welcome to the SBI podcast offering CEOs
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welcome SBI podcast listeners and video
podcast viewers my name is Eric strap
and here's my good buddy and colleague
Dan Perry we are with SBI a sales and
marketing consultancy dedicated to
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tuning in you can leverage emerging best
practices and receive how-to instruction
on some of the most prevalent go to
market problems in that exists in
today's complex selling world Eric we
get a lot of questions surround this as
well two questions like did you ever
wonder why some companies make their
number every year and some struggle with
consistent performance companies come to
us every day and ask for help to get
more consistency in making their number
but most don't even know where to start
and it starts with strategic alignment
but let's first define strategic
alignment strategic alignment begins
with a clear understanding of the
corporate strategy followed by grasp of
the interdependencies among the various
functional strategies to truly be
strategically aligned you must link
these internal strategies with external
market conditions and Eric's is proven
to be difficult and we found that 91% of
companies are misaligned and the main
reason is the realization that companies
really have tactics masquerading a
strategy this results in a lot of waste
or as we define it as thrashing tons of
work with little productivity gains yep
so obviously if it was easy everybody
would do it and that's why only 9
percent actually get there so on today's
show we're going to discuss the
importance of how to the importance of
market research and how to conduct it in
your organization let's start with
simple definition right so market
research provides a deep understanding
of the markets accounts buyers and users
that you or the organization sells to
right it helps you differentiate your
strategy from your competition
prioritize your accounts align your
strategy with buyer needs and address
user problems with your products as a
result you can bring your strategy into
alignment with the external market yeah
if you don't start with the market then
you're really already out of out of
alignment the process starts with market
research the market will inform your
corporate strategy in your corporate
strategy will inform your functional
strategies this visual purposely despit
if one of those links is faulty or
doesn't even exist then the chain breaks
as does the alignment of your strategies
yep so it's the first link on the chain
right yeah so before he get into
corporate and the remaining functional
strategies so what we're gonna do is
we're gonna start with defining the
questions that you need to be answered
in your market research you need to
start with that objective right so you
have to answer this what are the inputs
you need to develop your corporate
product marketing sales and talent
strategy
remember strategy is the allocation of
people time and money so if you start
there
you know what the objectives of your
market research are yeah sounds good
Eric so let's go into those of those
four main points of market research and
this is really on the on the how we
conduct market research so there's four
phases and you see on screen a graphic
that shows these four phases the first
phase is market segmentation and this is
defined as the broad target market into
subsets of buyers who have common needs
priorities and solution options second
Eric is account segmentation understand
which accounts in your market are going
to generate the most revenue over the
shortest period of time buyer
segmentation is a third phase of market
research understand how buyers in your
accounts make purchase decisions and
then finally at the core right is user
segmentation mostly skipped by companies
now the user segmentation understand the
market problems that exist for users in
your accounts yeah then I love the
purposeful distinction between buyer and
user segmentation right because there's
a big difference there too huge yeah so
if I'm thinking about again the
objectives and what I need to obtain
from our market research I should start
with the market itself right if I'm
trying to segment the market I should be
answering the following questions
right so how big is our market and what
is the growth rate seems fairly obvious
right you're understanding what the out
you know total potential is yeah you
know I've noticed most companies
typically have some sort of data on this
yeah a lot of it can be obtained from
third-party companies and secondary
research like IDC Gartner so on and so
forth we'll get to that here in a second
but just knowing what the size of the
sandbox is that you're gonna be playing
and is obviously crucial so what
industry trends are unfolding in our
market right we talked before in a
previous show about blackberry rim you
know not necessarily understanding the
market conditions and how those were
changing right that was an industry
trend on smartphones right so that's
something that they should have been
identified via market research yeah so
what are the needs of the market and how
are they changing similar to the trends
right so what are the needs and it's a
constant year to the ground we'll talk
about a little bit about in later in the
show about why you should do this
iteratively and constantly over the over
the period of time so what should our
go-to-market strategy be for each
product or solution the key word there
is each right so we may actually have a
different go to market strategy for
different products why because they're
likely to different user problems to
different buyers or buyer decision teams
if you will New York what is it go to
market strategy that name gets thrown
around all the time so let's define what
go to market means yeah in a very simple
term right it's just how we create
demand and sell our solutions right so
there are certain products that you
might have a freemium type of model
right you know so you know if you're a
software product download a try for free
and then buy a subscription later on if
you're selling a big enterprise product
or solution it's likely not going to
work in a freemium basis so you're
selling it in creating demand to a
certain buyer set yeah so market
research
I mean it's critical you can't really
develop a go to market without the
market research right yeah if you don't
know what your how your buyers buy or
what user problems you're identifying
and that's obviously yeah so I challenge
everybody our audience have you done
market research before you figure out
your go to market and I bet some of you
haven't yeah go to market like literally
a go to market strategy could be not to
have a sales force on that's down that
freemium model why would you have a
sales force you don't need them right
it's a marketing strategy it's a product
strategy
and so how do my competitors go to
market seems fairly straightforward
right we talk about how do they win do
they win on product they went on price
do they went on customer intimacy we
don't know what we don't want to do is
be the same right we don't want to be me
too so knowing how they go to market is
crucial as part of the market research
what are our competitive strengths and
weaknesses fairly obvious right
what are opportunities threats in the
market again fairly obvious
understanding what it is that how we can
go and win and for our solution what are
the lifecycle stages of adoption of our
buyers and users so talk to me about
that I lifecycle stages of adoption what
does that mean yep so when I think about
it from a product context right you
think of Geoffrey Moore's crossing the
chasm you have early adopters you have
people that have actually had late
adoption where's your products that
within that right you know is it a brand
new solution that nobody knows about and
you're actually having to have an
evangelical marketing and sales process
or is it something that could be go you
know turn and burn off the shelves from
like an inside sales model right so
knowing and understanding where you're
plotting on that is absolutely crucial
it's a big word for you evangelical
that's everyone's my best amount exactly
all right so Eric let's move on to
accounts within the market when doing
that your objective should be to answer
the following questions what's our ideal
customer profile and you know what
defines this ideal customer and end
prospect and we answer that in a segment
as well as I mentioned earlier that
that's a critical question and can have
ramifications throughout your entire
strategy that argue if you don't have
this clearly defined and what I mean to
find it's not just a hey I know it it's
just sitting here up here and tribal
knowledge right is it actually written
down is it documented and is there math
behind it right so where's the science
how do you know it's ideal if you
haven't actually done the exercise of
what we call account segmentation and
prioritization sort of take that further
right the next question I would ask is
how does each customer prospect score
relative to the ideal customer profile
this would mean then you actually have
it written down an equation behind that
and then somewhere you house that data
like a CRM tool right that can be used
at for day-to-day operations it's
totally good right so that's a score
next one that we have here is what's the
potential spend for each audio prospect
or customer so potential spend is huge -
right that goes into not only we score -
IDIC people what's the spend - the ICP
yeah it's totally great so if you know
if you think about it in simplest terms
right if I have an account that looks
and smells and tastes like a very very
good customer and the prospect is
similar right shouldn't we expect to get
something comparable from that type of
prospect the answer is likely yes but
again there's math and science that goes
beneath that yeah so that that's all in
the episode that we have about ideal
customer profile you should check this
out because we answer all these
questions in here to move along what's
the cost to acquire each customer and
then what's the lifetime value of each
customer again you want a lower cost to
acquire a higher lifetime value makes
sense what's the ratio between those two
and we do answer that question in
another episode that's important then
market resource answers these questions
for you or gives you the information and
the data to answer these questions and
finally what's the propensity to buy for
each prospect and customers what's the
likelihood of them buying with us versus
some buying some something else
yep so every night so as you can see
this is heavily Qantas and not easy to
do but just 100% mandatory when
conducting market research and we've
seen companies not do this they take a
break they kind of really actually don't
even do it fully to the extent it should
be done and then they get bad data and
what is bad data Lee Taric that output
yeah absolutely
thanks Dan so we're gonna take a quick
commercial break but stick around
because on when we come back we're gonna
show you what the best methods are to
gather insights for each one of these
phases that we just talked about
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welcome back I'm Eric Estrella and this
is my buddy Dan Perry
we're with SPI today we're trying to
help you make your 2016 number by
demonstrating how to develop a market
research methodology before the break we
discussed the four phases that need
answering in this segment we will show
you how and what methods you should
conduct to gather that intelligence yep
so Eric the first step in the process is
to identify someone who's accountable to
the process remember if it's everybody's
responsibility or accountability then no
one owns it and in addition you can't
rely solely on secondary research from
research firms such as forest or Gardner
or not ICI fantastic sources of data
provide a lot of insight on the market
but you cannot hang your entire market
research process on those single data
points you need to be more specific to
your customers prospects etc and this is
what we call primary research now
accountability I want to come back to
that right yep you've gotta have someone
in your company who owns the market
research who in a company Eric would you
give an example or best practice that
would do this yeah I think larger
companies have what you would call chief
strategy officer that typically owns
something like this smaller companies
you might have your CMO VP of Marketing
own market research so it's you know
time somewhat irrelevant we don't really
care as long as it actually gets done
and somebody is responsible and
accountable responsible for conducting
it accountable ensuring that it makes it
actually gets happy yeah so I am you
know it's interesting those you can't
cheat so you can't just do secondary
research right you've in Gardner and IDC
you got to do the primary research and
what I found is that those organizations
stay cheap they don't actually in a very
regular basis do the primary research
and then what happens in-depth like
black blackberry yeah completely out of
alignment right if you're not doing
yourself then you know no so perfect
segue damn thank you so what else should
you be doing right so you should be
doing customer prospect employee and
competitive research right so I said a
lot there we're gonna show you how to do
that here in a second right so what
programs should you have
place to ensure alignment in the market
right these may simple be seem simple
but according to SBI's research only 9%
of companies have achieved full
alignment internally and to the market
right most companies are not fully
aligned and that that alignment gap is
typically within what to the market as
well got it so let's take each one of
those since you mentioned right customer
prospect employing competitive its
customer research so most companies have
some type of customer satisfaction of
data intelligence executive mapping
under your key accounts will also help
you get gather good good you know
customer research sharing of product
roadmaps and OEM relationships sales
interactions or maybe a dialogue day in
the life of with a sales professional so
what what's that what's a day in the
life of yeah that's really riding
spending time in the field with a sales
professional from warning to late
afternoon or evening and why is that
important
selling time is just as important
sometimes as non selling time and so
obviously when we see a customer at
selling time we get great market data
market research from that but we also
during non selling time learn the
idiosyncrasies of the sales rep what
does this mean is that what are they
doing every single day what are they
learning in the market how are they
prospecting what's working and
networking it's an example of great
market research and customer research as
well - yeah so in the context of what it
is a retirement which is customer and
prospect research we can see how those
guys are interacting right how the
customers and prospects are responding
to the things that our sales
organization is doing the messaging the
products so on and so forth so those
insights are invaluable they are
invaluable another way to do this is
buyer and user
persona interviews now our persona is a
representation of a buyer right and
these interviews will address in a more
we'll go through these in a second right
but the list can go on so let's not lose
sight of the goal here right
user buyer an account segmentation
obtaining insights that will allow us to
segment each within the markets we play
in is paramount tip so that's you
covered customer segmentation so I'm
gonna get into a little bit more detail
on the prospect research okay right so
what's one of the first methods win-loss
interviews it's a great source of data
why because you really find out more
about your alignment to the market there
then even then you will anywhere else
right if you think about it right so
what you're trying not to do is have a
conversation on features and benefits of
your product that's really about
identifying where the alignment result
resides so are we solving the prospects
customers or prospects problems right if
we if we lost a deal that's a pretty
good indication that we we fell down
somewhere right so it's identifying what
that looks like so you should be asking
questions about the buyer you know in
the in these different stages of his or
her buying process and then map those to
your marketing and sales processes
did we not truly understand stand the
buyers of the solution or better yet the
impact in the entire buying decision
team right the reason of recent research
has come out to say buying decision
teams are about five point four people
now that's pretty high yeah and we
learned from this research as well too
that consensus building is critical so
that you know it's a different topic
right but you learn from this prospect
research on how your sales people can
change the way their quote-unquote
selling to the buying process by really
understanding the prospect right so in
that post-mortem win-loss interview is
critical especially on the losses right
yeah so second method you'd be thinking
about would would be social listening so
are you hanging out so to speak on
social media where your customers and
prospects are hanging out right what are
they saying what industry forms do they
belong to are they in leaked in groups
you know these are the things that the
marketing team or somebody that's
accountable for market research should
or could be doing right now cuz its user
user problems remember one of our recent
customers did some social listening and
they found out that Instagram is
becoming more prevalent in their
business where they're now posting
pictures and attracting people to
to their business through you know
active demand that's an example that
they'd never used just six months ago so
why would I care us that so what would I
change as a result of finding that out
yeah so what what you want to change is
the way your sales people prospect and
by incorporating maybe Instagram if it's
relevant into your social reach programs
you can increase the number of active
leads that come into you because
Instagram is a is definitely a source
that you pull in leads
so it's active demand it's an awareness
type of type of technique and then I'll
increase the number of coldly qualified
leads as well too yeah so if I think
about an alignment standpoint on
marketing right if I look at my
marketing budget and I say all right hey
Instagram is hot for us right now yet I
have zero dollars in my social media
marketing budget what do I need to do
right allocation of people time and
money I need to get I need to get
dollars into that bucket right and then
now you actually have proof that that is
a valuable way to spend those dollars
why you've got to continue to do this
market research you can't lay office
things oh look yeah so Dan we talked
about customer prospect research and you
you mentioned dial us right so sales
interactions your sales reps are gonna
are going on let's call it ten calls per
week right so how you obtaining insights
from customers and prospects there
there's potentially thousands of
interactions which you couldn't then
incorporate into your market research
process right again buyer user persona
interviews are one of the best ways to
stay aligned dan can you explain to us
what a persona is yeah I can I mentioned
it's a little bit earlier but
straightforward is a representation of
the buyers and users you interact with
within the accounts in your market by
developing a persona you'll be able to
better understand your buyers objectives
obstacles challenges strategic
initiatives key performance indicators
etc right you will also develop what we
call a buyer process map this is the de
journey that your buyer goes through
when making buying decisions can you
give us a little bit more detail there
yeah of course these are the stages the
buyer goes through now these stages
typically have exit criteria or
sometimes called verifiable outcomes
so what is his exit criteria it's
something that the buyer demonstrates to
let you know that he or she is ready for
the next stage in the process in
addition to that it would include what
are called micro questions so what are
those
they are the questions that your buyer
is asking themselves throughout and in
every stage of the buying journey
it's almost Eric like there's asking
questions in their head all right so
what would be examples of those right
I'm sure our audience would like to know
what it is let's say your buyers a CIO
chief information officer right and in
the buyer is buying technology and is
what we call in the stimulated stage
which in an early stage of a buying
journey what types of questions would
they be asking you well since they
aren't stimulated usually some type of
trigger event has happened so they're
probably asking them questions like how
do I prevent another data breach what
are the best practices for security
protocol how will this affect me and
should I care those are questions that
in in the CIOs head is asking them it
selves that's great buyer insight
because then you can really use that
know how to use it number different ways
right you can actually use it through
understanding how to market to the buyer
so if you start answering the questions
that CIO is asking himself through
content whether that's marketing and/or
your salespeople you know early stage
buying that I'll be able to then to what
position your services or solution in a
much more formidable way and be able to
influence early stage buying and
solution perfect yeah yeah if I think
about it right so a lot of companies
come up against do-nothing versus losing
to their competitors a lot right so if
you're in those early stages and you
understand what the buyer is thinking
and you're actually you know developing
the fact that okay I need to solve their
problem and I'm excuse me they need to
say I need to solve my problem right and
I can't do it by doing it myself and
you're halfway through the battle well
look at the product write the product
roadmap could include answers to those
questions
as well - and can the products solve
that those those are solved
answer those questions right and if they
can do that then you can really go all
the way through marketing sales and then
eventually your talent strategy if you
think about corporate strategy alignment
cool alright so Dan for audience by
creating buyer personas and buyer
process Maps you're answering the
following questions which are which are
critical to conducting market research
right who are buyers right who makes a
decision when buying our solution what
do our buyers care about right we kind
of talked about the objectives obstacles
challenges what keeps them up at night
how they're measured you know they care
about how they're measured right it's an
outward in view on the market right how
do our buyers how do our buyers make
purchase decisions so you you outlined a
BPM for us a buyer process map that's
how they make their decisions right and
what do our buyers value when engaging
with our team again this is now saying
okay well how can I be different right
how do I know them better than they know
themselves and lastly what must our team
be best in class in to succeed in our
industry right so again we understand
them better than they know them then
they understand themselves I think that
last sentence is the key yeah yep gotta
understand them better they understand
themselves so you talked a little bit
about user personas and you talked about
product right so tell me how product and
user personas you know so well one how
are user personas different than buyer
personas and then how does the product
integrate with these user personas yeah
so user personas are very similar but
the obvious distinction is that the
buyer persona is typically part of the
buying decision team that makes a
purchase decision for your product or
solution the user is the individual that
will directly benefit or actually use
the product or solution common sense
right essentially your product solution
solves the market problems that the user
persona experiences every day and the
key delineation by creating the user
persona you are answering the following
questions just like the buyers who are
our users what are the users trying to
get done Saul what's problems trying to
solve what prevents
our users from completing their job what
alternative solutions exists for users
to address their needs what do our users
value when engaging with our team
what must our products be best-in-class
to succeed in our industry right so the
lonely if I just connect this to right
so a user has the market problem right
and our product should be you know
solving that market problem because if
one doesn't exist those users don't
exist and we don't really even have the
product now you asked about product
right he just mentioned this so that's
where I think that the product team
really can value more than he did buyer
persona user personas so I guarantee
this and most of our audience probably
don't have the product team creating
user personas today right which they
really should be doing you know so
that's certainly a best practice
absolutely okay it's time for another
short commercial break but don't go
anywhere because on the other side of
this break we're gonna talk about
incorporating competitive intelligence
and employee feedback into your market
research so don't go away
you are watching SBI TV this is a
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welcome back everyone I'm Eric Estrella
it's my buddy Dan Perry right here
we're with SBI today we're trying to
help you make your 2016 number by
demonstrating how to align your
corporate and functional strategies to
the market by conducting primary market
research so before the break we walk
through how you would conduct research
within your customer and prospect base
the other lens you would should be
looking at are in the competitive lens
and the employee lens all right Eric
let's discuss employee feedback why the
employees technically they are internal
resources but often you will find men
have been in many have been in your
industry for a number of years many have
likely worked for a competitor so you
can obtain market insights and
competitive intelligence of course
ethically right by tapping into your
employees knowledge they may have worked
in markets you are trying to penetrate
but don't discount employees that have
worked in two other industries that
could implement emerging best practices
into your company so an example would be
an employee that worked for a SAS
technology software as a service that is
suggestions on how to optimize a
customer engagement in a services
company or maybe vice-versa right the
point is you will often find yourself
conducting emerging best practices if
you are doing something new or different
so II there are multiple ways of
obtaining feedback we talked about
survey interviews team Huddle's die
glows discussions focus groups the key
takeaways that you look internally to
your employees to obtain market feedback
as well so let me give you a quick
example so one of the best companies
I've ever seen when obtaining market
feedback asked three very simple
questions what do you start and stop and
keep doing as an organization right so
you'll find that just by asking those
very easy open-ended questions you'll
get an inordinate of feedback that is
relevant to your organization stay in
alignment with the market yeah it's
pretty impactful absolutely so last but
not least is competitive intelligence
right the reasons are obvious so what
are their strategies how do they win do
they went on product customer
experience on price right so the list
goes on so what are the methods to to
actually do this right so conduct
mystery shops so this will give you
insight and competitors on how they
market and sell no wait wait a minute no
time out yep I get this FAQ of a mystery
shop right and but how would you do this
how do you pull this off because it
seems complex that's why probably
doesn't happen a lot yeah it could be as
simple as just a forum phone on the
website right how do they market to you
you know what is their nurture path look
like there are different things like
that obviously we're not gonna do
anything unethical but you can just get
publicly public information from your
competitors and just derive insights
from it right yeah so in a sense one of
the ways to do this is go on a website
form fill yeah right and see what kind
of response you get totally who calls
you back right so think about that what
content do they give you who calls you
back how quick do they call you back you
know do they suit you an email you can
find a lot about information about your
competitors just by getting very simple
data points just like that it has a
pretty tackle right yeah so we talked
earlier about win-loss interviews them
the importance of each right so
understanding why a buyer you know may
have chosen your competitive solution is
critical right secondary market research
firm such as Gartner IDC Forrester we
talked a little bit about those early on
they have a wealth of information about
your competitors that's publicly held
information that is not unethical to
obtain right and then lastly is Intel
from employees and partners again only
have done ethically so let me ask you
this question Dan so we kind of talked
about a little bit earlier how often
should we be conducting market research
yeah we mention it consistently yeah
right it's absolutely critical that you
do this on a regular cadence and cadence
really means a rhythm to it right so let
me just think about this so market
research is not an event right so it
should just be the methodology that you
should follow is constant a constant ear
to the ground you know because that
continuous feedback loop is going to be
critical for you to understand this
right think about your buyer and user
personas how often you're doing those
interviews right this should be monthly
at least
right because how would you know if your
buyers are users or changing if you're
not constantly engaging you know Aaron
made me think about when we started this
conversation right have someone own it
that was accountable for it and if you
do that then in their job description
they have to go ahead and conduct market
research on a regular basis
so remember the goal alignment to the
market that starts with the market
research phase by conducting the
different research methods you can
effectively achieve user buyer account
and market segmentation by customer
research to ensure your strategy's
aligned your customers prospect research
to ensure your strategy line to your
prospects employee research to ensure
employ your employees are aligned to
your strategy and the market that's
critical and nevertheless competitive
research right to ensure your strategy
is different than your competitors yep
so Dan unfortunately we are out of time
on today's episode but we would like to
thank you our viewers for tuning in if
you enjoyed this show I suggest you
subscribe to SBI TV at
salesbenchmarkindex.com slash TV or you
can find us on our SBI YouTube channel
we have some outstanding content coming
in future episodes that you will not
want to miss so until then Dan and I
wish you the best of luck as you try to
make your number
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