#43: Listen as Ben Stroup, the President and Founder of Velocity Strategy Solutions, introduces us to the idea of building your growth strategy around your customer. We discuss how it can be applied to sales and marketing through methodology and a relentless focus on improving lifetime value.
Listen to the episode by clicking play below OR search “the sales lift” wherever you get podcasts.
Important Links:
Velocity Strategy Solutions Website
Don’t feel like listening? Read the Episode Cliff Notes instead below:
Building Around the Customer (0:16)
The people most likely to give the best qualitative and quantitative intelligence is the sales team. The problem is organizations aren’t engineered to extract that information out.
Tyler adds that it sounds like sales teams miss the mark and aren’t extracting that feedback loop where all that crucial information mined from those conversations aren’t making it back to the rest of the organization.
It starts with the leadership commitment. At executive tables, there’s often what Ben calls confirmation bias.
The people there are incredibly successful, and that’s what leads them to the leadership table. But they bring what made them successful to every situation, forgetting that it was likely a different context scenario when they experienced their success.
Ben calls crossing the great divide when you go from being a star, individual performer to creating environments for other people to be successful.
When we start to look at the customer as not merely a transaction but an initial transaction in a future relationship that drives a lifetime value.
We shift the conversation to how do we create value for the customer?
Balancing Lifetime Value (6:46)
Early-stage attributes can lead to lagging indicators of health, and we can translate that into how we approach maximizing lifetime value, particularly in sales.
The only reason someone’s buying from any organization, and not somebody else’s, is because of the relational equity that the organization has.
Our ability to connect one-on-one is our ability to project confidence in the age of empathy. Trust is the currency. So, project that connection and say- you can trust me to help you achieve what’s most important.
It can and should be mutually beneficial, and that has to be represented in the prospecting process. And it’s better to walk away from a deal than to try to force it forward.
When you’re clear on who you’re selling to, their problem, and how you solve it, you have better leads. You can close them faster, have a higher ACV, and happier customers at the end of the day.
Questions of Methodology (14:43)
From the executive standpoint, you really have to have a culture of a learning period.
You have to believe value and learning experience is happening every 90 days and balance it with qualitative and quantitative aspects and dimensions.
Ben explains we need to slow down and remain curious. We have to look at every conversation as if it’s brand new. If we put ourselves into the experience, it’s going to make us ask better questions.
People who love what they do are naturally better sellers.
Sometimes, the team presents to the client and depending on multiple factors, you may bring more people into the sales process. Other times, it’s getting the right people internally around the table to solve that problem.
Ben Stroup’s Bio:
Ben Stroup is Chief Growth Architect and President at Velocity Strategy Solutions, a next-generation business strategy and management consulting firm focused on helping ambitious leaders align teams, reduce complexity, eliminate friction, and drive revenue.
He is a futurist, disruptor, and data champion having served organizations from $5MM to more than $500MM in revenue for more than 18 years. Ben’s written and edited dozens of books on leadership and growth and is a frequent speaker, podcaster, and guest for business and industry groups.
His most recent book, Master the Pivot, was release in 2020. Ben and his wife and two boys live in the Nashville, Tennessee area.