At SP Home Run, our clients have found the greatest success growing their revenue when they’ve integrated these five essential pillars for growth in their overall strategy and company culture:
Meet The Five Pillars for Growth:
Many CEOs, small business owners, and sales directors usually have a preconceived idea of what sets them apart from the competition. The problem is: your idea -- or your boss's idea or your board of directors’ idea -- of what differentiation is, actually doesn't count. Differentiation is all about who your ideal clients see your company as. Once you figure out who your core buyer personas are, you’ll know exactly who the most important economic driver is for the growth of your business. It's their perception of your differentiation that counts, not yours.
How does your company stand out from the competition? Just as important, are you differentiating at all stages of the buyer’s journey?
The way that your prospects and clients research and make purchase decisions is very different today than it was as recently as five years ago.
Mainstream adoption of mobile devices, search engines, social media, and selective consumption (Netflix, iTunes, Sirius XM, and the Google Play Store for example) has led to a world where people are used to getting exactly what they want, when they want, 100% on their own terms.
It wasn’t always this way. It used to be that you could fill your sales funnel through print advertising, broadcast media, direct mail, trade show sponsorships, cold calling, banner ads, and cold emailing (a.k.a. spam). Back then, your prospects began talking with your sales team when they were 10% to 20% of the way through their decision making process.
Today, it’s vastly different. Prospects and clients now do tons of research on their own, before they’re even willing to speak with your sales team. So much so, that in many cases, prospects and clients are 70% or more of the way through their decision-making process before your team is even looped into a potential opportunity.
This is an enormous problem for legacy sales teams that are used to calling high (CEO or equivalent) with a static elevator pitch.
But it’s also an enormous opportunity for those companies that are able to get found by the right people, in the right places, at the right time, and most of all, in the right context.
By getting found early, your company can earn a seat at the table as a trusted advisor. Resistance to your sales team, like it’s the plague, drops tremendously. You’re able to position your team as subject matter experts and educators. This can have a dramatic impact on how prospects and clients define their problems and goals and evaluate their options (your competition).
Old-school companies focus nearly all of their resources on differentiating at the absolutely tail end of the buyer’s journey: during the final 30% of the decision-making process -- when it’s too late. When preferences and loyalties have already been formed.
The problem? By then, your company is just seen as a “vendor” -- subject to nasty price wars and profit margin destruction.
None of these words like “vendor,” “bid,” “price quote,” or “proposal” have four letters. But they might as well be four-letter words in today’s buyer’s journey. Because if your prospects and clients only see your company in that light, your company is pretty much screwed and ripe for disruption by much more aggressive competition.
So the question is: How will your company differentiate not just in the final 30% of the buyer’s journey -- but in the first 70% of the decision making process?
If your company is struggling to differentiate itself from the competition and stand out as the premier company in your space, here’s what we recommend.
SP Home Run Inc.
1200 North Federal Highway
Suite 200
Boca Raton, Florida 33432
(561) 282-9470
