How-to-Make-Your-Number-in-2017

10 T H A N N U A L W O R K B O O K
HOW TO MAKE
YOUR NUMB ER IN 2017
… A N D E V E R Y Y E A R
T H E R E A F T E R

How to Make Your Number in 2017

2
4
20
30
46
330
364
378
388
392
Introduction
PART 1 What Is the Revenue Growth Methodology?
PART 2 Why Implement the Revenue Growth Methodology Now?
PART 3 How Is the Revenue Growth Methodology Different From…?
PART 4 The Steps of the Revenue Growth Methodology
PART 5 The Business Case for Implementing the Revenue Growth Methodology
PART 6 Implementing the Revenue Growth Methodology
PART 7 Risk Assessment
Conclusion
About SBI
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
The cover image as well as images throughout this book are of McKinney
& Olive, the newest office tower in Uptown Dallas and the location of SBI’s
executive briefing center, opening late 2016.
12017 SBI Workbook

2 Introduction
This workbook is for executive leadership teams inside of companies with
aggressive revenue growth goals, who have a lot on the line, and can’t
afford to waste time.
If this does not describe you, stop reading now. This workbook is not for you.
I F T H I S D O E S D E S C R I B E Y O U , K E E P R E A D I N G .
I N T R O D U C T I O N
W H Y S H O U L D I R E A D
H O W T O M A K E Y O U R
N U M B E R I N 2 0 1 7
( … A N D E V E R Y Y E A R T H E R E A F T E R ) ?

32017 SBI Workbook
Why? This workbook will significantly increase
the probability of you making your number.
How? It teaches you the emerging best
practices from the world’s top growth leaders.
These are leaders in the top 22%, those who
consistently grow their revenues faster than their
competitors, and faster than their industries.
What can you learn from them? To net it out,
there is one thing they do that others don’t.
They hit their revenue growth number every year.
The average executives, the remaining 78% are
inconsistent. They make their number one year,
miss it the next, make it one quarter, miss it the
next, and so on.
Lots of executives land in the right place at the
right time and temporarily grow the top line.
But, the truly great growth executives don’t rely
on luck and timing. They exceed their revenue
targets regardless of the circumstances. They
make their number all the time, and this is why
they are special.
What is their secret sauce? You need to read
the workbook, and go through the exercises,
to learn the specifics, but let us try and sum it
up in a few sentences here in the introduction.
Best-in-class growth executives blend strategy
and execution masterfully. They understand
that this quarter’s results reflect actions they
took a year ago. And next year’s results will be
determined by the actions they take today.
Some executives just focus on strategy (i.e., doing
the right things) and suffer periodic short-term
revenue misses. They sound good but don’t
produce. And other executives just focus on
execution (i.e., doing things right) and suffer
periodic long-term revenue misses. They work
hard but are unreliable, going from hero to
goat quickly, and expectantly.
Growth executives in the top 22% work on
strategy, and tactics, together in unison, resulting
in making the revenue number always, in a
predictable, hassle-free way.
It is easy to be good. It is difficult to be great.
If you want to be great and grow revenues
faster than your competitors, and your industry,
read on.
We have codified these emerging best practices
in a methodology you can implement at your
company. It is called the Revenue Growth
Methodology, or RGM for short, and it is your
ticket to a great 2017, and every year thereafter.

W H A T I S T H E R E V E N U E
G R O W T H M E T H O D O L O G Y ?
M A T T S H A R R E R S | P A R T N E R
P A R T 1

72017 SBI Workbook
What is an emerging best practice?
An emerging best practice is a process or a methodology. It is used by
the top 22% of growth executives, the best-of-the-best. It has not been
adopted by the remaining 78% of industry executives, yet. Emerging
best practices cause accelerated revenue growth. Think of them as
powerful differentiators.
In contrast, a best practice is a process or a
methodology used by many. Given their wide
adoption, best practices often do not result in
accelerated revenue growth. With many
executives implementing the same things,
often in the same industry, best practices are
not as impactful as emerging best practices.
Think of them as “nice to haves.”
Furthermore, Standard Operating Procedures
(SOPs) are also often processes and methodologies.
They are different than emerging best practices,
and different than best practices. SOPs are
industry standards. They do not cause revenue
growth to accelerate; however, if not in place,
they may cause revenue to decline. Think of
them as requirements.
This workbook has codified many emerging best
practices into a single emerging best practice,
called the Revenue Growth Methodology.
It is presented in this workbook alongside standard
operating procedures and best practices.
Executives using this workbook all have one thing
in common: grow revenues.
However, many will have different starting points.
Some will need to install some SOPs to stop, and
reverse, a revenue decline.
Some will need to implement best practices to
catch up to their competitors who might be
growing faster than they are.
And some will need to implement emerging best
practices to leapfrog their competitors in order to
grow faster than their competitors and industry.
In each of these scenarios the Revenue Growth
Methodology will increase your probability of
making your number.
To learn more about the Revenue Growth
Methodology, read on.
R E V E N U E G R O W T H M E T H O D O L O G Y
W H A T I S I T ?
W H Y ?

8 PART 1 | What Is the Revenue Growth Methodology?
What is it? A Revenue Growth Methodology (RGM) is a management
method used to accelerate the rate of revenue growth.
Why is it needed? It is difficult for executives to grow their revenues faster
than their competitors, and their industry.
How does it accelerate the rate revenue growth? It accelerates revenue
growth by getting the functional strategies of sales, marketing and products
into alignment with the CEO’s strategy for the company.
Roles: The executive leadership teams inside
of growth companies who have aggressive
revenue growth objectives, who have a lot on
the line, and who do not have time to waste.
For example, this is typically the CEO, the head
of sales, the chief marketing officer, the chief
products officer, the CHRO, and business unit
general managers.
Company Sizes: Large companies (>5,000
employees) typically use a Revenue Growth
Methodology at the business unit level, most
often driven by the head of sales. Midmarket
companies (500-5,000 employees) will
implement a Revenue Growth Methodology
top-down driven most often by the CEO.
Small businesses (50-500 employees) frequently
implement a light version of a Revenue Growth
Methodology, often at the request of the board
of directors. Companies with fewer than
50 employees rarely implement an RGM.
Industries: A Revenue Growth Methodology is
used almost exclusively by B2B industries. Our
research, spanning the decade of 2006-2016,
has uncovered versions of RGMs in 20 industry
sectors, with concentrations found in industries
that have complex sales.
W H O U S E S I T ?
D E F I N E D

P A U L R O S E N
Chief Sales Officer |OnDeck
“Any leader that has been in a high growth
organization for an extended period of
time knows that the numbers are always
aggressive and there’s always huge
expectations. I think that you need a
culture and discipline for continual
improvement and optimization.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/rosen

Features of a Revenue Growth
Methodology include steps across
Corporate, Product, Marketing and
Sales Strategies.
F E A T U R E S O F A R E V E N U E
G R O W T H M E T H O D O L O G Y
Step 1 Objectives
Step 2 Markets
Phase 1 Markets
Phase 2 Accounts
Phase 3 Buyers
Step 3 Products
Step 4 Competitors
Step 5 Go-To-Market
Phase 4 Coverage and Channels
Phase 5 Packaging
Phase 6 Pricing
Step 6 Talent
C O R P O R A T E S T R A T E G Y
Step 1 Product Planning
Phase 1 Markets
Phase 2 Accounts
Phase 3 Buyers
Step 2 Product Principles
Phase 4 Buyer Behavior
Phase 5 Customer Experience Design
Step 3 Go-To-Market
Phase 6 Product Road Map
Phase 7 Product Launch and Messaging
Phase 8 Pricing
Phase 9 Packaging
P R O D U C T S T R A T E G Y
SALES
STRATEGY
MARKETING
STRATEGY
PRODUCT
STRATEGY
CORPORATE
STRATEGY
REVENUE
GROWTH
METHODOLOGY

112017 SBI Workbook
M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y
Step 1 Marketing Research
Phase 1 Markets
Phase 2 Accounts
Phase 3 Buyers
Step 2 Strategy and Planning
Phase 4 Brand Strategy and Planning
Phase 5 Brand Positioning and Messaging
Phase 6 Campaign Strategy and Planning
Phase 7 Content Strategy and Planning
Phase 8 Budgeting Strategy and Planning
Step 3 Resources
Phase 9 Marketing Organizational Design
Phase 10 Agency Management
Phase 11 People Plan
Step 4 Execution
Phase 12 Account Based Marketing
Phase 13 Lead Generation
Phase 14 Customer Marketing
Phase 15 Partner Marketing
Step 5 Marketing Support
Phase 16 Product Marketing
Phase 17 Field Marketing
Phase 18 Marketing Operations
Phase 19 Systems
Step 1 Sales Planning
Phase 1 Markets
Phase 2 Accounts
Phase 3 Buyers
Step 2 Engagement
Phase 4 Prospecting
Phase 5 Sales Process
Phase 6 Organizational Design
Phase 7 People Plan
Phase 8 Channel Optimization
Phase 9 Territory Alignment
Phase 10 Quota Setting
Phase 11 Compensation Planning
Step 3 Sales Support
Phase 12 Sales Operations
Phase 13 Sales Enablement
Phase 14 Systems
Phase 15 Back Office Support
S A L E S S T R A T E G Y
L O O K I N G F O R D E T A I L S ? W E W I L L T A K E A
D E E P D I V E O N E A C H O F T H E S E I N P A R T 4 .

We have discussed what a Revenue Growth Methodology is.
Now we need to cover what it is not.
What you are doing today. It will be tempting
to look at components of the RGM, be familiar
with them, and say, “We are already doing
this.” This is likely to be false. The RGM needs to
be looked at in total, and in sequence. It is the
unique combination of the components, and
the order they appear, that allows top growth
executives to generate a return on an RGM
project in a reasonable time frame, with minor
disruption to the business.
A quick fix. Exceeding your revenue growth
objectives several quarters/years in a row is
not easy. Growing revenues faster than your
competitors, and your industry, consistently,
does not happen with short term projects
staffed by part-time resources. A Revenue
Growth Methodology gets the functional
strategies of sales, marketing and products
into alignment with the CEO’s strategy for the
company. This requires investment, and skill.
A large, complex, over-engineered “strategy”
project. Companies that accelerate revenue
growth do so by blending strategy and
execution masterfully. They “do the right
things” and they “do things right.” An RGM
needs to be designed, and implemented, by
specialists with deep domain knowledge in
working with sales, marketing and products to
grow revenues. Strategy without execution is a
waste of resources.
Sales training. A Revenue Growth Methodology
helps companies get in the right markets with
the right products, defeat competitors with
sales and marketing effectiveness, and fill
an organizational chart with superstar talent
capable of executing the CEO’s strategy. Sales
training is one of dozens of tactics inside the
single silo of sales. Apples and oranges.
A software application. A Revenue Growth
Methodology is not a tool. It is a management
method used by the executive team to grow
revenues. A software application is a tool
that might be used to automate some of
the components of a Revenue Growth
Methodology. Two very different things.
A framework. Frameworks developed by
analysts and consultants that come with
subscriptions to advisory services are
academic constructs to help executives
think through difficult problems. A Revenue
Growth Methodology is a step-by-step process
used daily by executives to act, not just think.
An RGM is used by practitioners, whereas a
framework is read about in a research report.
Something that can be implemented by one
executive. Sometimes companies seeking
revenue growth hire a new CEO, head of sales,
CMO or brilliant product engineer. Top talent is
very important but a hire here and there cannot
grow revenue by itself. A Revenue Growth
Methodology is a management method used
by a team, not a single outstanding executive.
Its benefit is derived by getting the executive
team, and their teams, into strategic alignment.
A Revenue Growth Methodology helps an
executive team, not just an executive, reach
their full potential.
W H A T I T ’ S N O T

K E I T H C O X
VP of Sales | UPS Capital
“[Achieving strategic alignment] is a great
feeling because you’re able to pretty much
focus as a sales leader and your sales team,”
says Cox. “Ninety to 99% of the time you are
aligned with the customer and their journey
and where they’re trying to go.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/cox

152017 SBI Workbook
The “macro benefit” of a Revenue Growth Methodology is that it
allows you to make your number, consistently. It does this by helping
you leapfrog your competitors because it is built on emerging best
practices instead of best practices and standard operating procedures.
And this results in you growing your revenues faster than your competitors
and your industry.
These “micro benefits,” and the many others, are a result of getting the
functional strategies of sales, marketing and product into alignment with
the CEO’s strategy for the company.
Underneath this “macro benefit” are several
“micro benefits,” such as:
• Identifying hidden revenue growth
opportunities.
• Developing innovative channels to route
products to market.
• Learning how your buyers make
purchase decisions.
• Revealing how your competitors market
and sell.
• Designing a new customer experience.
• Developing compelling brand promise, value
proposition and competitive positioning.
• Creating new packaging and pricing
approaches to increase win rate.
• Launching new products successfully.
• Executing flawless marketing campaigns that
generate sales opportunities.
• Developing an organizational model with
sales, marketing and product working
in harmony.
• Increasing revenue per sales person
by optimizing territories, quotas and
compensation plans.
W H A T I T D O E S

G A P G U L F
A S S E S S M E N T
E X A M P L E Account Segmentation
Sales Enablement
Sales Process
GULF
GULF
ALIGNED
FOCUS AREA ASSESSMENT
Are You Ready? Use this tool to determine gaps that stand between you
and emerging best practices.
Each row should be focused on a key area of
need (ex., sales compensation plans). Next list
several high-level descriptions of current state.
Then, identify the ideal state based on emerging
best practices. Where your organization is not
following emerging best practices, articulate
the impact this will have on your organization.
Finally, indicate if you are aligned with emerging
best practices. If not, do you have a small gap or
major gulf standing between you and emerging
best practices?
W O R K S H E E T
G A P G U L F A S S E S S M E N T
To download this tool, go to:
salesbenchmarkindex.com/tools/gap-gulf

172017 SBI Workbook
The ideal customer profile is
not defined
Sales training does not yet leverage
mobile tools and gamification
A customized sales process is being
used by sales reps and managers
actively in the field
Define the ideal customer
profile through regular account
segmentation data refreshes
The team uses a mobile-enabled
sales playbook that provides “how-
to” guidance on how to message
to customers
Use a customized, buyer-centric
sales process
Regularly coach the sales reps
on how to follow the process and
manage their pipeline accordingly
Currently sales and marketing are
targeting the wrong accounts
Tools used by the sales rep and
how they message to the customer
varies
Buyer experience is inconsistent
and ineffective
Current use is resulting in excellent
deal velocity and close rate
CURRENT STATE EMERGING BEST PRACTICE IMPACT

FOCUS AREA ASSESSMENTG A P G U L F
A S S E S S M E N T
E X E R C I S E
WORKSHEET
Use this tool to determine gaps
that stand between you and
emerging best practices.
Each row should be focused on
a key area of need (ex., sales
compensation plans). Next list
several high-level descriptions of
current state. Then, identify the
ideal state based on emerging
best practices. Where your
organization is not following
emerging best practices,
articulate the impact this will
have on your organization.
Finally, indicate if you are
aligned with emerging best
practices. If not, do you have
a small gap or major gulf
standing between you and
emerging best practices?

192017 SBI Workbook
CURRENT STATE EMERGING BEST PRACTICE IMPACT

W H Y I M P L E M E N T T H E
R E V E N U E G R O W T H
M E T H O D O L O G Y N O W ?
P A R T 2
D A N P E R R Y | P R I N C I P A L

22 PART 2 | Why Implement the Revenue Growth Methodology Now?
Trends Driving the Interest in a Revenue Growth Methodology
The objective to grow revenues is not a new goal. Executives are hired
to create value for their shareholders and have known for a long time
that the key to a higher valuation is revenue growth. However, what is
new is the persistent rising of expectations. Gone are the days of slow
and steady growth.
Executives leading successful companies
attract new investors who expect the success
to continue forever. Even a small decrease in
growth can result in a large decrease in market
value. The expectation for growth companies is
to grow and grow.
Executives brought in to improve a company’s
performance have low expectations and
substantial room for improvement, to start.
However, once signs of success are visible,
investors push expectations higher and higher.
Executives have to pull off herculean feats to
exceed these revenue growth expectations.
Some refer to this as the “expectations treadmill”
and it is the primary trend behind the interest in
a Revenue Growth Methodology. The revenue
growth available from standard operating
procedures and best practices has already
been captured.
Executives on the “expectations treadmill”
are turning to emerging best practices for
new sources of revenue growth, and specifically
to the Revenue Growth Methodology over
other emerging best practices. The reason
for this is markets, public and private, place
a higher value on revenue growth than
they do profit growth. The Revenue Growth
Methodology is focused on revenue growth,
not profit optimization.
W H Y I M P L E M E N T I T N O W ?

232017 SBI Workbook
1. Slow-growing companies present fewer
interesting opportunities for executives and
so may have difficulty attracting and
retaining talent.
2. Slow-growing companies are much more
likely to be acquired than fast-growing
companies, and being acquired often leads
to executive job loss.
3. Entering new markets with high organic growth
rates is the best source of growth, but often
requires new go-to-market approaches.
4. Existing markets that have matured are sources
of revenue growth only if share can be taken,
which typically requires embracing emerging
best practices.
5. Growth through acquisitions works when a new
Revenue Growth Methodology is implemented
to integrate the acquired companies.
Executives who have
implemented a Revenue
Growth Methodology cite
the following reasons for
doing so:

*Source: SBI 100
Slow-growing
companies present
fewer interesting
opportunities for
executives and
may have difficulty
attracting and
retaining talent.
At the time this workbook was
written unemployment was
at 5%, and for the first time in
years, early signs of wage
inflation became visible. In
some job categories, such as
head of sales, CMO or chief
product officer, competition for
top talent is fierce.
Executives in these job
categories with great track
records are in high demand
and can work anywhere
they want. If your company
is not growing faster than
your competitors, and your
industry, it is unlikely one of
these superstars will come
to work for you. In contrast,
if your company is a growth
story, executives will flock to it
with the promise of valuable
stock grants.
A Revenue Growth
Methodology can help
you attract and retain
outstanding executive talent.
MEDIAN REVENUE GROWTH FOR
THESE 25 COMPANIES
1-year
2.06% 5.44%
3-year
25 OF THE 100 LARGEST SALES
FORCES IN THE WORLD TURNED
OVER THEIR HEAD OF SALES
IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS.*
T R E N D # 1

252017 SBI Workbook
*Source: Forbes “Four Reasons 2016 Will be a Strong Year for MA”
Slow-growing companies are much more likely to be acquired than
fast-growing companies, often resulting in executive job loss.
The amount of capital available for mergers and
acquisitions is at historic highs. Public companies
have bulging cash balances on their balance
sheets and have access to lots of cheap debt.
If they buy your company, you might lose your
job due to redundancies. Private equity firms
have raised enormous sums of capital and need
to put it to work. They are actively looking for
companies to acquire that may be slow growth
today but could be high growth tomorrow with
new management, leaving you out of a job.
Activist investors have war chests, buy up
under-valued shares in the public market, and
push for change. This often means executive
change, which could mean your job.
A Revenue Growth Methodology can save your
job by keeping the acquirers at bay.
T R E N D # 2
1.3 T R I L L I O N
D O L L A R S
O F D R Y P O W D E R E A R M A R K E D
F O R A C Q U I S I T I O N S *
P R I VAT E E Q U I T Y F U N D S
A R E S I T T I N G O N A R E C O R D
For perspective, Japan holds roughly $1.2 trillion in cash reserves

*Source: SBI Revenue Growth by Industry Rankings
Entering new markets
with high organic
growth rates is the
best source of growth,
but often requires a
new go-to-market
approach.
Entering a new market with
growth characteristics is very
attractive because your growth
comes at the expense of
companies in other industries,
which may not even know to
whom they are losing share.
This category of competitor
is the least able to retaliate,
which makes revenue growth
in this sector very attractive.
Entering a new market
usually means developing a
new product(s) that requires a
new go-to-market approach.
A Revenue Growth
Methodology can help
you enter new markets
with new products.
Revenue Growth Rates for Companies in Industries with Organic
Growth greater than 10% are 3x more than Companies
Operating in Industries with Organic Growth less than 10%.
10% = 3x*
R E V E N U E G R O W T H R A T E S
O R G A N I C G R O W T H G R E A T E R T H A N
T R E N D # 3

272017 SBI Workbook
Average Share Gain Durability Rate6.3 M O N T H S*
*Source: SBI 2015 Market Share Gain Research
Existing markets that have matured are sources of revenue growth
only if share can be taken, which typically requires embracing
emerging best practices.
In concentrated markets, share battles often
lead to a cycle of market share give-and-take,
but rarely a permanent share gain for any one
competitor, unless the competitor changes the
go-to-market enough to effectively create a
new hard-to-copy competitive advantage.
Share gain approaches outside of changes to
the go-to-market, such as incremental product
innovation, pricing and packaging, and others
usually come at a steep cost because of
competitive retaliation.
A Revenue Growth Methodology can result in
sustainable share gains in a mature market.
T R E N D # 4

70 = 25
PITNEY BOWES GROWS REVENUE 25%
BY ACQUIRING 70 COMPANIES*
*Source: Harvard Business Review “Rules to Acquire by”
Growth through acquisition works when a new Revenue Growth
Methodology is implemented to integrate the acquired companies.
There are two types of approaches to growing
through acquisitions. Bolt-on acquisitions can
create value for shareholders if the premium
paid for the target is not too high. Creating
growth through large acquisitions tends to
create less value for shareholders. These
happen when a market begins to mature,
and the industry has too many suppliers. While
the acquiring company shows revenue growth,
the combined revenues do not increase, and
sometimes decrease because customers
prefer to have multiple suppliers. Any new
value comes primarily from cost cutting, not
from revenue growth.
Since bolt-on acquisitions can create revenue
growth, many companies do them. When the
new company comes into the fold, its products
and sales people need to get integrated into
the company and this is a good time to design
a new go-to-market plan.
A Revenue Growth Methodology can enable
bolt-on acquisitions.
T R E N D # 5

J I M T E D E S C O
SVP, North American Sales
Veeam Software
“In our case, the virtualization space
that we play in is growing very,
very substantially. If we take a look
at the market growth itself without
taking any market share from any
competitors, we’d be in very high
double digit growth. Running Sales
in North America, I’m challenged
because I feel as though we could
hit those objectives.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/tedesco

J O H N S T A P L E S | P A R T N E R
H O W I S T H E R E V E N U E
G R O W T H M E T H O D O L O G Y
D I F F E R E N T F R O M … ?
P A R T 3

32 PART 3 | How Is the Revenue Growth Methodology Different From…?
We already know that a focus on revenue growth is not a new thing. For
example, some companies seeking growth hire expensive management
consulting companies to invest in new corporate strategies. Others hire
brilliant chief product officers in hopes an innovative new product will
ignite growth. Some invest in marketing campaigns designed to increase
demand, and still others invest in a variety of sales effectiveness programs
thinking these will result in accelerated revenue growth.
This has resulted in confusion.
What does a Revenue Growth Methodology replace, and what
does it complement?
H O W I S I T D I F F E R E N T
F R O M … ?
T H I S S E C T I O N A N S W E R S T H E S E Q U E S T I O N S .

Many corporate strategies are already designed to deliver revenue
growth, which is why CEOs and boards wonder whether they really need
a Revenue Growth Methodology to hit their revenue growth objectives.
If you dig into most corporate strategies you
will find that while they provide lots of value
to most CEOs, the reality is they fall short on
delivering revenue growth. Corporate strategies
are exclusively focused on strategy, as they
should be. As you learned in the introduction,
strategy without execution results in average
to below average revenue performance. To
“make your number” every month, quarter and
year, consistently, requires the perfect blend
of strategy and execution. This is what the top
growth executives do differently than their
peers – blend strategy and execution. And
the way they blend strategy and execution
is by implementing an emerging best practice,
called the Revenue Growth Methodology.
For instance, a corporate strategy will define
which markets the company will compete in.
But, it will not tell the sales team which accounts
to call on. A corporate strategy will define a
revenue and profit objective. But, it will not
determine sales quotas and rep gross margin
targets. A corporate strategy will determine a
company’s competitive advantage. But, it will
not tell the sales team how to beat a competitor
on a deal.
In the end, a Revenue Growth Methodology
focuses on the needs of the sales, marketing
and product leaders in a way the corporate
strategy alone simply cannot. The corporate
strategy provides “must have” value to the CEO
only. Most importantly, given the advances
in corporate strategy development and the
presence of a new emerging best practice
called a Revenue Growth Methodology, the
CEO can work with his sales, marketing and
product leaders in a way never before possible.
Both management tools are necessary, and
it is necessary to understand what each one
does for you, and what it does not do for you.
R E L A T I O N S H I P T O

352017 SBI Workbook
Objectives
Markets
Products
Competitors
Go-to-Market
Sales rep quotas, marketing lead
quotas, revenue and product mix
Territory composition, account
assignments, account plans
Value propositions, positioning
statements, messaging
Win strategies, close plans,
battle cards
Sales organizational design, channel
management, solution bundling, and
discounting/promotional pricing
Company revenue and EBITDA,
growth, valuation, market share
performance
Size of addressable market, growth
rate of addressable market, % market
penetrated, demand drivers
Market expansion or taking share,
new category creation vs. cross
sell vs. upsell, attract new customers
or persuade existing customers
Customer experience vs. product
differentiation vs. cost/price, new
sources of competitive advantage
or extending current sources of
competitive advantage
Cover and channels, packaging,
pricing
CURRENT STATE REVENUE GROWTH METHODOLOGYCORPORATE STRATEGY

The world has changed. Products do not sell
themselves. They have to be marketed and sold
to customers who buy differently today. This
requires a new sales and marketing approach.
In reality, most sales and marketing plans to
launch new products are terrible. They are based
on unrealistic launch goals, do not identify the
initial set of target customers accurately, and
don’t properly take into account the prelaunch
organizational readiness of the sales and
marketing teams. Costs quickly escalate for
flavor-of-the-month tactics to save the launch
that deliver poor ROI, and revenues suffer.
The answer is to develop product strategies
that do more: coordinating with the sales
and marketing strategy, which ultimately
delivers revenue numbers from new products
that exceed expectations. That is where the
emerging best practice of a Revenue Growth
Methodology comes in.
Virtually every company has invested in differentiated products and
services. In fact, SBI’s benchmarking database of ~11,000 B2B companies
reports that annual RD spend averages 11% of revenue, making it a top 3
expense item on an income statement along with COGS and SGA. And
SBI’s 2016 annual research report, which includes interviews with 903 CEOs
of B2B companies, ranks investing in new products as one of the top 4
growth priorities for CEOs, alongside entering new markets, acquisitions
and increasing sales productivity.
The fact is, launching new products works
and can result in lots of revenue growth. But,
unfortunately we have seen far too many
new product introductions fail.
An article published in “The Journal of Product
Innovation Management” titled “Perspective:
Why New Products Fail,” quotes the famed
Harvard professor Clayton Christensen as
claiming that 95% of new products fail.
W H Y I S T H I S H A P P E N I N G ?

372017 SBI Workbook
Focus
Business
Planning
Build
Launch
Account segmentation, buyer
personas, and journey maps
Sales roles plays, competitive battle
cards
Sales role plays, account qualification,
sales training certification
Prospecting, sales methodology,
demonstrations
Market segmentation, product
portfolio, product road map
Product profitability, pricing
Use case scenarios/iterations,
requirements
Messaging, release management
CURRENT STATE REVENUE GROWTH METHODOLOGYPRODUCT STRATEGY

Marketing Strategy +
Revenue Growth Methodology
Because of the limitations of marketing strategy
to grow revenues by itself, a marketing strategy
needs to be augmented with a Revenue
Growth Methodology.
To extract maximum value from a marketing
strategy, companies need to combine it with
the corporate, product and sales strategy.
This combining of strategies is what a Revenue
Growth Methodology does.
Some marketers refer to this as the marketing
strategy multiplier. Without a Revenue Growth
Methodology, you, the marketer, only generate
interest in your products and services. With a
Revenue Growth Methodology, you take it a
step further and convert this interest into revenue.
H O W D O T H E T O P G R O W T H M A R K E T E R S D O I T ?
Marketing strategy is the allocation of people, money and time to build
buyer preference for a company’s products and services.
Marketers build brands, run campaigns,
publish content, generate leads, and contribute
to growing a company’s revenues, among
other things.
A marketer who helps his/her company grow
revenues faster than the industry’s organic
growth rate, and faster than the competitors,
is rare. But, you do exist and here is what you
do differently than average marketers:
1. You blend strategy (i.e., doing the right things)
perfectly with execution (i.e., doing things
right). All execution and no strategy results in
only temporary success: a good year instead
of a good decade. On the other hand, you
realize that all strategy and no execution
results in missing this year’s goals and having
to make promises for a better tomorrow.
2. You do not build your strategy without the
strategic inputs from the CEO, product
leader and head of sales.
M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y

392017 SBI Workbook
Branding
Campaigns
Lead Gen
Budget
Deal participation rate, references,
win rates
Personas, sales cycles, sales process
steps, proposals
Correct markets, products, channels
Return on invested capital, EBITDA
multiple, enterprise value
Brand promise, brand proof points,
brand equity
Audience, programs, activities, offers
Awareness, interest, inquiries,
qualification
% of revenue, program vs.
non-program, category allocation
CURRENT STATE REVENUE GROWTH METHODOLOGYMARKETING STRATEGY

The primary trend driving the
need for a Revenue Growth
Methodology is the “expectations
treadmill.” The concept of the
expectations treadmill was
explained earlier in this workbook,
but it is worth repeating here
because it affects the sales
leader more than anyone else.
The expectations treadmill can be summarized
as follows:
Success elevates expectations. If you are
leading a sales team and producing above
average revenue growth, it is expected you
will continue to do so, maybe forever. If you
are leading a sales team in the middle of a
transformation, once you produce results,
expectations for revenue growth will increase,
maybe unrealistically. You never reach a
destination, running in place, and the speed
is increasing.
Once on the expectations treadmill, there is no
getting off. Therefore, once you have squeezed
all the revenue growth out of standard
operating procedures and best practices,
you must turn to emerging best practices or
risk falling off the expectations treadmill and
suffering a career setback. If you look at most
sales strategies, they are heavily skewed toward
execution, and unfortunately, void of strategy.
And this is why they often fail to produce
accelerated revenue growth.
W H Y I S T H I S ?
The sales leader is trying to prevent falling off
the expectations treadmill. They do not have
the luxury of thinking strategically for if they miss
this year’s number they might be out of a job.
Who can blame them? This is the situation their
company has placed them in.
The need to stay safely on the expectations
treadmill has been the fuel for the growth of
the sales effectiveness industry. Billions of dollars
have been spent on sales software, training and
consulting services, all in pursuit of revenue
growth acceleration.
The top growth executives, those in our top 22%,
have implemented what the sales effectiveness
industry has offered. And they have the results
to show for it. They consistently grow revenues
faster than their industry and competitors.
But, the gains have been hard. To stay on
the expectations treadmill, and deliver
consistent revenue growth, sales leaders
need their sales strategies to be built around
the emerging best practice called the
Revenue Growth Methodology.
Sale strategy is focused on sales, and is mostly
execution-based with little strategy. A Revenue
Growth Methodology is focused on markets,
products, competitors, marketing and sales.
It acknowledges that if you are going to grow
revenues consistently everyone needs to do
their part, not just the sales leader.
R E L A T I O N S H I P T O S A L E S
S T R A T E G Y

412017 SBI Workbook
Goals
Engagements
Organizational
Design
Support
Total revenue, EBITDA, valuation
End-to-end customer experience
Company org chart
CFO, CIO, CHRO
Sales quotas
Sales methodology, sales process
Sales org chart
Sales ops, sales enablement
CURRENT STATE REVENUE GROWTH METHODOLOGYSALES EFFECTIVENESS

# 1
What distinguishes top growth executives from their peers is they have
graduated beyond sales effectiveness. They have embraced a new
emerging best practice called the Revenue Growth Methodology.
Should you do the same? Only you can answer this question.
F I V E S I G N S Y O U N E E D
T O G R A D U A T E F R O M
S A L E S E F F E C T I V E N E S S
H E R E A R E F I V E S I G N S Y O U N E E D T O G R A D U A T E
F R O M S A L E S E F F E C T I V E N E S S P R O G R A M S T O T H E
R E V E N U E G R O W T H M E T H O D O L O G Y :
You are on the expectations treadmill and cannot fall off.
Sustaining growth is very hard, particularly for large companies. The math illustrates this.
Let’s say your industry’s growth rate is 5% and your company currently has $1 billion in annual revenues.
Ten years from now, assuming you grow at 5% per year, your revenues will be $1.63 billion. Assume you
aspire to outperform and grow your revenues by 8% per year. In 10 years your revenues will need to be
$2.16 billion. Therefore, you will need to find new sources of revenue that can grow to more than $530
million per year by the 10th year. Put another way, you would need to reinvent to find such revenues.
Sales effectiveness alone cannot produce this. A Revenue Growth Methodology can when it
combines the corporate, product, marketing and sales strategies. This is why the best growth
executives have embraced it.

432017 SBI Workbook
You make your number
sporadically, but not
consistently, and not always.
Temporary spikes in revenue are misleading.
Sales leaders go from hero to goat overnight.
How come? There are many reasons. For
example, a hot product comes out a year
before your competition can respond, and this
advantage delivers a temporary revenue lift. Or,
sometimes the sales team has underperformed
for some time and a new sales leader is hired.
Shortly after taking the reins, he installs standard
operating procedures, picks the low hanging
fruit, and facilitates a temporary revenue lift.
Another example might be the customer base
gets pushed into a product refresh cycle by the
customer service department. Often this results
in an influx of “new deals.” The sales leader looks
great until the product refresh cycle is over.
There are many more examples.
Sales effectiveness programs, built only on SOPs
and best practices, provide temporary revenue
lifts. A Revenue Growth Methodology allows
you to make your revenue growth target every
quarter, and every year, because it is not solely
dependent on execution. It perfectly blends
strategy (multiyear) with execution (in-year).
Your revenue goal is very hard
to make, and may be unrealistic.
Given the difficulty associated with sustaining
revenue growth, the revenue targets that some
companies set are simply unrealistic. One of the
companies in this year’s research sample issued
a “BHAG” (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of 20%
revenue growth for 20 years. This is a company
with $5 billion in sales. Macro-economic growth
is forecasted to be 1-5% per year for the next
decade. This company (and its sales leader)
has a slim chance of growing 4x that of the
economy for next 20 consecutive years.
Industries, companies and products have life
cycles. At some point market maturation occurs,
and when it does, growth slows until innovation
stimulates new demand.
Sales effectiveness programs often do not take
into account where an industry, company or
product are in their life cycle. This is the reason
these programs often fail to deliver above
average revenue growth.
In contrast, a Revenue Growth Methodology
considers the life cycle of your industry,
company and product, and this is why it delivers
exceptional revenue growth. For an example,
ask yourself, “Will growth come from attracting
new buyers to a product for the first time, or
will it come from having to take share from
a competitor?” The answer to this question
would alter your approach to revenue growth
dramatically, and would be heavily considered
when setting a revenue growth target. This is why
a Revenue Growth Methodology is superior to
sales effectiveness.
# 2 # 3

M A R K L E N H A R D
SVP of Strategy and Growth | Magento
“Make sure everybody is operating
together and going toward
those same goals,” states Lenhard.
“Spending time on that communication
is really important.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/
videos/lenhard

452017 SBI Workbook
Your industry is growing revenues
more than you are.
A company’s revenue growth rate is constrained
by the growth rate of the industry in which it
participates. For example, if the size of your
industry is $10 billion with a growth rate of 10%,
it is growing $1 billion per year. This is the growth
available to the industry participants. If your
annual revenue growth rate is less than 10%,
then you are underperforming. If your annual
revenue growth rate is more than 10%, then
you are outperforming, capturing expansion
opportunities, and taking market share from
your competition.
Sales effectiveness programs are only focused
on sales. And because of this, they often fail to
deliver revenue growth that exceeds that of the
industry. A Revenue Growth Methodology, on
the other hand, is focused on sales plus product,
marketing and corporate strategy. As a result,
top growth executives who rely on an RGM grow
revenues faster than the industry growth rate.
They find themselves in the right markets, with
the right products, at the right time.
Your competitors are growing
revenues faster than you are.
Gains in market share are an important
component of growing revenues, especially
if you are operating in a mature market. Growth
that comes from taking share from competitors
is the hardest type of growth to obtain, and
typically the most expensive. In comparison,
growth that comes from general market
expansion is much less expensive because
competitive retaliation is low since
all competitors are doing well.
Sales effectiveness programs do not deliver
revenue growth by taking share from
competitors. Share gain is very hard to obtain,
and the level of difficulty is too much for sales
effectiveness programs to handle. For example,
sales effectiveness programs do not concern
themselves with pricing and packaging.
These are critical decisions required to take
share and are usually handled by the product
team, which is outside the scope of a sales
effectiveness program. In contrast, the Revenue
Growth Methodology provides a much more
comprehensive approach by considering
markets, products, competitors and go-to-
market. It is the portfolio of benefits of the
RGM that allows it to generate revenue
growth from share gains.
# 4 # 5

PART 4 | The Steps of The Revenue Growth Methodology
T H E S T E P S O F T H E
R E V E N U E G R O W T H
M E T H O D O L O G Y
P A R T 4
G R E G A L E X A N D E R | C H I E F E X E C U T I V E O F F I C E R

2017 SBI Workbook | 47
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Best PracticeBest Practice

Emerging Best Practice. It is used by the top 22%
of growth executives, the best-of-the-best. It
has not been adopted by the remaining 78% of
industry executives, yet. Emerging best practices
cause accelerated revenue growth. Think of
them as powerful differentiators.
Best Practice. Given their wide adoption, best
practices often do not result in accelerated
revenue growth. With many executives
implementing the same things, often in the
same industry, best practices are not as
impactful as emerging best practices. Think of
them as “nice to haves.”
Standard Operating Procedure. They are
different than emerging best practices, and
different than best practices. SOPs are industry
standards. They do not cause revenue growth
to accelerate; however, if not in place, they may
cause revenue to decline. Think of them
as requirements.
SBI has discovered that top producing organizations align their
strategies according to the following process:
In this section, we will facilitate the discussion by asking a detailed set
of questions. These questions are categorized as follows:
S T E PS
48 PART 4 | The Steps of the Revenue Growth Methodology

SALES
STRATEGY
MARKETING
STRATEGY
PRODUCT
STRATEGY
CORPORATE
STRATEGY
REVENUE
GROWTH
METHODOLOGY
492017 SBI Workbook

C O R P O R A T E
S T R A T E G Y
Objectives
Markets
Markets | Accounts | Buyers
Products
Competitors
Talent
Go-To-Market
Coverage and Channels | Packaging | Pricing
1
2
3
4
5
6

What is the solution to a corporate
strategy problem?
Let’s start with how to approach the problem.
First, it is important to frame the problem
correctly. The corporate strategy framework in
the following pages will help.
Second, it is important to challenge your current
assumptions. The exercise questions in this
section will force you to challenge everything.
Third, don’t get stuck in your own frame of
reference. This workbook is based on the
practices used by the top growth executives in
the world. Comparing yourself to what they are
doing will be enlightening.
Fourth, break down the big problem of
corporate strategy into smaller problems.
Corporate strategy is too big to look at in total.
This is why we broke it down into 6 steps.
Fifth, get an objective perspective. You might be
too close to the corporate strategy to analyze it
objectively. This is why we recommend doing this
with one of our consultants.
Lastly, when working on this with the executive
leadership team, use a common language.
This will make complex concepts simple. The
Revenue Growth Methodology is an example
of a methodology with a common language
you can leverage.
Proceed through this corporate strategy section
of the Revenue Growth Methodology. Complete
the exercises and determine if your revenue
growth would increase with a modification to
your corporate strategy.
• Your industry and competitors are growing
revenue faster than you are.
• Your company is undervalued.
• The objectives of the executive team are not
in alignment with the objectives of the CEO
and the board.
• Your markets have matured and you need
to enter new growth markets.
• Your products are not persuading existing
customers to buy more and they are not
attracting new customers.
• Your competitive advantages over your
traditional competitors are eroding and you
now are dealing with a new set of competitors.
• Your go-to-market model is not as effective
and efficient as it needs to be.
This is a big, and difficult, question to answer. Here are some signs that
might indicate your corporate strategy needs modification:
I S Y O U R C O R P O R A T E
S T R A T E G Y A P R O B L E M ?
If you see one, some or all of these issues in your business, it might be wise
to take a fresh look at your corporate strategy.

J O H N M Y E R S
CEO | Rentokil
“Our focus has been about this
concept of the right people
doing the right things in the right
way,” explains Myers. “If we get
our constituents focused right
related to colleagues and
customers and shareholders,
really good things happen.”
videos/myers

1
2
3
4
5
6
D E S C R I P T O R
Create clarity throughout the entire company
by getting everyone laser-focused on the real
drivers of revenue growth.
P R O B L E M
Organizations that have too many objectives
and priorities have none. They risk accomplishing
nothing of significance. A CEO’s strategy
often does not get executed because the
sales, marketing and product leaders are in
their silos pursuing what they feel is important.
This causes strategic misalignment and results
in subpar revenue growth.
Complete the Objectives step by answering the
following by market segment, product, sales
channel in-year and over the next 3 years.
1 . O B J E C T I V E S

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
552017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
What is our growth rate?
What is our organic growth rate and is it sustainable?
What has been the historical organic revenue growth rate for 1, 3, 5
and 10 years?
Do different types of growth earn different returns on capital, so not
all growth is equally value-creating?
What are our drivers of revenue growth?
Market expansion – overall expansion in the market segments
represented in the portfolio.
Market exposure – gaining exposure to growth markets.

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Market share performance — gaining share in a market.
What happens to the multiple(s) with an increase in
revenue growth?
Does revenue growth convert into a proportional
growth in cash flows?
If growth accelerated and we had more capital to
deploy, where would we invest it and why?
What is our return on invested capital, and how does
it compare to our industry and primary competitors?
Are we going to try to increase ROIC by improving
profit margins, or improve capital productivity?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
572017 SBI Workbook
What is the length of our strategic time horizon?
Are we willing to forgo short-term profits to earn much better
returns for shareholders over the long term?
Does our company suffer from short-termism caused from the need
to report on EPS?
Has this caused us to pass up on value-creating opportunities?
What investments are we making today in RD that will drive
shareholder returns in the future?
Are the company’s interests and those of the shareholders
complementary?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
What strategic trade-off decisions have been made to
prioritize long-term value creation?
Which investments will create the most value for
shareholders?
Products
Marketing
Sales
In our business, how are growth, ROIC and cash flow
mathematically linked?
Is it clear how the capital efficiency of sales and
marketing (CAC:LTV) affects total shareholder returns?

K E R M I T R A N D A
CEO|PeopleAdmin
“Our first step is always to put it in the
context of our core values.
As you know, software companies
are people companies. We don’t
have factories, or make widgets.
We have to rely on people (smart,
passionate employees) so we
need to get the values right.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/randa

1
2
3
4
5
6
P H A S E 1 : M A R K E T S
D E S C R I P T O R
Define which markets you will, and will not,
compete in.
P R O B L E M
Being in fast-growing markets is the largest driver
of revenue growth. Least important is market
share growth. Yet, many executive teams tend
to focus most of their attention on gaining share
in their existing markets. While it is necessary
to maintain, and sometimes increase, market
share, changing your company’s exposure to
growing and shrinking market segments should
be a major focus.
Complete the Markets step by answering the
2 . M A R K E T S

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
How big is the overall addressable market?
What is the growth rate of this addressable market?
What % of this market is penetrated today?
What is our “sweet spot” within this addressable market?
What is our growth rate as compared to the growth rate of the
addressable market?
612017 SBI Workbook

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Who are our competitors in this addressable market?
What is the current growth rate of each competitor in
this addressable market?
What is our market share as compared to our
competitors for each market segment?
What are the current and projected demand drivers of
What are the traditional routes to market in this
addressable market?
Are there any innovative routes to market disrupting the
addressable market today?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
How many segments are there in this addressable market?
What are they?
Which segments are growing faster than the market growth rate?
In line with the market growth rate? And slower than the market
growth rate?
What is our customer acquisition cost by market segment?
What is our customer LTV by market segment?
For each market segment, which channels do our target buyers
prefer to buy our products? (e.g., direct field sales, direct inside,
global account management, key account management,
distribution, multi-tier distribution, VAR, systems integrator,
ecommerce, telephone, web, retail)

632017 SBI Workbook

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Is our growth going to come from taking share from our
competitors? If so, what is the forecasted share gain?
Is our growth going to come from market expansion
and, therefore, is not dependent on competitive
share gain?
Have we prioritized any high-growth markets?
How fragmented is our market? (1-3, 4-10, 10+ players)

652017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
What is our ideal customer profile (i.e., what defines our ideal
prospect/customer)?
How does each prospect/customer score relative to our ideal
customer profile?
What is the potential spend for each prospect/customer?
Do we know our share of wallet inside each account?
What is the cost to acquire each customer?
P H A S E 2 : A C C O U N T S

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
What is the lifetime value of each customer?
What is the propensity to buy for each prospect/
customer (i.e., how likely is each prospect/customer to
buy from us)?
What is the intensity of our revenue concentration (i.e.,
does 80% of our revenue come from 20% of
our accounts)?
Do we have our productive marketing channels
covering the accounts with the most potential?
Do we have our best sales channel covering the
accounts with the most potential?

672017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Does each of our high potential accounts understand our full
product portfolio and associated value propositions?
Who are our buyers?
What factors do our buyers consider before they purchase our
product or service?
What is our brand awareness in our addressable market as
compared to our competitors?
When our buyers do not purchase our products, what are their
stated reasons?
P H A S E 3 : B U Y E R S

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
How do our buyers make purchase decisions? Please
describe the buyer’s journey for each market segment,
product, sales channel?
Is the decision to buy our product or service made by a
consolidated, central buying decision team (BDT) or is it
made by a decentralized, fragmented BDT?
Does our customer’s buying process vary in length
by market segment, customer profile, buyer persona,
product, and/or sales channel?
Through which channels do our customers prefer to buy
our products and why?
Have our value propositions been validated by
our customers?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
In terms of unaided and aided brand awareness, where does our
company and product rank relative to our competitors?
What do our buyers value when engaging with our content?
What must our marketing team be best-in-class in to succeed in our
industry?
What is the evaluation criteria used by our buyers when making
a purchasing decision?
When our buyers select one of our competitors over us, what are
their stated reasons why?
692017 SBI Workbook

R I C K H A V I L A N D
President | MarketSource
“Once we segment and then select
the market, we try to drill down our
selection to specific accounts,”
Haviland explains “We then build out
our marketing and sales strategy
to go after these very specific
accounts. This is going to include things
like mapping sales territories, building
out the buyer personas, identifying
key activities, and establishing
success metrics.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/haviland

D E S C R I P T O R
Create new markets through new products.
Attract new customers to an existing product.
Convince current customers to buy more of an
existing product.
P R O B L E M
Not all revenue growth is equal. Some revenue
growth creates more enterprise value than
others. Revenue growth that comes from
increasing market share for a product does
not create much long-term value because
competitors can easily retaliate. Revenue
growth driven by increasing prices of certain
products comes at the expense of the customer,
who can retaliate by buying less and seeking
substitute products. Revenue growth driven by
products that create new markets, attract new
customers and convince customers to buy more
is the most valuable type of revenue growth.
Complete the Products step by answering the
2
3
5
6
3 . P R O D U C T S

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Is our product strategy focused on participating in overall market
expansion (high water raised all ships)?
Is our product strategy focused on market share performance
(taking share from competitors)?
Is our product strategy to accelerate revenue growth by
increasing our exposure to growing product markets, and, if so,
which ones?
Are we planning to exit shrinking product markets and, if so,
which ones?
Which product lines are forecasted to contribute the largest
revenue growth in the next 1, 3, 5 and 10 years?
Does taking share from competitors come at a steep price due
to retaliation?
732017 SBI Workbook

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Does growth from price increases come at a steep
price due to customer defection, decrease in
consumption or seeking substitute products?
Is the product strategy to enter fast-growing product
markets and take revenues from distant companies
rather than from direct competitors or customers?
Is the product strategy to develop new products
that are so innovative as to create entirely new
product categories?
Is the product strategy to grow by persuading existing
customers to buy more of a particular product, or
related products, and, if so, which ones?

752017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Is the product strategy aimed at persuading existing customers
to buy more (cross sell or upsell) and, if so, can this be done with
the existing sales force, or does it require an expensive new sales
force?
Is the product strategy to attract new customers to a product?
Is the product strategy based on incremental innovation
(i.e., enhance instead of fundamentally change a product)?
Are market share gains coming from growth markets where all
competitors are growing, resulting in little retaliation?
Are market share gains coming from mature markets, provoking
strong retaliation?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Is the product strategy based on new product pricing
and promotion in a mature market, and therefore,
likely to be temporary due to retaliation?
Is the product strategy to force smaller companies
out of the market and pick up their share?
Is the product strategy for a concentrated market to
cycle through market share give-and-take with no
permanent share gain for any one competitor?
Is the product strategy to execute bolt-on acquisitions
to complete or extend the product offering, and
leveraging the current routes to market?

P E R R Y O F F E R
CEO | Dialogue
“When it comes to product, you have to spend
sufficient time researching the needs of the
decision-makers, the buyers, and the influenc-
ers such that you bring a product to market
that actually meets the needs of the market-
place that exists in the first place.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/offer

D E S C R I P T O R
Define who you compete with, and how to win.
P R O B L E M
Share battles often lead to below average
revenue growth because the cycle of
market share give-and-take rarely results in a
permanent share gain for any one competitor.
Sustainable revenue growth from share gain
comes from changing the product or its
delivery enough to create what is effectively
a new product. Price wars do not result in
share gain driven revenue growth because
they can result in a decline in sales, and are
not repeatable. This is because customers
will eventually push back, thus eroding any
short-term revenue growth.
Complete the Competitors step by answering
the following by market segment, product, sales
1
2
3
4
5
6
4 . C O M P E T I T O R S

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
792017 SBI Workbook
What is our competitive advantage?
What is the staying power of our competitive advantage?
How does our competitive advantage allow us to earn higher
returns on invested capital than our competitors?
Are the company’s current, and past, competitive
advantages eroding?
Are there new sources of competitive advantage that we can
exploit to generate long-term value?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Are we able to charge a price premium over
our competitors for our products and services?
For instance?
Innovative products – difficult to copy or
patented products.
Quality — real or perceived difference.
Brand — brand preference resulting in premium pricing.
Customer lock-in — customers unable or unwilling to
replace product or service.

812017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Are we able to produce our products and services at a lower
cost than our competitors?
Innovative business method — difficult-to-copy business method.
Unique resources — unique access to raw materials.
Economies of scale — efficient size for relevant market.
Scalable product/process — add customers or capacity at little
marginal cost.
What is the structure of our industry and how does this structure
influence the conduct of each competitor?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
How does this competitor behavior drive the
performance of the companies in the industry?
Using Porter’s Five Forces Model, please describe the
intensity of our competition:
New entrants
Pressure from substitute products
Bargaining power of buyers
Bargaining power of suppliers
Degree of rivalry among existing competitors

832017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
How does our strategy build competitive advantages
to mitigate the pressure of these forces and achieve
superior growth?
What strategies are our primary competitors pursuing in attempt
to thwart these five forces?
What is the variation in return on invested capital among
companies within our industry?
What is the median return on invested capital in our industry
today, 3, 5 and 10 years ago?
Are the market leaders today the same ones they were
20 years ago?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Do our products/services weave together more than
one advantage?
What is the life cycle length of our products?
Can we rely on building on our competitive
advantages by leveraging product renewals?
Do we have to constantly invent new sources of
competitive advantages to sustain acceptable
returns on invested capital?

B A L D A I L
CEO | JDA Software
“[We study our competitors] a couple of different ways. From a
product perspective, our product management group (working with
product development) spends a lot of time analyzing from a product
perspective where are strengths and where are our weaknesses,” Dail
says. “Then marketing does a lot of analysis around obviously how to
position JDA in the marketplace relative to our customers. That’s
broadly speaking where we do all the competitive analysis.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/dail

P H A S E 4 : C O V E R A G E A N D
C H A N N E L S
D E S C R I P T O R
Sufficiently cover your markets. Select and
optimize your sales channels. Price and
package your products correctly.
P R O B L E M
Not covering your addressable market entirely
will result in missed revenue opportunities.
Traditional routes to market are being replaced
with innovative ways to reach customers.
Packaging your products the same way
as your competitors results in perceived
commoditization and a race to the bottom.
Price your products in a way that does not
scale with customer growth and this will result in
revenue leakage. Price your products in a way
that is difficult for your sales channels to explain
the change to your customers and watch your
sales steadily decline.
Complete the Go-to-Market step by answering
the following by market segment, product, sales
1
2
3
4
5
6
5 . G O- TO- M AR K E T

872017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Do we have proper coverage across our addressable market?
If coverages were increased, would this result in a proportional
increase in revenue growth?
Is our revenue growth rate and our coverage growth
rate balanced?
Is the existing coverage model directed at the portion of
the market with the highest growth potential and the lowest
penetration rate?
Is there any “coverage leakage” (i.e., sales resources covering
markets/accounts not in our sweet spot)?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Do our competitors have proper coverage across the
addressable markets?
Are our competitors maintaining, increasing or
decreasing their coverage?
What has been the effect on market share when the
competitors have increased/decreased coverage?
What impact on coverage will the forecasted
demand drivers have?
Are the traditional routes to market still the
most effective?
What innovative routes to market can we implement
that might result in a revenue lift?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
892017 SBI Workbook
Is there an opportunity to lower the customer acquisition cost by
routing products through alternative sales channels?
Is there an opportunity to increase the customer lifetime value by
routing products through alternative sales channels?
Have customer channel preferences changed substantially in
the last few years and how have we responded?
Is there an opportunity to take share by capturing a distribution
channel from competitors?
Is there an opportunity to go after a market expansion
opportunity with an entirely new coverage model?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Does our ideal customer profile definition include the
buyers’ channel preferences?
If an account is willing to be served with a more
efficient sales channel, is this reflected in the account
attractiveness score?
Does the propensity to buy formula change in a
material way based on sales channel?
Does it make sense to cover accounts with lots of
potential with multiple channels to ensure proper
representation of the entire product portfolio?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Is our packaging based on “all you can eat” (i.e., one offer with
all products and features included)?
Is our packaging based on “category bundling” (i.e., packages
that combine a variety of product categories)?
Is our packaging based on “good/better/best” (i.e., a lineup of
packages with increasingly more feature functionality)?
Is our packaging based on “use cases” (i.e., a variety of
packages that are targeted at specific types use cases)?
Is our packaging based on “bundling” (i.e., bundled discounts)?
P H A S E 5 : P A C K A G I N G
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
912017 SBI Workbook

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Do our customers prefer simplicity and are they willing
to live with little flexibility?
Do our customers want lots of flexibility and are they
willing to live with complexity?
Are we focused on widespread adoption and, as
such, are we simplifying when possible?
Are we focused on cross sell and, as such, are we
bundling “filler” products from different categories?
Are we focused on leading in both depth and
breadth and highlighting this through realistic
differences in products/features?

932017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Do some segments value certain benefits more than others?
Do our customers have wide-ranging needs and, therefore, value
flexibility above all else?
What type of packing approaches do our competitors use?
Is the packaging approach the same, or different, for new
customers and existing customers?
Would our customers classify our products as “must haves” or
“nice to haves”?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Which price metric(s) do we use?
Does this price metric(s)?:
Extract value delivered
Differentiate between customer segments
Align revenue and cost
Synchronize payment with consumption
Overcome customers’ buying constraints
P H A S E 6 : P R I C I N G

952017 SBI Workbook
Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Bypass psychological thresholds
Control the level of transparency
Differentiate from competitors
Which pricing metric(s) scale with customer growth?
Which pricing metric(s) are most agreeable to customers?
Does our pricing strategy make it easy for customers to predict
costs over time?
Does our pricing strategy allow our customers to scale the usage
of our products?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
Does our pricing strategy allow our customers to
easily compare us to a competitive offering?
Is our pricing strategy easy for our sales team and
channel partners to explain to customers?
Is it easy, or difficult, to internally track and enforce
our pricing?
Does our pricing strategy preserve future
account opportunity?
Does our pricing strategy properly balance the
benefit to us and our customers?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
972017 SBI Workbook
Do our competitors deploy a similar pricing strategy to us, and
each other, or is there little commonality?
What impact would there be on the sales team (e.g., approvals,
training, comp, systems) if there were changes to packaging and
pricing?

J O H N D E L O R I M I E R
Chief Sales Marketing Officer | Concentra
“I think what really gets interesting to me is taking that product and then
[figuring out] how you get it into market, and how you do that quickly,
and how you do that with some compelling messages, and then how
do you get your sales people ready to [execute these things]. That’s the
piece that I think is really, really broken in most organizations.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/delorimier

D E S C R I P T O R
Match the capabilities of the executive
leadership team to the objectives and
requirements in the corporate strategy.
P R O B L E M
The revenue growth objective is heavily
dependent on having superstar executive
talent. Field an average team and miss the
revenue growth objective. At times, the
revenue growth strategy calls for a new set of
competencies that the existing team does not
possess. And sometimes the competitors have
a talent advantage that results in them winning
more than they should. Mismatch talent and
corporate strategy and suffer from significant
execution problems.
Complete the Talent step by answering the
6 . T A L E N T
2
3
5
6

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Is the growth objective dependent on exceptional sales and
marketing talent, or will great product/industry be sufficient?
Does the career stage of our sales and marketing
leaders match the life cycle stage of the industry,
company and product?
Is the labor expense allocated to sales and marketing leadership
generating an acceptable return?
Could revenue growth accelerate if more investment was made
in sales and marketing leadership?
Could current revenue growth be maintained at a lower
investment level in sales and marketing leadership?
If growth will come from market expansion, are the skills of sales
and marketing leadership appropriate?
1012017 SBI Workbook

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
If growth will come from share gain, are the skills of
sales and marketing leadership appropriate?
Is the sales and marketing leadership measured,
and rewarded, on increasing the valuation of the
company (e.g., growing free cash flow, expanding
the multiple)?
How does our sales and marketing talent compare to
our competitors, industry standards and cross industry
best-in-class?
Does the forecasted tenure of the sales and
marketing leadership team match the strategic time
horizon of the corporate strategy?
Are we willing to disrupt the business if
transformational sales and marketing leadership
talent became available to us?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
What would be the impact of shifting the review cycle from
monthly/quarterly to annually or even multiyear? Would
sales and marketing leadership produce more if this was
to happen?
What investments are we making today in sales and marketing
leadership that will lead to long-term value creation?
Are the interests of sales and marketing leadership
complementary to the interest of the CEO, board
and shareholders?
What talent trade-off decisions have been made in sales
and marketing to prioritize growth?
Has there been a change in routes to market recently? If so,
did this come with a corresponding change in sales and
marketing talent?

1. Objectives 54
2. Markets 60
Markets 60
Accounts 65
Buyers 67
3. Products 72
4. Competitors 78
5. Go-To-Market 86
Coverage and 86
Channels
Packaging 91
Pricing 94
6. Talent 100
If innovative channels of distribution were made
available, would this require adding sales and
marketing leadership talent?
Is it best to have different sales and marketing
leadership for each market segment, or is it best
to have a single leadership team for all market
segments?
Do the profiles of our sales and marketing
leaders reflect the profiles of the buyers inside
our target accounts?
What attributes and competencies do our buyers
value in sales and marketing leadership talent?
What do our sales and marketing leaders need
to be best-in-class in to thrive in our industry?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
What is the evaluation criteria we use when selecting sales
and marketing leadership talent?
What is the evaluation criteria we use when analyzing
the performance of the current sales and marketing
leadership talent?
CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING THROUGH THESE EXERCISES. RIGHT
NOW YOU MIGHT BE THINKING, “WHO IS GOING TO HELP ME GET THE
RIGHT ANSWERS TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS?” YOU CAN CHOOSE FROM
MANY OPTIONS. GO TO PAGE 328 TO ASSESS YOUR OPTIONS USING
THE OPTIONS ASSESSMENT TOOL.

T O D D C I O N E
Chief Revenue Officer | Rackspace
“The plan is critical to understand what
your revenue target is, and what
type of resourcing and capacity that
you need,” says Cione. “Then that
dictates the types of job descriptions
you need and what the ideal
candidate profiles are.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/cione

N O T E S

• Revenues generated from new product
introductions have not met expectations.
• Market share for the current products is
stagnant, or in decline.
• Prioritizing product investments is increasingly
difficult due to changing buyer and user
behavior.
• You need to move beyond what customers
want to understanding why they want it.
• Poor prelaunch sales and marketing readiness
is resulting in disappointing product launches
and poor revenue performance.
• Product messaging is not resonating with the
target buyers, making it difficult to market and
sell the products.
• Customers are not recognizing the value of
the product and they are now exerting price
pressure.
• Poor product packaging is making it difficult
for the sales team to sell the products.
Maybe. Great sales and marketing teams often fail to grow revenue
because they are in the wrong markets with the wrong products.
Here are some things to look for to screen for a product strategy problem:
I S Y O U R P R O D U C T
S T R A T E G Y A P R O B L E M ?
What is the solution to a product strategy
problem?
Product leaders who help their companies
grow revenues faster than their industry and
competitors have a different mindset than their
peers. They approach this from the perspective
of “what can I sell” instead of “what can I build.”
They spend their time with value propositions,
positioning statements, packaging, pricing
and other commercialization activities. They
spend less of their time with engineering and
development. These top growth leaders trust
the engineers will build great products and
delegate that to them. These top growth leaders
spend their time with customers, prospects, sales
leaders and reps, and the marketing team.
Revenue growth comes from best-in-class go-to-
market strategy, and the product leader should
be front and center with this.
Proceed through this product strategy section of
the Revenue Growth Methodology. Complete
the exercises and determine if your revenue
growth would increase with a modification to
your product strategy.
If this describes your situation, you might benefit from modifying your
product strategy.

I N N A K U Z N E T S O V A
President | Inttra Marketplace
“There should be a balanced
approach [to your product
strategy] and that starts with a good
collaboration between Marketing,
Sales, Product Development,
and Product Management. If this
collaboration does not exist,
take the steps to build it.”
videos/kuznetsova

1
2
3
4
5
6
1 . P R O D U C T
P L A N N I N G
P H A S E 1 : M A R K E T S
D E S C R I P T O R
Be in fast-growing product markets.
P R O B L E M
Products pointed at slow-growing markets
have to take share from competitors in order to
contribute to revenue growth. Share gains are
difficult to obtain, expensive and temporary.
In contrast, products that can gain share in a
fast-growing market contribute lots of revenue
growth more easily, less expensively, and this
kind of revenue tends to last longer as it is tied
to the market life cycle.
Complete the Markets phase by answering the

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
How big is the overall addressable market?
What is the growth rate of this addressable market?
What % of this market is penetrated today?
What is our “sweet spot” within this addressable market?
What is our growth rate as compared to the growth rate of the
addressable market?
Who are our competitors in this addressable market?

1. Product Planning 112
Markets 112
Accounts 117
Buyers 120
2. Product Principles 126
Buyer Behavior 126
Customer Experience 130
Design
3. Go-To-Market 138
Product Road Map 138
Product Launch 143
and Messaging
Pricing 147
Packaging 151
What is the current growth rate of each competitor in
What is our market share as compared to our
competitors for each market segment?
What are the current and projected demand drivers
of this addressable market?
What are the traditional routes to market in this
addressable market?
Are there any innovative routes to market disrupting
the addressable market today?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
How many segments are there in this addressable market?
What are they?
Which segments are growing faster than the market growth rate?
In line with the market growth rate? And slower than the market
growth rate?
What is our customer acquisition cost by market segment?
What is our customer LTV by market segment?
For each market segment, which channels do our target buyers
prefer to buy our products (e.g., direct field sales, direct inside,
global account management, key account management,
distribution, multi-tier distribution, VAR, systems integrator,
ecommerce, telephone, web, retail)?

Markets 112
Accounts 117
Buyers 120
Buyer Behavior 126
Design
3. Go-To-Market 138
Product Launch 143
and Messaging
Pricing 147
Packaging 151
Is our growth going to come from taking share
from our competitors? If so, what is the forecasted
share gain?
Is our growth going to come from market expansion
and, therefore, is not dependent on competitive
share gain?
Have we prioritized any high-growth markets?
How fragmented is our market? (1-3, 4-10,
10+ players)

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
D E S C R I P T O R :
Persuade existing customers to buy more.
P R O B L E M :
Products that encourage existing customers to spend
more contribute lots of revenue growth, and this type
of revenue creates lots of enterprise value. Products
that get current customers to spend more can be
produced and distributed inexpensively by leveraging
existing resources such as manufacturing capacity
and sales channels. Products that source revenue
exclusively from new customers produce less revenue
growth, and it is more expensive growth. Your company
will have to increase costs to secure these sales
because new products are often too complex for the
existing sales force to sell, requiring the expense of an
entirely new sales force.
Complete the Accounts phase by answering the
following by market segment, product, sales channel
in-year and over the next 3 years.
P H A S E 2 : A C C O U N T S

Markets 112
Accounts 117
Buyers 120
Buyer Behavior 126
Design
3. Go-To-Market 138
Product Launch 143
and Messaging
Pricing 147
Packaging 151
What is our ideal customer profile (i.e., what defines
our ideal prospect/customer)?
How does each prospect/customer score relative to
our ideal customer profile?
What is the potential spend for each prospect/
customer?
Do we know our share of wallet inside each account?
What is the cost to acquire each customer?
What is the lifetime value of each customer?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
What is the propensity to buy for each prospect/customer (i.e.,
how likely is each prospect/customer to buy from us)?
What is the intensity of our revenue concentration (i.e., does 80%
of our revenue come from 20% of our accounts)?
Do we have our best product support resources covering the
accounts with the most potential?
Does each of our high potential accounts understand our full
product portfolio and associated value propositions?

Markets 112
Accounts 117
Buyers 120
Buyer Behavior 126
Design
3. Go-To-Market 138
Product Launch 143
and Messaging
Pricing 147
Packaging 151
P H A S E 3 : B U Y E R S
Attract new customers to a product.
P R O B L E M :
Sustaining revenue growth is difficult
because most product markets have
a natural life cycle. First, a product
has to prove itself with early adopters.
Revenue growth then accelerates
as more buyers want to buy the product,
until it reaches a point of maximum
penetration. At this point, growth slows,
or even declines. The way to find new
sources of product-driven revenue
growth is to launch new products to
new buyers at the right time in order
to enjoy a long life cycle.
Complete the Buyers phase by
answering the following by market
segment, product, sales channel in-year
and over the next 3 years.

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
Who is the primary user of our product?
What factors do our buyers consider before they purchase our
product or service?
What is our brand awareness in our addressable market as
compared to our competitors?
When our buyers do not purchase our products, what are their
stated reasons?
How do our buyers make purchase decisions? Please
describe the buyer’s journey for each market segment,
product, sales channel?
Is the decision to buy our product or service made by a
consolidated, central buying decision team (BDT) or is it made
by a decentralized, fragmented BDT?

Markets 112
Accounts 117
Buyers 120
Buyer Behavior 126
Design
3. Go-To-Market 138
Product Launch 143
and Messaging
Pricing 147
Packaging 151
Does our customer’s buying process vary in length
by market segment, customer profile, buyer persona,
product, and/or sales channel?
Which channels do our customers prefer to buy our
products and why?
Have our value propositions been validated by
our customers?
In terms of unaided and aided brand awareness,
where does our company and product rank relative
to our competitors?
What do our buyers value when engaging with
our content?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
What must our marketing team be best-in-class in to succeed in
our industry?
What is the evaluation criteria used by our buyers when making a
purchasing decision?
When our buyers select one of our competitors over us, what are
their stated reasons why?

M A R C O S O F S K Y
SVP GM | Lionbridge
“Moving very quickly, in much more of an agile
scrum way, it was pretty minimal documentation
that allowed us to create this product extremely
quickly and with limited development effort.”
salesbenchmarkindex.com/videos/osofsky

N O T E S

2 . P R O D U C T
P R I N C I P L E S
P H A S E 4 : B U Y E R B E H A V I O R
D E S C R I P T O R
Accomplishing product-market fit.
P R O B L E M
Revenue growth will disappoint if your products
do not address an urgent problem of a specific
buyer that he or she is willing to pay to fix.
And your product must do this better than the
alternatives. Sometimes product leaders build
products that produce customer benefits that
don’t address the buyer’s evaluation criteria.
This results in poor win rates, wasted resources
and poor revenue performance.
Complete the Buyer Behavior phase by
answering the following by market segment,
product, sales channel in-year and over the
next 3 years.
1
2
3
4
5
6

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
What buyer problem are we trying to solve?
What buyer behaviors are we observing that provide evidence
of a problem?
What benefits of our product do our customers buy on?
How do we decide which buyer problems are worth solving?
How big is the market opportunity for our chosen solution?
Are our buyers already investing time, energy and money to
solve their problem?

Markets 112
Accounts 117
Buyers 120
Buyer Behavior 126
Design
3. Go-To-Market 138
Product Launch 143
and Messaging
Pricing 147
Packaging 151
Do competitive solutions already exist that solve our
buyer’s problems?
How do we determine how our product will beat the
competition in our market?
How often do we put our product/solution in front
of a buyer to get their opinion on whether or not it
delivers the solution they are looking for?
How do we forecast wallet share?
Within our product opportunity, how do we test for
product-market fit within each of our submarkets?

Standard Operating
Procedure
Emerging
How many of our buyers are adopting our products
and/or features?
How do we use those insights to guide our product management
process and sales forecasting?
How do we use experimentation and iteration to guide our
product management process and to shape our forecast?
When we experiment and iterate our solution, how do we
validate our learnings?
While validating our learnings, how do we decide
whether to pivot to a new solution or persevere in refining
our current solution?

Markets 112
Accounts 117
Buyers 120
Buyer Behavior 126
Design
3. Go-To-Market 138
Product Launch 143
and Messaging
Pricing 147
Packaging 151
Make the customer experience a
competitive differentiator.
P R O B L E M :
Customer’s expectations have risen
and failure to provide an exceptional
experience for each customer results in
poor revenue growth. Some customers
prioritize their experience over
product performance when making
a purchase decision. This requires a
deep understanding of the customer’s
journey, and each touch point along
the way. Mapping this customer journey
is a difficult, yet mission-critical task
that when done correctly results in
exceptional revenue growth.
Complete the Customer Experience
Design phase by answering the following
by market segment, product, sales
P H A S E 5 : C U S T O M E R
E X P E R I E N C E D E S I G N

How-to-Make-Your-Number-in-2017

How-to-Make-Your-Number-in-2017

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (11)

Similaire à How-to-Make-Your-Number-in-2017

Similaire à How-to-Make-Your-Number-in-2017 (20)

How-to-Make-Your-Number-in-2017