In case you're curious, there are also two other "modes" in which a business can operate, both of which - not coincidentally - describe companies that we can't help. This is because there's no perceived gap between "where they are" and "where they want to be."

• The first type, shown above, is a company where there is simply no gap between "where they are" and "where they want to be" with respect to sales or profitability. Strategic Selling calls this Even Keel, i.e. things are okay. But we have nothing to offer someone who doesn't have a gap between "where they are" and "where they want to be."

• The other type, shown above, is where a company thinks they're doing great, but they're really not. Either they're losing sales and market share but don't know it. Or they're leaving money on the table by, for example, not selling their value and they feel they can't do anything about it. Or they're simply unaware of their market opportunities, and therefore not going after them. In any case, Strategic Selling refers to these companies as "Overconfident" - and we refer to them as Delusional. But outside of finding a gap (through market research) for a company that thinks there might be one (and fixing it if we find one, of course), we can't help the delusional business.

Anyway...

Setting the Stage for Growth

Assuming you have a gap between "where you are" and "where you want to be," Marketing 101 tells us where to start, which is depicted in the classic Ansoff Matrix below.

Closing the Gap		Products to Promote
		Old Products	New Products
Markets to Target	Old Markets	(1) Market Penetration	(3) Product Development
	New Markets	(2) Market Development	(4) Diversification

This simple table portrays the four basic strategies that are available to any business for closing the gap between "where it is" and "where it wants to be" with respect to sales. Starting in the upper left-hand corner:

1. Market Penetration is where you try to sell more of your current products to your current customers, and to similar prospects in your current markets
2. Market Development is where you try to find new markets and new prospects for your current products
3. Product Development is where you develop new products and services, and try to sell them to your traditional customers and prospects, and
4. Diversification is where develop (or acquire) a whole new product portfolio and try to sell it to new markets and new prospects to whom you've never sold before.

Without going too deeply into the relative merits and costs of each strategy, note that Market Penetration tends to be the least expensive and least risky, while Diversification tends to be the most expensive and most risky, with Market Development and Product Development typically falling in between. Each has its own potential upside, and the strategies you would use in any given case are also going to be different, as will be the tools and marketing techniques you'd use. But one of the first things we do, when first engaging with a client, is to look at their situation from this 30,000' perspective - as it guides much of the work that will need to be done.

Then if the proper strategy is Market Penetration, we'll often do list research to identify new prospects in your traditional markets, and then cold call them to get you in the door. In the case of Market Development, we may do market research to find new target markets, build collateral material to show how you can better address their needs, and then do Executive Appointment Setting to get you in at high levels. Product Development might involve secondary and primary market research, applications analysis and promotion. And diversification would typically involve all of these and more. But there's always "a method to the madness."

Why Talk to JV/M?

This, though, brings us to the first reason why you should talk to us when you have a gap between "where you are" and "where you want to be." Specifically, if you're sure of what needs to be done, we'll do it - and we'll do it well. But if you have doubts about what the right strategy is, we'll figure out what it should be, and then do it well.

At JV/M, we can take this approach because we're agnostic with respect to what solutions we recommend. Unlike vendors with only one or two solutions, like SEO or telemarketing, LeadGen.com consists of over 50 different tactics that we can use. So we'll recommend solutions because they're likely to work, not because they're all we have to offer.

In-House versus Outsourcing

Another important issue, when seeking to close a sales gap, is deciding whether to utilize in-house or outside resources. And while in-house is often an appealing option because of the perceived lower cost and better control, neither advantage can be taken for granted. Many companies don't have (and can't acquire) the talent in-house needed to close a real sales gap, or they don't have the tools. Your people may be tied up doing other things, or they may just be out of ideas. And the right person to fix it may not be available or affordable. Or you simply may not have the processes, management expertise, technology or solutions to work with. If that's the case, it's time to call in the cavalry. (Are you wondering if you have a growth opportunity? Click here.)


LeadGen.com versus Other Vendors

Once you've decided to consider outsourcing, you next have to consider the question of why should you use JV/M's LeadGen.com famiy of services as opposed to those of another vendor. And for that, there are three reasons. When it comes to growing your business, LeadGen.com is generally faster, better and cheaper.

Faster

Better

Cheaper

When it comes to B2B marketing and sales, having an effective, rational and consistent strategy across all of your marketing and sales programs saves you money and time. And it reduces risk and headaches. But most importantly: It dramatically improves your sales results and profitability.

As the first and only one-stop-shop for all of your B2B marketing and sales needs, only LeadGen.com can provide you with a cost-effective, interfunctional approach to sales growth that can take you from "where you are" to "where you want to be" at the lowest possible cost, and in the shortest amount of time - saving you tens of thousands of dollars or more, and hundreds of hours, achieving success. (For more on how and why, click here.)

Whether you need to hire and train a more effective sales force, generate more and better sales leads, or figure out how to defeat or unhook your competition, LeadGen.com can help.

Effectiveness

The first, and most crucial, objective of any marketing or sales program is to deliver top-line (i.e. revenue) results. So at LeadGen.com we provide solutions that are focused on ringing your cash register.

At LeadGen.com, we're not one of those vendors that provides you with a solution, and then when it fails to be "the solution" they shrug and walk away. And we don't play games with the definition of a "sales lead."

Instead, we start by understanding your unique business, your unique market and your unique goals. And we bring to the challenge literally dozens of tools that you might need to get the job done. We also give you a dedicated Account Manager - one throat to choke, if you will - who knows how to bring these solutions together, and make them work effectively for you. So you get the control and accountability you want, along with the results you need.

At LeadGen.com we're all about helping you grow your business - with experienced Account Managers, effective marketing and sales tools, and a process that works. Because your bottom line is our bottom line.

Save Money

There are literally dozens of ways that LeadGen.com's one-stop-shop approach can save you money. But the most significant savings (as we help you increase your sales) come from our "develop it once, use it everywhere" approach to marketing:

• By using our one-stop-shop, you only have to develop the core components of your programs, such as your Value Proposition, your Competitive Positioning, your Lead Qualification Criteria, your Targeting, your Objections Handles, your Case Histories, etc., once. They can then be expressed in, and optimized for, each program in your marketing and sales strategy with no additional development cost, time or effort. With LeadGen.com you won't have to re-educate every contractor, sales rep or marketing vendor you use, saving you time and money. And when you need to change your positioning, changes can quickly be developed based on real market responses that we've acquired (instead of guesswork), and rolled back out across your programs with ease, eliminating headaches, errors and often substantial extra overheads.

But there's more:

• With LeadGen.com you get access to the best experts, and expertise, in the business - a team that's committed to your success. At the same time, you also get a team that's more efficient (and therefore less expensive) because their efforts are coordinated by your dedicated LeadGen.com Account Manager.
• At LeadGen.com we've developed solutions that work, and work well, with none of the over-engineering that often only adds cost.
• And many of the solutions that you would otherwise buy on a stand-alone basis are available at a significant discount from LeadGen.com - because our affiliated providers pass through the savings they get from the program to you.

In short, whether it's recruiting or fulfillment, lead generation or research, promotion or technology, or planning or sales training, LeadGen.com can create, and let you take advantage of, the natural synergies between the various elements of your B2B marketing and sales programs - saving you tens of thousands of dollars a year or more, while increasing your sales, your market share, and your profitability.

Save Time

By not having to "re-invent the wheel" every time you recruit a new channel partner, develop a new marketing strategy, or even design a new product, you can save months of time and effort, while insuring thematic consistency across your product lines and sales programs. This means that time-to-market can be reduced from months to weeks. And "hitting the gound running" becomes the natural order of things, not the exception. For example:

• When you recruit new sales reps through LeadGen.com, they'll be screened for their ability to implement your sales strategy - which reduces the time it takes them to come up to speed. This is instead of recruiting based on their personality - which, well, doesn't really do anything.
• When you implement your telemarketing program through LeadGen.com, your sales leads will be qualified the way your salespeople want them, not just the way the vendor can produce them. As a result, the leads won't get kicked back, wasting the time it took to generate them. And your salespeople won't waste valuable windshield time chasing junk.
• When you implement your social media marketing program with LeadGen.com, we'll base it on the same content we developed for your lead generation program, so you don't have to waste time coming up with new content every week.
• And when you conduct your market research with LeadGen.com, we'll use the intelligence we gathered in the lead generation and sales coaching programs to design it - so it's smarter, faster to implement, and far more helpful.

We could go on and on. But the synergy that LeadGen.com builds into every part of your marketing and sales program isn't another way to sing Kumbayah. Synergy delivers hard savings, it buys you real time, and it delivers better results. So you can dominate your market, and get home in time for dinner.

Reduce Risk

Like it or not, marketing (in fact business in general) involves risk. So the best you can do is try to reduce it. But you don't reduce your risk by engaging in a pay-per-lead telemarketing program, or demanding guarantees. (See here.) You reduce your risk by eliminating those things that cause it.

For most companies, the biggest contributor to risk is the Missing Link between their marketing and sales programs - a Missing Link that only LeadGen.com can supply. But there are others:

• As the saying says, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." In B2B, this means that when you select a traditional solution provider, you've already made up your mind about what you're going to do. But what if you don't know what to do? At LeadGen.com we offer it all, so we're unbiased about what we recommend - and so you virtually eliminate selection bias.
• Because we offer multiple solutions, and we don't have to protect a revenue stream, we're not afraid to "pull the plug" early if something isn't working - and replace it with something better. So you don't throw good money after bad.
• And because we're driven by the numbers - your numbers - LeadGen.com eliminates the risk of conflicting metrics. So we're both pulling in the same direction.

In B2B marketing and sales, like in life, there are no guarantees. But LeadGen.com's one-stop-shop changes the game, to one where "alignment" isn't just a word on a PowerPoint slide. It's a feature.

Improve Quality

Quality in a marketing program doesn't come from pretty graphics on a Web site, or a $30,000 trade show booth - although they're certainly nice-to-have. Nor does quality in your sales program drive a fancy car, or hand out cool sales aids - although they, too, are nice-to-have. Quality in B2B comes from breaking through the clutter, understanding your customer's needs, and delivering products and services that satisfy them.

The problem, of course, is that when you work with a traditional marketing or sales solution provider, they generally don't care about your customers. Sure, they'll want to know what message you want to convey. And they'll embed your message in whatever you want, whether it's a brochure, a sales training program, a Webinar or a promotional item. And that item will, if you pay enough, be beautiful. But most vendors, quite naturally of course, will take your word for it that it's the right message to deliver. And that it's the right person to deliver it to.

But what if it isn't? What if you're promoting certain features, but what's going to unhook your competitor isn't on your sell sheet? What if you're sending out emails, but no one opens or reads them? What if you train your salespeople in a technique that offends their prospects? And what if you build a CRM that meets management's needs, but loses track of all your sales leads?

At LeadGen.com, since our success is your success, we look "through" you to your customers in order to figure out what's going to work. And we design programs based on your customers' decision criteria, not just yours. What does that mean? In short, we don't just want to make you happy; we want to make your customers happy with you, too. Because that's what's going to win you the business.

That's real quality.

Enhance Results

At LeadGen.com, helping you deliver bottom line profitability is what we're all about, by:

• Increasing your sales
• Reducing your costs
• Shortening your sell cycle
• Unhooking your competition
• Relieving your price pressure
• Improving your channel performance
• And driving up your market share

With LeadGen.com behind you, success - and more - become reality.

Call today, and start winning tomorrow.