Grow early-stage companies with speed & discipline
50% OF NEW SMALL BUSINESSES FAIL IN THE FIRST 5 YEARS AND 2/3 IN THE FIRST 10 YEARS
The Small Business Administration
A contributing factor to startup and early-stage failure is a lack of market intimacy. Getting the market strategy right the first time is hard, and many companies do not figure it out but through iterations of tried-&-failed. Broadly, confidence about market strategy is low and results are lacking.
For startups and early-stage enterprises, what’s at stake is greater than mature companies; often there is no safety net. These young enterprises need insight about if and where they can get market traction and they need that insight with speed. There is a process that will provide that insight with speed, while ensuring discipline and rigor.
Value Model
The first point of discipline is the Value Model, requiring in-market intimacy with customers and prospects..
The Value Model is the foundation for everything Go2Market: Think, Build & Run. Voice of the Customer informs the Value Model and that exercise yields the following market insights:
Understanding the specific pain customers experience and words they use to describe that pain
The context of the decision to use – or not - a particular product or service
‐ The circumstances that existed when the issue arose
‐ Those who were involved to help address the issue
‐ How the decision to find a solution was made, and when, and who was involved in that decision
‐ Where the customer or prospect begins to look to find someone to help address the issue; the process for uncovering alternatives
‐ What the customer believes to be the options, including ‘do nothing’
‐ How the issue was prioritized
‐ The criteria important to make the decision and how those criteria were ranked
‐ If a solution was found and chosen, the outcomes of that solution, favorable or otherwise
How customers and prospects describe the value and the use of the product or service in the context of addressing the issue
The evidence (ROI) your customers need to conclude your offer has superior value: risk mitigation, revenue, savings, etc.
The broad forces at work that affect the markets served: compliance, risk, service, price, competitive advantage, global market pressures, technology, etc.
Where prospects and customers derive influence, ideas, thought leadership
The message they want communicated, from where, and at what time: understand how to reach them, and where, with what words that demonstrate value to motivate them to begin dialogue
The ways in which customers and prospects need improved service and support; there may be broader issues underlying that indicate unserved or under-served markets
Go2Market
The foundation is now laid for the Go2Market plan and we can build out infrastructure and tactics.
From the Voice of the Customer process, we now know how to Build and Run the Go2Market plan.
Value Messaging platform to be developed using the Market Engagement Model
‐ We can map content to the M.E.M. with thought leadership
‐ We now have information for Case Studies gathered from the Voice of the Customer exercise
We understand where customers and prospects look for information, guidance, ideas, and can establish communications channels
‐ The role sales will and can play, i.e., delivering the value prop through social selling
‐ The social, digital and print tactics that reach prospects and customers
We know in what markets to spend our time and where we have an unfair advantage
We know how to build the Revenue Engine such that Sales and Marketing are synchronized to foster leads through the pipeline
The brand is consistent through the entire experience with our company: the journey and the destination
The first iteration of this process should take between 2 and 4 weeks. Subsequent iterations, those needed to develop additional campaigns to follow the Market Engagement Model, can be executed in less than 1 week.