Get Your Story Straight

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What do top technology companies have in common? Think about SalesForce, IBM, VMware, Workday, Apple, Riverbed, Cisco.  What separates market leaders and category creators from the rest of the pack?

They tell powerful stories.

Stories matter. We see it over and over again. Companies that capitalize on an inflection point and grab a leadership position always have a thought-provoking point of view that resonates with buyers. Customers buy into the story before they buy the solution. 

And a story is more than a slogan or a catchy tagline. It’s offering a different perspective, not just pushing a product. It’s a crisp, clear way of communicating how a company or a product will solve a big, hairy problem for customers. It comes from putting the customer’s needs and requirements first, not the technology or the company’s agenda.

Look at Cisco. The company wasn’t founded to sell routers and switches. It started when a husband and wife wanted to email each other from different offices at Stanford and they couldn’t. So they created the multi-protocol router and solved the problem. And they knew others wanted the same problem solved. They didn’t launch a product—they solved a problem and created a powerful story and different point-of-view. And they instilled a customer-first, problem-solving culture at Cisco. You know the rest of that story.

Need other examples? Look at game-changing CEOs Marc Benioff, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. They disrupted markets and catapulted their companies into legendary status with conversations that re-framed the problem for buyers. They articulated their company’s value in simple, concise positioning stories and a narrative that offers a new perspective to buyers.

So if a great story is the key to success, why doesn’t every technology company have one? The reason is simple.

All too often, the responsibility for positioning is taken on by tech CEOs or product managers who are in love with their technology.  And technology moves to the forefront of the story. WRONG. Buyers don’t care what’s cool about your technology or your IP. They care what it does for them.

The most effective storylines carve out a distinct corner of the room—and box competitors in as having a solution for “yesterday’s problem” or “the right idea, but the wrong approach.”

What makes a good storyline? The most effective positioning stories MUST answer three questions for the target buyer:

#1: Why your company or product, NOW?

Tell them in clear, human terms what problem your product solves and why it’s important to solve it TODAY. Is this an old problem that has gotten worse? A new problem caused by fast-changing market dynamics? Will your buyer lose his job if he doesn’t solve this problem? Strong positioning stories empathize with the buyer’s situation and create a sense of urgency about solving a critical problem.

#2: Why is your solution different?

Once the buyer agrees with your point of view, the next question on their mind is “who else can solve this problem?” or “can my existing technology vendor take care of this for me?” Great stories lay down the logic for a new approach to solving the problem. This requires talking about your secret sauce, IP, or game-changing differentiators  in terms of business requirements. You can avoid the tedious “feature-checklist” war by articulating the need for a different approach. Different, not better, always wins.

#3: How will this improve my life six months from now?

Paint your buyer a picture of how much better their life will be with an investment in your solution. Your life is “hell” right now (big problem); here is the unique approach (our secret sauce) for solving this problem; here is what your life will soon look like.

All market leaders and category disruptors have a compelling and distinct point of view. If you want to join them, start by getting your story straight.

 

Firebrick Methods Studied at Wharton

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Students and entrepreneurs get up to speed on the Firebrick Positioning Framework

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania is one of the world’s most prestigious business schools, and recently Firebrick has figured prominently in its classrooms.

The Firebrick Positioning Framework, developed by Firebrick from the accumulated knowledge of driving strategy to the point of revenue and positioning over 250 technology companies, has been taught to students in Wharton’s Entrepreneurial Marketing course, as well as entrepreneurs at Wharton’s San Francisco campus.

Lessons in Positioning (and Avoiding the Menace of Geek Speak)

Entrepreneurial Marketing, taught by Professor Leonard Lodish, is one of the more popular courses at the Wharton school of business. Professor Lodish teaches the importance of positioning products effectively as part of overall the marketing mix.

All too often, positioning is a point of failure for potentially great products, and developing competency in positioning has become an urgent strategic imperative—particularly for technology companies that have a change in strategy. Technology product managers often struggle to articulate product benefits without indulging in “geek speak,” and position their products along the lines of technical functions rather than business advantages.

Professor Lodish recently began using Firebrick’s Positioning Framework to show a novel approach to positioning strategy. During this course Professor Lodish introduces the components of Firebrick’s “customer-in” positioning model, which include principles such as:

 “Who is Your Mary?” –

Getting business leaders to personalize their target buyers and know them so well they can actually give them a name (i.e. “Mary”).  A deeper understanding of the buyer’s aspirations, motivations, challenges, and psychographics can help guide positioning, campaigns, and selling—and connect people with their buyers in a very powerful way.

 

“Owning a Problem” –

An exercise in avoiding “geek-speak” by communicating about the technology solution in terms of the problem it solves rather than the features and functions it delivers.

 

 

“Taking a Corner of the Room” –

This involves a method for setting the buying criteria and contrasting the product or service so strongly and distinctly from the competition that it clearly dominates all other market players.

Entrepreneurial Session: Creating Breakaway Business Strategies

In addition to Professor Lodish’s class, Firebrick concepts have also been presented at Wharton executive education tutorials. Firebrick was recently invited to introduce the Firebrick Positioning Framework to an audience of entrepreneurs at Wharton’s San Francisco campus. Watch the presentation:

How to Build Your Buyer Persona: The Checklist

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Recently we wrote about how often tech companies define their market in meaninglessterms that fail to connect sales and marketing efforts to the real buyer at the point of revenue. Wouldn’t it be nice, we thought, if someone put together a list of questions – to steer customer interviews that will give you a clear picture of your buyer, and what matters to them.

Well here you go. Below you’ll find a discussion guide that we think asks the important questions.

The problem with vague target audience definitions and flimsy buyer personas is that they don’t describe real people. Many of the tech companies we work with want to sell to the CIO. When you ask them to define their target they’ll say, “we’re targeting the CIO.” The problem is that the CIO label describes everyone from the guy who buys a server for www.nonprofit.com, to Sergey Brin.

In fact, our experience suggests there are at least four different CIO buyer types (more on thatin a white paper from Firebrick). But you can’t tell one from another unless you dig a little deeper than their job title.

The questions below will lead you to buyer profiles based on the stuff that guides buying decisions. The answers will help you understand how to engage your buyers in a way that gets their attention, addresses top-of-mind concerns and creates an urgent reason to do business with you.

SMB Is Not a Market

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You’d be surprised how often clients describe their market as “SMB” (small and medium businesses). Or the “Fortune 500.” Or “IT executives.” It’s the marketing equivalent of sending someone to the store with the instruction “bring me back some groceries.”

You end up spending a lot of money and not getting what you wanted.

It’s easy to understand why it happens. Many executives worry that they might take legitimate opportunities off the table if they define their market too narrowly. They lose sight of the fact that the buckshot approach is not only expensive and inefficient, but it actually results in fewer sales and a lower rate of customer acquisition than a more targeted approach. Why? Because it disconnects your business strategy from your source of revenue: the Buyer.

Good targeting, like good strategy, focuses on one thing: driving to the point of revenue, faster.

That means clearly understanding who your buyer is, and focusing your time and precious resources on selling to that person. It’s not about contact lists or SIC codes, and it’s not about demographics or company size. These can be helpful for buying advertising, but not so helpful if you’re trying to establish a meaningful connection that will motivate buying.

Effective targeting is about going deeper. It’s about finding a set of people who have a common problem you can uniquely solve. It’s about pinpointing the behaviors, motivations, and concerns of your best prospects. It’s about knowing your target so well you could almost predict what they’re going to have for lunch.

We like to tell our clients about the “Mary rule.”

Not too long ago we were working with a software company that was just killing it, taking share from much larger and more established competitors. We asked them how they were doing it. They said it was all about Mary. They knew their target so well they were able to give her a name, and everyone in the company felt they knew her personally—her aspirations, motivations, challenges, psychographics, etc. Mary, although she was only a composite, was able to help guide positioning, campaigns, and selling. She connected the people in this company with their buyers in a very powerful way.

You’ll find that effective targeting doesn’t narrow opportunities—it opens new doors. One of our clients, Citrix Online, built a very successful franchise focusing on small businesses, and small teams in the large enterprise. However, the constraints of this broad focus were preventing them from breaking through to the next level of growth. Through our work together we discovered they weren’t targeting “small businesses,” but rather organizations that were eager to embrace a new way of working, whether they were a 1-person consulting firm, a 30-person department or a massive multi-national organization.

The key is to go beyond simple characteristics and get to the things that define behavior and motivate action. Why do your customers buy your product? Chances are it isn’t because they are a CIO or because they work in a Fortune 500 company.

So get deep.

Sit down with your best customers and ask them a lot of questions. Then look for the patterns. As soon as a clear picture starts to emerge, a picture that others can see as well, you’re getting close.

 

 

Stop the Geek Speak!

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It’s everywhere. You can’t escape it. Pick up any tech company’s brochure or sales card and you’ll see it.

Geek speak.

It’s an epidemic among high-tech companies. And it’s not promoting business or getting the message out.

It’s killing sales.

Many technology executives are counting on a change in strategy to accelerate revenue out of recession sluggishness. They aim to drive their new strategy to the point of revenue now—or yesterday. These execs can’t afford to have their messages lost in a haze of geek speak.

Does anyone really understand the benefit of “dynamic micro demand response capabilities?” Does anyone really want to know more about “an ambifacient lunar wane shaft?” Do terms like “open,” “seamless,” or “integratable” really mean anything to anyone?

No?

Then you have to ask yourself: Why do companies continue to rely on techno jargon and marketing mumbo jumbo to try to communicate a business benefit? Here are a couple of possible explanations:

#1: Establish expertise

Marketeers and sales reps use jargon to establish credibility. To prove they speak the language, know the secret handshake. Start-ups are especially prone to this problem. There’s an element of insecurity to it—and they come across just like that guy in freshman English who used big words to sound scholarly. Dude, you are trying too hard.

#2: Techie and feature rich = “premium”

Companies buy into the idea that consumers value technology, innovation and “the next new thing” enough to pay a premium for it. You’ll see these companies describe their product or service in excessive detail using industry-specific jargon. It’s easy to spot. Look for:

  • Words that signal the product involves technical expertise
  • Excessive focus on the specs and features
  • Heavy use of buzzwords like “innovative,” “advanced,” “next gen”

Why geek speak DOESN’T WORK:

The problem with geek speak is that it doesn’t actually communicate—it irritates. It makes it exceptionally difficult for the B2B buyer to understand your product or service. Decision makers don’t care about the tech specs or the whiz-bang features. And while geek speak can build credibility with an IT manager or engineer who influences the purchasing decision, it’s a sales killer with C-level executives. They want to know how the product BENEFITS THEM.

You may be thinking the OTHER guy writes jargon but your company is in the clear. Take a look at your literature and be objective: are you using the right terminology for the audience you’re addressing? The truth might hurt.

One executive told me that he found terms used in B2B applications like “self-adapting mobile web” and “institution-wide connectivity” to be gobbledygook. “If they wrote them in plain English, it would mean more,” he said. He wanted to know why the company didn’t just say that the webpage looks good on any phone (self adapting web) and the platform easily integrates with back-end systems (institution-wide connectivity).

What’s the remedy to geek speak?

  1. Identify your target buyer and speak in his/her language. Business owners and C-level execs want to understand thebusiness benefits of your product or solution. They care more about“cost savings,” “time to market” and “operational efficiencies” thanbackwards compatibility with Release 2.67.
  2. Go beyond throwing around business lingo: own a business problem and funded initiative. Successful positioning persuades the buyerthat your product solves a major problem they have and helps execute an existing initiative.
  3. Before you let something out of the gate, do the “grandmother test.” If you read the press release to your grandmother, could she tell you what your product or solution does? Yes, the language really should be that crystal clear.

A strong positioning story is a central asset for any successful company. Your positioning drives revenue growth, valuation and market leadership. But what could be powerful differentiators often end up as geek-speak feature lists that fail to motivate action.

Ready for a laugh? These videos – a parody and a real-life example – illustrate why jargon doesn’t sell.

  • The fictional Retro Encabulator device, which uses six hydrocoptic marzel vanes and an ambifacient lunar wane shaft to prevent unwanted side fumbling.
  • A CTO describing Novell’s release of open source product “SLED 10:”

Ready for the remedy? Take a look at these examples of how to do it right.

  • Product overview from online video publishing and analytics company, Ooyala:
  • Company overview from modular data center construction firm, NxGen Modular:

Enjoy. And until next time—here’s to communications that communicate!

 

 

 

How Will You Make Your Revenue Number This Year?

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It’s that special time of year again—can you feel it in the air? It’s time for the company’s annual sales summit or kick-off meeting to figure out how the 2012 sales numbers will be achieved.

In our line of work, we are asked to attend a fair number of these meetings every year. We watch executives set the agenda for the year by arriving on stage with strobe lights and fireworks and Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle” blaring in the background— they get the team pumped up, present last year’s sales numbers and introduce next year’s strategies and priorities.

I have no bone to pick with these events. They serve an important purpose. But all too often, a few days after the dog and pony show is over, reality sets in. And important questions still aren’t answered:

  • How will your division or company make its number quarter by quarter — tactically?
  • Do you know which accounts have the highest revenue potential and are most likely to close?
  • Do you know where to invest marketing and sales enablement resources first, second, and third across account segments?
  • Are your sellers pitching anything that moves or going after a prioritized list of high-value accounts?
  • How confident are you that the field can make the revenue number?

In many cases, when I ask Sales executives or GMs, “How will you make your sales goals this year?” the answer is “I’ll hire 20 more quota-carrying sales reps” or “I will increase every sales person’s quota by 20%.”

I often get this answer from the very same executive who is making a big bet on a change in strategy, and who has spent considerable time and effort devising that strategy. It’s a total disconnect between this year’s strategy and execution. For example, to make your number, is your organization prepared to call higher in sales cycles, enter a new market or geo, sell a new product, compete against an up and coming vendor?

The result is predictable. Marketing and Sales fail to target the right accounts for the new strategy. Marketing measures success by the number of leads, not their value. Sales complains that marketing does not generate the “right kind of pipeline” to make their numbers. A handful of reps bring in 80% of the revenue quota and the company scrambles to pull in deals at the last minute every quarter.

There is a better way.

My colleagues and I have been working with a leading technology company on a revenue optimization model we believe provides a framework for B2B technology companies to make their sales number, accelerate revenue growth, and reconnect a change in strategy with successful execution.

It’s based on one simple word that is very familiar to every executive in the high-tech arena—yet virtually never leveraged by the Sales organization.

Analytics.

If you’ve seen “Moneyball” you understand the concept. A deeper analysis of all of the information you collect about your customers, markets, and sales opportunities reveals new insights that can directly impact your strategy and its execution.

Analytics can help you pinpoint the high-value sales opportunities—buyers who will purchase over the next few quarters—and create an investment model that illuminates the marketing and sales levers to pull in this revenue opportunity.

By analyzing customer and seller records, customer lists from key partners and public information and databases, we are able to uncover sales opportunities and identify the strongest opportunities by geo, company, and even buyer. These targeted accounts are segmented and can be leveraged for cross-selling, up-selling, industry-specific or use-case specific campaigns.  They arm the sales organization with a point of view that will resonate with these buyers and prepare them with buyer conversations and sales cycle tips to optimize their selling efforts.

Analytics is already being used to improve decision-making in everything from Web design and e-commerce tracking to customer experience management. Now it’s time to take advantage of analytics to optimize sales—and to connect great sales strategies to successful execution. Here’s how.

  • STEP 1: Identify your IDEAL prospect

◦       What are their characteristics, persona?

◦       What is their pain or business problem?

◦       Do they have a funded initiative?

  • STEP 2: Uncover your HIGH-VALUE sales targets 

◦       Use analytics to identify and prioritize your potential customers and key target accounts – by industry, company size, geo or territory, and installed products (yours and strategic partners’)

◦       Segment those target accounts into meaningful lists that can be leveraged for cross-selling, upselling, industry-specific campaigns, seller enablement, and more

  • STEP 3: Align COVERAGE models that optimize your marketing activities and seller coverage

◦       Create a single coverage model that identifies ALL sellers who call on your high-value account segments

◦       Do you have the right sales coverage model for the high-selling opportunities?

◦       Does the compensation structure align with the revenue goals?

◦       Focus sellers on your highest value accounts: show them the value of the upsell or cross-sell opportunities you identified

  • STEP 4: Identify the marketing and sales LEVERS that can be pulled to bring in this revenue

◦       Do you have the right story for the target accounts?

◦       Develop and coordinate marketing campaigns for high-value account segments

◦       Arm sellers with buyer-centric conversations and sales guidance to engage sales  cycles and optimize selling efforts

◦       Identify other marketing levers that can be used to bring in revenue: packaging, promotion, pricing, thought leadership programs

A Revenue Optimization model sets up your sales team for success, providing a more tangible, pragmatic and analytics-based plan to meet that aggressive sales number you set at sales kick-off. Ask us for details about our revenue optimization model. It won’t keep you from dressing up like a rock star next year, but it could dramatically improve your ability to make next year’s numbers.

8 Symptoms: You Know You Have A Positioning Problem When….

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A change in strategy changes everything. It cannot be undertaken lightly.

Capitalizing on a change in strategy or inflection point often requires solving a new customer problem, selling and marketing to a different set of buyers and competing against a new group of competitors.

Yet all too often, the effort required to capture the minds and wallets of a new set of buyers is treated casually – but it is the underpinning that makes a brilliant strategy drive revenue growth.

What do all these successful, market-leading technology companies – IBM, SalesForce, Workday, Riverbed, Cisco – have in common?

They all have powerful, compelling, thought-provoking Stories. 

For these companies, Positioning has become a core competency and the road to market leadership and revenue growth.

Those technology companies that successfully capitalize on a new product, service or market inflection point have a compelling, thought provoking, engaging story. It’s that simple.

However, very few technology companies are effectively able to translate their product, service, IP and features into a message that resonates with buyers, clearly differentiates from the competition and captures the imagination of the market.

During past year, I have seen hundreds of technology positioning presentations. Over and over again, I continue to see the same positioning pitfalls – and common symptoms that point an underlying Positioning problem that is holding back the company and inhibiting revenue growth.

You know you have a positioning problem when:

1) Your Slide Deck is 30 Slides: your presentation takes too many slides to explain your solution before your buyer ‘gets-it”. Your presentation drags on in a vain attempt to sell and convince your potential buyer.

2) Long Sales Cycles and Lots of “No-Decision”: your message does not create a sense or urgency with your buyers – it’s not a “hair-on-fire” conversation – as a result, sales cycles drag out or the buyers don’t seen any difference between you and any of your competitors, so they don’t make a decision.

3) Ask 3 People What You Do and You Get 3 Different Answers: inconsistent messaging is the death-knell for any technology company. In the absence of a good story, everyone makes one up. The result is predictable. The market is confused and you don’t “own” a position in the minds of your buyer.

4) Blah, Blah, Blah – You Sound Like All Your Competitors: your message and positioning story sounds exactly like your competition – your buyer could take any of your competitor’s logo and put in on your web site and it would look the same. A glazed look has set in with your buyers – and if your buyer can’t see any discernable difference between you and your competitors, they will go with the bigger, “brand-name” competitor.

5.) Your Company is Not Considered a Player in the Market:  your blah, blah, message dissolves into the cacophony of noise in the market  – brand awareness has become brand annoyance – if your company is not considered in a every sales cycle or you are off the radar-screen with the analysts and buyers, your positioning strategy has failed and is broken.

6) You Spent a Lot of $ on PR and Got Nowhere: strategies fizzle when positioning is broken and the market is not responding to your message.  In response, you spend a lot of money on a PR campaign, thinking a drumbeat and flurry of social media posts, tweets, press releases, white papers and analyst meetings will bring you the attention and market awareness your solution rightly deserves. However, if you don’t have anything interesting to say or your “me-too” story is boring, stale and un-differentiated– no amount of PR $ or social media effort will make a hill-of-beans difference. A provocative, thoughtful, differentiated story is the underpinning essential to drive market awareness and ultimately revenue growth.

7) Your Sales People Call on Anything That Moves: long sales cycles, lots of no-decisions, high “loss” rates, deeply discounted pricing, suspect forecasts – are all symptoms of a positioning problem. Strong, effective positioning focuses the sales efforts by clearly identifying the ideal target buyer – and creating a differentiated, thought provoking story that resonates with this buyer and creates a sense of urgency for them to act. Powerful positioning is a catalyst, giving the field organization a rallying cry, strong qualifying direction and confidence they have a story that will win them deals.

8 ) You Don’t Have a Viewpoint: you don’t stand for anything – and you are contribution the same old “blah, blah, blah” to the noise in the market. Your buyers have turned off -     – do you have anything substantive to offer your buyers? What is your contribution to this industry? What new way of thinking do you contribute? Failed strategies “sell” products. Successful companies ENGAGE buyers. Engages them with new ideas, solve problems that make their lives better, provocative viewpoints that make buyers stand up and notice.

7 Deadly Sins: What Can We Learn From Failed Strategies?

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In the course of working with over 200 technology companies during the past couple of decades, I have observed a lot of failed strategies. I’ve also seen quite a few companies turn their strategies into significant drivers of revenue growth. What makes the difference?

The difference is simple. Those that successfully capitalize on an inflection point and change in strategy are able to quickly transition to a new set of buyers. That’s it. However, very few marketing and sales organizations are effectively able to make this transition or fail to deliver revenue fast enough. The success of the old hinders them from getting traction with the new.

Here are 7 deadly sins that will quickly torpedo any change in strategy.

1) You Have No Market Validation: The market does not develop or is not big enough to support a growth business or substantial revenue stream.

2) You “Think” You Understand Your Buyers: Your company does not actually have a good understanding of the new buyers – their problems, challenges, buying process, what makes them a hero, how they are influenced, what technology they have already bought, and which particular buyers have a proclivity to buy.

3) Your Story Stinks: Your me-too story is full of geek-speak, does not resonate with your new buyers, doesn’t create a hair-on-fire or sense of urgency. Your viewpoint is un-differentiated and the story does not answer the fundamental question – “Why do I need your solution, NOW?” ..Its just another blah, blah, blah added to the cacophony of market chatter.

4) Your Sales Ramp Takes Too Long: Let’s face it, your field sales reps follow the easy path to revenue. And if they have been making their number with yesterday’s strategy, it’s very difficult to transition them to selling to a different set of buyers. Strategies fail when the sales team doesn’t have confidence. They need to be armed with the conversations that will resonate with the new buyers, effective criteria for qualifying in AND out, pragmatic sales tips as well as the gotcha’s and competitive response to increase their chances of winning.

5.) You Don’t Know How You Will Make Your Number:  Strategies fail when companies don’t have a precise understanding of where the revenue will come– which geos, which territories, which target accounts – and/or the sales coverage model is a mismatch. All too often, execs try to address this by hiring more reps, adding spiffs and increasing quota.

6) Your Launch Is a PR Event: Strategies fizzle when the launch of the new strategy is considered a PR exercise or a single, big-bang event that makes employees feel good but has no impact on sales cycles or category buying criteria. News fades fast and most companies will be off the radar screen in a quarter  -unless the launch is a 9-12 month consistent drumbeat of programs and momentum campaigns to multiple audiences, not just the press.

7) Your Viewpoint Is Not Provocative: Buyers turn off the same old “blah, blah, blah”  – do you have anything substantive to offer your buyers? What is your contribution to this industry? What new way of thinking do you contribute? Failed strategies “sell” products. Successful strategies ENGAGE buyers. Engage them with new ideas, solve problems that make their lives better, provocative viewpoints that make buyers stand up and notice.

For every one of these sins that are made, your probability of success dramatically decreases. The inflection point is missed, revenue comes in too slow or your company doesn’t maximize the revenue opportunity.

There is a better way. A new framework to drive strategy to the point of revenue, faster – and, at these critical junctures, turn new strategies into a successful driver of revenue growth.

Why Do Good Strategies Go Bad?

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My last post recapped some well-publicized strategic fiascos and the pervasive problem facing the tech industry – Most changes in strategy don’t realize revenue fast enough or fail to fully capture the market opportunity.

Now let’s take a closer look at the root cause of these corporate catastrophes. Why do strategies fail?

You could be flip and say if the strategy failed it just wasn’t all that good. And you’d be wrong. Great strategies fail all the time—for companies of all types and sizes. For enterprises trying to reinvent themselves, and for startups trying to launch new paradigms.

The root cause of failure is not a poorly conceived strategy. It’s a lack of appreciation for how deeply a change in strategy impacts a business that is set-up pre-inflection point.

The culprit is simple.

Capitalizing on a change in strategy or inflection point often requires solving a new customer problem, selling and marketing to a different set of buyers and competing against a new group of competitors.

This is the problem. Marketing, sales, channels, go-to-market are all designed to execute yesterday’s strategy. The success of the old hinders companies from getting traction with a change in strategy, making time-to-revenue incredibly challenging.

A change in strategy changes everything. It cannot be undertaken lightly. Yet all too often, the effort required to capture the minds and wallets of a new set of buyers is treated casually – but it is the underpinning that makes a brilliant strategy drive revenue growth.

Many factors can motivate a change in strategy. In the tech business, inflection points happen more frequently than in other industry. And many tech companies feel intense pressure not to miss the market window of the latest inflection point. Cloud computing is hot? We need a cloud computing strategy! Mobile’s taking off? We need a mobile strategy! Last year it was social media. Before that it was virtualization. Before that it was SaaS. The list goes on. Or maybe your competitor was acquired. Maybe your company merged or acquired another company. Maybe you need to move to open-source, freemium or a SaaS model. Maybe your CEO was fired. Anything can be a catalyst for a new strategy. And, today, these inflection points are occurring faster and more frequently.  

The point is, when companies that were built for success in one arena try to become something else, they often forget how difficult it is for the business to transition to selling to a new set of buyers and competing against a different set of competitors.

In most cases, the strategy focuses on the business model and product, but not enough on understanding the new buyers. In other cases, too little effort is spent on a winning positioning strategy – the result is a lame story and “me-too” message filled with geek-speak that lulls the market to sleep. And then there are cases where organizations simply increase sales quotas and pray the field sales organization will figure it out.

There is a better way. There is a proven process for driving strategy to the point of revenue, faster – and accelerating the impact of a strategy on revenue growth and valuation. It’s a process that is focused on solving a buyers problems, precisely pinpointing the near-term revenue opportunities, getting your story straight and arming your field sales organization with buyer conversations and sales success knowledge – so they don’t have to figure it out themselves.

Consider the case of VMware. Yesterday, they were selling virtualization servers to the data center. Today they are a cloud computing platform selling to a slew of new buyers – CIO, Cloud Computing Committee, VP IT Security, VP IT Apps, etc. – and find themselves competing against a different group of competitors – Microsoft, Google, Amazon and traditional partners like BMC and IBM.

Or take the case of Riverbed, the hot company that created the WAN acceleration market and built a rabid customer base of networking geeks. For the company to become the next billion dollar technology company, they needed to shift their strategy to move higher in sales cycles and “own” the CIO buyer. The problem is they were nowhere on the CIO’s radar screen. Their main competitor, Cisco, owns account control at this level of the buyer organization.

The company had to change its story to a fresh, provocative, business-level conversation that would resonate with the executive buyer – and give the CIO a reason to take an appointment with yet another technology vendor. The existing sales force was geared to talk to networking geeks, so they had to transition to selling to C-level executives. The campaigns, website and PR efforts had to focus on business results, not speeds and feeds. The new strategy forced the company to think in a new way. And Riverbed is pulling it off! The company is now high on the list for CIO’s who are looking to accelerate IT performance.

Strategies Fail: The Pervasive Problem Facing the Tech Industry

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Pick up the paper on any given day and you’ll read about the havoc wreaked by a failed business strategy. I just read the latest installment about Cisco’s impending layoffs. The company’s move into the consumer space has been a disaster; billions of dollars spent on acquisitions have been wasted; and now sources say Cisco needs to cut 20,000 jobs just to survive — This from a company that was scrambling to fill 7,500 open job reqs 10 years ago.

But there’s no need to single out Cisco. The high-tech landscape is littered with similar examples. Remember Google Wave, Google’s attempt to enter the collaboration space? Probably not. It was one of the most heavily hyped products in high-tech history, but it never found an audience and Google shut it down last year—a major blight on the search engine behemoth’s record of invincibility.

A couple of months ago the deer in the headlights was HP. A senior executive inadvertently leaked details of the company’s cloud strategy when he updated his LinkedIn profile, and analysts pounced with pointed questions and thinly veiled doubts about whether HP would be able to execute on any cloud strategy. Now HP is under fire to catch up with smaller, more nimble players such as VMware and NetApp in the cloud space.



         Last year’s poster boy for failed strategy was Sun, which spent years trying to transform itself from a hardware innovator into an open-source software leader. As it turned out, free software never paid. Oracle swallowed the company whole and spit out about half of Sun’s 30,000 employees.

Why do hugely successful companies have catastrophic failures? In many cases you can’t blame the strategy itself. You can’t say executives and employees weren’t bought in. You can’t say the company just caught a bad break.

You can boil it down to a single phrase—SHOW ME THE MONEY!

There’s a common theme in the examples above. Executives placed a big bet on a change in strategy, and the execution of that strategy did not deliver REVENUE GROWTH fast enough.

The result is predictable: no clear differentiation, difficulty selling to a new buyer, no understanding of which part of the market will drive revenue, and no clear timetable for transforming IP into revenue.

Just another failed strategy for tomorrow’s paper.