Can I grow my business when so many others are shrinking?

Last time, we toyed with the idea of “Why not?” In the appropriate context, it’s an excellent answer to most questions.

Can I grow my business when so many others are shrinking? Why not? While some factors are certainly beyond your control, your attitude towards them is not.  That’s how we approach things at Clearfield.

Many organizations have a standard product list with configurations stocked in inventory based upon anticipated demand.  Product marketing and management work together to anticipate what the market may require. The purchasing department works with manufacturing to put the desired product in queue. And, if all works out right (and the series of educated guesses comes to fruition), the clients gets the product they need, while the manufacturer limits its risk of product obsolescence.

Not so at Clearfield.  We know our customers don’t (always) need custom designs, but may need custom configurations for a particular environment. So, we designed a product line that is modular and scalable – and then challenged our procurement, scheduling, and manufacturing organizations to respond.

On average, we introduce to market 400 unique configurations of our products, every month.  We call them SARs – short for Sales Activity Requests.  SARs are generated and sent to engineering requesting a unique configuration, part number and associated bill of material for a client’s particular need.  And what makes this even more spectacular, the average time between placement of an order and the shipment of the product is only six days.

In your business, have you ever been frustrated with an “It can’t be done” attitude from your employees? From your managers? Challenge the statement with a “Why not?”  Sometimes, dissecting the problem provides an answer you weren’t expecting. But, if you challenge the rules of the game, you may find you can give yourself the competitive advantage you’ve been looking for.