A German B2B software company at the close of its growth-stage chapter asked us to help with a question its leadership had been circling for two quarters — whether the firm should commit, formally, to the upmarket movement that its largest customers had already begun to require of it.
Our work was in two parts. The first was a careful repositioning of the firm against the customer it intended to win, rather than the customer it had — a change of language as much as a change of strategy. The second was a structural change to the commercial organisation, sized to support a small number of consequential sales rather than a large number of small ones.
The engagement closed at the point at which leadership could describe the firm — to itself, to its board, and to its customers — in a single, recognisable sentence.
A firm earns the right to its own language.
What we did
- — Repositioned the firm against the customer it intended to win, not the customer it had.
- — Designed a geographic go-to-market the firm could afford to be wrong about, once.
- — Reworked the senior commercial structure to support the upmarket motion.
- — Wrote, with leadership, the language the firm would use to talk about itself for the next two years.
Practice · Marketing · Management