Just as political activity has evolved in nature and heroes now wield their sword in opinion research and win image and positioning wars, the companies of the new century are not those that mass produced coal machines and cared about a few competitors from the region. Already in the new century, companies have gone through various dynamics or styles of competing, and not only that, but globalization has pressured the evolutionary nature of competitiveness and has led us to the mandatory improvement of the supplier-client relationship. Today it is imperative to know the evolution of business environments and master the delicate relationship between customers and their suppliers to keep a company alive.
Companies in Time.
Back in the 20s of the last century, when the industrial revolution, new tools were very important for companies to produce more, faster and with less use of labor, hence the passage of manufacturing systems to those of industrialization. Little by little, the competitiveness of companies was translated into high volumes and lower costs.
A few decades later, already in the 50's and 60's, when industrial competition matured, came problems with high inventories and bottlenecks of some products that were effectively produced but poorly placed among consumers, this caused by the variety of products that now covered the same consumer needs, the beginning of business dynamism and the incursions of new and better companies. It was then that sales methods emerged, those that you remember as strategies to convince customers to buy your product. These strategies were commonly recognized in general terms by the confrontation and analysis of the needs expressed by a prospect and / or the conviction that the product or service offered had precisely what it was looking for,although in many cases it was not so, or simply the prospect did not seek it.
In the 1980s, when sales efforts were increasingly voracious, companies realized that the lack of recurring purchases did not support companies for extended periods of time. Then the Quality methods came from Asia. Given the above, the vision of selling began to turn towards better methods to get to know consumers in depth, their tastes, preferences, buying habits, etc., resulting in a trigger in the use of the tool. called Market Study.
Already in the new millennium, and given the high volume of global competition, knowledge and technical and commercial advances throughout the world, the fundamental tool of highly competitive companies to detect business opportunities, plan strategies, plan operations, evaluate the satisfaction of client and above all, making delicate decisions, is without a doubt the Market Study. Even for political activity this instrument is now considered fundamental and basic, although in this activity it is called Research or Opinion Polling. However, given the global pressures of competitiveness and the improvement of business practices, the most competitive companies have to face competitors also with high capacity to satisfy the needs of consumers. Given the above, in recent years,beyond just aligning their offer with the characteristics demanded by consumers and satisfying them broadly, the most competitive companies have had to create new methods to gain market shares and keep themselves to the liking of their consumers. If something is clear now, it is that the most competitive companies no longer seek to sell, but rather capture the consumer's purchase.
New Business Dynamics.
Globalization and the high competitiveness of companies have led us to create new business dynamics. In the beginning of 2004 things are very different from how they were last century. Let's start by clarifying the dynamics of consumption.
In the conception of a traditional sale, we basically have two actors: The Consumer and the Supplier. Therefore, when making the transaction we have two points of view. The supplier's point of view, which considers the operation as a Sale, and the Consumer's point of view, which considers the operation as a Purchase. However, let's think about the responsibility of the act. Who does the completion of the transaction depend on? Think about the following for a moment. If the Supplier tries to sell their product and the Consumer does not buy it, is there a sale? If the Supplier tries to sell their product and the Consumer buys it, is there a sale? Therefore, on what does the sale of the Supplier depend? Answer: From the purchase of the Consumer. No matter how much money or effort the Supplier has made to sell,finally the Consumer is the one who decides which of all the Suppliers will register a sale. So, if sales are dependent on the purchases of Consumers to exist, the concept of sales is somewhat ephemeral, it does not exist if there is no purchase behind it, it does exist. That is why in the new millennium sales is a hollow concept that does not exist in itself unless you have the purchase of a Consumer within.
And the Clients, do they still exist? Yes, as long as we define specifically what a Client is for a highly competitive company from the year 2000. A Client is that individual or organization that, given the satisfaction they receive from a supplier, consumes it on a recurring basis and / or recommends it. With this definition, the Potential or Target Market and the Prospect must be sharply delimited, all of these sometimes misnamed Clients. The Potential Market or Goal I can define it as that mass of individuals or organizations that due to their characteristics, are the target of the interest of a Supplier and are likely to be its Clients in the future and a Prospect is the individual or organization that has had a approach with the Supplier without consuming it.
Now, if the "Market" is likely to consume a supplier, the "Prospect" comes into contact but does NOT consume it and the "Client" is the one that consumes it on a recurring basis, do you not feel that someone is missing? Do not go on reading until you meditate a little on this. There is an individual who is not part of the Meta Market because he has already had an approach with the supplier, nor is he a Prospect because he has already consumed the supplier, but he is also not a Client because he has not had recurring consumption, that is, he has only consumed one once. I have named that individual "ADVENTOR". The word Adventor is a Latin word that means "new consumer", hinting at the test of the unknown and adventure. It is precisely this nature that surrounds an Adventor by consuming for the first time a provider, an adventure,the proof of something uncertain but with expectations in this regard. It is precisely this term that comes to explain the failure in the sustainability of many companies (especially the smallest ones) with parabolic sales charts, broken by the lack of recurrence in their consumers. It's simple: Many Adventors, Few Clients.
Adventor Dynamics
It is important to clarify this: NOT every Adventor becomes a Client, however, every Client was once an Adventor. It is very sad to see how there are still companies (especially micro and small) not prepared for high competitiveness or consumer satisfaction, who invest all their effort, including a large budget, in attracting Adventors. Given the lack of competitiveness of these companies, not only do they have a sterile result and loss of money in the vast majority of cases, but if they obtain some, they create a mirage in the company's sales amounts, but not a recurrence of purchase in the future, achieving temporary results that are very difficult to sustain, hence the parabolic sales charts.
The highly competitive company of the late 20th century is clear in its efforts: Seeking Adventors to become Clients. But how do you turn an Adventor into a Client? That is, how to make a new consumer become a recurring consumer? It's simple, the key word is SATISFACTION. An Adventor becomes a Client simply by receiving more satisfaction with the provider they are testing than with the previous one. Hence, market studies are the fundamental tool to detect unmet needs, satisfaction indexes generated by competition and, in general, everything related to consumer tastes and preferences, translated into satisfaction factors or success factors.. From these studies the most important information is obtained to design the products,the operation and customer service systems, locations, delivery time standards, colors, flavors, credit, etc., that the Adventor will value to become a Customer. The above comes to be the daily bread in a highly competitive company.
However, there is an earlier step in sequence but more advanced in application. If we are operating a highly competitive company, that is, if we have already studied consumption and consumers, and have managed to create or improve a company so that it is capable of providing greater satisfaction to consumers than the competition, then we must start by obtaining Adventors. How do we turn a prospect or even the target market into an Adventor? Here is the most modern challenge for highly competitive companies.
Link to the Adventor
Traditional thinking could suggest that having a very competitive company with an unbeatable product, including excellent prices, could help you have more Clients, however, all Clients were first an Adventor, and that Adventor had never had contact with their client. company or its products or services before being one. That is why just as the only tool to turn an Adventor into a Client is satisfaction, likewise the only tool to turn the target market or a prospect in Adventor is communication. Hence, many companies that have managed to create or become a competitive company, with high levels of quality and satisfaction capabilities, are surprised by the bankruptcy due to the lack of effective communication that convinces the Market to become Adventors,that surely would have become Clients later.
To make the decision to become an Adventor from one or another provider, the market only has information that can come from two sources: communication efforts and recovery keys. Communication efforts are all the projection of information from the company or product to the market, through massive advertising tools such as TV, Radio, Flyers, Panoramic, Email, Triptychs, Newspaper, etc. The effectiveness of this type of effort depends to a great extent on the strategic understanding of the person responsible for applying positioning and convening methods, however, the effectiveness strategies of this source of information are the subject of another article.The recovery keys are all the image obtained or prejudice created by the Market or Prospect of what the product or the company is, without there being a voluntary reason on the part of the company for it, such as the facade of the facilities, the dress or attitude of the employees, the packaging of the product, the size or location of the establishment, a bad recommendation, a bad or good event related to the product or the company, including the same logo and names of the product or the company. If names like "Vivero Borolas", ASCO., DogHead (Cabeza de Perro) or "Las Delicias", carry in themselves enough information to create prejudice and even expectations regarding a company or product, imagine a food establishment with furniture old and dirty,a representative with poorly printed business cards with misspellings or a clerk who chews gum and asks "what does she want?"
Conclusions
In terms of competitiveness, unfortunately, there are still many companies (especially small and medium-sized ones in emerging countries) that are far from modern business dynamics. In other words, they operate with archaic schemes from the 1950s and even the 1920s, which translate into very low levels of competitiveness and create great business opportunities for highly competitive companies originating from developed countries.
Today, the consumer is the locomotive of the economic train and it is he who has the power to decide which company survives and which does not, without it, there are no sales, there are no companies, no matter how much the government or access to credit, it is the entrepreneurial skills that are needed. That is why as entrepreneurs we have to understand that the consumer has many options, and that the company that does not know and applies work procedures based on effective communication and consumer satisfaction will simply soon die.
Not only this, nowadays it is no longer enough to develop highly competitive companies, but you have to know how to communicate it to only start with an Adventor and end with a Client. Being on the Market's mind at the time of your purchase decision is all that is required to obtain Adventors, however, becoming a Client requires more than a good price, products or services, it requires satisfaction. Beware of those that focus on granting a competitive advantage or added value, developing countries have such low levels of competitiveness that the mere fact of granting competitiveness makes companies leaders in market share.
