Growth Insights for CEOs

The intersection of sales, product or service marketing and its operational execution is usually incredibly complex in the B2B world. It is not static, often morphing multiple times even in a single sales cycle or customer relationship. Successful navigation requires seeing through your client’s eyes. I often ask myself, why do many CEOs and executives (sales executives excluded) shy away from engaging directly with customers to learn about their experience, whether first hand or from enterprise feedback mechanisms?

There is no better leader for an organization to follow than the collective voices of their customers. Time and time again, I see where simply following their direction can open up entirely new service or product offerings that drive share of wallet, can increase customer profitability and loyalty, and potentially block an encroaching competitor. And it costs 6-7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one, according to Bain & Company. 

Marketers for Benjamin Moore Paints, intent on promoting their ArborCoat Stain that “makes old wood look like new,” recently built the world’s largest yo-yo out of old deck wood. 

This man-sized toy, measuring six feet in diameter and weighing nearly 400 pounds, sets a new standard for spin.

The team carted it out to the desert and dropped it from a 100-foot crane. Like too many marketing campaigns, it went up and down a few times, and then came to a complete stop, hanging out there inertly. 

Whether you see this guy trick as a lovably retro attention-getter or a stain on the profession of marketing, there’s no doubt it was calculated to amuse. But will it monetize? Who in Benjamin Moore marketing could know whether it would be an effective marketing strategy, before deciding to drop hundreds of pounds of cash to find out? 

As the B2B world of revenue generation continues to experience longer sales cycles, it is getting harder to keep your market momentum–let alone grow. There are more stakeholders involved in buying decisions, and the pace of change in the market is accelerating. Three years ago, the average number of stakeholders involved in the buying process at the typical midsized organization was four. Kathleen Schaub, vice president of the CMO Advisory Service at IDC, says that number has increased to six or more. Large enterprises experienced the same shift as their medium-sized brethren, although not as pronounced, while small organizations stayed about the same.

Advanced analytics provide the opportunity to integrate external and internal data to gain deep intelligence that allows businesses to predict the future with significantly more accuracy and personalize solutions at an entirely new level. How will analytics impact your competitiveness?

A marketing consultant I know posted on his Facebook page today: “Always wonder why some CEOs would rather diddle with things on a web page or other marketing minutia than deal with really important business strategy issues or building a company team.” While I know this was more an expression of his current frustration with a client than a real question, it got me thinking—and I suspect the answer may be relatively simple: Entrepreneurs stay in startup mode too long.

Guest Blog by: Lee Frederiksen
Prospects’ buying behaviors are continually evolving. Staying on top of current trends can help your professional services firm position itself in the right place at the right time.

A recent study by the Hinge Research Institute has identified more about how professional services buyers are behaving—from how they’re finding and evaluating your firm to how they’re making their purchasing decisions. The study surveyed over 1,000 buyers and tracked some interesting trends that could influence your firm’s marketing choices.

To give you the inside scoop, we’ve pulled a few of the most significant findings to create a three step plan for your firm to increase your visibility and get found by more prospects.

When consulting with businesses, one of the fundamentals I look at is whether their business strategy and marketing efforts are in alignment. Just like a well-aligned vehicle will always move confidently in the right direction, so, too, will a business relationship – provided there’s the right connection between what your customers value, and what you provide.

Many times, I will hear companies boast of offering great quality, cost and delivery; how they are innovators; and how they have the best technical support teams. The reality is that it’s quite rare for a firm to be the best at everything – and often, pursuing such a superlative-laden strategy can often be a suboptimal marketing strategy to pursue.

CEOs and Presidents of mid-sized, privately held or family-owned businesses are required to make decisions on a wide range of strategic and tactical issues. To ensure they make the best decisions on critical strategic questions, it’s important to be informed about current best practices. Accessing the perspectives of experts in a particular area can help ensure executives make an informed decision.

As a marketing consultant, I’ve had the opportunity to work with and observe a range of advisory firms, gaining insight into the strengths of various consulting formats. The Triad Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point has a wide range of consulting services and business advisory formats available to CEOs and Presidents. 

As part of a recent consulting assignment, I spoke with some of my client’s key customers. As is typical in many small and mid-sized B2B companies, these customers were periodically contacted by their salesperson for account follow up and maintenance. However, during my conversations it turned out that a few customers were harboring significant frustrations even though the vendor had believed all was well. My client was actually in danger of losing business from these large accounts.

The question is why hadn’t this frustration come up in conversations with the sales team?

The Strategic Planning Process

The strategic planning process is simple in concept. You gather your planning team of five to twelve executives and over the course of two days, you answer three basic questions: