Marketing, Sales and Product Alignment: The Willie Sutton Effect (or, Where are my Prospects?)

In my last article I discussed how getting the product-market fit wrong can stymy growth, or even sink a company completely. This time I want to talk about an arguably even more important, albeit ridiculously obvious, factor: finding your prospects. But first, an old story, but one that’s apropos to the topic.? Many of you will know of Willie Sutton, a Great Depression era bank robber who spent more than half his life in prison and was on the FBI’s most wanted list for years. He was once asked why he robbed banks, and he purportedly replied “Because that’s where the money is…”

Whether Sutton actually said that or not, is less important than what I call the ”Willie Sutton Effect”. It’s the simple, but often poorly executed, notion that in order to grow your business you need to know where your prospects (read: money) are.? I am hoping—in order to maintain what little faith I have left in humanity—that most of you reading this are muttering something like “Duh, no kidding Sherlock!” under your breath. Nevertheless, in my 30+ years as a marketing executive in growth companies, it must be said that more often than not that’s not how things go. I’ll add that also in my experience, the more certain leadership is about its targets the less likely they are to be right. Why? Because just as with messaging and product-market fit, if you’re only looking at things from the inside out, only working with the preconceived notions and certainty of a founder or entrepreneur, you’re most likely not paying any attention to who you need to attract.?

Here are three thoughts to help you break through:

1. Who feels the pain?

The single most important factor in finding your target prospects is understanding where the burden lands. Knowing where the process or technology “rub points” are within an organization is a critical first step to identifying who you need to get the message to. That said, don’t make the mistake of thinking that the “owner” of the pain is the person or group who can make the buying decision. Depending on the solution, the struggle may be pretty far down in the organization and may even be invisible to those who have the ability and resources to improve the situation.

When that’s the case, it’s important to build your sales and marketing strategy to account for educating the decision-makers, and giving voice to the users who are struggling and in need of relief. Of course, those messages are usually quite different, but it’s important that they are connected to one another.

And all this may take research. Ideally you can model existing customers, but if, like so many companies, your customers-to-date are a hodgepodge, then industry research is called for. Just as with product-market fit efforts, you need to know what’s happening in the market, which kinds of companies, which titles in those companies are speaking to the problem. Then your messaging is more likely to resonate.

2.?Where do they look for solutions to their problems?

If you know who your targets are, you need to make sure you get in front of them. There are myriad ways to do that, but since the right approach is so market-dependent, there’s no one single answer. That said, doing a deep dive to identify how your prospects get their information is a critical success factor.

Do they attend industry conferences? Does their industry have an active professional association that serves as a filter for best practices? Do they engage consultants to develop the short list of providers?? (One thing I have learned is that for most companies of a certain size, if you’re talking to a selection committee, there is a very, very high likelihood that one or more of the people sitting across from you are actually consultants advising your prospect.) Do they research online? (this last one is a gimme—everyone does that!)

But it’s not just about being in front of your prospects—as or even more important is making sure you are being seen in the most credible places. That may mean developing relationships with industry consultants or analysts. It may mean becoming a vendor member of an industry association and actively educating the membership. You may even consider hiring well-known thought leaders to evangelize your company’s message. Credibility pops you to the top of the list!

3.?Who has the budget? (or where’s the money?)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen deals that were marked as an “imminent close” but which fell apart at the 11th hour.? Why? The account team convinced everyone but the group that owned the budget.? Good sales process is the topic for another article, but if you’re going to be successful at closing a deal you had better know who has to sign off on the purchase.

It's also important, as noted earlier, that you know who the influencers are, be they consultants, board members, or other executives. Unsurprisingly, more than one “selected vendor” has suddenly found their PO withdrawn due to the unseen hand of an unknown influencer!

Lastly, it’s a good idea to follow the concept of no surprises. That is, don’t assume the people you’re selling to will be so enamored of the solution that they’ll pay any price to obtain it. Getting clarity early on in the process about not just what the cost is, but even more important, the value your solution provides, makes the transaction work…or fail if it’s all a big surprise at the end.

Previous Articles:

• Marketing, Sales and Product Alignment Part I: A Critical but often Ignored Key to Sustained Success
• Marketing, Sales and Product Alignment Part II: Product Market Fit