The CRAP Report

I once worked with a customer who told me that the easiest way to describe his offering was to tell me that they provided 90% of the functionality that a competitor (who’s name rhymes with “Bicrosoft”!) offers at twice the price, and then asked me to find him quality sales opportunities. 

Let that sink in for a minute. 

Okay, now that you’re head’s stopped spinning, let’s analyze what you’ve just read.  If the most straightforward way to describe your solution is telling me that it provides less functionality at a greater cost than your competitors, then its time to go back to the drawing board.  As an outsourced sales opportunity development professional, that messaging might make sense to me, but it certainly isn’t one that I can bring to your target market.  To be fair, my client didn’t expect me to share that to their intended audience, but talk about making messaging difficult! 

If you’re ready to partner with an organization to develop and nurture a pipeline of quality sales opportunities for you, you have to make sure you’ve got all of your ducks in a row.  This client obviously needed some help shaping their value proposition before even thinking about how they were going to bring in new sales leads.  Again, that wasn’t their value forward message to their prospects, but if that’s how they describe their services to a partner, something’s wrong.  Spending a lot of money to find good, qualified sales opportunities is smart – if you’re ready, but if you’re not, it’s a sure way to show your lack of preparedness.  Don’t believe me?  Ask me about this project sometime; I’d be more than happy to tell you how many times people told me they were happy with “Bicrosoft.”