At CMC we define growth broadly. It's everything you do to better understand what drives and motivates customers to buy your products. This includes taking close looks at your current and potential customers, competitors, and the marketplace in relation to your products. We also examine how best to promote and distribute your products, in light of the manufacturing processes and logistics you need to create and deliver them.

Marketing
A marketing plan is where all the information about your industry, customers, competitors, product development, sales and territory management, selling strategies and channel management, and advertising and promotion come together. This research details how you will communicate with customers. Ultimately a good marketing plan will help you manage for profits instead of sales.

This type of research is exactly what Val-A Chicago needed. The company's latest invention, Tear Mender, a waterproof, fast acting, adhesive for fabric, leather and other porous materials, was doing very well overseas and on the cable television network QVC, but President Jerry Cismoski's instincts told him there were more sales to be had. He was determined to more than triple the company's sales within five years.

Cismoski called CMC's marketing specialists for help. They responded with a three-tier growth strategy including:

1. Strengthening and expanding Val-A's brand by focusing on broader markets, brand extensions and private labeling.
2. Extend Tear Mender's distribution channels specifically into growing niche industries such as arts and crafts, leather and general home repair; hiring outside sales agents; and adding new distributors with a national reach.
3. Explore sales opportunities internationally, specifically in Korea, China, South Africa, Germany and Spain.

From just one recommendation-hire more customer service representatives-Val-A management has seen a $300,000 increase in sales and a three to four percent increase in sales per employee.

"Having CMC's specialists do the benchmarking studies helped improve my understanding of my customers, my markets and my competitors. That has led to an increase in sales," says Cismoski.

Sales
What do you sell? To whom do you sell it? And how well do you sell it? Tough questions demand a clear vision-a strategy-to help guide you. CMC advisors can objectively evaluate your company's sales efforts to see where-and how-you can improve.

We take a strategic approach to sales. We consider selling a process-like any other in your company-that has a ripple effect on every other department. To make sure that process runs as efficiently and effectively as possible we begin with a benchmark assessment.

That's exactly what our sister center in Massachusetts did for Clearpoint Enterprises. The Hopkinton, Mass., company manufactures high-quality customized memory upgrade products for servers and workstations. Clearpoint wanted to increase sales but had a limited budget for implementation.

The center recruited Boston University grad students to do the research. Based on those results, Clearpoint learned its web site was its single greatest sales asset. Getting a new customer through other advertising methods cost $800. Through the web site the cost dropped dramatically to $61.

Within four weeks the center had helped Clearpoint rework their web site to better communicate its products' unique and beneficial qualities. In addition Clearpoint began holding regular team meetings to increase internal communications and better coordinate the company's new goals to all employees.