Getting the Most Out of the SON Communication Process

If you’ve attended one of my workshops, you’ve heard me talk about the value of the SON communication process – a simple exercise that can dramatically improve your business.

(Here’s an introduction to SON communication along with a discussion of how to select your team and lead your SON communication meeting.)

One of the greatest values of your monthly SON communication meeting is that it can remove silo mentality. To do that, you must have a robust monthly leadership conversation. Some of you have asked for more guidance to ensure that your team has a lively discussion, so that’s the focus of this post.

SON communication is built around 3 questions to challenge the strategic, operational and numeric changes happening around your business.

Question 1: “What information has come to light in the last 30 days that changes our view of the future?”

There is no fixed way to answer this question but try and resist going to the numerical too quickly. Keep the conversation at a higher strategic level. (Question 3 will give you plenty of chance to go numerical).

Below I have provided a series of bullet points to assist you in the early implementation of this process. As time goes on, make this list your own. Remove bullets that don’t relate to your business and add others that do. The bullet points are listed under 2 headings: things that impact demand for your goods and services and things that impact your ability to supply.

Demand Factor Questions

• Are opportunities increasing or decreasing? (This facilitates a discussion the size of the pie, or market size.)
• Is our market share changing? (Focuses on your slice of the pie.)
• Has our strategic marketing or tactical sales approach changed?
• Is our product/service mix changing?
• Has our market mix changed and are we considering new markets?
• Are there any opportunity to launch new products or services?
• Has our pricing landscape changed? (An opportunity to increase prices vs. pressure to discount.)
• Have we heard a “quirky” anecdote as to why our business has been preferred/differentiated from the competition?
• Have our existing or new competitors changed their approach?
• Have projects slipped back or come forward?

Supply Factor Questions

• Have there been any changes to our current or potential human resources?
• What is happening in our supply chain – availability / reliability / price?
• Have we changed any internal systems (i.e. has a mistake resulted in an improvement in internal systems to ensure it doesn’t happen again?)

Question 2: “How will our behavior change to create value or mitigate risk?”

Question 3: “What will be the numerical implication of these changes?”

Use the Crystal Ball feature of the RealTime CEO software to challenge possible actions identified during questions 2 and 3 of the SON discussion. This will ensure that you get the most out of your monthly meetings.