Borenstein Group

Washington DC’s Expert Top B2B|B2G Digital Branding Agency

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Ten Proven Tips to Ensure Sales-Focused B2B Marketing Messaging

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Everyone’s talking about the need to have sales-focused messaging. But how do you know you are using the right approach? At Borenstein Group, we recommend that clients follow these tips to create, refine or reaffirm your company’s compelling messaging:

1. Involve key players.

Messaging workshops and strategy definition should include team members representative of departments throughout your organization. Not only will this help create a more robust picture, it also builds enthusiasm for the initiative.

2. Be honest.

Undertaking messaging and positioning should be thoughtful and methodical. It should provide answers to questions on the company’s or product’s purpose, your current and prospective client base, your goals, how clients see you, your differentiators, your competitors, your market characteristics, your sales process, your perception problems and many more.

3. Be consistent.

Use this messaging as the baseline for all internal and external communications. All print and web communications must focus on strategic messaging.

4. Don’t be too general.

All things to all people create nothing to no one. One real life example of a message that’s too general is: “We solve any digital challenge you may have.” Yikes.

5. Lead with benefits.

Positioning can be tricky to craft. Get mired in functions and features, and it will be even trickier to understand. Chances are the people with real decision-making authority are profoundly more interested in the business benefits than the feature details.

6. Know your competitors.

How else can you position yourself against them to compete for sales? Understand how they articulate their value propositions and be prepared to address them head on.

7. Be committed.

The strategic messaging and positioning that results from this exercise should serve the company for at least three years. Commit resources, time and company brainpower to both creation and follow-through.

8. Be aspirational.

Many companies are limited by where they’ve been. Focus on where you’re going. One or two clients in an industry is proof of performance and should be leveraged.

9. Create brand ambassadors.

Once the messaging and positioning for the company, new product, new practice, or other initiative is completed, ensure that everyone who touches prospects, clients, or industry leaders is fluent and can deliver it with consistency.

10. Measure it and correct if needed.

Remember that most sales messaging is a function of trial and error, compounded by anecdotal human experience and feedback that may or may not be accurate and scalable. In order to succeed, assume that whatever is right ‘right now’ may become irrelevant or outdated. Be prepared to listen, make adjustments, and always measure what worked and what didn’t.

Sound overwhelming? It can be. But it can also be extremely effective. To find out more about how to create revenue-driven messaging and positioning that will propel your sales goals, contact Borenstein Group today.

Five Branding Techniques to Boost Your GovCon’s Valuation

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What is your company’s worth? If you’re the owner or CEO of your company, the answer ‘As Much As Possible’ isn’t a given in today’s competitive marketplace. In fact, the market is rapidly changing as sophisticated financial engineering software allows most ‘accounting books’ to comply with pre-determined formulas and ratios that equalize the playing field to the point of diminishing distinction. Simply put, if buyers can put you in the matrix, your company’s valuation can be heavily discounted. If you want to get HIGHER MULTIPLES, you’ve got to do MORE to create a competitive advantage that jumps out of the matrix, and it begins with your ‘brand.’

At the Borenstein Group, we advise CEOs to consider the following five branding techniques to help boost their Government Contracting valuation above and beyond their ‘book value.’

1. The Medium is The Message: Your website is no longer just your online brochure. It is a direct reflection of how you view technology. So, if your website still uses old Flash animations to show videos, when most of us have moved to Apple iPad as the business standard, most of your audience will see a ‘blank box’ in the middle of their screen. If you are an IT company, it tells the acquirer or investor that you are an unsophisticated seller that doesn’t understand where the relevant decision makers consume their information. So, why should they believe that you can be part of their corporate future?

2. Are You a Doer or a Leader? Buyers and investors are not only looking for a strong management team with proven experience, but also proof points that your company is well positioned as a thought leader in the areas of expertise that you claim. Saying ‘what you do’ without having strong editorial opinions about future trends in cloud computing, for example, demonstrates to a potential suitor that you are a lower-level thinker that is not capable of being a trusted advisor to clients. So, why should they pay a premium above book value for you?

3. Are You Showing Your Past Performances or Business Case Studies? Money-people are looking for proof-points that you not only performed on budget, on time and on target for a government agency according to the Performance Work Statement, but delivered business impact for your clients. Often, a shorter business case study that connects the mission of the program you supported to achieve the business objectives can dramatically realign the perception of your potential buyer of what they are actually buying. Remember, they are looking for your footprint so they can expand it, not simply to ‘retain it.’ Why would they believe they can cultivate the relationship unless there was actual business impact?

4. It’s Not Who You Know. It’s Who is Chatting about You. Paraphrasing the overused-but-true adage, prospective buyers aren’t simply interested in your self-certified truths about the fact you are the greatest buy in the market. So, in the age of Google and social media, scrutinizing investors are more likely to look at your company’s LinkedIn Profile, your key manager’s profiles, to see who links to you. They will be looking more closely, without ever talking to you, at your Facebook page to see if your employee culture is alive or if it is it a bunch of stiffs or butts in seats that never think for themselves. Moreover, the savvy ones will also look at your GlassDoor employee reviews to note if there is any weakness they can exploit to negotiate the price down. For example, imagine that you are selling them on the notion that your corporate culture is an A+ and that a smooth transition will be a piece-of-cake, and they read 10 bad reviews on GlassDoor from disgruntled employees that specifically accuse you, as the CEO or management, of being dictatorial, inefficient, and a backwards thinker.

5. Don’t be Anti-Semantic. Your ‘pitch deck’ contains a descriptor of your lines of business and provides a strategic opportunity for you to elevate your company’s valuation to your potential suitors by simply selecting the proper terms that show you are not simply a ‘reseller’ but a management consultant with technology to boot. Semantically, being a Microsoft Solutions Provider and a MicroStrategy partner only means that you are selling their licenses. It does not mean you truly understand Business Intelligence, Big Data, Business Processes, and the organizational impact it has on your particular agency-clients where you possess a deep bench of institutional knowledge. However, semantically speaking, imagine if you began the same conversation by showing that you are the master of Business Intelligence in the federal agency where you help them assess, plan, strategize and deploy a Business Intelligence solution to help maximize operational efficiency, using XYZ brand of software. Which one communicates the greater value?

Bottom line: The ‘Book Value’ of a company is the rather ‘obvious’ part that could be easily put in a matrix and draw little to no distinction between you and the other companies in the M&A portfolio of prospects. The ‘brand value’ allows you to yield a higher premium of ‘good will’ that comes by pre-engineering your branding to lead the investors to think of you in terms of the ‘future,’ not just the past, creating a higher measure for your success.

Borenstein Group offers a confidential assessment for CEOs of their current ‘brand valuation’ so they can ascertain what branding techniques could help them yield higher multiples when the time is ripe. It’s never too soon to plan. If interested, give us a call at 703-385-8178 x28 or contact us.

The Hub Invites Gal Borenstein to Speak at Hub Convene Conference

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The Hub, PR Week’s go-to resource for today’s digital marketing innovators, has invited Mr. Gal Borenstein, CEO of Borenstein Group, to be a speaker at this year’s annual The Hub Convene digital marketing conference in San Francisco, on March 31st, 2014. The Hub Convene assembles the industry-leading champions in digital marketing, with Borenstein featured alongside fellow thought leaders from LinkedIn, Kiip, Adobe and Dell.

The Hub is a thriving digital resource where innovators in marketing, data, innovation, content, social and digital media share ideas, strategies and insight on emerging trends and their effects on client ROI. The Hub is also the sister brand to PRWeek, the leading business publishing brand, and is headquartered in Silicone Valley. With offices in several locations such as New York City, Austin, Boston and Los Angeles, The Hub is quickly becoming the go-to resource for today’s digital marketing innovators, both at large organizations and growing companies.

Gal Borenstein will be discussing how to leverage Big Data for effective marketing and the current trends in technology marketing. Mr. Borenstein will provide unique insight from his experience gleaned over nearly 20 years of providing trusted strategic marketing guidance to executives of technology companies, both SMB’s and large global corporations. Other speakers include: Brian Wing, CEO and Co-founder of Kiip; Daniel Roth, Executive Editor of LinkedIn; Gina Casagrande, Content and Conversion Evangelist, Digital Marketing of Adobe; and Bryan Jones, Vice President of Marketing with Dell.

About Borenstein Group:
Borenstein Group, Inc. is a Northern Virginia-based integrated strategic digital marketing communications agency that specializes in supporting private and public-sector marketers in the areas of systems integration, information technology, supply chain and logistics, homeland security, defense, intelligence, telecommunications, aerospace, and government.

Borenstein Group Adds Innovative Clients to Its Growing Roster of Digital Marketing & PR Engagements; From Microgrids to Satellite Comms

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Borenstein Group has announced it has recently added several interactive clients including IPERC, a leading developer of intelligent microgrid technologies for commercial and military applications, Metropole Products, a manufacturer of specialty telecom components for radar, communications systems, electronic warfare and related applications, and LearnSpectrum (formerly Spectrum Training Brokers), a leading enterprise training solutions provider.

LearnSpectrum provides a simple, streamlined channel for corporations and individuals to access an expansive world of IT and professional training courses. By remaining knowledgeable and agile to the changes in technology and responsive client needs, LearnSpectrum delivers service and solutions that ultimately make the training process easier. LearnSpectrum’s transition away from the corporate name Spectrum Training Brokers is a central element to the rebranding engagement with Borenstein Group. This identity modernization ushers in a new generation of growth and success for LearnSpectrum.

Metropole Products develops off the shelf components that are operational in radar, communications systems, electronic warfare and related applications. Metropole makes highly advanced RF and microwave components that are operational in radar systems, communications networks and electronic warfare. They range from attenuators to large multiplexers, spanning the RF and microwave frequency bands.

IPERC’s intelligent microgrid technologies maximize efficiency and reduce overall energy consumption by up to 40 percent. Its cyber-secure, collaborative intelligence software and compact field-tested hardware form a complete distributed controls solution that is inherently more robust, more adaptable and more reliable than any alternative on the market. The Intelligent Power Controller (IPC) in IPERC’s microgrid control system integrates both new and legacy infrastructure into a unified local power network. The systems distributed design and construction ensures mission critical continuity of operations and eliminates single points of failure. Ultimately, the IPERC solution is an economical and effective way to achieve maximum energy independence.

Gal Borenstein, Borenstein CEO stated “We are excited to help innovative clients with bold objectives to achieve their growth mission by reinventing their digital brand presence.”

Borenstein Group is the go-to integrated digital marketing agency for emerging innovators and industry leaders in Information Technology, Management Consulting, Logistics & Supply Chain Management, Professional Services, Homeland Security, Defense, Intelligence, Telecommunications, Aerospace and Higher Learning Services.