Business cycles are immutable. Changes in competitive conditions, inevitable. They impact the action sports industry and your business.  The biggest risk is not to change.

Too frequently, the response to change is to do “more of the same.” That won't cut it when markets and competitive conditions change overnight and styles and trends last about as long as a snail crossing a freeway.

In the action sports industry, where competition is intense, and product differentiation hard to come by, your ability to identify and take advantage of emerging business conditions- to be a step ahead- may be your greatest source of competitive advantage and long-term success.

Easy to say. Not so easy to do, perhaps, when the daily, pressing challenges of running a business demand your constant attention. And the objectivity and time required to identify and focus on the handful of factors that will give your company an advantage tomorrow is hard to come by.

The process Jeff uses to identify these critical factors is different from company to company- but it's also always the same. It is characterized by informality, rapid progress, and crystal clear communication.

It's informal because of the nature of the industry, but also to insure comfort in dealing with issues that can be personal and sensitive.

It's fast because Jeff has done this many times before and knows a lot about your company's business environment before he walks in the door. You never pay Jeff to bring him up to speed on the industry.

Communication is crystal clear because it's Jeff's job to tell you what you need to hear in a way that's acceptable to you. It's the only way to get the issues out on the table and manage them objectively and professionally.

Typically, there are no long, formal reports and no Power Point presentations with special affects. But you can have one if you want to pay for it.

The process of identifying what is usually a small number of critical factors sets the stage for implementation, and this is where Jeff Harbaugh & Associates believes its process distinguishes itself.

Significant changes in strategy, market focus, management, or competitive positioning are always difficult to implement. The longer necessary changes have been delayed, the harder they are to accomplish. Why?

It is almost always the case that companies tend to do what has worked for them before. It is almost always the case that they have a hard time focusing on making major changes when the details of running the business are the focus every moment. And it's almost always the case that significant change is uncomfortable.

“Step out of your box,” we're told when it's time to change. But the walls of that box are often thick and tall. It's symptomatic of the difficulty of change that stepping outside the box is seen as such a hard thing to do.

Let's not step out of the box. Let's, instead, make the box bigger.

Jeff Harbaugh & Associates consulting process is structured to make the box bigger. By the time you get to implementation, you'll know clearly where you want your company to go and how that compares to where you are now. There will be a limited number of critical action items that will get you from here to there and specific measures of progress.

The analysis demystifies the process of responding to a changing business environment by:

  Putting you in control

  Highlighting specific action items and measures of success

  Getting difficult issues on the table and desensitizing them

  Reconciling personal and business goals

  Making it clear where to focus

  Building consensus in a way that is positive and nonthreatening

Call and find out how it can work for you. There's no charge to talk.