We’ve been helping businesses to Think Smart about sales and marketing for well over 7 years  now. Our clients have known for a long time that what we do extends well beyond what you’d expect from a marketing agency, or a sales organisation or even a management consultancy for that matter.

They know we have a depth and breadth of expertise and experience which simply can’t be found anywhere else in the industry. And they’ve always liked the fact that we work alongside them, understanding their objectives and agenda and bringing in-depth insight and knowledge about a wide range of vertical markets.

Over the last 7 years, our clients have come to trust our fast cycle, practical and common sense approaches to breaking into new verticals, exploiting existing markets and working with the sales and marketing teams to help them articulate even the most complex of propositions.

Doesn’t sound much like a marketing agency does it?

We thought so too. So over the past few months we’ve been going through what might be called a “brand evolution” (or a name change and a refinement of our proposition to you and me).

Today, we are Think Smart Group. We deliver smarter approaches to faster results. We help organisations in the technology and services sectors to sell more effectively, promote more efficiently and communicate more successfully. We show them how to do that successfully to  one prospect or customer at a time or to one vertical market or geography at a time. We give their sales people and marketing people the ability to communicate their own complex sales proposition confidently, in ten minutes or less to anyone, at any level, in any organisation.

It doesn’t get much smarter than that. Check us out: www.thinksmartgroup.com

What ever you do, don't watch this You Tube video if you're of nervous disposition or if you've already got more ideas, opportunities and wealthy markets than you can handle.

For the rest of us...sit back...take stock...and get your thinking trousers on. This is opportunity central and potentially the most powerful wakeup call you'll get this year!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUMf7FWGdCw

There are however parts of our Global economy that are set to grow, are growing rapidly or are already well into adolescence and yet we hear very little about organisations rushing to the new markets inside India, China and Russia. Sure, we're all used to the idea of outsourcing and off shoring but haven't we overlooked the market potential of these geographies themselves? 

Of course there are some obstacles, but the markets on offer are of a size we've never before encountered; but think also about the rise in demand for things Halal , Sharia compliant and Takaful products.

According to David Smith of www.thegff.com in his recent blog post "Winning The Upturn" http://tinyurl.com/3xh34d4

........" it's a market that's likely to go from $2.7 trillion today to over $30 trillion over the next 40 years".

Those who could brave a whole programme with Piers Morgan in it last night, will have had their eyes opened to the wealth (of opportunity), the latent desire for all things Western and the new and emerging market places that signal hope for all those prepared to invest in exploring them.   How are you planning to take advantage?

Take the test and see for yourself. It’s pretty easy. There are two stages.

Stage 1: Do you recognise any of the following as a common scenario…..

• Everyone’s excited – THIS time it’s going to work!

• Outputs are all new, high-impact and exciting

• Relationships are great

• Leads and appointment levels are good

• It’s difficult to find time in the diary to meet and discuss

• The next level outputs are late/rushed/disappointing

• The quality of the leads and appointments diminish

• Customer questions the time/money/results – value

• Customer doubts the quality and integrity of the supplier

• The supplier thinks the customer is being unrealistic

• Customer thinks the supplier should be able to generate “qualified demand” out of nothing more than a list of names and simply isn’t trying.

• Customer and Supplier fall out.

• Customer finds new supplier….

• Everyone’s excited – THIS time it’s REALLY going to work!

• Outputs are all new, high-impact and exciting

• Relationships are great

• Leads and appointment levels are good

• It’s difficult to find time in the diary to meet ……….

•  The next level outputs are late/rushed/disappointing

REPEAT until the end of time, the budget runs out or the business dies…

Stage 1 Result - Read it again. Does any of that sound familiar? If it does your experience is like that of 99.9% of B2B Organisations world wide. If it doesn’t either, you’ve never been in sales and marketing, anywhere, or you’re that .01% .

Stage 2 - How many of the following common sales and marketing challenges (honestly) could apply to your organisation?

• Great on Strategic Thinking and Strategic Talking – poor on consistent Strategic Execution
• commercial targets mean activities tend to be short term, tactical and campaign led
• Marketing is measured by “volume” rather than by conversion or ROI
• Sales are only measured on conversion
• Struggle to find CONSISTENT, competitive, relevant and current differentiation
• No time to validate proposition with the market place or vertical industry
• Sales /Channel rarely involved in Strategy
• Sales /Channel “recipients” rather than participants
• Messages are mixed and diluted en route from the CXO /Business Unit to the Customer
• Sales are selling at the point of least resistance, rather than point of most authority
• Strategy is diluted by the time it reaches customer (because of point above)
• Customer hears/understands only SOME of what you need /want them to
• It works “well enough” and would be too hard to fix
• Fixing it would require a complete re-engineering of the business
• Oh well another FY, this NEW sales person will work out and we’ll all try a lot harder.

Stage 2 Result -Read it again.

There are 15 points above, most B2B organisations recognise all of them at least in part. If you recognise any more than one…you’re on the merry-go-round where the annual, quarterly or monthly commercial cycles are driving, almost necessitating tactical, ad hoc, inconsistent and hugely ineffective approaches to executing the sales and marketing strategy.  Just about every organisation does it because their structure dictates it. Equally, just about every CXO in those organisation (and indeed Senior professionals) know it’s inefficient, costly and unproductive.

So, going round and round the marketing merry-go-round of campaign good, campaign bad, agency in, agency out may feel like fun and it always looks fantastic….but you always get off where you started and have to start all over again.

Perhaps it’s comforting to know it’s exactly how your competitors work. Or perhaps you’d be better served to look for a new way of executing your ambitions, reducing the sales cycle and industrialising the process of continual, repeatable success….

Think Smart!

Take the test and see for yourself. It's pretty easy. There are two stages.

Stage 1: Do you recognise any of the following as a common scenario.....

• Everyone’s excited – THIS time it’s going to work!

• Outputs are all new, high-impact and exciting

• Relationships are great

• Leads and appointment levels are good

• It’s difficult to find time in the diary to meet and discuss

• The next level outputs are late/rushed/disappointing

• The quality of the leads and appointments diminish

• Customer questions the time/money/results – value

• Customer doubts the quality and integrity of the supplier

• The supplier thinks the customer is being unrealistic

• Customer thinks the supplier should be able to generate “qualified demand” out of nothing more than a list of names and simply isn’t trying.

• Customer and Supplier fall out.

• Customer finds new supplier….

• Everyone’s excited – THIS time it’s REALLY going to work!

• Outputs are all new, high-impact and exciting

• Relationships are great

• Leads and appointment levels are good

• It’s difficult to find time in the diary to meet ……….

•  The next level outputs are late/rushed/disappointing

REPEAT until the end of time, the budget runs out or the business dies...

Stage 1 Result - Read it again. Does any of that sound familiar? If it does your experience is like that of 99.9% of B2B Organisations world wide. If it doesn't either, you've never been in sales and marketing, anywhere, or you're that .01% .

Stage 2 - How many of the following common sales and marketing challenges (honestly) could apply to your organisation?

• Great on Strategic Thinking and Strategic Talking - poor on consistent Strategic Execution
• commercial targets mean activities tend to be short term, tactical and campaign led
• Marketing is measured by "volume" rather than by conversion or ROI
• Sales are only measured on conversion
• Struggle to find CONSISTENT, competitive, relevant and current differentiation
• No time to validate proposition with the market place or vertical industry
• Sales /Channel rarely involved in Strategy
• Sales /Channel "recipients" rather than participants
• Messages are mixed and diluted en route from the CXO /Business Unit to the Customer
• Sales are selling at the point of least resistance, rather than point of most authority
• Strategy is diluted by the time it reaches customer (because of point above)
• Customer hears/understands only SOME of what you need /want them to
• It works "well enough" and would be too hard to fix
• Fixing it would require a complete re-engineering of the business
• Oh well another FY, this NEW sales person will work out and we'll all try a lot harder.

Stage 2 Result -Read it again.

There are 15 points above, most B2B organisations recognise all of them at least in part. If you recognise any more than one...you're on the merry-go-round where the annual, quarterly or monthly commercial cycles are driving, almost necessitating tactical, ad hoc, inconsistent and hugely ineffective approaches to executing the sales and marketing strategy.  Just about every organisation does it because their structure dictates it. Equally, just about every CXO in those organisation (and indeed Senior professionals) know it's inefficient, costly and unproductive.

So, going round and round the marketing merry-go-round of campaign good, campaign bad, agency in, agency out may feel like fun and it always looks fantastic....but you always get off where you started and have to start all over again.

Perhaps it's comforting to know it's exactly how your competitors work. Or perhaps you'd be better served to look for a new way of executing your ambitions, reducing the sales cycle and industrialising the process of continual, repeatable success....

www.thinksmartmarketing.co.uk - you'll find: Successful Sales Execution in 60 Seconds. Right in front of you.

Think Smart!

This "New World Order" we see today however, presents exactly the same challenge, but this time it's compounded not by too many layers and too much complexity but simply by not enough resource. In fact it's worse than that because it's not just bodies these companies need, it's all the experience which one way or another has "left the building" over the last few years.    

So now, as companies are driving for market share, differentiation and new business generation they're finding that "getting stuff done" just got a whole lot harder.

For many companies, outsourcing more of what you used to be able to do in-house is the obvious option and of course there are plenty of agencies and organisations who are happy to step up to the plate and take on more and wider responsibility. You'd have to question though:

1. Whether organisations which yesterday were providing you with Creative are really able to structure, plan and execute on your behalf...or whether they just see another revenue stream in it.

2. Whether you're paying through the nose for it. Remember how you used to moan about "paying London agency prices"? You paid them because "Creative" was something you really couldn't get in-house. Now, when that extends into operation and execution are you happy to pay the same rate?

3. If these companies understand your organisation, your industry and the clients you serve well enough?

4. If actually what these organisations recommend, structure and plan delivers against your internal KPIs or to theirs?!

The bottom line is that for any business today "getting stuff done" /"executing" sales and marketing strategies has never been more important. Getting it right has never been more critical and finding the right organisation to trust with it has never been more imperative.

Think Smart!

It's interesting though that many say they struggle with selling higher, deeper and more broadly into their existing base. As competition hots up and deal volumes remain stagnant there's an ever greater need to think more strategically about the sales engagement.

Equally, you might be surprised that most CIOs feel that most IT sales people in the UK (and France and Italy) specifically, aren't very well prepared for the sales meeting (source - a trusted and respected Global Analyst Group). It appears we are left way behind by emerging economies in our preparedness to add value at the meetings we attend.

You might also be surprised to learn that most VPs/Sales Directors aren't confident in their own sales team's ability to hold a credible conversation beyond the CIO/IT Director space - so that means CFO/CEO etc.

And finally, what about being able to speak about specific vertical issues or indeed the requirements of the internal business unit? A significant proportion of IT spend comes from non core, business unit requirements. Most organisations feel that specific market /vertical knowledge is a real differentiator in vendors. You guessed it, most organisations apparently feel that sales people are not well advised in these two areas either.

So it would seem to me that there's a great deal of opportunity (and I mean a vast amount of opportunity) out there for sales teams who are able to:

1. Evidence preparedness for the meeting they are attending (prepared to ADD VALUE).
2. Hold a sensible and credible (although not necessarily in depth) conversation at CFO/CEO Level
3. Demonstrate an interest in and understanding of the market in which the client operates and those which it serves.
4. Align their proposition to the needs and requirements of the business units (who hold more of the spend than you might think).

In real terms, achieving this isn't a hard or long-winded process and it would appear (according to the analyst research) that it should net some considerable differentiation and opportunities for significant new business.

What are you waiting for?

Think Smart!

Maybe it's about changing the competitive landscape...moving the goal posts. Here are some ideas:

Make sure you've covered the basics - work out who everyone is in the Decision Making Unit (not just the department you sell to) and ensure each and every one understands the value you are delivering not only to the business as a whole but what it means to them and their department/division.

Perhaps it would make sense be able to show exactly how and where you are doing that so that every one can easily see how what you do makes a difference across the business (call us, we'll show you how to do that -it's really powerful, clients love it!).

Demonstrate Intimacy / Be the Trusted Partner - There has to be more to you delivering against the contract than the simple business transaction. Surely you want to demonstrate you're increased knowledge and interest in your customer and their plans for say the next three years or the challenges they face today.

Move  the goal posts - if your competition are selling something similar to you, chances are they will be chasing the same people and the same agenda you are. They will be looking for innovative ways to deliver better value by selling effectively the same service. If all you do is seek to retain the status quo (current contract) it is only a matter of time before your competitor out bids or out smarts you.

So...why not move the goal posts AND demonstrate your intimate knowledge and interest in the client by evidencing your ability to become a trusted partner? Why not start to position your proposition around aiding and facilitating what you now know to be your client's three-year plan or indeed to enable them to address the challenges you (with your intimate knowledge) know they're facing. That way you can evidence why they need to stay with you for the long term and even extend the scope of the contract.

Sounds simple /obvious doesn't it.

The difference is your competitor is likely to be chasing the scope of last year's (or this year's) contract while you're busy evidencing how you are in lock step as a trusted partner with your customer for the long haul. A long -term trusted relationship with a proven supplier who can help the client move forward with their objectives...I'd say that beats a new comer with a low price and a "me- too" offering any time.

Think Smart!

Let's agree it's tough and it's going to get worse. Debate if you wish to but frankly, I think we have more pressing matters to address.

While you're out there bashing down doors, looking for new business, your competitors are doing the same. Make no mistake, they've  been coveting your premium customer relationships for years and right now they're plotting to find and expand any chink in your armour you leave open so that they can steal that customer from right underneath you.

What are you doing about it? No, really what are you practically doing about it? Defending your current account base has to be number one priority. There's little point investing in winning new customers if you can't keep the ones you've got. Sounds really blindingly obvious doesn't it? So does going to the gym regularly, eating a consistently healthy and balanced diet, having the occasional glass of wine..... You need to build defense strategies. These aren't passive things either, these are proactive, robust and possibly even aggressive focuses on holding onto what you've got. The competition is only going to get smarter and hungrier. So start from a position of strength and look now at where you might be weak, which relationships need strengthening or are potential open doors for the competition, what you can be doing now or offering now which will lock your client in for longer?

The best form of defense being attack, it's a great time to develop accounts too. Selling more broadly and deeply into existing accounts is a great way to build customer lock in and competitor lock out. What do you have in place today ensure your sales people are doing that efficiently and effectively?  Surely there can never be an easier, lower cost route to sales than selling into and across your existing base. How are your sales people using their existing customer relationships to foster new internal introductions...have they looked at the almost effortless opportunities Linked IN has to offer for example?

Winning what new business there is out there, is tough. Here are a some ideas to consider:  Differentiation is not always about a unique. Sometimes, being better at selling, better referenced or just plain nicer to do business with will make the difference. Probably the key one is sector and customer intelligence and being able to align your proposition to the board level priorities. If you know enough about your client, the market they serve and the things that make the "priority" list at the board meetings, the chances are you can position your offering right in front of the organ grinder(s) and leave your competition dealing with the monkey. What about doing your own bit of poaching and spending some time focussing on what business or account you can steal away from your competitor? How can you go about that today easily and cost effectively?

In bid situations how are you ensuring your response is not only absolutely on the money but that your presentation is the first that's read, understood and sets the standard for the rest to follow? 

As with all these things, the answer is to think a little smarter! Give us a call or get in touch and we'll show you how.

Think Smart!

Most of these companies resell hardware from huge technology giants (OEMs). They "add value" with services and by bringing product sets together and then they "deliver" them into their clients.

Big OEMs are demanding payment terms of much less (try half) of the usual 30 days...with unpleasnt consequences if they don't receive it. The clients on the other hand that these companies sell to, are paying on 90 days or more. That means the company in the middle now has to bank roll 75 days. Even with the cost of money where it is today there's only one winner. Here's a clue it sure as hell ain't the guy in the middle....

Think Smart! Owen