I Am Not My Target Market

How Well Do You Understand Your B2B Buyers?

Are Your Messages Aimed at You or your Target Market?

When my clients and I discuss ideas for marketing programs, campaigns and messaging, they often say “I don’t think I would go for that”, or “that doesn’t sound appealing to me”, or “if I were the buyer, this is what I’d want”.

Do you see a problem here?  Is it possible that buyers might want what doesn’t appeal to you or that they don’t love what you love?  Are your decisions based on your personal perceptions rather than the reality of your target audience?  If so, you won’t achieve your goals relative to the product/service that you've designed, the campaign you've launched, the channels you’ve selected, or the price points you've set.

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By John Bernardi

Is There a Role for Golden Spike Hunting in Your Company?

Golden Spike Strategy Fosters Sustainable Growth

BizD Rainmakers Hunt for Golden Spike Opportunities

Golden Spike hunting helps companies expand into new markets, develop new products or services and further penetrate existing markets through large sales of slightly modified existing products and services.  The ability to find, nurture and manage Golden Spikes requires patience, diligence, peripheral vision, business acumen and insight, and exceptional time management.

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Thank you for taking the time.

John Bernardi

Unique Value Proposition Converts a Sales Proposal to a Business Proposal

A Profitable Sales Proposal Has an Excellent Executive Summary

After a lead has been nurtured to sales-ready status, the right steps are taken by the sales team to move it through the funnel.  They begin proposal discussions early, but only present their proposal when they are positioned to win politically, technically and financially.  Otherwise, they’ll join a pool of sameness and compete on price instead of leveraging the business advantages to be gained from their solution.

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By John Bernardi

Field Marketing Boosts Sales Success From Lead Generation Thru Account Management

Field Marketing Boosts Sales Rep Productivity

Successful sales professionals consistently close profitable deals and manage a healthy sales funnel while being skillful at key account marketing, customer experience management and high-profile networking.  High business acumen enables them to facilitate peer-to-peer relationships and provide market intelligence to the leadership team.  Companies that provide this class of environment are able to attract and retain top sales reps who want to be the best that they can be.

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By John Bernardi

Should You Raise Your Marketing Environment to Hallmark Status?

Excellent execution of an adequate plan will produce stronger results than adequate execution of an excellent plan.

Who will identify which changes are necessary to raise an important aspect of your business to the next level?

Who will implement your changes?

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Expand Your Comfort Zone To Leapfrog The Incumbent

Meeting The Chairman Of The Board Is Outside The Comfort Zone Of Most Sales Reps

Following A Well Planned Account Development Strategy Will Earn This Right

Search for self-confident business leaders and influencers whose personal response mode is either growth or trouble.  Avoid even keel or euphoric buyers and people who want to place you in a box where your value and ideas will be squashed.

Recruit a coach within the customer organization who will help you to tailor your value proposition to address the business, application and political obstacles you’ll be facing.

Introduce yourself early in their new application buying cycles as a valuable educator and problem solver.

Display a willingness to share account position with the incumbent.  When you confidently believe that you have consistently exceeded customer expectations, you have earned the right to adjust your account plan from a divisional strategy to an indirect strategy that changes the ground rules from which customer value decisions are made.  This will set you on a new course to becoming the incumbent.

My example: As a national account manager, I was responsible for a growth mode F500 customer where we shared a niche position with two other vendors.  I recognized how far we had to go in order to be considered a true competitor to their primary vendor who owned the account relationship and $120 million in annual sales.  After eliminating the secondary competitors and owning the $1 million niche, my next goal was to penetrate the core business.

My solid reputation for facilitating an excellent customer experience [and for business acumen and product and industry knowledge] that I had developed in the niche area established strong horizontal and vertical relationships throughout their company.  My internal customer coach guided me in the right direction. I believed that I had earned the right to meet their chairman of the board.  I approached him directly to let him know about the value we were providing to his company.  I knew that he loved to play golf.  He accepted my invitation to play on a nearby world class golf course in an event that I organized where he’d play with my company president and senior executives from my company were paired with his company’s senior managers who were amazed that I was able to make this happen.

This set me apart from all other vendors who would never think to go outside their comfort zones to this degree.  VP level decision makers felt more comfortable allowing my company to share business with their long-time incumbent since their chairman opened the door to a reduced risk decision.  This set the stage for my company being awarded a $15 million contract that in the past would have been a natural add-on for the competition.  From that point forward, the incumbent considered my company as a legitimate foe to be dealt with in this account. [They even tried to hire me.]

By John Bernardi

Expand Your Comfort Zone To Develop Existing Accounts And Land New Ones

Speak at Events Attended by Target Market Decision Makers and Influencers

Most people have stage fright so they’re glad it’s you on stage and not them.

My example: As a 29-year-old sales rep and working for a F500 tech company, I was invited by an industry association to meet with its members.  Rather than discussing features and benefits of my product line, I chose to present a strong business acumen that spoke to how CEOs in the audience could improve the typical KPIs for their industry by implementing solutions that leverage my category of products and services.  Within a week of my presentation the president of a company, [whose VP level executives had never responded to my approaches in the past,] invited me to discuss how I could specifically help his business. He signed a long-term contract and we delivered on our promise.

By John Bernardi

Sales Compensation Plans Should Foster High Business Acumen

Sales Compensation Plans Should Foster High Business Acumen

Sales Acumen Is Not The Same As Business Acumen

Sales pros with high sales acumen know how to qualify and nurture prospects, and how to close deals.  They don't rely on leads generated by the marketing process, so they have a plan for approaching the right suspects in search of new prospects.  They interpret and respond well to objections and know when to persist or move on.  Only after understanding needs do they recommend a solution. Following up on each sale conveys authenticity and by quickly resolving issues they earn renewals and referrals.

High Business Acumen Is A Key Differentiator

Business acumen blends perspective in Finance [P&L and balance sheet], Market [opportunities and threats] and Strategy [goal attainment methodology].  Business acumen elevates a sales pro's position to partner when they earn the right to collaborate with customers to solve a business problem.

Sales Pros With High Business Acumen Understand How Their Company Wins

Sales compensation programs should encourage participants to develop both business and sales acumen. In addition to motivating short term behavior, these programs should also support the company's business strategy that doesn't vary much from year to year.

Participants understand that sales overhead [salary, benefits, memberships, certifications and expenses] is covered when they fully implement the process, and build a strong customer portfolio and a healthy sales funnel.  Real time feedback will keep participants on track to meeting this basic requirement.

Depending on the nature of your business, you can add the right incentives such as:

• Situational incentives i.e. off-season sales, new accounts, new market segments, etc.
• A % of gross profit is paid for closing large opportunities if the sale exceeds targeted %GP, includes a plan to close the deal, and the proposal leverages a unique value proposition.
• Achieving Annual Quota earns a budgeted commission with YTD payments.
• Participants who exceed their quota are eligible to earn a share of Company Net Profit Contribution where NPC = [Total Gross Profit - Total Sales Overhead].

By John Bernardi

Business Strategies Based On Sales Models Limit Growth

Business Strategies Based On Sales Models Limit Growth

Are you a CEO whose company implements a sales model as its underlying business strategy?  Does it provide a comfort zone that enables you to focus on the transactions that populate your P&L rather than continually nurturing the health of your customer and market portfolios?  Do you have the necessary knowledge, belief, patience and risk tolerance to invest in a growth strategy?

Growth Strategy Matrix

Are your marketing people really marketing assisted selling tacticians who create content, run promotions and  coordinate events instead of leading the growth strategy?

 

What level of marketing competency has your company achieved?

• Marketing novice
• Marketing apprentice
• Marketing practitioner
• Marketing master

What level would you like to attain?

By John Bernardi