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SALES & MARKETING CONSULTING
Two primary factors inspire a prospect to buy from you; pain and profit. “Pain” is if your product or service is a cost-effective solution in solving a problem they have, and “profit” if your product or service is a cost-effective solution in increasing the buyer's company sales. Some products and services do both, however, one is always dominant.
We see time and time again that our clients are often not sure of which of the two is the primary motivating factor for their targeted buyers. Our analysis reveals that the marketing strategy and sales efforts were not always well researched and thus the implementation was weak. We do not look to replace your team, but enhance the process by working with them to best define the features, advantages, and benefits of your product or service. We then assist them in comparing your products or service(s) to those of your competitors. Once we know how they stack up to the competition we work towards identify target companies that are the most likely to use your products and services. Lastly, we assist your team in understanding and identifying who the decision makers and influencers are within these target companies so that your salesperson’s time is maximized and effective.
For example, many salespeople believe that if they are selling a technology product (e.g. software or hardware) they should make engineering or IT their primary sales focus. Most of the time this is not the optimal organizational chart level to start at. Technical people may be highly knowledgeable about technical details and requirements but often fail to understand or appreciate the return on investment gained by the new technology. A second area of concern is that very large companies have the “we can do it cheaper and faster" syndrome and it is difficult to overcome this mentality.
After identifying the primary factor the technology product addresses, we would suggest that the senior financial manager or sales management be a more appropriate initial contact for the salesperson because they tend to see the "bigger picture" as well as how the pain or profit affects the entire company.
After first getting a senior person, whose responsibility is to decrease pain and increase profits to see the economic advantage your product has, then you approach the engineers or IT personnel with the endorsement of the senior person. Now you focus on the key concerns of engineering or IT, which are often, reliability and integration.
We have assisted countless companies in identifying core issues and the solution is always the same; understand what you're selling, know your competitors, learn what motivates the customer to purchase your product or service and identify the decision makers and influencers. It should be this easy; however, it takes years of experience and expertise to achieve success and Strategic Business Group’s team possesses just that!
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