How To Get More Customers - What Can Be Learned From Looking At The 10 Biggest Companies In The World
An excellent way to become great at something is to look at someone who is already great and see how they did/do it. So this week I am going to look at the 10 biggest companies in the world and see what I can learn about how they were successful at getting new customers. I have to admit this was a super fun blog post to write and I found the company history and stories to go with each company very interesting.
The 10 Biggest Companies In The World (By Revenue)
1. Wal-Mart = $421.8 Billion in annual revenues
Business: General Merchandise Retail Stores & Grocery Stores
The Key To Their Success:
- use of technology and staying ahead of the competition in technology
- keeping expenses to a minimum and being frugal to allow for more investments in technology and marketing
- using buying power to demand lower prices, then passing those lower prices onto customers, while undercutting the competition
- providing a one stop shopping location that carries more items than anyone else and meets your every need
2. Exxon Mobil = $370.1 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- it all started with John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil, where he aggressively bought out all his competitors, gaining efficiency, allowing him to lower prices and make refined oil more economically feasible to more people
- a focus on cost cutting, allowing to keep prices low
- long history of new product innovation to attract new customers
- long history or production innovations allowing for lower cost products
3. Royal Dutch Shell = $370.1 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- innovated a new way to ship oil that allowed it to sell oil cheaper and undercut its competition
- helped develop the jet engine, a product that would create a whole new market of new prospective customers
- invention of new products such as epoxy resins, insecticides, herbicides and liquid detergents
4. BP = $297.1 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- they targeted one many that could be a large customer....Winston Churchill, once they get him they did an excellent job a supplying this one customer during the world wars.... The British Navy
- they put there brand logo on gas pumps everywhere with a heavy magazine advertisement campaign to attract new customers, when cars and gasoline stations became used by the masses
5. Sinopec = $289.8 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- No data available
6. State Grid Corporation Of China = $231.6 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- No data available
7. Toyota Motors = $221.9 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- building a brand that stands for quality, people became attracted to that their cars had less defects and lasted longer, when they launched their first trucks they sent engineers to dealerships so that they could hear what the defects were and improve them in future models
- continual improvement, modifying products year over year making them better and better until they were far superior then their competition, resulting in a large increase in customers
8. PetroChina = $221.9 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- No data available
9. Total S.A. = $212.8 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- they invested in two supply pipelines to bring oil to France, bringing a product that almost no one else sold to an entire country
10. Japan Post Holdings = $211.0 Billion in annual revenues
Business: Oil & Gas
The Key To Their Success:
- this one is simple, it is owned by the government and they don't have any competition
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
Summary:
Is there anything you think you can copy from any of these company's and apply to your business? Are you implementing any of these strategies that have proven to be successful for these large companies? I know after reading many stories on each of these companies to but this summary together it definitely got me thinking.
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3. Use A Sales Scoreboard To Increase Results
My name is Chris R. Keller. I work at Profitworks Small Business Services helping various B2B small businesses in Waterloo and Kitchener Ontario generate new customers. Feel free to connect with me on Google+ or if you are just interested in getting new customers for your B2B small businesses enter your email in the box provided below and click the "Send Me Free Updates" button.
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I hope you have enjoyed this article on the 10 biggest companies in the world and what we can learn from them to get more customers. As always I love to feature guest posts on my blog. If you would like to write an article that is on a topic that is related to getting new customers, and have expertise to share, I would love to feature you. If you are interested just contact me and let me know what you would like to write on.
