leaders, this is an ideal time to take a fresh look at the fundamentals of the business and ensure a solid foundation for the future..

The following 7-Point Gut Check gives each of us an opportunity to “take stock” by self-evaluating our real-time leadership in seven vital areas.
■Get Off the Ledge First things first! If you’re still operating in the red or running ‘close to the edge’ on cash, what (or who) are you waiting for? If your sources of funds don’t provide enough cash each month to meet your uses of funds, you’re playing a losing game or putting your head in the sand. If you haven’t done it already, it’s time to reset your resource/capacity levels to match your activity so that you can continue operating indefinitely and profitably at this level
■Build a Winning Team This is a great time to clearly communicate and then regularly reinforce alignment on your firm’s core principles (i.e., vision, purpose, and core values).
Deep engagement is necessary to ensure clear buy-in and to help employees coalesce into a solid team.
■‘Lean’ Sales and Marketing Are your marketing efforts disjointed and based on historical habits and generic sounding appeals? Or, are they unified and based on a very focused and distinctive core message delivered through the most productive communication channels, beginning with your name, tagline, signage, website, literature, stationary, email and targeted ad spending?
■Clean-up Historical Operating Problems and Compromises Now’s the time to get serious about eliminating repetitive waste (e.g., poor project plans and costly quality problems), unnecessary capacity, underperforming suppliers, and organizational ‘ankle weights’ (e.g., naysayers, upward delegators, untrustworthy teammates, and accountability avoiders).
■Refocus around Planning and Execution Discipline Allowing multiple agendas in the same company is crippling. Involve key employees and staff leaders in the planning process and hold them responsible for delivering their piece of the Plan (e.g., revenue growth, cost, asset turns, etc.). Engage them in building the business ‘on paper’ with a fresh plan.
■Establish a Culture that Integrates Learning, Accountability, and Performance Pay A team that’s seriously engaged in making its Plan will constantly confront ‘off-Plan’ areas, hold each other accountable, and celebrate successes together. Share the pain and the gain, while cultivating a culture of ‘owners’ and committed ‘professionals.’
■Unwavering Personal Witness It’s incumbent on us to communicate clearly and lead with grace when making changes that negatively impact others. As a steward, servant leader, and Christ follower, we’re to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit in all seasons. Do we exhibit His peace in the midst of the storm?

Reflect on each of these seven areas. Any low score is worthy of personal reflection and prayer, discussion, and staff brainstorming to probe ways to remedy and elevate your company’s performance.
How can your leadership help your team to use this recession as a foundation strengthening time that provides a fine launching pad for the future?

As leaders prone to pride and works of righteousness, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we’re somehow becoming more Christ-like by our own efforts. Sure, we know we’re saved by grace, but we’d like to think that our works make us more holy. In the heat of the daily battle we can forget that, apart from our identity in Christ, what we bring to the party – even on our best day – is “as filthy rags”(Isa 64:6). By leaning on our own righteousness, we damage our testimony with each offense, and push away many to whom we’re called to minister by our self-righteous behavior. In truth, our holiness depends on faithfully abiding in Jesus, which is made possible by His grace. John Piper recently said, “Grace isn’t simply leniency when we’ve sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.” For believers, God’s grace is active in saving us in Christ, sanctifying us in His image, and bringing us safely home!

Confident in God’s grace, we have the privilege of presenting ourselves, in gratitude, as living sacrifices and His ambassadors! When selfless works flow out of a heart that is grateful for such unmerited favor, others can often begin to see the reality of Christ’s love and gospel. With this truth in mind, let’s consider a few questions:

■Jesus told Paul that His “grace is sufficient” and His “power is made perfect in weakness.” How does this relate to us today as servant leaders and shepherds in the workplace?

■Do we behave or communicate as if “God is fortunate to have us on His team”?How can our ‘righteous’ behavior, often rooted in a misplaced sense of guilt or pride, create a stumbling block to others who truly need to hear Christ’s gospel of grace?

■Practically speaking, what does ‘humble reliance’ look like for us and how can this open the door with others to sharing the hope we have in Christ?

These tumultuous days may be the greatest season of our lives… the most fruitful that we have ever known! It will all depend on how we perceive them. It’s been said that “The circumstances of life don’t make me who I am; they reveal whose I am.” Light always shines brightest in darkness. This is our time! Brothers and sisters, we were created for this day!

Am I just ‘whistling through the graveyard’ or is this for real? Let’s talk about it.

Considering our Reality

If God has a plan for our lives – and He surely does – and if He will judge our performance versus that plan – and He surely will – then, if He is a just God, He must provide all we need to do what He asks. God is perfectly just (Dt 32:4, Dan 4:37, 1Jn 1:9)! Therefore, we’ll never lack His perfect provision to do what He asks. He is never limited by worldly measures or circumstances. Remember, He is the One who fed over three million people for forty years in the middle of a desert! He didn’t need food stamps, businesses, or anything outside of Himself to accomplish this. He is the sovereign and omnipotent Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. He is never limited from doing anything. As His children and joint heirs in Jesus, with daily access to the throne, neither are we! Our only prerequisite is that we’re to be doing what He asks or, saying it another way, walking in His will for our lives.

We do have a problem though. Our culture has been so leavened by the poison of the “prosperity gospel” that we‘ve come to believe that walking in God’s will, or doing what He asks, will lead to a life absent of difficulty or challenge. It’s amazing that in all of our personal experience or knowledge, in all of history, and in all of the Biblical record, not one person has ever achieved or experienced such a life. Think about that last statement for a moment. No one, godly or ungodly, escapes the trials and cycles of life. It is a fool’s errand, created in the depths of hell, to blindly pursue an unobtainable or unsustainable, non-Biblical life! So many are discouraged and disillusioned by chasing unrealistic expectations! God never promised us such a self-imagined utopia. He simply says that He will never leave or forsake us.

The knowledge that (1) our heavenly Father is a good God who always “works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Ro 8:28) and (2) there is no power on earth or in heaven that can stand against Him, is our foundation for living in and through the inevitable up and down cycles of life. Paul’s encouragement in Romans 8 actually follows a discussion of suffering! In amazing ways, suffering draws us closer to God as we learn, first-hand, that “we are more than conquerors” and that nothing in all creation can separate us from His love! Armed with this certainty, we’re able to experience joy and contentment in the midst of the chaos of life in the flesh and the rough and tumble marketplace! Nothing stays the same in our life experience. Struggle always follows triumph, and vice-versa. There’s no way to avoid the reality of our fallen world. The secret is to learn to live above it… in it, but not of it. This can happen only if we live our lives with a true eternal perspective while trusting in a good and sovereign God.

Now, think about this… God knew exactly the environment and circumstances we would face when He sent you and me to earth at this moment to be His Ambassadors! He chose us for this time! It’s no accident that you and I are where we are, doing what we do, just now. He placed us precisely here, in time and space, and planned for us to do things for Him in the midst of the circumstances we find ourselves in right now!! And we’ll always have all we need to do all He wants!

 “If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus coming to the Fairground Saturday,” that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed, that’s publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations. If the town’s citizens go the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales.”

  While humorous, the above quote captures the reality for many of us with respect to marketing… so many words, but so little understanding, focus and disciplined application. Although few business owners and CEOs imagine themselves to be topnotch ‘marketers,’ marketing is merely a broad banner flying over several fairly straight-forward business responsibilities. Getting a handle on a few key aspects of marketing – out of the continuing barrage of supposedly indispensable ‘new’ ideas pushed by consultants and business writers – will serve us well in building a growing enterprise.

So, What is Marketing?

 Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. It (1) identifies unfulfilled needs and desires, (2) defines, measures, and quantifies the size of the identified market and its profit potential, and (3) pinpoints the market segments that the company is capable of serving best, and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.

  Based on this definition, marketing clearly isn’t solely the responsibility of a specific department or key supplier, but rather an integrated subject requiring top management leadership and company-wide team effort. Marketing involves thoughtful strategic planning based on an accurate understanding of current capabilities and marketplace opportunities, on-going customer feedback and analysis of market trends, and a variety of ways to communicate to and stimulate target markets to spur profitable sales growth.

   Is improved marketing on the mind of the typical Christian business owner? In a recent nationwide survey of C12 members, improved strategic planning ranked as the single most pressing identified need (with 98% expressing current interest) from among a list of 19 specific business skills!

  In classic marketing lingo, once we’ve identified and analyzed the various market segments, strategically selected our target market segments, and considered how to best position ourselves to that target, we establish the optimum ‘marketing mix’ for each of our offerings by selecting the ideal set of choices from among ‘the four Ps’:

Product: the good or service that is designed, produced, and offered for sale

Price: the cost or exchange required for the customer to obtain our product

Place: marketing/distribution channels where our product is available

Promotion: encompasses all sales communication aimed at creating awareness and attraction, including advertising, selling, sales promotion, merchandising, and public relations

 Marketing Consistent with Our Purpose and Values

 Before we leave the subject of marketing, let’s talk briefly about shaping our marketing messages consistent with our stated purpose and core principles as Christians. It’s so easy to fall into the typical advertising appeals and positioning statements of our times which appeal to human vanity and idolatry. As ambassadors of Christ, our focus should be on excellence in our service to others, while avoiding manipulation, exaggerated claims, fleshly appeals and deceptive offers that would do damage to our testimony and harm those we are privileged to serve. Marketing messages that are excessively self-congratulatory or feed ungodly desires, behavior, or thinking should be avoided. We should aim to point others to God’s best and highest purposes with trustworthy, best-in-class service of their legitimate needs in a manner that honors God, is family friendly, and encourages the eternal perspective. As Jesus said, “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” (Jn 5:44).

 At the end of the day, excellent marketing is an expression of stewardship of the company He has given us to run for Him!

Related articles by Zemanta

• The (Same Old) 4Ps Of Marketing 2.0. (makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com)
• Promotion 03 (slideshare.net)

Even when done well, it’s never enjoyable to initiate action to sever a relationship. All the training and preparation in the world will fail to make this one of our favorite tasks. Nevertheless, such separations can be managed well and have a far more beneficial impact than we might imagine if we embrace a few basic Biblical principles. 

• Whenever possible, release an employee in person. Look them in the eye and tell them the truth with as much kindness and care as you can. People hate the proverbial impersonal “pink-slip.” It’s cold and demeaning.

• Be willing to discuss the employee’s immediate questions about the situation, not to debate, but to briefly explain and give them a chance to vent a little.

• If possible, have the meeting on Friday as there’s less trauma with Saturday being the first day not having to get up to go to work. Try to avoid forcing the terminated employee to talk to other employees immediately after the meeting. Arrange for a private opportunity for the departing employee to clean out their office, desk or tool cabinet.

•  Be as generous as possible, recognizing your stewardship responsibilities, with separation pay and terms. Depending on circumstances, position, seniority, and proprietary knowledge, do all you can to make finding another position as easy as possible. When in doubt, err on the side of being generous, gracious, helpful and giving.

• When mutual trust and a reasonable planning window exist, allow the departing employee to begin looking for work while still employed, since obtaining a timely new job is typically much easier this way. Although this isn’t always possible, this kindness is easy to appreciate by any of us who have been fired or forced to explain why we were out of work.

•  Unless the termination is the result of ‘cause’ or gross incompetence, provide a helpful referral letter prepared in advance for them to use in future job searches. Be sure to have all relevant paperwork prepared and organized prior to the face-to-face termination meeting (e.g., timetable, benefits transition, 401K rollover, etc.). In some cases, when termination is due to market or strategic changes, you might offer to make industry contacts for them.

•  In the case of a male terminating a female (or vice-versa), or in any potentially charged emotional situation, plan to have a third party present. If you’re in doubt, do it! Discuss the role you wish the second person to play prior to the meeting. This second individual should be selected with the intent of not adding to the stress of the employee being terminated. 

•  When a parting is amiable, or you sense a healthy opportunity to encourage and intercede on behalf of the departing employee, it might be very appropriate to pray with them.

•  In all instances, be sure to act in compliance with all applicable employment law. If you have any doubts, pursue expert counsel before taking action. 

Tim Hoban discussing the difference that C12 has made for his business.