It’s Time to Stop Searching for Quick Wins…

….and Make a Quick Start on The Brilliant Basics Instead

What’s wrong with  a quick win?  Nothing at all , it’s a thing of beauty!  However a mindset that focuses on quick wins to the exclusion of establishing solid business foundations is another thing entirely.  That mindset, driven by the intense pressure of needing to deliver better results every 90 days in fast changing markets, is common in B2B tech companies.  

Is this just life in B2B, or is there a Better Way?

Time and time again, we’ve seen the same pain points in B2B tech companies – see our A-Z of pain points for more on this – leading us to ask ourself: is this just life in B2B tech, or is there a better way?  We believe there is, and the way we deliver our services reflects that.  We pursue our work with a sense of urgency.  However, that does not mean B2B Navigator is any kind of a quick fix or a series of quick wins.

The Flinch

Au contraire.  We flinch when we hear the phrase ‘The CEO/CMO/CRO is looking for quick wins’.  We flinch not because we don’t believe that progress can’t be made in a short period of time – it can, and we work on that basis.  We flinch because the continual search for quick wins is at odds with getting a solid set of B2B foundations in place – and it is very common mindset.

B2B Foundations

As we’ve said elsewhere, we’ve found the most common underlying cause of many of the issues found in B2B tech Go To Markets is their ad hoc evolution, often at accelerated pace, which results in relatively poor foundations.  

A Better Way

Any B2B tech GTM needs solid foundations to support effective execution.  These foundations are classically broken down into diagnosis (which is where Marketing research and orientation are conducted) and strategy, which has many elements.   The graphic Marketingland provides a useful illustration of how these fit together.

The bulk of our work is in the area of strategy, though we do not describe ourselves as strategists. Our point of view is that every B2B GTM needs a repeatable, consistent, connected and collaborative approach to each of the following elements of strategy:

  • Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
  • Target Audience Profiling
  • Use Case development
  • Value Proposition development
  • Competitive analysis

Taking products and services to market also requires clear direction and for that we take an element of Market Orientation, delivered as a Winning Aspiration.

Lastly, we have found there is one aspect of execution necessary to make the strategic elements work effectively, which is storytelling, which is needed to develop a point of view to take your offering to market with.  

All of these elements need to be brought together in a simple, repeatable fashion to determine where you play, how you win and develop a compelling point of view to arm Sales and Marketing with.  That is what B2B Navigator is designed to do.   A very successful CEO I once worked for talked passionately and convincingly about the importance to get what he called The Brilliant Basics in place, which for a long time was the working title for what is now B2B Navigator.  This idea has stuck with us.

What are the brilliant basics for taking your offering to Market?  The Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning, Ideal Customer Profiling, Value Proposition Development and other elements we’ve just described…

To be clear, we understand that short term priorities never go away, but we can balance the work we do to support them with an investment in time to put in place the brilliant basics that will support longer term growth.

We don’t offer a quick fix, and we don’t think of the outcomes we pursue as quick wins.  Instead what we offer is a better way of addressing the most important tasks required to take technology to market, based on a proven set of tools which are integrated by the proven approach of ‘Playing to Win’.