Joshua Feinberg discusses how data center marketing and sales consulting firms reach decision-makers by focusing on their business model, product-market fit (PMF), and go-to-market fit (GTMF).
He emphasizes understanding client profiles, geographic targeting, company size, and industry verticals.
Feinberg emphasizes the importance of educational content and events in building trust and guiding potential clients through the buyer's journey.
He notes that committees make modern purchase decisions, necessitating strategies that educate multiple stakeholders.
Feinberg advises consulting firms to adapt their marketing and sales approaches to reflect current buyer behavior, emphasizing value-addition and thought leadership throughout the sales process.
Action Items
- Clearly define the company's business model, services, and stage of product/go-to-market fit.
- Develop an ideal client profile based on geography, company size, and industry/vertical.
- Build a target account list and identify the key buyer personas within those accounts.
- Create educational content, events, and thought leadership to guide the buyer's journey.
- Implement marketing automation to engage the entire decision-making team.
Outline
Understanding Business Model and Product Market Fit
- Joshua Feinberg emphasizes the importance of understanding the business model and determining if the company has achieved product market fit (PMF).
- PMF involves knowing the perfect clients, the services they purchase, price points, duration, and basic unit economics like client lifetime value, acquisition cost, and profitability.
- Go-to-market fit (GTMF) is about scaling beyond founder-led sales and knowing the outcomes when investing in sales and marketing growth.
- The firm's maturity determines the clarity needed on who the clients are and what services they need.
Geographic and Company Size Targeting
- Joshua discusses the importance of geographic targeting, considering whether services can be provided globally or in specific regions.
- The size of companies in the data center ecosystem, ranging from startups to enterprises, is crucial to understanding the niche and company capabilities.
- The intersection of geographic and company size targeting depends on the firm's internal capabilities and service roadmap.
- Business models and vertical industry components also play a role, with additional expertise needed for highly regulated industries like healthcare or financial services.
Ideal Client Profile and Target Account List
- An ideal client profile should document a rough idea or hypothesis about the clients, including geographic and company size components.
- The profile should reflect the consensus on target accounts, helping to build a target account list of potential clients.
- Understanding buyer personas within these accounts is crucial for building relationships and educating them throughout the sales process.
- The buyer's journey has evolved. Because people are allergic to spending time with salespeople, self-propelled buyer journeys are predominant.
Educational Content and Marketing Automation
- Educational content and events are essential for building trust and guiding potential clients through the buyer's journey.
- The typical 28 touchpoints between a stranger and a purchase decision should focus on educating and addressing goals, challenges, and questions.
- Marketing automation, such as encouraging multiple employees from the same company to attend events, helps reach decision committees.
- The goal is to win over the company's first representative and incorporate natural marketing automation to reach the full decision committee.
Adapting to Modern Buyer Preferences
- Joshua highlights the need for consulting firms to adapt to modern buyer preferences, which have changed significantly in the last decade.
- The playbook for marketing and sales should reflect these new realities, focusing on being teachers, consultants, and trusted advisors.
- Firms must add value throughout the buyer's journey, as subject matter experts and thought leaders.
- This approach ensures that consulting firms can be helpful to clients who are also adapting to similar buyer preferences.
Resources
Watch the full podcast Ep. #61 Joshua Feinberg, CEO of DCSMI | Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast
- Connect with Joshua Feinberg, CEO at DCSMI, on LinkedIn
- Follow DCSMI on LinkedIn
- Follow the Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast on LinkedIn
- Learn About DCSMI
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