March 2007
The CxO News
A Monthly Sales Newsletter Aligning Sales and
Marketing with Business Strategy
This month, we look at
the "Value
Forward Marketing" model. It shortens sales cycles and
increases inbound qualified sales prospects for the
sales team.
Sincerely,
Rick Erling
Editor - The CxO News
www.thecxonews.com
editor@thecxonews.com
Dallas, Texas
(972) 727-6880
Aligning Sales and
Marketing with Business Strategy
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Be a
Thought Leader Not a Vendor
by Paul DiModica
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www.thecxonews.com
(972) 727-6880
Today,
more than ever, salespeople are looking for
qualified inbound leads and shorter sales cycles.
One
process that we recommend to our consulting clients
is called the "Value Forward Marketing" model. It
shortens sales cycles and increases inbound
qualified sales prospects for the sales team.
Don't be a vendor and have prospects.
Instead, be a peer and have clients.
Value
Forward Marketing is a planned process of rotating
prospects through a series of marketing devices that
communicate your specialization as a thought leader
who subliminally educates them about why they should
buy from you instead of your competition. The
content used in this approach teaches your prospects
how they can increase their business success, and
does not focus on your product or service's
attributes. In a sense, you give 5% away of your
thought leadership to get your prospect to pay for
95%.
The goal
of this program is to put your business value in
front so prospects turn themselves into qualified
leads who buy.
By using
a Value Forward Marketing model, firms can move
short-term buying prospects into an interactive
education model to induce them to buy faster while
simultaneously not wasting your sales team's time
chasing prospects who are at the end of the rainbow.
Brand Identification does not mean
Brand Acquisition!
Today,
most companies spend a disproportionate amount of
their marketing budgets on branding and
feature-function advertising that creates minimal
inbound lead generation for the sales team. This is
vendor marketing at its worst.
Microsoft
and Coca-Cola are the world's two best known brands.
Yet, both firms' stocks are flat and neither is
creating any organic revenue growth from its primary
market brands. Just because your firm name is known
to buyers does not mean buyers will buy.
Value First, Brand Second
When
buyers make decisions on product or service
acquisitions, their selection process is driven by
need, desire, ego, financial resources, fear, and
knowledge.
Yet,
many companies today have an incorrect perception of
their business value based on their
perception, not the buyer's actions. As a result of
their perception, they focus on pulling their value
behind them by continually telling prospects that
their offering is the best, or the cheapest, or that
their management team is customer centric.
When a
company's value is different from the buyer's
perception of value, this is called a
Value Variation Gap. Value Variation
Gaps occur because company management teams are
emotionally connected to their product or service
offering's capabilities and then project their needs
onto the buyer and ultimately into their marketing
approach, regardless of the prospect's true
perception of why they will buy.
The benefits of Value Forward Marketing are:
-
You interact with the
prospect until they move into a buying mode.
-
You educate the
prospect to understand more about the business pains
of their industry through an education source (your
firm).
-
You help prospects see
your firm as a specialist and reduce their need to
"check out" your competition.
-
You accelerate the
prospect's need to buy from your sales executives
sooner by communicating business value of your
offering in a non-sales environment.
How do you deploy Value Forward Marketing?
-
Develop multiple
marketing engagement tools to move prospects through
a continuous series of interactions with your
company (white papers, eNewsletters, seminars,
teleseminars, webinars, etc.) that are based on
business improvement . . . not your product or
service.
-
Have the sales team
qualify all prospects.
-
Segment all prospects
into passive marketing or active marketing
categories. (Active buying if they plan to buy in 90
days, passive marketing if they plan to buy later
than 90 days).
-
Continually engage
prospects with a value forward thought leadership
until they are within 90 days of buying, and then
have the marketing team "pass" them from a passive
marketing mode to an active marketing mode so the
sales team can sell them.
To sell
more, Value First, Brand Second!
The
Marketing Value Variation Gap Assessment
-
Does your marketing
communication talk about the quality of your
offering's support or follow-up as key
differentiation characteristics of why prospects
should buy from you?
Yes • No
-
When you lose a deal,
do prospects tell your sales team more than 50% of
the time that your price was too high?
Yes • No
-
Do you market your
firm's products or services horizontally to everyone
or do you market vertically to specific markets each
with separate positioning?
Horizontally • Vertically
-
Does your firm lead
with price as your sales value proposition when
marketing to a prospect?
Yes • No
-
Is the word "price"
mentioned anywhere on your web site, advertising,
sales brochures or direct mail to prospects?
Yes • No
-
In the final sales
cycle steps, do prospects seek information from you
on how you are different from your competitors more
than 50% of the time?
Yes • No
-
Is your price based on
your competition's price?
Yes • No
-
On repeat sales to
existing clients, do clients hold you hostage for
discounts to get add-on business?
Yes • No
-
Does your web site's
home page talk about how you can help your
prospects?
Yes • No
-
Does your marketing
communications emulate the marketing messages of
your direct and indirect competitors?
Yes • No
Recommended Answers
1-no;
2-no; 3-vertically; 4-no; 5-no; 6-no; 7-no; 8-no;
9-yes; 10-no.
Scoring
Each
correct answer gets 10 points. Each incorrect answer
gets 0 points. Now add up your score.
The
higher your score, the more your prospects value
your offering.
Value
First, Brand Second!
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