The last few months may have been tough for some of you because of the limitations on work and communication, but for others it has been a period of blessed relief.

Coming out of lockdown and back into a regular work pattern will fill some people with dread.

Uncertainty around what kinds of business will succeed, fed by commentary across all media, isn’t helping. If we aren’t reading stories about the amazing growth rate of lockdown start-ups, we’re being told that everything established will fail.

Don’t worry. Things are no more difficult than they always were – but they are different.

How to work it through

Getting serious about the questions is a start. Can you honestly, hand-on-heart, say you’ve interrogated the probability that you can continue as before? 

Challenge yourself

Try listing ideas that you could pivot into right now. You’ve probably got a sense of a latent idea that could be developed to generate sales sometime. Write it down, and work out whether it’s something to consider immediately.

Try this every day for a week. Sit and jot down ten ideas. Do it again tomorrow and the day after, and it may surprise you how often the ideas you like the most will come to the surface.

What’s a scenario?

A scenario is an anticipation of what could happen to your business at any time.

Being brutally honest with yourself and your team is another hard exercise but hugely valuable.

We’d recommend you have a minimum of three scenarios in play all the time: everything stays the same, everything goes wrong, everything goes better than imagined. By thinking this through, you gain a sense of the external factors that are heading your way and start to look further out to see emerging threats and opportunities.

For example: what would the worst day look like? 

When you’ve had that thought, what would you do to:

1. Avoid it
2. Use it
3. Create a product/system/process/service to resolve the issue presented

Acting on #3 might prevent it happening at all.

Similarly, what would the best day look like: for example, what would you do if Google came knocking to make you an offer to buy?

None of this is brain surgery, but business leaders don’t record these thoughts often enough. You may have the thoughts in the shower, but your team can’t contribute unless you share them.

Scenario #1

The customers you supply are changing their behaviours in response to consumer demands more quickly than anyone can keep track of, which means that your value proposition will also need to change.

If you’d like someone to work with your team on this kind of exercise, you know where we are.

Download our free guide to trend identification here.

Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.

I don’t mean, hey wake up and smell the coffee – you’re going out of business!!!

I mean, change is happening and you are being affected. There’s an opportunity to innovate if you read the signs of disruption and act before your approach becomes “an exaggerated attitude”.

There are many times when a prospective disruption is announced, only for it to fade away unnoticed. A great idea, a charismatic founder, a well-funded start-up: you’ve seen it all before. A novel idea followed by a funding round and then…nothing. Nothing happens all the time.

But disruption can happen differently. Change can occur silently in markets aa consumer reaction is carried along with it. In these cases, a new solution grows quietly, people refer it to their circle of influence and before long, there’s a success story to write up as a great example of human-centred design.

An exaggerated attitude

Listening to a veteran WWII pilot describing his approach to landing on an aircraft carrier in a big sea, he made nothing of the size of the waves, the instability of the landing deck, the speed and unpredictability of the wind, or the metaphorical tightrope he was walking. All he said was, “we approached the deck at an exaggerated attitude”…and yet his meaning was clear.

Discussing whether a training centre would reopen to finish a teaching course, the student was asked if the course could be delivered online. She replied, “no, that would deliver a far reduced experience.”

No fanfare. No declaration of failure. No signal that a new solution is needed, but the message is clear and the opportunity stares out.

Drive

Problems across markets are often disguised by a clever turn of phrase, or ignored by management teams who don’t respond appropriately. Daniel Pink, in his book Drive, tells of company bosses gaming numbers and performance-based decisions to focus on the short-term, where the need is actually to play a longer game. This is not in the personal interest of those chasing a performance-related bonus, but it is what a strategy might demand.

5G

Arguments are currently raging (and will probably continue to do so) over 5G technology.

Huawei is the undisputed frontrunner in commercialising 5G and is the leading supplier to government-sponsored organisations around the world. But Huawei’s Chinese origins engender suspicion and it has become the bad guy of telecoms. The US won’t work with them and the UK is back-tracking. All this against a backdrop where the CEO of British Telecom says that to strip Huawei out of its infrastructure will take at least ten years. There isn’t a single person at BT who will be in the same job in ten years, so that withdrawal from using Huawei ‘kit’ is probably already doomed.

While the arguments go on, businesses will continue to develop 5G products, launch them to market and try to make money from them. The disruption will grow, the value proposition will become ingrained in every part of life, and the noise in the supply chain won’t make the slightest difference. Huawei will inevitably attract competition but, by then, the ways in which 5G has integrated our way of life will be too far evolved for it to be outed, until another wave of disruption tapers in. It will probably happen.

Other trends to watch?

RPA will continue to do the grunt work that people used to do; healthcare is moving towards being preventative; cars will be full electric; shared transport will shrink as individuals find ways to travel without being crushed up against somebody else – think bikes, eBikes and scooters; plant-based eating will outstrip consumption of animal protein, cash is fading out in some markets, social media is the heartland of conspiracy theory. These are just a few of the viewable mega trends where disruption will affect consumer behaviour and supply chains. Companies used to selling meat processing or spark plugs, please note: your markets are in slow and irretrievable decline.

I don’t mean, hey wake up and smell the coffee – you are going out of business!!!

I mean, change is happening and you are being affected. There’s an opportunity to innovate if you read the signs and act before your approach becomes an exaggerated attitude.

Future thinking. Future proofing. Innovation training. It’s what we do.

When nothing in the data indicates what your future holds, you must work out what will keep your product relevant to its market. This is what innovation consulting takes care of.

Clients can be contrary. What they say they want and what they actually want aren’t always the same. Here’s an example: 

Expressed goal: Can you research markets to show us what works in other segments, that we could do in ours?

Answer: Yes.

Actual goal: Can you tell us what we should do next?

Answer: Probably – but if we do, why does your company need you?

Innovation Managers have one thing in common. You all got where you are by being the most creative of people. As soon as you got this job, though, you were asked to operate in a manner that your company could recognise as new product development, but not always as innovation.

In the past, you would have filled your diary with trips to trade shows and exhibitions – essentially shopping trips with like-minded people. You may have defined this as innovation. None of us now knows when, or even if, the next trade show will happen, and this uncertainty gives you a huge opportunity to change your approach. 

Research is only useful if you use it.

Here’s a scenario: a client asks us to research across markets and countries. We plan to work with the client to develop a ‘relevance’ rating for new ideas, so we can create a decisioning method for them – and, in the process, instil a system that makes innovation possible.

Then the client realises they have to read what we send them. What they actually want is for us to tell them what is relevant and break the insight down to a level that doesn’t require much input from them.

What’s wrong with this scenario isn’t that we are making judgements about the client’s future direction – it’s that, when they have to discuss a concept with their senior management, they won’t know enough about it to present the case effectively. Sure, they’ll understand that this idea could work, but they won’t be aware of who else is working in the space (it’s not just the usual suspects who are the most vigorous disruptors), or if the nominated concept is a good strategic fit. 

Aren’t the answers in the data?

Sometimes but, in innovation, not always.

Data is historical. It tells you what has happened. It won’t tell you what will happen, or what might happen, or what could happen with some help. Data can be extrapolated to provide a forecast that assumes circumstances don’t change.

This is the part of the equation that we insist clients take responsibility for – because things do change, and today they change more quickly and in more unexpected ways.

Avoid the allure of easy.

It’s not always easy. Showing your business some nicely visualised data about market movements will be attractive for a while. Sooner or later though, you’ll need to work out what will keep your product relevant to its market when nothing in the data matters anymore. That’s what an innovation process takes care of.

Question:

Can we research markets to show you what works in other segments that you could do in yours?

Answer: Yes.

Actual goal: Can we tell you what you should do next?

Answer: Probably – but we’d rather work together. Together, we make a fantastic team- but you must commit to a process that has a start, a middle and an end.

If your management has a history of losing patience with new initiatives, please don’t start an innovation process. It’ll end in disappointment. 

The purpose of a process is to get to the end. The end of a process is where the magic happens. It’s where we pull together all the insight gathered and create innovative opportunities. It’s where we design a rationale that your management can see potential in. It’s where all the work culminates, leading to a final strategic output with practical actions described..

Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.

Back on the 6th of February we posted a blog called ‘The way you do anything is the way you do everything. Innovation in 2020’ and reminded you that 2020 was 10% done already.

Unfortunately, it’s also true that nothing we know in May was how we imagined it would be in January and the forecasts you had in the business plan weren’t accurate. Some lucky brands have been winners through the COVID-19 crisis but lots haven’t been.

Today, more than ever, a structured yet expansive approach to future-proofing is an essential part of the innovators toolkit. Now, at the start of May, 2020 is 30% done and everything has changed, including the way you do it.

The following is a reminder of what we asked you to consider in February. The same questions apply but the context has changed.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything. Innovation in 2020.

2020 is 30% done. How was it for you? The next obvious question is, what has been different so far this year?

For example, have you tried pulling an article out of Le Figaro or Welt and dropping it into Google Translate to see what the EU mainland thinks about Brexit?

Or, how about, reading some CES 2020 reviews?

Or have you looked for clues where you’ve always looked, or where you know your competitors look? With 30% of 2020 behind us, doing more of the same isn’t going to provide you with the business insulation that’s probably needed this year.

Adjacent opportunities can be found and grasped. Longer term scenarios must be mapped and reviewed. Constant and tenacious interrogation of your market dynamics and consumer behaviours is imperative.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

If you are taking care of business today with only an occasional look at immediate threats, the way you will react is occasional and immediate.

Regularly working on your future makes your opportunities appear regularly. The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

There is a way to work in your future.

It’s a way to work in the 2020-2030 decade and know what you need to do next, and then next… Download it here. Take a look and start a working differently today.

Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.

Please get in touch for a chat. It might just help helpme@room44.co.uk

For many businesses, Q4 may be the next best time to launch an innovation, internally or externally. But now is the best time to focus on what comes next.

For millions of people sent home from the workplace, the COVID-19 crisis might be providing their first experience of working in a physically isolated space. For others, it’s business as usual. While media threads suggest that working from home lifts some of the pressure and makes life easier, many of us are working flat out – not only coping with the uncertainty around business contracts and trying to ensure we deliver on promise, but also managing around those business enablers we took for granted – like the post office and stationery suppliers.

Opportunities

Despite all this, it’s more critical than ever, in this unusual time, that we don’t miss the opportunity to plan ahead. If now is all about keeping things going, Q4 may be the next best time to make a significant leap and to plan what comes next.

On current signals, it looks like mass gatherings may be part of the landscape again around October. It may have been speculative, but the London Marathon and several festivals have plumped for this revised timing.

We’re probably all looking at a long summer of working, and playing, from home. At room44, we’re continuing to watch how trends are developing, and where the land lies on the things that were important before everything changed. Here are a few random readings:

Bush fires et al

Remember the Australian bush fires? They’re still burning, despite COVID-19. Recent swings in weather patterns have slackened their spread, but they’re still blazing across the country. Environmentally, the reduction in travel has begun to benefit our environment but mega trends are still hurting. The Amazon is still being deforested and plastic waste hasn’t gone away. Popular media may have taken its eye off the environmental ball – you shouldn’t, as you plan ahead. The part your business plays in that context will come back to the top of the agenda.

Brexit

Remember that? It’s still a job to get done and, according to the UK Prime Minister in one of his early COVID-19 press conferences, it will still be done by the end of the year. Will it be a ‘hard’ exit? Is anyone watching?

Consumer goods

Amid the crush of the national craving for toilet rolls, Britons did not cover themselves in glory by adopting an ‘everyone for themselves’ attitude, stripping shelves before key workers could even finish their shifts. Department stores are reported to have had a run on sales of fridge-freezers so, logically, many people should be able to feed themselves for weeks if restriction on movement freezes. But what does this lead to? Huge spikes in demand during periods of shortage result in the supply chain becoming bloated. Later, as demand levels out and over-capacity leads to a glut, will prices fall? If petrol and diesel are a measure of this the answer is, yes. If you haven’t filled your car for a week or so, the price of a litre may surprise you.

Digital tech

Predicting demand patterns and behavioural trends has been an important skill as health experts model the spread of COVID-19. Traffic monitors and street cameras tell the authorities where and when people are moving. From China, there have been reports of facial recognition being used to identify persistent curfew breakers.

Combine this data with algorithm development and it becomes possible to predict where outbreaks will occur, supporting the call, from some quarters, to increase surveillance across countries.

Watch this trend. Some countries are using mobile phone tracking of its citizens to anticipate outbreaks of COVID-19 and enforce ‘stay at home’ Hefty fines (@$7,000) have been reported for non-compliance of social distancing rules and with second spikes and re-infection being discussed, these measures look set to stick around.

…and VR?

The use of digital technology to help communities stay in touch has become a part of normal life across all age groups. While gaming and eSports may take a step forward if we are isolated for long periods, the signs are that most people still see everyday personal contact as more important than virtual environments. That’s not to say that VR doesn’t have its place, but here’s an extract from Ray Bradbury’s 1957 novel Dandelion Wine that paints a picture.

And then, inside the Happiness Machine, Lena Hoffman began to weep.

The inventor’s smile faded…

There his wife sat, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh, it’s the saddest thing in the world”, she wailed. “I feel awful, terrible.”

She climbed out through the door.

“First it was Paris.”

“What’s wrong with Paris?”

“I never thought about being in Paris in my life. But now you got me thinking, Paris! So, suddenly I wanted to be in Paris and I know I’m not.”

“It’s almost as good, this machine.”

“…Leo, the mistake you made is you forgot that some hour, some day we all got to climb out of that thing and go back to dirty dishes and the beds not made.

While you’re in that thing, sure, a sunset lasts for ever, the air smells good, the temperature is fine. All the things you want to last, last.

But outside the children wait on lunch, the clothes need buttons and let’s be frank Leo, how long can you look at a sunset?”

After COVID-19, the new ‘normal’ we adjust to will likely be quite different from how things were before. All the more reason to start planning for what comes next, don’t you think? Now is the best time to focus on what comes next.

Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.

In the good old days, we could take a view of markets and see the probable changes that were readable from viewable trends. That was when the pace of change was fast – now things have stepped up to a whole new level.

Long-term thinking. Future thinking. Future-proofing.

When the long term is the hardest thing to focus on, that’s when it’s most important to retain that focus.

We’ve written a number of blogs recently predicting changes of fortune in various sectors: we’ve suggested the demise of the mobile phone; the accelerating rate of switch to electric vehicles; Apple losing its innovative edge; veganism really taking off; and the impulse and confectionery sectors taking a hit.

These are extrapolations from readable trends.

Wearable tech is becoming invisible and the internet of things has developed into the internet of everything, so the infrastructure is growing that will integrate the functionality of mobile phones into the fabric of your lives.

Governments have issued more aggressive net zero targets and shortened timescales for EVs to replace fossil-fuelled cars. It was 2040 last year. Now it’s 2032.

As for the impulse sector, we believe it’s heading for a major restructuring and probable value reduction to a negative trajectory that’s similar to the growth of EVs.

A whole new level.

And all this was when the pace of change was fast. Now things have stepped up to a whole new level.

• The UK is out of Europe.
• There are interesting developments in the US Presidential race.
• Country politics are not what they were, even a few weeks ago.
• Plastic pollution is off the news agenda because COVID19 is all anyone is talking about.

Markets tumble.

This week saw the Dow Jones tumble 7% in just four minutes. Italy’s market dropped by 11% and Germany and the UK both dropped 8% in a day. Why? Because the world is facing a pandemic and oil-producing countries can’t agree whether demand will drop during the lifecycle of the Coronavirus.

Mega-trends and toilet rolls.

Countries have ring-fenced cities. Mass gatherings are being restricted in some places, while mass transit systems function as normal in others. Government departments are closing and toilet rolls are running out.

Let’s not forget the major environmental disasters, such as drought and wildfires, that are still going on, while uncontrolled migration and its inherent human tragedies continue.

The effect of mega trends used to be something that was a step removed from the fortunes of individual companies, but things have changed.

Even as major events have turned some markets upside down, others have experienced an uplift. Hand sanitiser brands are literally rubbing their hands in glee while consumers hoard stock, and pollution levels drop as commuters stop travelling.

So, is change a real thing? Of course.

When the long term is the hardest thing to focus on, that’s when it’s most important to retain that focus.

Long-term thinking. Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.

If this kind of thinking can be helpful to you, let’s talk. Long-term thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.

Here’s my diary. Book some time.

2020 is 10% done. How was it for you? The next obvious question is, what has been different so far this year? It’s not always easy to read but it is true to say that the way you do anything is the way you do everything.

For example, have you tried pulling an article out of Le Figaro or Die Welt and dropping it into Google Translate to see what the EU mainland thinks about Brexit?

Or, how about, reading some CES 2020 reviews?

Or have you looked for clues where you’ve always looked, or where you know your competitors look? With 10% of 2020 behind us, doing more of the same isn’t going to provide you with the business insulation that’s probably needed this year.

Adjacent opportunities can be found and grasped. Longer term scenarios must be mapped and reviewed. Constant and tenacious interrogation of your market dynamics and consumer behaviours is imperative.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

If you are taking care of business today with only an occasional look at immediate threats, the way you will react is occasional and immediate.

Regularly working on your future makes your opportunities appear regularly. The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

There is a way to work in your future.

It’s a way to work in the 2020-2030 decade and know what you need to do next, and then next… Download it here. Take a look and start a working differently today.

Future thinking. Future proofing. It’s what we do.

Perspective is a funny thing. We all think we have it, but are often caught out by somebody else’s view.

Example

Her: Dad, can I go to Reading Festival in the summer?

Me: But you’ll just be sixteen and it makes me a bit sad to see you grow up so fast.

Her: I know, Dad, it makes me sad too – if I can’t go.

Practical tests of perspective

Stand on a beach, and if you’re about 2m or 6 feet tall, the horizon is 5km away.

Climb up the cliff, and things look very different at a hundred feet above sea level. The horizon is 20km away and it’s wider too. More sea to see. More things to see on the sea.

Back to the question: why do companies do what they do, sometimes without changing, for so long? Because that’s what the people in those companies were trained to do.

It might seem obvious, but it’s why we recommend taking advantage of ‘innovation’ and inviting in external, non-biased assistance.

US journalism

Here’s an industry example of where perspective is causing some concern.

One in every five American newsroom journalists lives in one of three cities: New York, Washington DC and LA. Can this possibly give the average US voter a balanced view of news and politics?

Similarly, do you read trade journals, visit trade shows and meet industry reps? That’s all well and good, but we’d ask you, ‘when do you see anything else?’

Social media is having a significant impact on the way we all see the world and how we perceive influences in it. On the whole, people tend to believe what they see, and we consume a lot: in fact, over 300,000 words a day – that’s a novel a day, even for the self-proclaimed non-readers amongst you.

This all adds up to a lot of processing and opinion-forming that may have almost nothing to do with reality.

Presidential marketing

The Washington Daily Post has compiled a count of Donald Trump’s daily falsehoods since he was elected, and it currently stands at over 13,000*. Most of these have gone broadly unchallenged or, at least, unresolved. In the face of this volume of potential misinformation, it’s understandable that many people believe the spin.

After all, this is how marketing works: the more times you see a message, the more inclined you are to tip from awareness of a brand to putting your trust in it.

So, if you restrict the data your innovation process consumes to the industry you are in, it can only limit the potential for new ideas. Far better, we believe, to be open to a wide spectrum of influences.

At room44 we claim one thing: to be completely naive about your business while being expert in innovation. You don’t need more of the expertise you already have. What you need is different expertise and moderation. We will always approach your business from an angle that you don’t, and we’ll always see potential in the ideas you may have had but not acted on.

If this sounds interesting, please drop half an hour into my diary and let’s have a chat.

Future-thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.

*Ed Pilkington, The Guardian.

Unsure about how to plan to succeed in the 2020-2030 decade? Checkout our 10, 20-30 programme here.

10, 20-30 is a framework for delivering a future-proofed mindset to your team, business and lifecycle.

Why?

Every day, there’s a new disruptive business story, a new tech start-up raising millions to change something, someday.

On the flip side, and at the same time, there is regular reporting of start-ups and established firms going under. Uber loses a founder, WeWork takes a tumble and other unicorns report a year of negative returns and lose their shine. Sometimes, some things are too good to be true.

The reasons for missed ROI targets and, even closures, are many and various and all start with an assumption: you’re alright, because somebody will always need your paper, water, chocolate, steel work, cosmetics, legal services, financial advice, cars, office space…or will they?

But…

With a properly critical look at your future, at your consumer behaviours and your market, it’s possible to see what’s coming down the line to compete with you. And there will be something on your horizon that will cause some of your older revenue streams to dry up.

There it is. An uncomfortable truth maybe but one to watch none-the-less. With insight comes the opportunity to future-proof yourself.

So what?

Working with teams to create roadmaps to a profitable future, we can find that everything looks different.

You will define what your business is going to be. You’ll plot your path of baby steps so everyone knows what they must do from the minute they hear the plan.

We always make it clear that the output we create together isn’t a plan for someday: the output we generate by working with you is a plan you can use now.

Forecasts are guesses

As a process, ours is an easy one to understand. Pick a point in the future, use radical insight to inform what’s needed for that strategic end point to be viable and plot the product developments that will get you there. As far as ROI is concerned, you’ll have a general impression of size and shape.

However strong your forecasting function is, and we’ll probably disagree on that, they are guessing just as much as you are. Of course they have models and spreadsheets to justify their view of the world, but you have one thing they don’t – and that’s insight driven intuition.

This is the magic sauce that could bring your CSuite to the party.

Maybe you’ve heard of the ‘fuzzy front end’ or ‘future forecasting’. What they point to is a future sales figure that amounts to the same thing really: guesswork.

Intuition

Your senior management has been around long enough to get into the CSuite. They’ve worked through cycles of business to achieve the sort of insight that can only come with time served and they know, more often than not, what good looks like.

So, if you can’t get them involved in the actual process of innovation, it’s worth bouncing the odd ball down the board table to see where their interest lies, what sparks their excitement, and where their intuition makes them look.

Awareness vs trust

In the digital marketing rule book, we are told there are three phases to online marketing: awareness, trust and conversion. It’s the same across your business structure and vertically from bottom to top.

Being noticed isn’t the same as being trusted, but getting an innovation concept through the stage gates means tapping into what becomes a reason to believe.

This may sound a bit too much like pragmatism to be true innovation, but innovation ultimately is a matter of commercial survival.

Today, you need a plan. If you don’t know where to start, or how to sell it in to your CSuite, get in touch. We do.

In the meantime, you can download our free guide to ‘Selling innovation into your own company’ here and get detail of our 10, 20-30 programme here.

Future thinking. Future-proofing. It’s what we do.

Newsfeeds and social media are signalling disruption in every corner of our lives in this decade. Learn how to avoid being reactive to every shift in customer behaviour, and how to anticipate what to do next.

1. Start with what you know.

Every person in your business has had a different experience of your customers than you have. Think how many of your colleagues have come from a company where things are done differently, and customers are treated differently.

Ask them to tell you about it.

Your staff represents an invaluable source of insight. They all buy products in consumer markets every day. They know which websites work the best, and they know what their markets are doing. Your colleagues are expert in one thing above all else – themselves – so ask them about their experiences. If there’s a subject we all like to talk about, it’s ourselves.

Take time to talk to your employees and you’ll be surprised at what you will learn about their view of your market: who is launching a new variant; who is leaving a competitor; who is having trouble with their supply chain; who is likely to merge with somebody else…

Do it regularly, and one-to-one. You don’t have to set up a meeting, but you should commit time to this every week. Doing it less often releases you from the obligation of learning what you need to know. Make it a priority in your schedule.

If you need help to moderate conversations like this, book a call here.

2. Innovations don’t appear from nowhere. You can already see them happening.

Insight nugget: the things that will disrupt you in five years’ time have started to emerge already – and you can see them, if you look.

There isn’t a company in existence who can suddenly produce a ground-breaking product. It doesn’t happen.

When the iPhone was launched in 2008, it didn’t immediately have the consumer-shifting effect we attribute to it. It took three years for the App Store to appear, and developers saw that as an opportunity.

Over time, Android apps appeared and now we have cross-platform apps for Android and Apple iOS. Suppliers like Adobe and Microsoft sell you software on cloud-based platforms so the apps are managed differently through subscription.

This is an example of how a market has evolved quite slowly, offering signals all along its development path. The same is true for your market. If you make components for petrol-engines, get ready for a change: EVs don’t need them. If you think you’re safe because your parts are used in boats, planes or tractors – think again.

So…be pro-active in how you review the macro influences that are forcing change in your market. A little bit of looking over your shoulder to remember how you got where you are is time well spent. Then go and talk to your colleagues – it’s surprising what they know too.

If you need help to formulate a plan or to gather this kind of insight, get in touch.

3. If you need help, get it.

Inviting an external service into your business has the potential to be disruptive and expensive. It can be…but it doesn’t have to be.

Enduring relationships with long-standing clients are great for both parties, because we learn each other’s needs. The beauty of this approach is that efficiency gets built into the process.

What we always do at room44 is to stay naïve about your market. A specialist in your market won’t offer you a different view. What we do is to see your business through a new lens and open up vistas of opportunity.

Get in touch and test us. If we can’t show you an opportunity that hasn’t occurred to you before, we’ll stay friends and walk away. If we can, at zero cost for the first conversation, there’s an opportunity to build a relationship.

As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

This is how to start or book a call here. We look forward to your challenge.