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StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 45 – Marketing & Sales: Closing the Value Gap

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StrategyDriven Podcast - Marketing and SalesStrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 45 – Marketing & Sales: Closing the Value Gap examines the evolution of the business-to-business selling process and the gap between what customers want and what their service providers and vendors provide. We explore the value of focusing on customers’ business results and how to implement such an approach so to earn greatly increased customer loyalty and higher profits. During our discussion, Lou Schachter, Managing Director, Global Sales Practice and Rick Cheatham, North American Sales Practice Leader at BTS USA, shares with us their insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the evolution of the sales process and what customers are looking for today
  • how Accelerator Selling addresses the customer’s desired focus on business results
  • the difference in sales behaviors between Accelerator Selling and Product and Solution Selling
  • actions necessary to implement a selling process focused on achieving business results

Additional Information

In addition to the outstanding insights Lou and Rick share in this edition of the StrategyDriven Podcast are the resources accessible from the BTS website, www.BTS.com.

Final Request…

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Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Lou SchachterLou Schachter is the global leader of the BTS Sales Practice. He is the co-author of the book, The Mind of the Customer: How the World’s Leading Sales Forces Accelerate their Customer’s Success, which was published by McGraw-Hill in 2006. Before joining the BTS team, Lou had a long career in sales for professional services firms.
 
Rick CheathamRick Cheatham leads the BTS Sales Practice in North America. Previously, Rick was a sales leader at Avery Dennison, a leading producer of consumer products and pressure-sensitive adhesives materials. During his tenure, he transformed his organization into one that changed its focus from selling products to accelerating its customers’ business results.
 
Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:52 — 38.5MB)

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StrategyDriven Launches Operational Risk Management Resource Forum

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StrategyDriven is proud to announce the launch of a risk management resource forum; providing innovative thought leadership and collaboration opportunities to help leaders effectively address their most pressing operational risks.
 
 
StrategyDriven Risk Management Resource ForumAfter seeing the devastation from the Texas fertilizer plant and Louisiana chemical plant explosions, StrategyDriven wanted to help industrial and utility leaders better identify, mitigate, and control their operational risks to prevent similar accidents from occurring at their facilities.

“The unfortunate reality is that industrial accidents are increasingly likely in a world challenged to produce more, faster, and with fewer resources while also dealing with the significant loss of operating experience resulting from the retirement of baby boomers,” explains Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “To help clients combat these risks, StrategyDriven advisors, applying decades of nuclear and high-risk industrial operations experience, authored a library of operational risk management tools easily accessible from our online risk management forum.”

Developed by highly experienced nuclear and industrial complex leaders, StrategyDriven‘s risk management resource forum provides actionable methods and tools executives and managers can use to identify, assess, prioritize, monitor, mitigate, and control their operational risks. Thought leadership items contained within the forum focus on topics such as:

  • Operational Risk Quantification – identification of unique risk index values associated with potentially adverse events enabling prioritization of their mitigators relative to the organization’s portfolio of operational activities and strategic initiatives
  • Integrated Enterprise Risk Assurance Mapping – visualization of the relationships between enterprise risks and their associated processes while concurrently revealing the degree of oversight applied to these processes
  • High-Risk Decision Management – identification, selection, and implementation of action plans to address strategically important and operationally hazardous circumstances, the outcomes of which impact the safety and reliability of employees and assets

The risk management forum’s thought leadership documents are being distributed to StrategyDriven‘s clients, including some of the world’s largest utility operators. These documents can be accessed by clicking here.

Risk Management Warning Flag 1 – Unadjusted Resourcing of Risk Monitoring Activities

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Warning Flag ArticleMajor projects typically add significant operational, financial, reputational, and regulatory risk to an organization’s overall risk profile. This project risk may by itself exceed the normal level of organizational risk leaders are accustomed to dealing with. Consequently, these strategic projects demand the implementation of risk identification, monitoring, mitigation, and control activities. These risk management activities, however, are often unaccounted for in the project’s budget and instead draw resources away from the organization’s other risk management efforts; diminishing the business’s overall ability to effectively manage its other risks.

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  • A sampling of dozens of Premium how-to documents across 7 business functions and 28 associated programs
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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

The Big Picture of Business: Yesterdayism… Learning from the Past, Planning for the Future.

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Whether it is a public company or not, every business should fashion an Annual Report. Even if it is a client letter, this gesture celebrates the year, as basis for helping business people to prepare for the future.

People are interesting combinations of the old, the new, the tried and the true. Individuals and organizations are more resilient than they tend to believe. They’ve changed more than they wish to acknowledge. They embrace innovations, while keeping the best traditions.

When one reflects at changes, he/she sees directions for the future. Change is innovative. Customs come and go… some should pass and others might well have stayed with us.

There’s nothing more permanent than change. For everything that changes, many things stay the same. The quest of life is to interpret and adapt that mixture of the old and new. People who fight change have really changed more than they think.

The past is an excellent barometer for the future. I call that Yesterdayism. One can always learn from the past, dust it off and reapply it. Living in the past is not good, nor is living in the present without wisdom of the past.

Trends come and go… the latest is not necessarily the best. Some of the old ways really work better… and should not be dismissed just because they are old or some fashionable trend of the moment looks better.

When we see how far we have come, it gives further direction for the future. Ideas make the future happen. Technology is but one tool of the trade. Futurism is about people, ideas and societal evolution, not fads and gimmicks. The marketplace tells us what they want, if we listen carefully. We also have an obligation to give them what they need.

In olden times, people learned to improvise and ‘make do.’ In modern times of instantaneous disposability, we must remember the practicalities and flexibilities of the simple things and concepts.

Things which Made Comebacks…
Ceiling fans. The jitterbug and swing music. Hardwood floors. Stained glass.

Things the Economy Has Exempted…
Penny arcades. Five-and-dime stores. Full-service gas stations. Free car washes at gas stations. Towels in boxes of detergent. Mom-and-pop stores. S&H Green Stamps and other redemption programs.

Things which the Marketplace Has Eclipsed…

  • Ice delivered in blocks via a horse-driven carriage by the ice man
  • Milk delivered in bottles via a horse-driven carriage by the milk man
  • Going downtown to do all of your shopping
  • Drive-in movies
  • Stores closed on Sundays

The Old Became the New Again…
The original speed for phonograph records, as invented in 1888, was 78-RPM, which engineers determined to be the most ideal for sound quality. In the 1940s, technology brought us the 45-RPM and 33-1/3-RPM records… adding up to the “mother speed” of 78-RPM. The 1980s brought us compact discs, which play at a speed of 78-RPM.

Station wagons of the 1950s went out of style. They came back in the 1980s as sport utility vehicles.

Midwives were widely utilized in previous centuries. In modern times, alternative health care concepts and practitioners have been embraced by all sectors of society. Herbal ingredients and home remedies have gained popularity, and cottage industries support them.

Telephone party lines went out of style in the 1920s. They came back in the 1990s as internet chat rooms.

Corporations have become extended families, thus embracing dysfunctionality, changes, modifications and learning curves.

Schools started out as full-scope community centers. As the years passed, academic programs grew and became more specialized, covering many vital subject areas. Today, with parents and communities severely neglecting children and their life-skills education, schools have evolved back to being full-scope community centers.

7 Levels of Yesterdayism… Learning from the Past… Sources of Insights:

  1. Think They’ve Been There… Haven’t Yet Fully Learned from It.
  2. Saw It Happen… Understand It.
  3. Participated In It.
  4. Been There… Learned from It.
  5. Teach, Understand and Interpret It.
  6. Innovated It… and Teach You Why.
  7. Innovative Then and Now… Still Creating.

7 Applications for Yesterdayism… How to Shape the Past Into the Future:

  1. Re-Reading…Reviewing… Finding New Nuggets in Old Files.
  2. Applying Pop Culture to Today.
  3. Review case studies and their patterns for repeating themselves.
  4. Discern the differences between trends and fads.
  5. Learn from successes… and three times more from failures.
  6. Transition your organization from information down the branches to knowledge.
  7. Apply thinking processes to be truly innovative.

Apply History to Yourself. The past repeats itself. History is not something boring that you once studied in school. It tracks both vision and blindspots for human beings. History can be a wise mentor and help you to avoid making critical mistakes.

7 Kinds of Reunions… obtaining perspective:

  1. Pleasurable. Seeing an old friend who has done well, moved in a new direction and is genuinely happy to see you too. These include chance meetings, reasons to reconnect and a concerted effort by one party to stay in the loop.
  2. Painful. Talking to someone who has not moved forward. It’s like the conversation you had with them 15 years ago simply resumed. They talk only about past matters and don’t want to hear what you’re doing now. These include people with whom you once worked, old romances, former neighbors, networkers who keep turning up like bad pennies and colleagues from another day and time.
  3. Mandated. Meetings, receptions, etc. Sometimes, they’re pleasurable, such as retirement parties, open houses, community service functions. Other times, they’re painful, such as funerals or attending a bankruptcy creditors’ meeting.
  4. Instructional. See what has progressed and who have changed. Hear the success stories. High school reunions fit into this category…their value depending upon the mindset you take with you to the occasion.
  5. Reflect Upon the Past. Reconnecting with old friends, former colleagues and citizens for whom you have great respect. This is an excellent way to share each other’s progress and give understanding for courses of choice.
  6. Benchmarking. Good opportunities to compare successes, case studies, methodologies, learning curves and insights. When “the best” connects with “the best,” this is highly energizing.
  7. Goal Inspiring. The synergy of your present and theirs inspires the future. Good thinkers are rare…stay in contact with those whom you know, admire and respect. It will benefit all involved.

About the Author

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flameis now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

StrategyDriven Risk Management Forum

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StrategyDriven Risk Management ArticleAll organizations face a host of risks incurred during the conduct of day-to-day business operations and stakeholder interactions. These risks challenge executives and managers in so far as they can have consequentially negative impacts on the organization’s ongoing sustainability from an operational, financial, reputational, and regulatory perspective.

Risk = Probability of an adverse event’s occurrence times the severity of the event’s impact should it occur

Organization leaders seek to manager their risks’ likelihood and/or impact; identifying, assessing, and prioritizing followed by monitoring, mitigating (accepting, avoiding, minimizing, or transferring), and controlling each risk. Effective risk management optimizes the cost of risk monitoring and mitigation with the expense incurred should the event occur.

Focus of the Risk Management Forum

Materials within the risk management forum focus on those principles, best practices, and warning flags associated with the effective monitoring, mitigation, and response to both identified and unidentified – Black Swan – risks.

For detailed insight on making and managing high-risk decisions, visit StrategyDriven‘s Decision-Making Forum.

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StrategyDriven Risk Assurance Map Development AcceleratorCorporate Risk Analysis, Management, and Mitigation

We help reduce corporate risk exposure through an independent assessment of your enterprise risk programs. We can help you develop a risk profile, benchmark your risks against industry peers, identify risk management program gaps, and develop and implement a multi-year oversight program to manage your risks consistent with industry guidelines. Learn more about how we can support your implementation and upgrade efforts or contact us for a personal consultation.