I chat at the Competitive Marketing Summit with David Davis of ActualTech Media about the conversation Economy.
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A Theory of (Competitive) Relativity
(If you want be in on more of the Competitive Marketing Conversation, I'll be talking all about this and more at the day 2 Keynote of the Competitive Marketing Summit in Denver on October 23-24th. For the next week, the organizers are letting me offer a 50% off...
A Chorus of Value Voices
"But we sell to a technical buyers," she said, "why do I care about the story?" "But it's easy to use, why do I need to invest more in customer success?, " he asked "It's just about differentiation!," they all said. Like a loud bar, I was having a hard time keeping...
Look Who’s Talking – Markets are Conversations
Markets are Conversations. First said by the authors of “The Cluetrain Manifesto" in 1999, this is really a truth that goes back to the barter marketplaces of old, to the trading pits of the CBOE, to today’s electronic marketplaces. But if markets are truly...
Nimsoft – Unified Monitoring, From the Data Center to the Cloud
Challenge: Ken engaged with Nimsoft from 2009 to 2011 in a variety of projects. The initial project was a rapid assessment of Nimsoft’s position in the marketplace. Out of that, Ken identified a need to reposition the company in order to break out from a flat revenue...
What Problem Do You Solve? – Why Can’t We Answer this Simple Question?
When I do workshops with clients to build their compelling go to market story, we always start the pre-session survey with what seems like a simple question : "What are the 1 or 2 big picture problems you help customers solve?" But it ends up really smart teams,...
B2B Revenue Acceleration Podcast Live
A great conversation with Operatix CEO and Co-Founder Aurelien Mottier talking about Storytelling and Persuasion Global markets are shaped and won through conversation. Marketers, salesfolk, buyers and leaders need to accel at and understand small talk, persuasion...
Weblife.IO Makes a Quick Turn on Employee Access, GDPR and Web Isolation
Challenge: Early on the team at Weblife.IO knew they were on to something. But in a crowded space of “Web Isolation” with mixed results, the challenge was telling a story that both stood out and captured the excitement in the early customers they had acquired. And...
Make Your B2B Messaging an 8 Layer Cake!
I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review called "The B2B Elements of Value" by Almquist, Cleghorn and Sherer, 3 Bain and Company consultants from San Francisco. It's a long somewhat complex article with one big take away for me, B2B buyers are people...
Prospect Value Journey Animation
I whipped out a quick animation of Prospect Value Journeys. Audio to come soon
Blog Classic – Positioning from Strength (or, Maximizing your Valuation!)
(NOTE: I was chatting about valuation and messaging with my great friend Susan Thomas and was reminded of this blog I wrote back in 2008 about my very first consulting client Nimsoft. With Cybersecurity, Cloud and other valuations skyrocketing, it's a really...
Frankenstein or Benevolent Helper – Sorting Out the Future of AI and Marketing – Panel
The Go To Market Dojo was HOPPING as standing room crowd of about 60 NIs (Natural Intelligence-s) gathered over pizza, beer and networking to discuss the future if AI and Marketing Careers. Panelists Atri Chatterjee , Mehul Shah and Frederic Mathieu brought three...
Mythos, Magic, Money and Method – Layering Your #B2B Messaging
Here's a simple way to think about layering your messaging from brand to product. Think of messaging in 4 layers, brand, story product and differentiation and answering 4 WHYs; Why WE exist Why YOU should care Why YOU should buy Why WE are different than the...
Shoulder to Shoulder with Tim Eades on Leadership…
Tim Eades, CEO of vArmour made for a compelling guest at our Dojo Meetup on December 5th. Though we promised "Vegas Rules" on specific antidotes and people, here's a few of the nuggets of wisdom I took away from our chat: The future is NOT "4-legged" sales calls, it's...
What A Week In CyberSecurity – Story Matters, and Here’s the “Proof-Points”!
Last week proved once again that the cybersecurity market is alive, well and kicking for investment activity and returns. Three transactions of significance happened last week and now that we've caught our breadth, let's take a look at what we can learn. First, in...
Why I Started the Go To Market Dojo – 6 Months Later…
It all started with a conversation with my friend, colleague and mentor Donna: Donna asked, "so you're going to the RSA Conference, why aren't you speaking there?" "All the people would want to hear me, are all busy with speaking to their customers," I replied, "We...
Scary Clowns Aside, Our Dojo Panel Dishes Out Tasty Treats on Sales and Marketing Alignment
About 50 practitioners, panelists and sponsors gathered to chat about Sales and Marketing Alignment at the Silicon Valley Go To Market Dojo on 10/24. The food and the discussion were excellent, and a special thanks to our night's sponsor, DWCC Global. Panelists BJ...
Winter Go To Market Dojo Small Group Leadership Practice Enrollment Now Open
My Winter 2017 Go To Market Leadership Practice Group is now open for enrollment. In these small groups of 4-7 participants, we will map out your path to building your leadership impact within your organization and beyond. This group work is perfect for early to...
Beyond T-Shaped, Tomorrow’s Marketing Leaders are Arrow-Forged
It seems these days that all the rage is to be a "T-Shaped" marketer. The idea being that you should be deep in one skill, and wide in your knowledge. I think that's solid, but kinda rudimentary advice. And, at the end of the day, if it isn't flawed, it is...
Treasury Curve Finds Their Voice
Challenge: A small but successful provider of Cloud Treasury Services that help corporations proactively and efficiently manage their cash and investments, Treasury Curve needed to move beyond features and benefits to raise their visibility in the market and attract...
Sophos – Synchronized Security Launch
Challenge: Sophos is one of the world’s leading providers of both endpoint and network security and goes to market under the tagline, “Security Made Simple,” critical to the mid-market customer focus. When Ken engaged with Sophos in mid-2015 they were finishing the...
Cybersecurity Go To Market Dojo Meetup #1 Takeaways, Thank Yous and Next Events
About forty Go To Market Professionals in cybersecurity gathered on June 21st for the first ever meet-up of the Silicon Valley Go to Market Dojo. I must humbly say the event was a great success. Our guest speaker, Dr. Chenxi Wang discussed"Winning the Analyst Game-...
Forget THE Silver Bullet, to Breakthrough and Win, Tell Your Golden Story!
A client of my recently lamented, "I was really hoping we'd find a silver bullet". I asked her what she meant. She said, "You know, the ONE thing we could say, the one sentence that would set us apart". I said, "Well, there might not be a silver bullet(yet), but...
Word of the Week – “Old Pro”
"Old Pro" - (n) Noun - 1) A bar in Palo Alto, as in "The Old Pro". The Old Pro is a very popular sports bar currently housed on Ramona Street in the building that formerly was Ramona's Pizza. The Old Pro has often hosted the royalty of Silicon Valley and was one of...
Leadership, Breaking Rules, and Reframing; Two Books and One Story
I walked into the conference room with my PR manager Jody. Mike awaited us to review our launch plan. About 15 minutes into the conversation, Mike interrupted us and said, "Damnit, I pay you to be a firestarter, not a fireman, come back with a plan to start some...