VALKRE | Value Creation

Quiz Time: Thinking like an Entrepreneur

Here's a quiz from BNET that actually makes you think...and does a pretty good job of determining if you think like an entrepreneur.  I took it many times to see what they view as the right answer and the wrong answer (I'm a nerd like that).  Anyway, after seeing Valkre grow and develop over the years, I can offer one hint that might help: Sometimes simply staying in business is the best path to success.

Take the Quiz here...

Are you underinvested in Sales Tools and Training?

We were at the annual Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) conference a few days ago. We presented there with Owens Corning (more on that in a later blog post).

Something that really caught my attention during the 3 1/2 days was a point made by Andris Zoltners, a professor at Kellog. He put the following numbers up on the screen with no explanation, as I am doing now:

20,000,000
675,000

800
27.5

100
4,000

After giving the audience a chance to think and make a few random guesses, he went on to explain.

20,000,000 is the number of sales professionals
675,000 is the number of marketing professionals

$800 billion is the money spent on selling and selling activity
$27.5 billion is the amount spent on advertising media

100 is the number of classroom hours taught on sales at Kellog last year
4,000 is the number of classroom hours taught on marketing at Kellog last year.

Wow! His point is not about Kellog, but about how generally we underinvest in sales capability relative to the amount of money spent on sales. I couldn't agree more, especially in the B2B market is so much more sales driven than the B2C market. In today's world, where sales professionals are expected to do so much more than just have great relationships, their need for capability to separate themselves from their competitive counterparts has never been higher.  And the stuff they need isn't just more negotiation training!

The Corporate Flashcard for Value Proposition

Before joining the Valkre team, my exposure to the word "value proposition" and its related usage in office conversation was limited.  Today, not so much. 

Our software and solutions are all about helping clients quantify their differential value proposition (or DVP for short).  By differential, we mean measuring the value proposition of a business relative to its competitors.  It more directly measures whether your customers are better off doing business with you than someone else.  We even wrote a book about it. 

Some of our customers need assistance calculating this differential measurement or understanding the theory behind what a value proposition truly is.  But you know that general understanding of the term has arrived when it is openly mocked.  That is why I was both proud and amused to stumble upon this deck of Corporate Flashcards in a bookstore.

A few years ago, this card would have gone unnoticed past my field of vision.  Today, not so much.