This is one of my writing samples meant to demonstrate the voice construct I call the “Starched Collar”. This tone of voice is meant to demonstrate confident authority and unquestionable trust.
Advising Clients Who Desire Competitive Strategies For Capturing Market Share
When advising clients who have expressed a desire to increase market share through aggressive competitive strategies, it is important to remember that the client may have come to this decision after considering incomplete or emotionally charged information.
In each of these cases, the responsibility falls to their professional advisement team to take a careful measurement of the situation and act in the most rational and professional manner possible.
There are several common competitive strategies that can be employed. Differentiation, price competition, cost leadership, niche marketing, and competitor marketing are all examples of strategies that work well in a wide range of business environments. Each of these will be covered later in this article.
First, however, the professional advisor must take into account the regrettable fact that not all decisions made by upper management are made for sound reasons.
As such, it is important to thoroughly explore and understand the motivations of the client. Take a moment to consider:
- The long and short-term business goals of the client
- The long and short-term personal goals of the client
- The state and nature of the reputation of the client
- The state and nature of the ego of the client
It should go without saying that this momentary reflection should be carried out with the utmost discretion. The purpose of this exercise is to attempt to assess the likelihood that the client is acting purely, or mostly, on personal or otherwise emotionally-driven desires.
If it does indeed appear that the client is acting out of an irrational desire, then care and tact must be employed to help the client see that a more rational, and ultimately more profitable avenue is available.
If, on the other hand, the client is acting in a rational manner that is in accordance with their mandate to increase shareholder returns, then the aforementioned strategies can be presented for consideration.
When presenting, first build an impartial foundation explaining each tactic in objective terms. This can be difficult because it is often obvious to the advisor, even at this early stage, which tactic is most likely to yield favorable results. But it is important for the advisor to remember that the ultimate decision comes from the client.
Therefore a brief but thorough presentation weighing the pros and cons of each strategy is the best course of action. Once the client is well-informed of the options available, the advisor may then move to detail the pros and cons of each strategy for this client’s given situation.
Careful attention must be paid at this point to use past examples or statistical data to communicate to the client why one particular strategy is superior to the others…
For reference, this sample has an Automated Readability Index (ARI) score of 12, contains 453 words, and would take the average person about 3 minutes to read.