Unable to acheive sales or market share targets ?

Nine Symptoms of a poor Value Proposition

Every CEO has to deal with this dilemma very frequently : whom to hold responsible for this situation? Is it marketing or is it sales or is it management ? Theoretically, this is a complex issue. But  practically you may find the following useful. 

S = f ( M, VP, GTM)

Sales is a function of 3 things : the Market you have chosen to serve, the Value Proposition you have chosen to operate in the chosen market, and finally how do you Go To Market with this value proposition. 

As a first cut I would say that 

• Management Team is responsible For choosing the market
• Marketing is responsible for selecting the market
  and the Management Team is responsible for accepting and executing it
• Sales department primarily and marketing secondarily is responsible
  for "go to market" plans : to identify, contact, persuade & transact with customers

The purpose of today's blog is to list symptoms of a poor value proposition. Naturally a CEO should turn first to marketing for an answer. Some other time I will mention the circumstances under which a CEO should turn to the sales department for an answer.

1. Your chosen customers see your product as being “me too”
2. Your customers are not clear why should they choose you
3. Your customers are not clear where they can apply your product
4. You sales force cannot get better price than your competition
5. Your profit margin is less than that of your competition
6. The money you spend on promotions does not work efficiently
7. Your sales force convert less number of calls into sales
8. Your sales force cannot convince your customers
9. Your competitors spend less but sells more