The temptation to oversimplify their sales and marketing strategies has always been a trap for organizations looking to fast-track growth. However, the last few years have ushered in increased competition, added cost constraints, and intensified pressure to integrate technology, culminating in a whirlwind that has heightened the temptation to simplify regardless of the business impact.

I’m seeing this phenomenon more and more these days – organizations that want to use a one-size-fits-all approach to their strategic sales and marketing plans to try to improve their ROI. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t simply fail to give them an advantage over their competition, it also fails to produce the results they are looking for at all. Quite the opposite, oversimplifying is a waste of precious organizational resources – time, talent, and money.The problem of oversimplification can take on many faces, such as:

• Generic distribution models
• Undifferentiated pricing
• Weak partner strategy utilization
• Ineffective client development programs
• Immature account development processes
• Lack of market segmentation
• Generalized client profiles
• Unclear value propositions
• Stock content reliance
• Ineffective CRM usage
• Lack of meaningful data analysis

Leadership needs to understand why this kind of oversimplification is harmful to their organizations and how to recognize it so that they can be better prepared to get their companies back on track if/when it happens under their watch. They should also arm themselves with a better approach to counter the strong pull of oversimplification when it’s being advocated for by others and fully own the solution.

Getting to the Root of The Problem

Oversimplification often occurs because leadership is trying to get to a desired result in a faster or easier way. Simply put, it’s a shortcut. That doesn’t mean that leadership isn’t passionate about their work and the company, it just means they are trying to make less work for themselves and those under them.

The motivation could be budgetary, or personnel related. Sometimes organizations don’t have the funds needed to take a different approach. Other times they may not have the dedicated staff required to a take a more homed in approach.

Unfortunately, most executive leaders and managers don’t even realize they’re taking a shortcut by trying to simplify things because it’s an easy thing to miss as it’s occurring. Often, they can’t see it until they are past it, but even then, it can still be missed. Typically, it takes an outside party to really make an organization’s leaders realize that they have fallen into the trap of oversimplification.

Spotting the Telltale Signs

So, what kind of signs indicate that oversimplification is occurring now or has occurred previously? When business results aren’t ideal or fall short of expectations, that is the telltale sign that something is wrong. Declines in win rates and revenue we well as increases in returns and cancellations can point to a short-term oversimplification problem. When business results are down MOM (month-over-month) or YOY (year-over-year) these are the kind of compounding outcomes that indicate that long-term oversimplification has been allowed to occur.

Finding a Better Approach

Obviously, the best solution isn’t to overcomplicate everything just to steer clear of oversimplifying. Simplifying by taking actions like bringing in technology to streamline operations offers the kind of efficiency that offers significant business benefits. However, simplifying sales and marketing strategic initiatives and activities can quickly become a slippery slope toward oversimplification.

Remember, your organization and its offerings can’t be all things, to all people, at all times. When an organization pursues audiences that they don’t stand much chance of capturing they will miss out on the opportunity to convert with their target audience in the process.

The better approach is to know who your ideal customer is and what they want so that you can target them specifically with the products or services that will meet their exact needs. Tailor your approach to go after your ideal audience, with an awareness of what you will need to measure to evaluate success.

Measure what is working and what isn’t, but don’t try to measure too much. Focus on the metrics that matter most to the organization’s success to avoid overwhelming key personnel with too much data that they won’t have time to analyze.  

Armed with metrics to support the conclusion that oversimplification is occurring, strategize around how to arrive at a better solution. For example, if cancellation rates are increasing, require customers to indicate why they are canceling as part of the cancellation process and work with support staff to understand customers’ pain points before they cancel. Come up with a plan and then execute it!

But keep in mind that if you plan on asking staff for their help (like in the case of customer service representatives needing to indicate a cancellation reason), you need to make it easy, meaningful, and rewarding for them to participate. If helping is difficult or if they don’t understand the purpose, staff will be far less likely to get on board with the plan you have created. (And if they aren’t going to be measured on it, they typically won’t do it because most staff are too focused on doing their jobs to look up and see the bigger picture of what they can do to help the overall organization succeed.) Be transparent with employees about what the problem is that leadership is trying to solve and give them a stake in helping to fix it. Let them know that they are essential in arriving at a solution and that the organization values their help.

Owning the Solution

Every organization is experiencing oversimplification somewhere (in some department or activity) even if they can’t see it. An executive leadership team needs to take ownership over looking at each section of the company to determine where oversimplification may be occurring. When they are unable to identify where the organization is oversimplifying or create a plan to break the habit of oversimplifying, an outside consultant should be brought in to help advise on the matter.

An outsourced CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) is the right kind of executive consultant to undertake this mission because their role is specifically centered around unlocking new revenue streams. To do that a consulting CRO will need to interface with sales and marketing to understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and then make recommendations on how to improve. Often, this will include an assessment of where oversimplification is happening and advice on how to steer out of it now and avoid it in the future. A fractional CRO will help an organization to better align its activities with its goals, understand what to measure, and give leadership the tools needed to analyze that data effectively.

When you need an outsourced CRO to right the ship after an oversimplified strategy has left the organization adrift, we can help! Every day we help companies that need to customize their sales and distribution strategies, client development programs, strategic marketing frameworks, and integrated marketing plans to succeed in an ever-increasing competitive landscape. Contact us today to find out more about how we can help align your revenue functions to produce the kind of profitable revenue that drives sustainable growth.