Stay ahead with customer value thinking.

5 tips to grow in an unfavorable market

Talks of an upcoming recession have prompted businesses to take a hard look at their revenue streams—and to find ways to boost their sales. Tackling the challenges ahead will require a new approach that emphasizes value to the customer. From initial conversations to renewals, customers need to understand the benefit they get from a product as they tighten their belts. To learn more about how businesses can beat the upcoming recession, we sat down with Joe Sexton, current Board of Advisors member at DecisionLink and former President of Worldwide Field...

By now, your sellers are running around trying to close. The reality is that customers have put a stop to deal-making until they understand how their companies are going to be positioned in this recession. This is to be expected when stock markets are crashing, and investments are drying up. However, it is essential to anticipate the pressure your customers and prospects might put on you when it comes to pricing. Procurement and finance teams might be unwilling to consider investing in your SaaS solution or at least might consider a downgraded version of your solution for now if they see the...

There is no doubt that the time has come for companies to take a serious look at the customer value management (CVM) process, methodology, and tools. It has never been a better time to get started. And the reason is simple: do it or get churned out!

Your customers are doing the same analysis that you are doing. They want to improve net retention and avoid churn. As a result, any vendor who visits them or speaks to them about increased net retention rate or churn reduction will be placed on top of the list of SaaS solutions to keep investing in.

As you reinforce your customer value proposition...

Today, I’m talking about relating to the management and prioritization of marketing programs in the context of a potentially strong recession. At this stage in the game, you are surely in the process of asking yourself how to improve the “bang for the bucks” and how to maintain a rich opportunity funnel. Considering the high chance that your company will reduce headcount and refocus on the core, it is expected that the priorities are going to change. The key question now is what stays in the toolkit and what gets sidelined for the time being. We are back to the “do more with less” frame of...

A customer value proposition (CVP) cannot be static. It needs to be refreshed every 6-12 months to make a company stays in touch with market needs. That is the ideal case scenario. The reality is different. Most companies and start-ups focus on their core CVP at the beginning of their development and forget to manage it dynamically. The key word here is dynamically! When a recession looms, things accelerate and become much more dynamic. Customers’ perception of value and preference shift and sometimes in an extremely dramatic way. They prioritize spending and are much more focused on...