If your business is in commercial or industrial sales, you are used to changing market forces. Sometimes your business is ahead of the curve and experiencing rapid growth. Sometimes you just step on the water – you don’t lose ground, but you don’t make any measurable gains either.

Revenue is the barometer that reports how the market measures the effectiveness of its sales, marketing, offering, policies, and operations. And customers are at the heart of revenue. Customer feedback is the tool that assesses your position, why that’s true, and where customers want you to make changes. Letting your customers tell you what they expect of you generates a wealth of information and helps your business manage its market presence. Feedback from three vital business areas helps shape:

• Competitiveness

• Client retention.

• Income growth.

Competitiveness, customer retention, and growth are always challenged by market forces. But the change in market strength that was easy to predict but difficult to plan is the retirement of the Boomer generation. What was needed to compete, retain and grow successfully in the past will become obsolete once the generational “changing of the guard” reaches its tipping point in you market. It will feel like the business version of Invasion of the body thieves.

Generational change of guard. When they first entered the workforce, Gen Xers characterized themselves as spoiled brats who wanted everything turned over to them. Millennials are sincere in putting their personal life before their daily work. Each of them was easy to fire when the oldest of their generations broke into entry-level jobs. By now you have made your own observations on how each group changes the workplace. Today, members of Gen X have matured and fill key roles, and Millennials are rising through the ranks. Perhaps you yourself are one.

Older Baby Boomers began leaving the workforce almost ten years ago. Boom generation business owners are beginning to leave en masse with every setback in the economy, whether by closing their businesses, selling to competitors (or private equity groups), or handing over the reins to members of the economy. Generation X ready for the job and waiting in the wings.

Competitiveness. Any change in leadership in the companies that you compete with and sell to your company subtly notifies that status quo business practices can no longer create status quo dirty. This is a valid concern for leaders of all generations. But because Boomers are used to making everyone else adapt to them, the key message here is this: If you are a Boomer not ready to sell or retire, then stay nimble and on top of the changes. that are about to happen. wash yourself.

• Your competitors and customers will increasingly be owned by Gen X leaders.

• Members of Generation X make decisions differently than their competitors and Boomer customers did.

• Individual competitors can change overnight from familiar adversaries to complete strangers after a change in leadership (or ownership).

Retention. The change also places new demands on what it takes to retain existing customers. New leaders in their clients’ companies may have different expectations of their suppliers. As with any new owner, they are likely to evaluate legacy providers with an unsympathetic eye. Without regularly checking in and being aware of why key customers buy from you, it is possible to miss a shift in expectations that re-categorize your status quo “good” to “inappropriate” business practices. And change can come without notice.

The message here is this: Communicate and ask regularly, openly, where key customers see room for improvement. You never want to lose relationships due to a last-ditch incident where you had no idea your company was the source of recurring irritations. Rather than making assumptions about why customers are loyal, ask key customers why they are loyal, ask what would put the relationship at risk, and what changes they would like to see. (You don’t have to follow all of their suggestions, but it’s better to know than not know what customers think and want.)

Increase. Without knowing why your business is winning new sales and retaining existing customers, it weakens your ability to plan for growth based on factors you can influence. Without a clear idea of ​​how customers think, your business runs the risk of becoming an economic stopper in the water that rises and falls with the overall economy. Sudden increases mask how well companies perform because some customers are forced to lower their standards and buy from any available vendor. On the contrary, the falls reveal weaknesses; fewer decisions are made, competition intensifies, and customer standards rise.

Keeping pace with the economy is not your only option. If you have competitors who weather economic downturns better than you, they are probably not simply luckier than you. Rather, they can be more diligent in assessing and adapting to changes in the way customers make decisions.

At the center of every selection decision is a decision maker. Regardless of the generations that are represented by the decision makers and influencers in your clients’ companies, you need to stay in active communication with the people who know you best. One step you can take before the next recession hits is to hear how providers were chosen during the last recession.

• For companies that sell through distributors, how did their distributors drive direct selling during periods of low demand? What could your company have done differently to get better dealer support?

• For companies competing for projects, how were competitors evaluated (time and material costs, project price, full service offering, other approach)? What innovations did customers see that they would recommend offering to all competitors?

• For companies with long-term relationships, did your competitors approach their customers with attractive offers? What changes should you make to keep your relationships poacher resistant?

The message here is this: Learn how your customers made decisions in times of scarcity. This will help you better control the growth of your business through thick and thin. No one is surprised to hear customers ask for lower prices. Even when that is not the determining factor, the pressure to keep prices low increases the urgency to reduce costs by optimizing technology, operational strategies and agreements with your own suppliers.

And remember, every recession will create a stampede of resignations until the boomers have retired or sold their companies. Expect to pay attention to changes in leadership at competing companies and customers. for the next ten years. By actively monitoring what your most important customers think and want, you always know how to:

• make it easy to do business with

• earn ongoing customer loyalty, and

• be chosen in times of scarcity.

Boomers have been a force to be reckoned with for decades. For better or for worse, business will not be the same without them. The challenge is surviving the transition.