Fundamentals matter! In sports, top performing athletes are always making sure they’ve got the fundamentals dialed in. Same is true in business especially in today’s crowded marketplace.
And the fundamentals of business growth are these: unique brand identity, laser focused ICP, compelling service offer and choosing the best marketing channels for your stage of growth.
Let’s explore each one in a bit more detail.
- A unique brand identity that elevates you above and differentiates you from other fractionals in a crowded CXO marketplace.
Why it matters. Your brand identity expressed in one engaging visual, one compelling sentence and one clear brand voice ensures you stand out from the crowd. People come to you, so you don’t have to chase after them. People come to you knowing your value, so you don’t have to explain it to them. You can bring in new clients in a meeting or two instead of six months or more.
In the case of my IT solutions client, LCS Technologies, claiming their unique brand identity led to a 2800% increase in revenue over two years. A startup specializing in Oracle migration, LCS was competing against large firms able to undercut their pricing. Our marketing audit showed that while LCS charge a bit more than their competitors they also completed projects faster and with fewer coding errors than the big guys who simply threw cheaper talent at the problem. We rebranded LCS as the Elite Technical Team with a cost/benefit analysis to back it up and helped them drive that astounding 2800% growth.
- A comprehensive Ideal Client Profile (ICP) that gets you laser-focused on who your ideal clients are, where they are and what motivates them to buy from you.
Why it Matters. Without a laser focused ICP, you’ll waste thousands of dollars and hundreds of non-billable hours trying to find the right prospects and figuring out if they will understand your value and if they’d be willing to pay for it.
By contrast, a tightly focused ICP helps you to quickly identify the unique pain points and challenges of your ideal clients. This means you can develop high-value, customized solutions which command higher fees.
Your ICP must include who your prospects are (demographics), Why they are motivated to buy from you (psychographics) and most often overlooked where they go for information and decision making around the services they buy.
In the case of my SaaS client, Catapult, it was the “where they are” challenge that was really tripping them up. They were spending thousands of dollars on digital advertising and social media with terrible results. Octain was called in to develop their customer profile and journey mapping. We discovered their clients weren’t going on the Internet for vendor selection. They were going to trade shows. We shifted their budget to 85% trade shows and helped Catapult grow from $2M to $7M in three years.
Here’s the question: How tight is your ICP? Do you know exactly who your clients are, precisely why they are buying from you and where they are looking for types of services?
- A distinct value proposition and an irresistible service offer that unequivocally articulates why businesses need to hire you as their fractional CXO, positioning you as the undeniable choice for driving their success.
Why it Matters. When your service offer is perceived as highly valuable and unique, clients become less sensitive to price. They are more focused on the benefits and outcomes rather than the cost, allowing you to maintain or even increase your pricing.
As with your unique brand positioning, prospects will come to you eager and motivated to work with you. You’ll spend far less time selling your value and more time doing the work you love: helping business owners grow their revenue and profits.
For our IT client 42 Inc. their irresistible offer was the exceptional customer service they provided to their wealthy family office and country club clients. They’re service was so exceptional that when one of their client’s laptops died just as their private plane was about to take off for an event, 42’s tech team drove to the airport and replace it on the spot. That’s how 42 Inc. earned the tag line: 42 Inc.: The Answer to Everything IT.
Here’s the question: How distinctive and irresistible is your current offer? Is it time for a tune up?
- Choosing the highest ROI marketing channels. There are a hundred things that you could do to market your business, there are one or two that a small business owner or fractional executive should be doing. Which are the right channels for you?
Why It Matters. Trial and error marketing is expensive, time wasting and business killing. At Octain we have formula for benchmarking the projected ROI of a marketing program before we launch it. That formula has saved our clients thousands of dollars in wasted marketing activities.
Here’s the question: How confident are you that you are investing in the most effective marketing channels for your business?
The fundamentals matter for high business performance.
If you’re feeling like you need to get your marketing fundamentals back in shape, we have an offer for you.
Check out Octain’s new Business Builder Blueprint here and make the fundamental changes you need to take your business to the next level.