Stay close to your markets
Staying close to your markets means staying close to the people you serve. Whether it’s an end consumer using your product, a client with whom you are trying to build a relationship or a business customer, you have to put yourself and your top management in places where all of you can interface with the people who fuel your business.
Stenman says it boils down to two words: stay involved.
“In the education market, we get involved in the coalition for adequate school housing,” Stenman says. “We have individuals who go through training, then speak at national events and state events. We stay close to city managers, facilities directors, we try to understand their program with future construction, what it encompasses, and we try to monitor it. On the military side, a lot of our project managers have come out of the military.
“You need to find a way to understand how the client operates. That’s what helps us respond to these opportunities when they arise. If you haven’t developed that experience and background, it becomes difficult to have success in the markets you serve.”
However, there is more to it than just flying somewhere and shooting the breeze with a client or customer. Informal, nonstructured communication can provide valuable nuggets of information, but if you want to be able to use the information you gather from the customer interface point to help you grow your company, you need a more formalized system for obtaining and analyzing all of it.
Stenman and his leadership staff survey Barnhart’s clients, drawing a picture of how the company is servicing clients in the here and now, and helping to sketch an outline for how Barnhart could possibly better serve clients in the future.
“As executives, we’re charged with the responsibility to continually serve the marketplace,” Stenman says. “So we have to continually survey what our clients want. We find out what our clients of the future might want, then we evolve the company.”
If you’re reaching your customers and meeting or exceeding their needs, it’s likely they’ll come back to you to do more business. Stenman says that is a key indicator when it comes to staying close to your markets. If the customers keep coming back, you’re probably on the right track.
“You’re only as good as your last project, your last sale,” he says. “So if you’re getting repeat business, that says you’re performing responsibly. Then you build on that. You make sure you’re staying on top of legislation from your industry. You make sure you attend events that keep you in touch with your market. You have to be very knowledgeable about the markets you serve. You really have to become an expert.”
