Positioning for Profitable Growth

Wale Ewedemi,Certificate in Media Enterprise

School of Media and CommunicationsPan African University

wale@creative-nigeria.orgTwitter: @inspiredwale

The most essential task for profitable growth is the Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy.  

A GTM strategy defined by Larry Friedman is:“A game plan for reaching and serving the right customers, in the right markets, through the right channels , with the rightproducts and the right value proposition.”

M.A.P.S

•Busines Planning•Operational Planning

•Strategic Planning

•Decipher trends from the monitoring

•Decipher loopholes•Decipher best entry point

•Who are the customers

•Where are the customers

•Buying habits, hobbies, etc

Monitoring Analysis

PlanStrategy

FASTFAIL

Monitor Gather market data. 

Primary research. Interviews with customers and potential customers.  Primary research will tell you specifically what your customers want and how much they are willing to pay. 

Secondary research. Industry reports, articles, surveys and the like.  Secondary research will give you an idea of trends, market size, and competition.

AnalyseCheck out your competition. You need to do a deep dive on competitor’s websites, press, personnel, revenue, and everything else you can unearth.  This is a crucial part of the process and can help you decide whether this is a market worth pursuing, and if it is, how are you going to be better than the competition?

Think. Ok, this one may be obvious to folks but it’s really important.  You really need to stop, assess what you have learned, and think.  Go somewhere other than your office.  A park or relatively quiet coffee shop can be good.  For me, taking my dog for a run works really well.

Planning Plan to Sell. If you are an entrepreneur marshaling investors or development resources, you need to be able to sell your Go-to-Market strategy.   

In a larger organization, you need to sell to other departmental stakeholders. 

You need people to believe in what you are doing, and you also need to get their input. 

They may have some really smart feedback that enhances your thinking and your plan.

Planning is the (psychological) process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired future on some scale.

This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans. The term is also used to describe the formal procedures used in such an endeavor, such as the creation of documents, diagrams, or meetings to discuss the important issues to be addressed, the objectives to be met, and the strategy to be followed.

Beyond this, planning has a different meaning depending on the political or economic context in which it is used. 

StrategyA strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often "winning". Strategy is differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand by its nature of being extensively premeditated, and often practically rehearsed.A strategy is a long term plan for success, to achieve an advantage. This are the key milestones and targets for the coming year or to achieve the targets while minimizing the options and maximizing the returns. 

where as planning is concerned it the actual execution of the above said strategy. 

Convention

Everything is going to be alright

@inspiredwale