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Who Drives Your Proactive Market Development Process

Last time we talked about having a” Proactive” product/service development process and how important this is to the profitability of your business. But here’s the “Rub”, who is the driver of this process? If it is pushed down to the sales or engineering management level and is not supported by top management, it is doomed to failure. In the ideal situation this process is owned and driven by the chief executive officer of the company or someone reporting directly to the chief executive officer and is an active, viable, financed and supported business process. As pointed out last time, allowing future business ...
Do You Have a Proactive Market Development Process

Last time we talked about having an active product/service development process. How do you know what products or services to develop? From our viewpoint this information flows from a proactive market development process, that is a living, breathing, financed, and an item that is on a monthly or quarterly executive committee and Board meeting agenda. Do you have relationships with key executives in your market? These are people that are well connected in their markets and know what the future is likely to bring for their companies so you can determine, through your relationship with them, how this impacts your company. ...
Do You Have an Active Product/Service Development Process

Does your company believe that it needs an active, supported, and financed product and or service development process? Is it an active line item in your monthly or quarterly management meetings? Are your salespeople actively involved in this process and do they look for new opportunities and report them in an organized fashion? Is your chief executive officer the driver of this function? If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, we suggest that you consider the questions, apply them to your organization and be aggressive in the pursuit of developing new products and or services. We believe this ...
Are There Walls Between Functional Groups in Your Company

Last newsletter we talked about cultural changes that may be necessary in a company and we highlighted some areas that are typically in need of culture analysis and change. In this newsletter we want to discuss walls that can be built between functional groups. Typically, these walls are built between sales and engineering and engineering and manufacturing. The fact that these walls exist has always baffled me. But nevertheless, these walls do exist and in some cases to the detriment of the company and its customers. It baffles me because engineering is sale’s customer in that engineering uses the work product ...
Does Your Company Culture Need to Change?

How do you know when your company’s culture requires a change? We suggest that there are some metrics that will act as indicators that something needs to change. These metrics are fundamental and are metrics that we all look at every month, every quarter, every year. Those metrics are sales volume, gross margin, operating profit and the ratios of expense to revenue. If your sales volume, gross margin and operating profit are not where they should be and if your SG&A expense is not the proper percentage of overall revenue then something needs to change. Many times, CFO's and CEO's believe it's ...
Presenting the Value Proposition

It's a new year and we at Strategen sincerely hope that you had a successful 2024 and wish you a prosperous 2025. In our last newsletter we talked about your ability to draft a “Value Proposition.” Assuming you and your sales team have a working knowledge of your customer's processes and/or business we presented the value of being able to develop a statement that demonstrates your company's ability to integrate its value into the customer's business. If your sales organization has this ability the next question is does the sales organization have the ability to present it in an intelligent and ...
What is Your Value Proposition?

In the last few months, we've been discussing how your products or services integrate into your customers’ businesses and processes. We've asked whether you can discuss these integrations intelligently as we think it's imperative that in order to sell professionally, you understand your customers business and their processes so you can intelligently discuss how your company can add value with your products and/or services. This ability is commonly referred to as being able to present a Value Proposition for each product and/or service and how they integrate with your customers’ business and/or processes. Have you developed formal written Value Propositions for each ...
Are You Able to Intelligently Discuss Your Customers’ Processes?

For those of you who sell products or services that are used within your customers’ businesses and/or processes being able to intelligently discuss how your products or services can impact and benefit your customers’ processes and business is essential for you to be able to sell. We believe it's impossible to develop a value proposition that relates to a customer without this skill set. It amazes us how many salespeople do not take the time to study their customers’ businesses and their processes. It's obvious to us, from our backgrounds, that this intelligence is essential. However, this intelligence takes a lot ...
Do You Know Why a Customer Should Buy From You? (Part 2)

Last month we asked the title question: “Do you know why customers should buy from you?” and we listed 4 bullet points. In today's newsletter we will want to discuss in more detail the first question we asked, which was: “Do you have a firm grasp of how your product or service integrates with customer processes and the value that integration brings to your customer?” The truly professional salesperson is a value-oriented salesperson. One who can communicate the value their company’s product or service can bring to the customer. It is virtually impossible to do this without understanding the customer's processes or ...
Do You Know Why a Customer Should Buy From You?

This seems like a fundamental question, but do you know why a prospective customer or customer should buy from you? We find many companies initiate market activities to a selected group of customers not really knowing the value they can provide to these customers. This begs a few fundamental questions: Do you have a firm grasp of how your product or service integrates with customer processes and the value that integration brings to your customer. Are you familiar with your customer processes and are you able to intelligently discuss these processes to determine if you can bring value with your product ...