Sales and Marketing Alignment
Get your revenue-generating teams working together
Customers don’t buy drill bits;
they buy holes.
Ironically, these simple concepts are one of the primary reasons firms never reach their growth potential. Instead, they either waste an inordinate amount of time and money in business development or they hang out an industry “shingle” and call it a day.
“What do you mean you don’t want a titanium drill bit?!
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.
Peter Drucker
My Point of View
Human beings are full of fears and complex motivational drivers.
While a firm’s solution may deliver value, most firms don’t have their arms around what value the client actually sees in a solution or why she buys it. We all define value and values differently. If we are not mindful, we get caught in the trap of thinking that everyone sees the world as we do.
Taking the time to identify what is beneath those apparent needs creates growth opportunities, differentiates firms, increases marketing ROI, and improves sales effectiveness.
Top performing firms understand whom they are serving, including their clients’ priorities.
The rest just dabble.
Prudent Pedal’s Value
I shake up the status quo and challenge long-held assumptions about what clients value and buy. Using our proprietary Issues to Solution Matrix™, I break apart solutions and rebuild them with client teams, so clients see value and differentiation. I make solutions stronger, so marketing and selling are more effective and reaching their full growth potential.
Now I understand why our market segments, our solutions, and why our earlier approach attacking our markets was losing us money! (response to Issues to Solution Matrix™ final results presentation)
Looking for increased marketing effectiveness, more leads, and sustainable revenue growth?
The Issue-to-Solution Matrix™ helps firms understand what makes their clients tick, how a solution meets clients’ needs, and what benefits drive differentiate value.
Our Thinking on Sales and Marketing
Why You Need a Selling Philosophy
A firm's reputation begins taking form the moment one of its employees begins interacting with a prospect. A sales meeting is one of the first and most important interactions because prospects understand that "how a firm sells me is how they will serve me." When...
The 95:5 Rule in Professional Services: What It Means for Growth-Minded Firms
Every professional services firm faces a moment of reckoning: when growth stalls. To turn the lead spicket on, you increase outbound efforts. You double down on LinkedIn ads. Maybe you start a new thought leadership campaign. But the leads trickle in, the pipeline...
Why Professional Services Cross-Selling Fails
Cross-selling is the white whale of professional services growth. Every CEO sees the revenue potential sitting right there, just on the other side of the client relationship: other service lines, complementary capabilities, and latent client needs. But for all the...