Bob Sherlock

About Bob

Bob helps companies — especially innovators — discover their most promising opportunities to grow. Most companies have Hidden Value — they provide more value to customers than they or their prospects realize. Bob helps companies to find the Hidden Value, message so that prospects recognize the full value, and price to get paid for it. As a result, they can get more Yeses, increasing both sales and margins at the same time.

How Bob has Helped Businesses Grow

• Generated a projected $1 million in margin improvement annually helping a value-added tech reseller decouple its margins from Cost of Goods Sold.
• Landed a Fortune 100 customer by creating a value story and finding new markets for a precision components manufacturer.
• Achieved over $2 million of annual recurring profit improvement developing changes to terms of sale and pricing for an electronics manufacturer.
• Arrested a trend of eroding margins and boosted enterprise value for a distributor by creating a new value and pricing strategy.
• Opened multi-million contract discussions with two Fortune 500 prospects after researching new markets and developing a value story and new selling tools for a service parts distributor.

Published Works

• Daring Caution: The Executive's Guide to Pricing Improvement

• “We need more leads” (and what must come first)
• When You’re Behind on Sales
• Overcoming the Limitations of Customer Surveys
• The Value of an Old Scotch
• Risky Business: How Marketing Content Can Take Risk Out of Business Decisions

Executive Marketing Experience

• President, Marketwerks
• President, DeliveryStation
• CMO, Wickes
• Region GM, GE

Clients Served

• HOH Water Technology Inc. (Chemicals)
• Ellis Corporation (Machinery)
• Hatco Corporation (Food & Beverages)
• Rockford Manufacturing Group, Inc. (Machinery)
• Matrix Design (Industrial Automation)
• StayOnline LLC (Electrical Manufacturing)
• 48 Barriers (Distribution)
• Industrial Plankton (Aquaculture)
• PathoSans (Chem tech)
• Exacto International (Ag chemicals)

Education

• MBA, Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, Dartmouth College
• BA in Economics, University of Maine

References

“Bringing in Chief Outsiders is one of the best business decisions we’ve ever made.”

- Bill Van Kirk, CEO, and Joe Van Kirk, COO, 48 Barriers

"Our company, Hatco, engaged Chief Outsiders on a strategic planning project to help us identify key opportunities and threats in our marketplace,.  Bob and Chief Outsiders helped Hatco develop strategies to address key opportunities and threats.  Hatco worked with Bob Sherlock for about one year on this project.  Bob did an excellent job helping us analyze market data and also interviewing key customers to identify important issues.  Bob guided us through a variety of processes that helped us prioritize strategies and build business cases for each one.  We were able to develop a three year strategy map for product development and services to help our company successfully grow in the future.  Bob was very easy to work with.  He consistently brought insights and experiences that were helpful to our management team.  He introduced tools into our business that were new while also being easy to use and effective.  He leveraged the full knowledge base of the Chief Outsiders team to maximize insights and ideas that truly changed our strategic focus and thinking.  I would strongly recommend Bob Sherlock and Chief Outsiders to any growth oriented company that needs help in analyzing its markets, customers and products while also seeking guidance in building effective strategies for the future.  Hatco is extremely satisfied with the value provided by Bob and his team at Chief Outsiders."

- Mike Whiteley, VP of Sales and Marketing, Hatco

Download Bob's Resume Here