WHERE MANY COMPANIES GO WRONG

• The fundamental area where companies go wrong is that planning is predominantly ‘inside-out’ focused. The emphasis is primarily on WHAT the company does and not WHY the customer cares.
• This problem cascades down into various customer touchpoints through Marketing and Sales, including product brochures, website copy, marketing messaging and sales engagements.

THE MARKET-LEADING CEO RESPONSE

• Market-leading CEOs ensure their organisations spend time analysing how the needs and priorities of their customers have changed.
• They devote planning and resources to map strategic moves to address these changing needs. The customer is placed at the centre of all strategic decision-making.

We overlay all decisions on ‘outside-in’ design thinking where the customer is placed at the centre of the decision-making process. The result is achieved by company executives applying their knowledge into unique value proposition design frameworks

1. We redefine the company’s competitive profile based on the Top 6 criteria buyers consider when selecting amongst a set of buying options.
2. We identify 1 to 2 unaddressed buyer needs the company could profitably create and which their customers would find valuable.
3. We define how a company can leverage its blue-sky advantage. See graphic.
4. The result is a new value curve for a viable strategic advantage over competitors. We provide inputs and guidance for how this should cascade down to Sales and Marketing to create Revenue Sustainability and Growth.

• Blue Sky Advantage Strategy Workshop

WHERE MANY COMPANIES GO WRONG

• In the research for his book, Blueprint to a Billion, author David Thomson found that highly successful companies did not merely have compelling value propositions, but rather ‘breakthrough value propositions’.
• Many companies have good product or service value, but this value is negatively impacted by the mistaken belief that the buyer understands the unique benefits of the product without ensuring precise value proposition articulation.

THE MARKET-LEADING CEO RESPONSE

• Market-leading CEOs ensure their value propositions are clearly defined – and then articulated and shared across all areas of the business, such as marketing and sales.
• The result is customers clearly understand and resonate with the value proposition articulated in marketing and sales messaging.

We work with customers to design an Advanced Value Proposition for their company, plus the Top Three product categories or service categories. The result is achieved by company executives applying their knowledge into unique value proposition design frameworks.

1. We define what exceptionality, differentiators or innovation the product delivers
2. We confirm these features are aligned with customer needs
3. We explore areas for alignment with unmet customer needs
4. Advanced Value Proposition statements are designed once synchronicity between supplier and customer conditions emerge.

• VALUE PROPOSITION ANALYSIS & DESIGN:
  Advanced Value Proposition Design Workshop

WHERE MANY COMPANIES GO WRONG

• Two factors cause companies to misread the degree to which they are protecting and penetrating existing customers.
• The first is to rank customers by one data point only, such as revenue.
• The second is to make assumptions about the share of wallet they hold per customer, without conducting a data-driven total customer spend in relation to one’s own company.

THE MARKET-LEADING CEO RESPONSE

• Market-leading CEOs have go-to-market strategies that are simultaneously centred around both a market protection lever and one or more of the growth levers. See Table.

We focus on two market levers:

1. First, the market protection lever where we analyse a company’s most valuable customers by ranking them across 3 to 4 data points to ensure the Revenue Sustainability and Growth Approach (RSGA), is designed to optimally protect and identify upsell or cross-sell opportunities.
2. Second, the market share gain lever. This is achieved by analysing the share of wallet per customer in relation to their total spend in the category, and then planning what percentage of their total spend the business wants to target.

• CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION:
  Customer Segmentation Index Model

• MARKET OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS AND PENETRATION PLAN:
  Market Opportunity Analysis Model

1. SALES ORGANISATION GAP ANALYSIS

• As a Sales Organisation includes multiple components, the lack of a 360-degree Gap Analysis of weaknesses to mitigate and strengths to leverage, benchmarked against best-practise for a clear view of where the Sales Organisation is falling short, impedes revenue sustainability and growth.
• Critically, due to poor execution of strategic initiatives, exclusion of execution performance levels relative to strengths and weaknesses identified by the assessment causes blind spots and missed budgets.

2. SALES ORGANISATION STRATEGY

• Many companies do not have a planned and documented Sales Organisation Strategy designed on a 360-degree GAP Assessment and based on revenue and data patterns
• Where strategies do exist, they do not map the AS IS POSITION, as well as the aspired FUTURE STATE POSITION determined by customer-centricity and designed to leverage the company’s differentiators for profitability.

We deliver clear outcomes and fast results through a combination of 360-degree GAP assessments and proprietary frameworks and workshops.

SOLUTIONS

• 5-Pillar Strategic Sales Organisation Framework Assessment^TM (online)
• 5-Pillar Strategic Sales Organisation Workshop (live or online)
• Change Management Workshop (live)
• Compensation and Incentives Models (live or online)
• Productivity Design Workshop (live or online)
• Salesforce Structure and Sizing (live or online).

1. SALES PROCESS DESIGN

• In a complex, depressed business environment where buyers have many choices, sales are impacted by not assisting buyers with a quality decision-making process. Buying is changing and in the absence of assisting a buyer with a quality decision-making process, many deals end up lost or stalled through ‘no decision’ by remaining with the status quo
• With no uniform customer engagement sales process followed by the Salesforce, a burden is placed on Sales Managers, who instead of proactively managing, measuring and coaching one process, have to reactively manage multiple approaches of their Sales Reps. The outcome is inaccurate pipelines and forecasts with missed targets.

2. VALUE LEAKAGE  

• A key challenge facing companies is the difficulty experienced by the Salesforce to transition from benefits, features and price discussions to highlighting the differentiation and value of their products and services, and in particular, total value return
• A sales team unable to effectively communicate the value of a proposition to customers to justify pricing, leads to erosion of profit margins due to discounting to close deals.

We design, refine and reinforce sales processes best suited to your organisation and customers:

SOLUTIONS

• Sales Engagement Process design with business case and cost of problem tabulators (live or online)
• Sales Playbook Design (live or online)
• Salesforce Value Differentiator Design Workshop (live)
• Infield Observation and Coaching (live or online)
• Reviews and 30-Day Plans (live or online)
• All the above include design (workshop), deployment training and refresher training.

1. MAKING THE RIGHT HIRES

• The cost of a bad hire is staggering. We identified with one client that the placement of a poor Sales Rep cost them over R1.5 million in hard costs and lost revenue in one year.
• While standard personality assessments may be suitable to assess non-sales positions, they are unable to clearly identify traits required in competitive sales roles, particularly when securing ‘new business’ is a key requirement for the role.

2. DEVELOPING SALES TALENT

• In the absence of an assessment of the full sales team to gauge individual and collective strengths, as well as areas for development with pinpoint accuracy, coaching and training interventions tend to be one-size-fits-all exercises
• Lack of ongoing training and coaching. Just as with world-class sportsmen, musicians and actors, training is an ongoing, daily ritual to achieve mastery. Sales Reps require multiple layers of training, including product, process, self-discipline and time management skills.

We deploy powerful and structured solutions to radically improve hiring and development of the Salesforce.

SOLUTIONS

• Recruitment Process Workshop (live or online)
• Hiring Benchmarks (online)
• Development Priority Maps (online)
• Job Specifications: Job Advertisements and Job Descriptions (live or online)
• Cloud-based Recruitment and Onboarding Platform (online)
• Sales Skills Accelerator (live or online)
• Sales Skills Accelerator deployment training and refresher training (live or online).

1. MISALIGNED HIRES & PROMOTIONS

• In many instances, Sales Managers are promoted to the position due primarily to their success as Sales Reps, which is a very low indicator of successful sales management capability.
• Assessing the traits of a successful Sales Manager to accurately identify their strengths and pinpoint development areas is an important exercise that can yield immediate ROI, and yet many organisations fail to assess Sales Managers and thereby miss the ‘multiplier effect’ benefits.

2. NON-DEVELOPMENT OF SALES MANAGERS

• Training does not include a combination of soft skills (interpersonal and leadership), as well as hard skills (education and technical knowledge)
• Investment in manager-specific training and coaching, which are critical for success, are not built into the annual budget
• A tendency to focus on Sales Rep KPIs without the same rigour on defining Sales Management KPIs.

We deploy powerful solutions to hire the right Sales Managers and equip them with the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve revenue targets,

SOLUTIONS

• Recruitment Process Workshop (live or online)
• Hiring Benchmarks (online)
• Development Priority Maps (online)
• Sales Manager Pro (live or online)
• Sales Manager Coaching (live or online).

1. WEBSITE CONTENT

• Buyers go online to source and research potential suppliers, yet many B2B websites have not kept pace with today’s best-practise content and technology, enabled through a good User experience (UX) that ensures browsers find value in your content
• Many B2B websites are ill-equipped to influence at a distance and convert anonymous browsers into warm leads with the necessary content and functionality.

2. THIRD-PARTY VALIDATION (CASE STUDIES)

• It is becoming harder to secure meetings with busy prospects. Consequently, Sales Reps have less time than ever to establish credibility. As buyers become price sensitive, communicating a powerful value proposition through case study validation is more important than ever before
• Without strong sales enablement content, such as video and written ROI case studies that build credibility, many Sales Reps struggle to close deals in today’s tough business environment.

The internationally award-winning ThinkSales Global content division produces marketing and sales content for some of South Africa’s largest  leading enterprises.

SOLUTIONS

• Written Sales and Marketing Content for print, online and social media platforms
• Thought Leadership and Insights articles to inform and persuade
• Video Content such as Explainer Videos and Company Profiles
• Case Studies (written and video) to overcome objections, for tenders and persuading hidden stakeholders (live or online).