VALKRE | Value Creation

WeDeliver’s Supercharged Customer Success

WeDeliver, the B2B company that started just over a year ago, is redefining intracity delivery. WeDeliver currently serves independent retailers in Chicago’s River North, Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Loop, Old Town and West Loop neighborhoods.

“WeDeliver is different from a traditional courier in that we use the same model as Lyft or Sidecar,” explains Daniela Bolzmann, Co-Founder and CMO. “We take excess capacity in the community so stay-at-home moms, teachers, students, veterans, bright friendly people who have extra time, a car and a smartphone and want to help a local business with deliveries to make some extra cash.”

The folks at WeDeliver took one look at how deliveries are handled now and knew there had to be a better way. “What we saw in the industry was a very transactional experience where you’re dealing with your courier or UPS guy or some person who’s been doing the same thing for 20 years.  The status quo is lackluster and mundane at best, and unfortunately consumers and business operators are at the receiving end of that experience,” Bolzmann says.

“When you screen for friendly, outgoing, and detail-oriented individuals and train them to focus on experience, the end result is transformational, not merely transactional like the alternatives.” The added bonus is that WeDeliver’s Delivery Specialists are, more often than not, customers or potential customers in the businesses’ coveted demographic.

Bolzmann says business owners are caught off guard when WeDeliver’s Delivery Specialists show up for the first time because they’re “blown away” by the unexpected level of caring and professionalism. She compares the initial experience to the reaction of someone who’s only taken taxis. They have no real complaints and then they give Lyft, Sidecar or Uber a try. “The experience is eye-opening and one that causes you to rethink every cab you have ever hailed,” Bolzmann says. “You never thought is was a horrible experience before, but now you are determined to never take a traditional cab again.”

Like many young companies, WeDeliver is comfortable with technology. Its customers get real-time information and updates as their goods are carried with care from Point A to Point B. This technological comfort level helps explain why WeDeliver chose to work with the Valkre SaaS platform, which it won in last year’s Techweek LAUNCH competition.

Lawrence Brown, WeDeliver’s director of community relations, has especially high praise for how Valkre has been able to help quantify the value merchants capture from WeDeliver. “It’s kind of a gut check that puts us all on the same page to start the conversation both internally here and in each individual’s mind,” he says. “From there it went to putting it on paper and then narrowing it down and weighting the value proposition. Most of the feedback we’ve been getting from merchants has been in line with what we thought it would be. It’s a great systematic way of capturing how they truly feel about WeDeliver.”

The urgency to quantify value capture is especially important to WeDeliver, because, as with all startups, there is little room for error.

“The impressive thing is that as a startup we’re moving so fast and we’re working with so many types of businesses right now that capturing the intelligence from each merchant is important,” Bolzmann explains. “We can look at that data, analyze it and decide which direction to move forward. As a team, we need to be unified and confident in knowing where we should be going with our business. Otherwise, it’s just assumptions.”

WeDeliver saw the importance of a  software solution not only for the value proposition work, but also from the personal experiences of its employees. “We’re doing this with Valkre primarily for the company, but also for the sales team so they know what they’re selling,” Bolzmann says.

In a typical sales call, the rep tries to sell the prospective client and, if the client raises an objection, responds to that objection. “But what we've learned is how to receive customer feedback without instantly defending yourself and your company. It’s harder than people think. It’s important to learn a style of interviewing that generates unbiased feedback.”

Defining a value proposition is important to all companies and WeDeliver took note of this early on.  And success has quickly followed.  Most recently in April at Google Entrepreneurs Demo Day, judge Steve Case liked what he saw so much that he decided on the spot to invest $100,000 in WeDeliver.

Come join us at next week's Techweek Chicago to learn more about the WeDeliver story. Lawrence Brown and Valkre's VP of Product Development Matt Cobb will speak during the Startup Summit on Friday June 27th.

If Marketers Were World Cup Teams, Which One Would You Be?

There have been a number of BMA14 recaps sent out to attendees over the past couple weeks. We wanted to do something a little different with a World Cup themed quiz. So take a crack at it and find out how you would stack up as a World Cup team!

WeDeliver Underscores the Future of B2B

At last year’s Techweek Chicago, a young and innovative company named WeDeliver won the top prize in the LAUNCH competition and received a tool that’s already changing the way they do business.

That tool is RENDER, our SaaS platform that provides insight into how the value proposition is the single most critical growth asset for any business. And I want nothing less than to make the Windy City a technology hub that rivals Silicon Valley.

 

No little plans 

Here at Valkre, we’re Chicago people. We are prototypical Chicagoans. We’re engineers. We’re coming from B2B manufacturing kinds of families and backgrounds. We started this business from that heritage to solve what we see as a key challenge: In order to grow you need to know what your target value proposition is.

A value proposition is the reason a customer chooses to do business with a company instead of its competitors. This seemingly simple yet complex concept makes or breaks any business.

Although many business elements have been digitized, the key to growth hadn’t been. What is your value proposition, is it working for your customers and what are you doing to improve it?  Valkre is built around that ideology.

As I've written here before, Valkre’s origin began by engineering RENDER for companies such as Owens Corning, General Electric and others. But any business can benefit from the software and services, as well, and that’s where Chicago comes in.

Chicago has a great opportunity to be a center of excellence for technology and manufacturing. This city can support a growing technology community because our history and our foundation are in B2B. I believe the ‘City of Big Shoulders’ can truly become the Silicon Prairie for B2B.

These plans can’t come together on their own, however. It’s all about creating community, and in order to create community you need success. What’s going to make the tech community go is success. The city already is off to a good start. With the achievements of such companies as Fieldglass, Groupon, SPSS and Morningstar, we have a good nucleus. 

 

How WeDeliver can help drive change 

When I think about WeDeliver, it’s about supporting an innovative leader in our start-up community. It’s about taking that piece of the puzzle we’ve built to help these other companies that kind of look like us take advantage of our thinking. That way, we’re all sharing successes.

We offered RENDER software and staff expertise as a prize at Techweek Chicago 2013 — and although we had no idea which company would win, we knew its owners and employees would benefit mightily.

The challenges are consistent for nascent companies. In business school, they teach you how to write a value proposition and business plan. They don’t teach you how to do a selling model. That’s what WeDeliver is experiencing. It’s one thing to have a nice presentation and a crisp pitch, but quite another to test it in the marketplace.

Above all, smart startups and businesses in B2B markets can’t afford to lose a customer. You lose a customer or two or three, and you’re in bad shape pretty quickly.

To succeed, you need to have a recurring relationship with your customers. You can’t just hunt them and sell them.

Come join us at next week's Techweek Chicago to learn more about the WeDeliver story. Lawrence Brown and Valkre's VP of Product Development Matt Cobb will speak during the Startup Summit on Friday June 27th.

From Best Practice to Next Practice: My SAMA Conference Takeaways

I recently returned from attending the SAMA Annual Conference in Orlando.  The theme of this year’s conference was “Excellence in SAM Execution: The Journey from Best Practice to Next Practice.” SAMA did an excellent job with the conference, organizing relevant content and fostering great engagement amongst the attendees. 

As I reflect on both the conference sessions and my discussions with colleagues throughout, several consistent themes emerged from the week:

The Journey towards Excellence is Ongoing

There are many companies and SAM teams doing great work, developing robust programs, and creating significant value for both customers and their own organizations.  Several of these organizations were on hand sharing their stories, and many are seeing impressive results.

But it is also abundantly clear that there are many more companies, teams and individuals still early in their journeys with much work ahead.  Strategic Account Programs require significant commitment, effort and focus to deliver better customer engagement and growth.  Companies are getting much smarter about this work, but there is still much to do. 

So if you are early in your own SAM/KAM journey or feel you still haven’t achieved the full potential, don’t feel alone.  You have company with many other organizations out there.  And there is a vast and valuable network of resources and colleagues working on these challenges every day and helping one another in the journey.

Desperately Seeking Supplier Collaboration

In the words of SAMA themselves, “The customer ecosystem is changing: customers ACTUALLY want to collaborate with suppliers.”  This emerging trend was echoed throughout the conference – more frequently customers are initiating the collaboration efforts with suppliers.  Customers also expect more from suppliers.  They are seeking partners that challenge their thinking and bring new and innovative ideas and solutions that can help them be more successful in the market.  In some cases, organizations are even driving competing vendors to collaborate amongst themselves to better align and work together for a common cause – solving customer challenges.

One Procurement Manager captured a critical point here, “Products themselves do not deliver value. It is only once they are implemented, in place, and working that value can be created and realized.”  This is a critical component of collaboration.  Concepts like co-creation and joint innovation are invaluable or identifying value opportunities.  But collaboration must persist all the way through execution to ensure the value is realized.  Customers know this all too well and increasingly prefer to do business with suppliers that they believe are committed to reliable, ongoing alignment and execution.

At Valkre we see this same dynamic playing out daily as we work with our own customers helping them improve customer collaboration.  Customers across all industries are yearning for suppliers that listen, understand and then proactively collaborate to solve problems.  And they are delighted when it happens.  This is the new norm in B2B relationships.

Consider the implications of this for your own business for a moment.  The door is open to engage customers, but are you ready?  Others are embracing this trend and moving aggressively to seize upon the opportunity.  Those who don’t will quickly be left behind.

SAMs have incredibly tough jobs!

So much of the burden of success of SAM Programs still falls squarely onto the shoulders of the individual SAM.  Success or failure often comes down to the capabilities of a single individual.  SAMs are expected to manage a variety of complex activities…often without much help from their organizations.  This complexity emerged throughout the conference along the three pillars of customer engagement:

• Defining, Measuring and Articulating Value

Communicating value to customers is a necessity today.  This is not a new concept, yet it is still elusive and challenging for most!  Customers want to understand how your solutions address specific challenges and see the corresponding value expressed in terms of their business.  Most SAMs still need help here.  Companies need to do a better job of helping SAMs put the company’s solutions into the ‘context’ of their customers business so SAMs can have the value conversations customers demand. 

• Understanding Customer Needs

SAM’s must understand customer priorities and strategies and ensure those are relayed back into the organization.  As one presenter noted, “We have gaps in our understanding of the health of the relationship all the time. But customers don't come tell you. They just start doing business with someone else.”  This is true…and so frightening.  If your SAM doesn’t have their hand on the pulse of the customer you are blind.  The results in this area are still mixed due to the reliance on the acumen and skills of individuals. There is much attention and focus here…and still much more room for improvement. 

• Coordinating and Managing Complexity

Unfortunately, SAMs still spend the majority of their time coordinating internal teams and navigating across silos to build consensus, alignment and ensure the organization executes.  “I spend more time internally trying to get internal buy-in than I do with my customers!” was a common refrain throughout the conference.  The challenge of complexity is unavoidable.  But organizations have got to figure out how to empower SAMs with better tools and internal processes so they can minimize this internal tactical time and shift more time to customer-facing strategic activities.

When you think about these activities, it is not unreasonable to consider SAMs as modern day heroes carrying the hopes and dreams of their organization into the market.  But as with any other hero embarking upon The Hero’s Journey, it continues to be evident that they cannot succeed alone…we must arm our SAMs with the right tools to navigate the complex world that awaits them.

Technology is a Critical Enabler

This is an area of growing focus within SAMA…and of course a topic near and dear to our hearts here at Valkre.  The discussion on technology enablement focused on two key stakeholders:

• SAMs. As I said above, SAMs have complex jobs!  And they won’t be able to keep up for much longer without the right technology tools.  CRM can support sales activities, but it falls short on execution and value creation – two activities essential to SAM success.  SAMs need tools that help them in their daily jobs.  And they need help to bridge their organizations and customer organizations to enable more seamless, efficient, and value-oriented collaboration between both sides. 

• SAM Program Leaders.  While SAMs need help with their individual account activities, their Program Leaders need even more help to maintain visibility across entire account portfolios.  SAM Program Leaders must be empowered with tools that give them broad visibility and faster and deeper insights.  Many critical activities are still managed with Excel and PowerPoint, fundamentally limiting visibility, accountability and follow through.

SAMA has indicated that technology will be a larger area of focus at next year’s conference.  We applaud SAMA for their leadership here and we look forward to being a part of that ongoing journey.

Are you a SAM or SAM Leader dealing with these issues?  Tell us what you think…we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences as well.

Recalling More than the 10%: My BMA Recap

Another great BMA conference is in the rearview mirror. It was an honor to be a sponsor and connect with some amazing marketers influencing where B2B is going.

But after every conference, I always feel a little bit of information overload. After all, there were 41 keynotes, fire starters, and panels that filled 36 hours of sessions and networking. And it was all compressed into 3 days.

One of the tidbits I did retain is that people recall only 10% of what was said 2 days afterwards. (Thanks, @TRiesterer, for imparting that knowledge). So to that end, I’ve combed through my notes and distilled all the brain fodder down to my top 5 insights from BMA14:

1. Run your business in 2014 and not from 1980's. Start using the tools of the year we live in: Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Put out stuff that people want. Give first, don’t ask.
   
   As a corollary to the above, you have to be a certain kind of guy to get away with using 64 F bombs as an effective tool in a presentation. @garyvee is one of those guys.
2. Download the Run Pee app. If you help a customer, you can create a customer for life. We don’t need more tools, conversation or data. We need a prism through which to look at marketing and decide what makes sense.
   
3. Marketing’s NPS score with CEOs is a –6 (just to be clear, that’s a MINUS six).  Expectations are not being met. 61% of CEOs think their marketing organizations are as innovative as squirrels.  CEOs want to get involved with customer engagement and they want marketing to drive it.
   
4. A speech about electrical currents is way more marketable when set to musical tunes. While industrial musicals faded in the 1980s, creativity is always going to be in style. So reach customers and employees in ways that will inspire them.
5. Finally, avoid the hammock. Customers will remember very little of what happens in the middle of a presentation. You need to open HOT, close HOT, and figure out ways to spike engagement in the middle of a presentation by telling customers about an opportunity they didn't know they have. And associate your story with the right visual so that it will be 6 times more recallable.

 

What were other highlights of the BMA14 conference that you think are missing from this list? Let me know in the comments below. Otherwise, looking forward to engaging with you at your nearest BMA Connect2 conference in the Fall.