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Also in this issue:

Strategic Advantage, Part I

A Rose by Any Other Name

Strategic Advantage, Part II

The Small Case Market

Are You Tweeting Yet?

Let’s Buy a Voluntary Insurance Company

Don’t Go Through 2010 Blind

Enrollment Practices

Is the Worksite Business “Recession Proof”?

A Moving Target

Winter 2010, No. 82

Strategic Advantage, Part II

It’s all about sales. So anything that increases sales is good. Right? Maybe.

One of your staff brings you a new opportunity, well thought out, and including all of your required components. The opportunity is described, the costs are defined, and the payback calculated as per your process. It meets your hurdle requirements and budget parameters, and your team believes the projections and analysis are realistic. Sales will increase.

But the most important criteria have not yet been addressed. You have a well thought out strategy with value propositions you believe can be built out to give you a sustainable competitive advantage. Before looking at new opportunities, ask two more questions.

Does the opportunity drain resources (time, manpower or money) from advancing the core competitive advantages of your current strategy? You gain far more leverage by being dominant in your chosen segment than by being pretty good in two segments. Is this opportunity, in fact, a trade off?

Does this opportunity create confusion about your strategy? Are you risking sending mixed signals to your producers or even to your staff?

There’s nothing inherently wrong with having multiple targets, or even multiple strategies. But if your real criterion is the pursuit of sales regardless of strategy, you risk falling into the trap of being the carrier who does a lot of deals, and does some of them pretty well. You are better off doing a few less things, in a coherent, integrated manner, and doing each one excellently.