The shift in buying behavior that has discounted many to vendor status
WHO PAYS FOR DINNER?
Do your fertility clients reach for the bill when your check arrives after dinner? Or is it a forgone conclusion that you’re picking up the tab?
My Account Manager told me this was one of the aspects of working for Fertility Bridge that was most unusual to her. She had previously worked on the “industry side” of the fertility field where vendors are often viewed as food and beverage procurement.
I don’t necessarily want my clients to pay for my food and drinks. Sometimes I just want to treat them because I like to. Still, I really appreciate that our clients always want to pay because it’s one subtle indicator of who they view as a vendor and who they view as an advisor.
And that got me thinking about you.
JUST ANOTHER FERTILITY VENDOR
How is it that a tiny firm like mine has been able to move from vendor to advisor in just a couple of years, when established or well-funded groups are being discounted as a commodity? It wasn’t capital or medical or scientific expertise, that’s for sure.
As far as I can tell, the shift from vendor to advisor is correlated with the shift from sales to marketing. Many fertility companies are viewed as commodities and vendors because they are still trying to fulfill positioning needs in the sales process that now take place in the marketing process.
Every time I skip steps and try to accomplish positioning requirements in the sales process that should have been established in the marketing stages, I regret it. Comparing the results of an outbound campaign at the end of 2020, vs the effectiveness of publishing a clear and firm point of view on every segment of our sales and delivery process, (I hope) I’ve learned my lesson for the final time. When I over-invested in the sales process, I often made our firm appear as a vendor. When I do the positioning work ahead of time, we are viewed as advisors and the sales process is easier and more genuine.
POSITION AS VENDOR OR ADVISOR~POSITION IN MARKETING OR SALES
Consider the shift in the sales and marketing funnel as illustrated by Steve Patrizi.
Representatives and indeed entire fertility companies are positioned as vendors by practice owners and executives because the companies are doing too much in the sales stages and too little in the marketing stages, to position their value. They are mixing tactics and skipping steps.
The result is being overinvested in the awareness stage and undifferentiated in the sale. If you’re not following the concept, a couple of examples may be familiar enough to click.
Massive industry sponsored parties at fertility conferences~overinvestment in brand awareness
Expensive dinner bills and overpriced field reps~undifferentiated in sale
Neither are categorical mistakes. Large events and expensive salespeople can be a tremendous competitive advantage. Still, even when they are strategically sound, there are concerns about each.
Conference parties need careful positioning in and of themselves because they are a major public relations (if not legal) liability. Yes, you could tone it down, but conference parties are typically a zero-sum game. They’re either a grandiose affair where everyone shows up, or they get little traffic because everyone’s at the big party.
The best reps are worth their weight in crypto, but many of the others do nothing to drive sales. Too many payroll, travel, and entertainment expenditures are wasted because reps are doing the job that well produced content is supposed to do. Furthermore, the best reps are drawn to and enhanced by good positioning.
HOW TO POSITION FOR EXPERTISE AND VALUE
If over and underinvestment in certain stages of the sales and marketing process cause fertility businesses to be positioned as dispensable commodities, how do they position their value or expertise so that they are not easily substituted?
Consider the Business to Business Fertility Marketing funnel here.
It’s a mistake to treat the funnel merely as a checklist. You may do webinars, have client testimonials, and even a brand video. If they’re the same as everyone else’s and if they don’t fluidly set up the sale, it doesn’t matter. The telos of a salesperson is to sell. A salesperson that cannot sell is not a good salesperson. The telos of a marketing system is to set up the sale. If a marketing system cannot set up the sale, it doesn’t matter how much you spent or what title you gave it.
NO, I SAID DIFFERENTIATION.
What differentiates your fertility company from the others? If you said, personalized customer service, we’re off to a bad start for two reasons. First, the delta between companies’ opinion of their experience and the customer’s perception is tenfold. According to research by Bain, 80% of companies say they provide a superior experience but only 8% of customers say so.
The cause of the delivery gap has been summarized by Dr. Francisco Arredondo and others as
Satisfaction=Perception-Expectation.
The cause for the high expectations that drive the delivery gap is the second reason that attempting to use superior customer experience as a differentiator is a bad idea: it’s undefined so no one knows what it means.
Here’s the litmus test: If I read your differentiation statement in a room of your competitors and ask who can say the same about themselves, how many will raise their hands? If you put me in a room with all of the agency owners and marketing and business development advisors in the world, how many would say they get results for their clients? Millions. How many would say they “really get to know you” or they have an “arsenal of resources”? Most. How many could say they have served more than a dozen fertility companies? Four or five. How many raise their hand when asked if they are exclusively devoted to bridging sales and marketing for fertility companies and have a published point of view on every segment of the fertility patient marketing journey?
One.
REARRANGE SALES AND MARKETING, GRADUATE FROM VENDOR STATUS
Failing to adapt to the shift in buying behavior from sales to marketing has left many fertility companies undifferentiated in the sale. When one corrects too many expectations in the sales process, they’re viewed as a pain in the rear. When one corrects expectations in marketing, they position themselves for an advisory role in the sale. By not differentiating their positioning early on and throughout the marketing journey, fertility companies are frequently positioned as vendors or commodities by fertility practice owners and executives. Marketing isn’t just the promotion of your company’s position, it's the continual reinforcement. You need a clear and firm point of view about everything you do, and that point of view needs to be reinforced and distributed by content before your sales reps ever have to repeat them. Who knows, maybe your customers will even buy your next dinner.
Read about how we help B2B fertility companies differentiate themselves and increase sales here.