Holden Advisors Blog

Building off our recent video blog on the difference between use cases and personas, watch below as Tim Mullane explains how to go deeper to find actionable use cases within the same industry sector. The obvious use cases exist between application and industry. The trick is to look beyond the apparent applications to the use cases that support them. 

So there it is. Amazon’s year long quest for its second headquarters has finally ended with an announcement that the will be shared by two cities, Long Island City, New York and Arlington, Virginia. When Jeff Bezos first announced the plan for HQ2, he promised to scour the nation for the right candidate, soliciting bids from cities across that nation outlining their plans on infrastructure, education and, of course, the tax breaks they were willing to give to have the honor of hosting Amazon’s second home and the jobs and prosperity that would bring.

It's not just about knowing your customer, but also about really knowing your customer's product and how they plan to use it. In this video, Tim expands on Ellen Quackenbush's recent blog to illustrate how you should be thinking about and approaching personas vs. use cases. 

Today’s customers are savvier and more impatient than ever. Being a Challenger and disrupting the customer’s status quo is just not enough anymore.

Watch as Tim Mullane explains the key to escaping the ever-dangerous discounting cycle. Give-Gets℠ – a valuable tool for any value-centric commercial strategy – follow a simple principle: If I give you something, I get something in return.  What Give-Gets℠ do you have for your team?

Personas are a great tool for the right situation but are often over-used by marketing to communicate with customers and generate leads.  Personas define how a person in a specific role—let’s say the General Manager of a Business or the VP of Sales—thinks about their key challenges, KPIs, or opportunities to drive business improvement.

Has the Relationship Buyer truly vanished from the B2B marketplace? What happens when a Value Buyer chooses to go with a competitive offering? Watch the following video as Erin Cihak explains the different buyer types and how they present themselves in B2B negotiations. Utilizing a recent client engagement, Erin highlights a few tactics which can be employed to defend price in a competitive market, and reveals the one thing to which the Value Buyer is always loyal.

Holden Advisors consulting projects generally focus on the core competency of understanding, communicating, and mutually sharing in created value. Value is the central pillar of all best practices we recommend and implement for our customers.

Last month, I wrote about problems with the phone company that provides service to our home in the woods of Maine. If you don’t remember, the service is terrible and the process to get problems resolved is awful. In any case, we were in Maine recently, and saw a truck for a competitive phone company. I couldn't wait to call them. Though the call was quick and to the point, the customer service representative gave me the options and informed me that it was going to be at least a month before the service became available. When it is available, we will be switching to the new phone provider. Why? Because over time, I have come to absolutely hate dealing with the current telephone provider. 

OK, I get it. In rapidly growing markets, it's worth it to discount your products and services, in order to establish and expand your footprint. The high-tech guys have known this for years and use that strategy quite effectively.