I've been quiet on the blogging front for quite a while because I was involved in a multi-year project that, to put it mildly, took up every waking and sleeping moment of my day.

As I've been winding down from that project and starting on more traditional projects, I've been thinking about the role and value of consultants. The value proposition is pretty clear in traditional consulting projects where the need is a specific expertise that doesn't exist within the organization and is only needed for a short period of time. But, I believe, there is another time where consultants can bring real value --- extended projects where companies are executing a transformation or growing to the next level.

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This entry was posted on April 15, 2016 at 11:03 AM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Forget what you read in the papers and see on the news.  Here at AZtech we believe that 2013 is the Year of Opportunity.  Why do we say that?

One reason is that 2012, the year of political melodrama, is over.   We don't have to guess who will win the presidency and what will happen as a result.  We know who won and no matter how we feel about him, we're all clear on what that means, both the good and bad, for the next four years.  The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) survived the Supreme Court.  We don't have to wonder if it will and what it will mean.  Now we can implement strategies to deal with it.  Regardless of how it is all works out, the spectacle of the fiscal cliff is ending.   It doesn't much matter if we go over it or not, life will go on.  The hullabaloo over it all will be over and we'll all deal with whatever comes our way.    It's not like we can do anything about it anyway.  It's two years before the next election.  All of which means, much of the uncertainty that plagued us this past year is over.   

We may not like all the answers, but we have them, and that is a good thing.   Now we can all let out the collective breath we've been holding and move on.   That's the great thing about our businesses, forward movement is inherent to our nature.

But the real reason why we believe 2013 is the Year of Opportunity is that, for the first time in quite a while, our clients have turned their focus toward their customers.  Over the last several years the focus has been internal.  Although many talked about growth, they spent most of their time looking for places to cut.   By now, most have cut all they can.  All are tired of cutting.   Now they are asking: how can we improve our relationships with our customers and target markets so we can all grow?  There is renewed focus on collaboration with partners and suppliers.  Businesses of all sizes are acknowledging that their success is concatenated to their communities.

The question is how to transform from an internal to an externally focused organization?  Most believe it requires a cultural shift that they are ill suited to execute.  The good news is it is easier than most think.  All it really takes is encouraging every functional group to get out of the office to talk to customers, suppliers, business partners and the communities and markets within which the business operates.  At the same time, invite customers, suppliers, business partners and representatives for the community into the office.  They key is to extend all conversations to include outsiders.   Just hearing these outsider points of view from their sources (vs market analyst reports) will start a cultural shift that will take on its own momentum.

So who are you going to go meet this week?

 

This entry was posted on January 1, 2013 at 4:46 PM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I've talked about on this blog and on Huffington Post.  Now the Miami Herald weighs in.  Not only are face to face meetings important for you - your customers want them!

Perfect time to set some is in the new year!

This entry was posted on December 19, 2012 at 2:17 PM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

When I first started AZtech, our chief competitive differentiator was the fact that we backed up all our recommendations with our own qualitative market research.  We interviewed hundreds of customers, partners, thought leaders and vendors every month.   Our clients were always stunned at the depth of information we uncovered and the stature of people we spoke to.  Soon they wanted us to do custom research for them.

And that was when the trouble started.  Well, not trouble exactly.  Let's just say we had a definite difference in opinion with marketing departments on the way one should approach market research.    The first challenge we faced was that marketing wanted something easy to analyze, but sales and product development wanted something with deep insight.  Back in the late 90's, when we first started, there were very few tools to analyze unstructured data.  Plus they were expensive and complicated to learn.   Marketing simply couldn't get their heads around how were were going to translate 1000's of pages of conversation in nice PowerPoint charts.  They kept pushing for more and more multiple choice questions that force a customer into a set of answers that aren't actually true...or at least not as accurate as they could be.

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This entry was posted on December 17, 2012 at 12:03 PM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

 

AZtech Strategies developed the Creative Selling Methodology™ for Alliances to give our clients the tools and processes to avoid the failures discussed in our earlier post.  It is built around three best practices - a holistic framework, organization alignment and relationship mapping.  

The Creative Selling Methodology™ captures the experience of over 15 years of working with alliance organizations and validated it with best-in-class companies in alliance management.   

The Creative Selling Methodology™ for Alliances helps our clients

• Establish a business development planning process that is focused externally on the emerging needs of customers and markets
• Access real time market intelligence to support the planning proces
• Build the right framework for the partnership that balances serving the base with creating new revenue streams
• Capture and articulate the alliance’s unique thought leadership and value proposition 
• Attract the attention of strategic influencers
• Insure the appropriate internal resources are allocated to support the relationship
• Socialize the alliance strategy and its value proposition to the business to secure the support of all stakeholders (sales, R&D, marketing, operations)
• Discover and nurture the full spectrum of relationships necessary to cultivate new mutual opportunities 
• Provide the tools the sales force needs to execute/support the alliance's business development strategy
• Provide benchmarks for staffing and funding

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This entry was posted on December 6, 2012 at 12:32 PM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Anne Zink is a featured blogger on:

Huffington Post:

• Can Business & Charity Coexist
• Selling Isn't About You
• Moving Beyond LinkedIn

Corp! Magazine

• Nurture Relationships

This entry was posted on November 15, 2012 at 10:00 PM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

AZtech is pleased to announce  The Creative Selling Methodology™ for Alliances.  Over the past 15 years we've spent hundreds of hours a year analyzing what works and what doesn't work for alliances.  This entry shares the seven reasons alliances fail to meet their objectives even when there is executive commitment and the sales force compensation and quota attainment has been designed to incent the right behavior!

• They fail to create a balanced business development strategy focused on both new opportunities and serving their bases.  Far too often the alliance ends up just shifting customers from one partner to the other without significantly growing the base.  That frustrates both parties.

• They are not able to capture and communicate the thought leadership and competitive advantage of the alliance as a united entity.  They may create a joint value proposition, but they don't go the extra step to develop true thought leadership.

• Once the thought leadership is created, they fail to promote their unique point of view to the market place, particularly to major influencers. 

• They don't take the time to integrate their professional networks to facilitate the creation of new opportunities in new customers and markets.  This must happen at all levels of the organization.  

• They don't refine the pre sales support processes to insure they can support a "sell with/thru" process.  This is especially true in direct-centric companies.  They simply don't think about the challenges of adding a strategic partner to the mix.  Very few companies have a perfect pre-sale/bid & proposal system in place as it is.  Add a few alliances and any weakness are exacerbated.

• They don't translate the alliance business development plan into an executable form for the sales force.  Far too often alliance planning sits in a bubble.  The sales force, even if they are well compensated/rewarded for alliance sales, don't understand the objectives,  how it can help them achieve their quota, or how to leverage the alliance.

• And finally, they fail to create realistic investment budgets to insure the relationship is adequately funded.  Companies tend to allocate people resources, but don't think through the cost of developing a new market or winning a strategic deal with an alliance partner

Next blog we'll talk about how the The Creative Selling Methodology™can help!

This entry was posted on November 13, 2012 at 8:25 AM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

As regular readers know, I'm writing a book focused on how to create rather than wait for opportunity.  Granted that is much easier said than done. Creating an opportunity takes more upfront planning, more time, more energy, more persistence and more creativity than responding to a customer's stated need in the form of an RFI or RFP.

But does it cost more?

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This entry was posted on November 6, 2012 at 9:18 AM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

In the last post I talked about the value of the Seller/Thought Leader.  In this entry, we'll explore how Sellers become Thought Leaders.

There are four steps to becoming a Seller/Thought Leader.

1.Build Industry/Market Knowledge and Contacts

A Seller/Thought Leader joins industry associations and attends events, roundtables and workshops to give her a deep understanding of the challenges and growth opportunities in her area of focus. She invests in reading the analysts reports and understanding emerging best practices. She cultivates relationships with other thought leaders both inside her company and her industry who will challenge her thinking and help solidify her point of view. She is a constant learner, always seeking out opportunities to engage with customers, prospects and experts in non-selling environments.  Most important, she focuses beyond her company.She deeply understands the emerging strategic competitive landscape.

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This entry was posted on October 27, 2012 at 1:32 PM. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.