Be realistic :Business Strategy /Financial Advisors

So when evaluating influencers within your business prospects, we’d
suggest you start with the four tried and tested criteria mentioned earlier.
You should also be realistic. Many companies might suggest that George
Bush, Gordon Brown or Bill Gates are the greatest influence on their
customers, because of policies they do or don’t support. This may well
be true at a macro-economic level, but however innovative your marketing
plan, you’re unlikely to be able to measure its effect on the US President.
Your influencers should not be so elevated that they are beyond the reach
of your company. You’ll simply be left disappointed, and you’ll have
established a business objective that you’re destined to fail on. Rather
than the UK Prime Minister, establishing a relationship with say a Minister
within the National Health Service, or a backbench MP, is likely to yield far
better and more measurable returns for your business.

Similarly, we’ve battled many times with the concept of ‘actual’
versus ‘possible’ influencers. Take The Economist magazine. Were The
Economist to write an article let’s say on ‘The Rise of the Shopping Mall
Beauty Clinic’ then it would undoubtedly prove highly influential to anyone
in that sector looking for investment, business partners, employees,
well-to-do clients, etc. But to the best of our knowledge it hasn’t. So the
title has probably had zero effect on that marketplace to date. Should it still
be considered influential? For the sake of practicality, we’ve come to the
conclusion that if we think persuading The Economist to cover the subject
within a year is a realistically achievable goal, then it’s influential. This rule
of thumb can be expanded to cover every influencer category. It’s easy to
set your horizons too low and discard any individual, company or event
because to date they haven’t impacted your sector. They could, and if they
do, it’s probably because a competitor encouraged them to. You would
hate to be the one to realize this.

There is always the possibility of awildcard entry into your market from left
field. In 1998 the smart card industry was dominated by the card manufacturers
like Gemplus (now Gemalto) and Schlumberger. Microsoft entered the
market by offering an operating system and developers’ kit, and became –
overnight – one of the most influential firms in the market. Bill Gates himself
launched the product and the market’s great and good were flown to Seattle
for an audience. In fact, the influence Microsoft wielded was generally negative
on the market, as it caused many end-user organisations to stop any decisionmaking
until Microsoft proved its ability (or rather inability) to deliver.

But there are many examples where the effect of a new entrant is
positive, from a competition viewpoint. The entry of supermarkets into
financial services is an example, where Tesco and others bring their
efficient and detailed customer services approaches to the banking
world, with great impact.