We (manufacturer) were up nicely both in Q1 over the prior year's Q1 and up in Q1/2014 vs. Q4 2013 and we have grown at an average of 20%/year the last five years through when the industry shrank. It's easy to have a bad quarter, look around a little and jump to the conclusion that everyone is down. It's then a short road from there to it being ok to be down because everyone else is, so beware of the herd mentality.
Challenge assumptions, even when an industry is down, that rarely means everyone is down, and most importantly have a clear plan for growth, knowing where you expect growth to come from goes a long way to realizing that growth. I'm a big fan of bottoms up planning instead of top down where growth targets are imposed with little guidance on how to get there. Every year we look at the business in detail and where we think growth will come from. We assign each product/strategy a growth value and make sure the sum of our strategies is greater than our growth target. Then we go execute on those products/strategies knowing they don't all have to hit to be successful. At the end of the year we go back and look at how we did on each strategy and take that learning forward for the next year.
Not all strategies are directly related to selling. As an example, we know that because of our growth our tech support group is more green than we'd like and that improving their skills and knowledge will ultimately result in happier, more loyal integrators and therefore increased repeat business. We're working hard on this mainly because we want our integrators to have a great experience, but also know at the back of our minds that it should start to pay off in sales in 2015. Because this takes what is typically a cost center, and makes it a strategic advantage it changes how the spend in that group is perceived from being a drag on earnings to an investment. (IMHO this is where Pelco went wrong, they took a strategic advantage, their fanatical customer support and turned it into a cost center to be managed as efficiently as possible.)
We are also trying to gather as much information as possible about who our end users are. This is not easy as a manufacturer because we sell through both distributors and direct to integrators, but never direct to customer. However, from a product development perspective, if you don't know who your users are, how do you navigate the many decisions you make on what to develop next. Add more features for big customers? Make it simpler for the end user? Knowing who our end users are helps us keep our focus.
I've never been an integrator in this industry, but would expect the same approach can be applied. One key as a leader in the process is to be willing to listen when folks say something can't be done and not get upset or defensive. Those working daily in the business often have a better feel for what can be accomplished, but can be afraid to express it.