In today’s slow economy, you and your sales team need to adopt an emergency "low-hanging fruit" plan to beat the recession and ease the cash-flow situation. The low-hanging fruits are the ones we can get our hands on right away. People walk into an orchard and they always want to go after the low-hanging fruit first. That's the obvious place to start in business too, right?
Obvious, maybe. But also wrong!
In my home country my parents used to own an orange orchard, so when I first learned this "low-hanging fruit" terminology in business, it really fascinated me. I know from childhood experience that an inexperienced picker might select the low-hanging fruit first, but an experienced picker would know to start at the top. This is because the picker uses a bag to collect the fruit that is hung around her neck and shoulders. It makes the picker's job harder, not easier, if she tries to climb up the tree, using a ladder, with a filled bag. As a result, I never really bought this "low-hanging fruit" terminology.
I distinctly remember my grandfather telling pickers to go and pick the oranges that are ready to pick i.e., ripe oranges. It so happens that those oranges that are high up and well-exposed to the sun ripen first. It usually takes a lot longer for low-hanging fruit to ripen. Therefore, picking the low-hanging fruit first would mean taking underripe fruit and leaving ready-to-eat fruit on the tree.
I don’t think an emergency plan to pick "low-hanging fruit" is the brightest idea for your business either. The recession is here and the market will need some time to get back on its feet. Even when we are not in a slow economy, going after the low-hanging fruit is simply not the right strategy; it fills your bag with undesirable, difficult, and unprofitable customers that will suck all the energy from your business.
Instead of picking low-hanging fruit, picking ripe fruit is the right answer. Ripe fruits, however, are difficult to reach. You need a plan to reach them efficiently and effectively. Here is the good news: Scientist are creating a new breed of trees, called "pedestrian" trees, that don’t require ladders and whose ripe fruit pickers can reach without any difficulty. This is making the whole proposition of "low-hanging fruit" not only wrong but also obsolete. Instead of picking the low-hanging fruit, the industry has lowered the tree. Now that's thinking outside the, uh, orchard. Imagine what would happen if you could do the same in your business.
Integrated multichannel selling is exactly the same out-of-the-box solution that allows you to effectively pick ripe fruit on existing trees and develop your own pedestrian trees for a long-term competitive advantage. Let’s see how you can implement it.
Related:
- Table of Content
- Red Queen Effect – An Introduction
- The Billionaire Code
- Cracking the Code