A new website offers information, products and services geared to helping manufacturers find and leverage their under-exploited assets.
With tough times increasing, manufacturers will be under pressure to take what they have and make it work harder. Until now, a common reaction might have been to lose staff at the bottom of the ‘necessity’ list, reduce sales and marketing activity and curtail acquisitions and investing in improvements.
Stephen Johnson, a director of Brisbane marketing company Strategy and Action, says a far more profitable move is to seek ways to leverage the assets a company has, and retain as much capacity to grow as possible.
“Leverage is the word in tough times, and from what we’ve seen of a lot of companies, there’s plenty of it to be had. There are existing sales and marketing expenditures, assets and opportunities in most companies that are under-exploited. For modest sums, and sometimes virtually no sums, they can be leveraged.”
Johnson says there are three hurdles to getting the leverage of assets manufacturers could enjoy… identifying the assets and opportunities, developing strategies to leverage them and then turning those strategies into action.
Johnson says that a methodical way of identifying and appraising assets and opportunities are a critical step in getting more from a budget.
“We’ve developed some good tools for going through a company and effectively ‘auditing’ their marketing. It might sound formal, but it’s important to look for any and all opportunities available. There are hundreds of elements in a company’s business-growth activities, assets and systems. In just three well chosen missed opportunities might be tens of thousands of dollars in new and ongoing revenues.”
The website is www.leverageyourmarketing.com.au and an ongoing blog and growing list of resources are expected to make it valuable reading to manufacturers.