We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars - Oscar Wilde

I found myself staring up at the stars last night, the gentle sound of running water beside me.?

I had fallen out of the wheelie bin and the bathroom overflow pipe was leaking all over me.?

True story.?

Every situation is contextual. And every context is different. And staring up at the stars isn’t always as romantic as it may initially sound.

Which is why a one size fits all response is appropriate as often as a stopped clock tells the right time. Rarely. But just enough to deliver erroneous data points.

In my case the correct response was tea, sympathy and a sticking plaster for my knee. Although my wife got that spectacularly wrong, and mostly just laughed.

Our proposals aren’t landing

I met a startup CEO a while back who needed help with his proposals. His sales team were finding that they had what felt like strong meetings with prospects. But when they sent over a proposal they were ghosted or rejected something like 80% of the time.

His opening line to me therefore was: “I’m talking to a few consultants to see if we can improve the quality of what we send out. Can you help?”.

It’s not an unreasonable question. It might even be the right question. He had already spoken to two consultants who had both quoted for helping to rework the quality of their content.?

But here’s the thing. The failure of a significant number of proposals is a symptom, and not an illness in its own right. Just like a doctor, your job as a CEO or revenue leader is to trace the challenge back to its roots before arriving at a hypothesis. And, only then, making a diagnosis.?

Why were their proposals not landing? I guess they didn’t feel valuable enough to prospects. Why not? Presumably the prospect does not feel that this problem is urgent enough to bother solving. Why not? Either they don’t have this Pain, so this is the wrong Casualty/ ICP mix. Or maybe the product simply doesn’t solve the Pain in a way which resonates with them. Or maybe we failed to deliver a Narrative that enables them to understand why this problem has to be solved in the first place.

There could be other reasons but let’s start with these three.?

Treat the root cause, not the symptoms

If we are talking to the wrong ICP then it doesn’t matter how beautiful our proposal is, we will almost always fail.?

If it’s the product, then we need to do some serious digging on how we can adjust it to actually nail Product-Market Fit.?

If it’s the Narrative, then we will need to build a series of Messaging Pillars that land first time.?

Each of these are strategic issues, and each of them are Revenue issues. Even the product one. This is because there are four fundamental drivers of Revenue:

• Creating DESIRABILITY - We have built a product that can SOLVE a pain.
• Delivering CLARITY - We tell a story that can EXPLAIN this clearly.
• Establishing PREDICTABILITY - We can DISTRIBUTE this message at scale.
• Owning DELIVERABILITY - We always FULFIL the promise we made.

Your role as CEO, CRO or CMO is to trace each symptom back to its root cause. Invariably you will arrive back at one of these four Revenue fundamentals.

In making the trace back to the start, you eliminate the situational context of the initial symptom and uncover why the symptom is manifesting itself in the first place. This is Whole Revenue Strategy and we are going to be digging into all aspects of this methodology during the life of this newsletter.?

Case Study

Let’s return to our start up CEO: following our conversation he & his team ran a WRS project with us. In their case there was very clearly more than one root cause. The following is a heavily edited extract of our findings:

1. NARRATIVE - Whilst the team understands how the product ought to fit with the market, there has been insufficient focus on “why now”.?This is the core reason why the pipe is experiencing high levels of drop-off.?The current value proposition does not sufficiently move the needle for prospects.? We need to run a process to better define the value articulation that will move that needle for prospects.?This should include embedding paradigm shifting insight into each key area of the sales process including the discovery, the demo, and a core visionary presentation which positions you as the thought leaders in your Category.

1. ICP - The leadership team are forcing the product to try and be all things to all people and consequently pleasing no one.?I would aim to dominate? a very small niche and utterly own that corner with your expertise.?You will rarely win if you continue to fight battles on ground chosen by your competitors.?I do not have the product knowledge to say what that niche should be, it doesn’t have to be vertical, it could be that your core value lies in the way you approach solving a particular process problem.?Either way, until there is sufficient social proof, prospects will need to believe that there is a competitive edge to be gained from taking the risk to go ahead with you.
2. PROCESS CONSISTENCY - Each AE is running their own process. Some good, some less so. This needs to be taken up a level.?How can the team better control deal momentum by implementing best in class processes & techniques??We need to review the effective development of leads & opportunities at all inflection points & gateways. Identifying areas for change or improvement & defining what these changes should be, in order to ensure the team are performing optimally across each inflection point or gateway. This needs to be uniform so that we are preparing for Scale.
3. COACHING OF THE REVENUE LEADER - She is very good but in my view there are a bunch of unknowns for her that means she will make first time mistakes that simply can’t be afforded.?She could do with working alongside an experienced practitioner to make the best of her undoubted skills.

In summary:

• Re-define how we describe ourselves so it is exciting to the market.
• Focus on core value alone, in order that prod-eng deliver explicitly on a tight & defensible value prop.
• Refine & add to existing sales processes to deliver momentum & pace to deal-flow.
• Coach the revenue leader through her unknowns.

The Fundamental Elements of Revenue

Every project is different but note that the above is not only not a review of this company’s “proposals”, it is also not a review of the sales department. Instead what we unearthed were:

• Inconsistent choices in the PRODUCT team i.e. Affecting Desirability.
• Weak Messaging in the MARKETING team i.e. Negating Clarity.
• Messy or absent processes in the SALES team i.e. Blocking Scalability.

That’s three of the four fundamental elements of Revenue.

Exercise

1. Take a look at the biggest blocker you are experiencing across your Revenue function. It could be in Product, Marketing, Sales, or Customer Success. This is the Symptom.
2. Trace the Symptom back to its Root. What is the fundamental strategic element which is causing the Symptom.
3. Consider what could be done to heal the Root Cause, and alleviate the Symptom.

Returning to the Wheelie Bin

Let us know if you would like to discuss Whole Revenue Strategy, in the meantime discover more at our new website here .

Alternatively feel free to email us at [email protected] at any point. Next newsletter to come in a few days.?

Oh and why did I fall out of a wheelie bin? Yeah I’m not proud. I was jumping up and down on the trash so we could squeeze more in. Obviously! Time to delegate that dangerous mission to one of the children I think.?

Thanks, Pete & Emily