Back to Basics: Growing Your Security Business
Posted on Tue, Jan 24, 2012
By Geoff Kohl, editor-in-chief/associate publisher, SecurityInfoWatch.com
I’ve been talking with a number of integrators this week about what it means to grow their business, and what I continue to hear is that what makes your business grow isn’t some profound marketing campaign that floods your sales center and which compels you to send all of your trucks rolling out for new installations.
Instead, what matters for growth is doing the fundamentals well. Doing the fundamentals well means that you retain your existing customers because you deliver on what they expect. That’s central to any type of growth, because we all know that you’ll never grow if you’re faced with high attrition and troubled with the “gain one, then lose one” business challenge. You need to be doing this: “gain one, keep one, gain another”. That’s what growth is about!
Throughout my conversations, I compiled some of those security business fundamentals that will lead to growth. Here are the ones that came out on top:
1. Connect to your customers. What sets a good, growing company apart from its competitors is their relationship with their customers. They’re having “great conversations” with their customers. They know what the customer’s need is. They don’t sell a box. They sell a solution because they know what the customer’s need is. If you don’t know what someone’s need is, you offer them a box, a widget, hoping that the chrome and sizzle will entice them. But if you know their needs, you develop a security solution that fits them. And then you win a customer, possibly for life. But you have to connect to them first, and that means listening.
2. Talk to your customers … literally. I don’t care if you’re large multi-national or a small local company. What I do care is that you talk to your customers. Feeding them through an automated hell of a phone system isn’t going to allow you to have a “great conversation” with your customer. Instead, it’s going to get you a conversation with a frustrated customer who feels like their time has already been wasted. The worst case scenario is that you don’t even get that miserable conversation and instead you get a click and a dial tone. One thing I know about good companies is that they make it easy for people to connect to people. People connecting to people. It’s a novel idea, right, the kind of thing that a billion dollar social network like Facebook is built upon.
3. Be flexible. Yes, you can grow yourself into a really big company selling the same alarm system over and over, but unless you want your firm to be just a big marketing engine, I’d suggest you go with another approach. Develop relationships with a number of industry vendors and really get to know their array of solutions. Keep an eye out for other innovative technology. Know the full spectrum and know it well, so that when your customer comes to you with a real challenge, you don’t have to spend weeks trying to figure out if it’s possible. Instead, you know it’s possible and you know exactly how to do it. Retain that manufacturer relationship flexibility to offer your clients the right solution.
4. Be security experts. Your customers called your company because you’re in the security business. That’s a profound idea, really. They didn’t call you because you were in the installation business. If they already knew what they wanted and needed, they could have called any installer. But they called you because they have a security problem that they can’t solve on their own, and that’s why they need a security expert. If you can’t effectively assess your client’s unique security concerns, then I’d ask whether you are in the security business or still just in the installation business. Good, growing companies are in the security business, and happen to make money because they can install and sell that to their clients.
5. Be clear on your priority. In the sport of racing, your car or cycle will go where you look. If you look at the wall or the edge of the road, you end up there, but if you look deep into the turn and then to where you want to exit the turn, it becomes almost effortless. The same holds true in other sports, and it holds true in our industry. If you let yourself become distracted with other business opportunities or secondary business units, you will neglect your primary unit. Focus on your customers and it will be second nature to produce delighted customers.
The longer I’m in this industry, the more I’m convinced that the integrator firms winning business aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest brand names. They’re the ones that focus on the fundamentals so that when it comes time to compete, they’re ready to win the business … and grow. Are you focused on the fundamentals?
Photo courtesy of ddpavumba