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“Damian, hoeveel uur hebben we eigenlijk nog op de strippenkaart?” Als HubSpot consultant krijg ik die vraag elke maand wel een paar keer. Eerlijk gezegd moest ik het dan altijd opzoeken in een spreadsheet, die ik zelf bijhield. Meestal achteraf, op vrijdagmiddag, reconstruerend wat ik dinsdag ook alweer voor wie had gedaan. Gisteravond dus maar eens opgelost. Twee uur later stond er een eigen app in ons portaal: - Op elk company record een kaart met de strippenkaart van die klant (met conditional logic uiteraard, geen strippenkaart is geen extra tab) - Uren loggen per kwartier, saldo boekt automatisch af - Seintje wanneer een kaart bijna op is - En met één klik rolt er een PDF-maandrapport uit met ons logo erop, klaar om naar de klant te sturen Het mooiste is dat ik geen regel code heb getypt. Ik heb twee uur lang tegen AI zitten praten zoals een klant tegen mij praat. “Nee, die knop moet rechts.” “De datum moet ook aan te passen zijn.” “Kan die tekst wat dichter op de balk?” Voor precies dit soort maatwerk zei ik klanten een jaar geleden nog kan, maar dat wordt een developer inhuren en een serieuze investering. Nu bouw ik het op een woensdagavond op de bank. Ik moet nog een beetje wennen aan hoe snel de ontwikkelingen gaan en wat dit betekent voor ons vak. Maar het is toch allemaal wel heel gaaf dat dit kan. | 16 comments on LinkedIn

The org chart shouldn’t dictate the consultancy’s go-to-market strategy, but in most firms, it does. But... there’s a better way to go to market. Florian shares his experiences with an issue-led go-to-market approach for consulting firms. He explains why the org chart shouldn’t dictate and how an issue-led approach can substantially improve consulting firms’ commercial models. Enjoy reading his new article! https://lnkd.in/eScV5Tn5

Consulting success is all about building trust. Here’s a trust-building concept consulting firms can use. Many consulting leaders are responding to today’s market pressures by investing in sales, marketing, pricing, training, or delivery. Don’t get me wrong, those are all worthwhile initiatives, but they only improve performance if the underlying commercial foundation is already strong. It is one of Florian’s and my biggest learnings in the past years. In our experience, this more important question comes first: “𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿?” Vague capability statements (“Here’s what we do”) or long service lists rarely create enough differentiating trust. It is built when these three conditions reinforce each other: 1️⃣ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. A specific business issue, in a defined client context, connected to a meaningful outcome. 2️⃣ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳. Repeated expertise and outcome evidence that show the consulting firm has solved this problem before. 3️⃣ 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗵. A credible route from issue to outcome that gives buyers confidence in how success will be achieved. Miss one of those three conditions, and trust starts to weaken. Get all three right, and the consulting firm becomes easier to understand, easier to trust, and easier to choose. That is why the centre of the visual is ‘The High-Performing Consultancy’. 👉 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘’𝗦 𝗠𝗬 𝗔𝗗𝗩𝗜𝗖𝗘 Designing the consulting proposition is not a branding exercise or a marketing project. It is the commercial foundation that builds buyer trust and shapes new client attraction, pricing power, expertise compounding, delivery consistency, and ultimately consulting firm performance. Watch out: the market is becoming less forgiving! The consulting firms that outperform will not be those that communicate more effectively. They will be those that made deliberate choices about the problems they solve, built repeated expertise around those problems, and gave buyers a credible reason to trust that the desired outcome can be achieved. The takeaway is simple: trust is not built by saying more. It is built by combining the right problem, credible proof, and a believable path to the outcome.

Here is a cheat sheet for crafting clear B2B Messaging. It highlights the importance of context and timing. Remember, B2B Messaging is NOT just your value propositions. It’s an ongoing conversation with a customer. And like any good conversation, context is crucial. 👉 Context provides the foundation for being understood, and sets the stage for delivering a message that resonates.

How do you keep everyone aligned around a new positioning strategy? The answer is NOT a 50 page slide deck. (You actually only need 6.) Getting an entire company to align around a positioning strategy can be extremely difficult. But product marketers often exacerbate the issue by over-delivering. In an effort to justify their existence, they will go way overboard in making the positioning strategy deck as beefy as possible. The issue here is that nobody has time to consume and internalize all this content. A better comparison is how politicians plan campaigns: they center on big themes. “The big things we want people to remember are 1) education reform 2) free healthcare 3) less taxes.” The minor details can be expressed differently, but everyone needs to get on board with the big messages. This deck template is an attempt to do just that → align everyone on how to explain what your software company is, what problem it solves, how it solves it, and what specific aspects of the product or business make that solution believable. Check out this example with Riley Hennigh 🏴’s agency Oratory Design. | 54 comments on LinkedIn

Me: “So who is your ICP? (Ideal customer profile)” Every B2B founder: “Mid-Market companies with more than 100 employees, $30M in revenue” Or sometimes they’ll say: “Startups” Or “Large Enterprises” 🙈 These firmographic ICPs are terrible - they are missing the actual attributes that make a potential target an ideal target. And if you use them to build your go-to-market programs, you’re going to end up burning cash trying to boil the ocean. ❌ And more importantly, only few of these ideal customers will actually become customers. Your ICP should have these additional elements: 🟩 Champion Who is the person or team that actually cares about the problem you solve? 🟫 Job-to-be-Done What is this team trying to do? Is there some specific outcome they are looking for? Or better yet, a specific activity they are trying to carry out? ⬛️ Current Way How are they carrying out this activity today? Is it a competing product? Or some method and set of processes? 🟥 Problem What challenge are they running into in relation to the JTBD? --- Check out the example shown for what an ICP definition could look like for VMware (related to selling their cloud security product) When you bring these additional elements into your ICP definition, you’ll actually start to get a real picture of the people you’re serving with your product. And EVERYTHING in your business gets easier: → Product - you know what features to prioritize. → Sales - you know what accounts to call into. → Marketing - you know what content to create. | 57 comments on LinkedIn

The advantage in AI-enabled GTM isn’t which tools you buy. It’s how well the tools you already have connect. Over the last decade, GTM stacks were built one layer at a time. CRM. Marketing automation. Conversational intelligence. AI co-pilots. Each layer solved a specific problem. None were designed to operate as one connected system. The most advanced teams are solving that by threading AI through the stack as a coordination layer. Connectors and APIs turn separate tools into a working system. AI carries context between them, links workflows, and handles the handoffs that used to fall to people. Growth begins to compound. This is the same arc that played out in manufacturing in the 1980s, software development in the 2010s, and supply chain through the 2000s. Each time, winners combined people, process, and technology into adaptive systems built for continuous improvement. GTM is now in year one of that arc. Jacco van der Kooij just published an executive brief mapping the 5 strategic shifts defining how GTM evolves from here. It covers the move from funnel to Bowtie, from CRM-centered to data-centered architecture, and from linear acquisition to compounding growth loops. Tools are bought. Systems are designed. Only one creates a competitive advantage. Read the full brief. Link in comments. #RevenueArchitecture #GTM #B2BSaaS #AIStrategy #RevenueOperations #SalesLeadership #GrowthSystems #RecurringRevenue

Most consulting firms claim outcomes, but unfortunately, most of it is consulting fluff. The websites of well-known consulting firms are full of statements that sound impressive until someone asks a basic question: what will materially change for the client? No answer. Because of the fluff. Here are real-life examples, taken from consulting websites, of what their weak outcome language looks like, followed by statements that are far more specific. 1. A well-known global consulting firm writes: “We leverage the power of analytics and artificial intelligence to generate the insights that catalyse growth and efficiency.” This is capability language wrapped in outcome language. “Insights,” “growth,” and “efficiency” could mean almost anything. Stronger alternatives from our work: • We help grocery retailers reduce food waste and stock-outs by improving store-level demand forecasting. • We help industrial manufacturers identify production bottlenecks and increase plant throughput using real-time operational data. 2. Another well-known global consulting firm writes: “We improve decision-making, increase operational efficiency, and mitigate risk.” This statement covers almost every possible consulting assignment. There is no client context, no business issue, and no tangible result. Stronger alternatives from our work: • We help banks shorten model-validation cycles and reduce regulatory remediation by strengthening model-risk governance. • We help multi-site healthcare providers reduce patient waiting times by redesigning capacity planning and frontline workflows. • We help logistics companies lower last-mile delivery costs by improving route planning, fleet utilisation, and depot operations. 3. An innovation consultancy writes: “We enable clients to accelerate innovation and create lasting competitive advantage.” The statement contains an ambition, but no defined issue, audience, or commercial consequence. Stronger alternatives from our work: • We help B2B software companies reduce the time from product idea to paid market validation by building and testing focused minimum viable offers. • We help industrial businesses turn underused engineering knowledge into repeatable service propositions that generate new recurring revenue. 👉 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘’𝗦 𝗠𝗬 𝗔𝗗𝗩𝗜𝗖𝗘 Generic outcome statements create the appearance of relevance while forcing the buyer to do all the interpretation. Words such as growth, efficiency, agility, resilience, innovation, and transformation are not outcomes on their own. They are broad ambitions shared by almost every organisation. A strong outcome statement must make choices. - It should name the client context, - identify the issue, - describe what changes, and - connect that change to a meaningful operational or commercial result. When every consulting firm promises the same broad benefits, polished language only makes the sameness more visible…the big, ugly consulting sameness.

Consulting proposition design forces consulting leaders to confront who they really are. Over the past decade, I have learned that consulting proposition work rarely becomes difficult because leaders cannot understand the concepts. The real difficulty begins when the proposition challenges how they have built and led the consulting firm. At TVA, Florian Heinrichs and I help consulting leadership teams define where & how they create the strongest value, which type of clients they should focus on, and which work they should stop pursuing. The answers are often surprisingly clear. Acting on them is much harder. 🔹 A sharper proposition may require leaders to say no to revenue they would previously have accepted. 🔹 A more repeatable proposition may reduce experienced consultants’ freedom to reinvent every engagement. 🔹 A clearer client profile may challenge long-standing relationships and personal preferences. 🔹 A stronger commercial model may require the firm to become less dependent on a few individuals who shape, sell, and steer almost every important project. This is where proposition work becomes deeply personal. It exposes how leaders deal with focus, control, discipline, uncertainty, and short-term commercial pressure. ⚠️ I have seen leaders ask for more clarity while continuing to approve every exception. ⚠️ I have seen firms aim for more repeatability while rewarding constant customisation. ⚠️ I have seen leadership teams agree on a strategic focus and abandon it as soon as an unrelated opportunity appears. 👉 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗠𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 Entrenched leadership behaviours, from opportunistic decision-making and inconsistent follow-through to risk avoidance and endless exceptions, make designing consulting propositions challenging for consulting firms. The proposition can be redesigned on paper within a few months. The leadership habits behind it can take much longer to change. One of my biggest learnings from the past decade: a consulting proposition will rarely be stronger than the leadership behaviour that supports it.

Productisation starts with value definition, not with process standardisation. Most consulting firms think productisation starts with standardising delivery processes. It doesn’t. Productisation starts by making client value repeatable. That means deliberately choosing which business problems to solve repeatedly, where expertise should compound, and which outcomes should become more predictable over time. Once value becomes repeatable, process standardisation follows naturally instead of driving the entire exercise.

Ordering a burrito at Chipotle can teach you a powerful lesson about positioning. I was standing in line, and the guy behind the counter asked the person in front of me, “What kind of protein do you want?” The person ordering stumbled for a second and said, “What?” Then the Chipotle employee said, “What kind of meat do you want?” “Oh! I’ll have chicken.” Asking someone, “What kind of protein do you want?” is inherently less clear than asking, “What kind of meat do you want?” And to go even further... asking, “What kind of BEEF do you want?” is even clearer and more specific. But the moment you add chicken or pork to the menu, you can’t just say “beef” anymore - you need to find a word that describes beef, chicken, and pork. Easy! “Meat” is right there and is still very clear. But things get slightly more complicated when you add vegetarian options like sofritas/tofu. You can’t use “meat” anymore, so you have to abstract one level higher to something that covers beef, chicken, pork, and tofu. And at this point, you end up with “protein” - something most people don’t normally shop for at a restaurant. Nobody really says, “Do you guys sell protein?” Obviously, you want to sell all these different things… because it increases the size of your market. But the more you broaden out, the less clear your messaging becomes. The same applies to B2B SaaS. People buy products to help them with specific activities. A sales team will buy a tool for mutual action plans, another tool for conversation intelligence, another for forecasting, and another for sales engagement. There are markets for each of these use cases/categories on their own. But what if your platform does ALL of these things? What do you call that big collection of tools/workflows? There’s likely no great word for it, so you settle for a “protein” equivalent... probably needing to invent a new word in the process. That’s exactly what sales tech companies like Clari have had to do. They sell a platform that includes: 1) Mutual Action Plans 2) Conversation Intelligence 3) Forecasting & Pipeline Management 4) Sales Engagement and lots more... There isn’t a great word to describe this collection of tools and workflows, so they needed to “create a category” (I.e. a “revenue platform.”) But like “protein,” this isn’t a common phrase for sales teams. And while people shop for each of these sub-products individually, Clari needs to do the hard work of convincing prospects that they all belong together in a new category. This obviously takes a ton of effort, time, and money to do. And in their case, it actually might be the right goal to pursue (they are very large and have the resources to potentially pull this off.) But for YOU, oh early-stage startup... you need to ask yourself if YOU can do the same. Can you convince the world not to call it “meat” …but “protein?” P.S. do you think this metaphor is enough to get me on r/linkedinlunatics? | 100 comments on LinkedIn

How’s this for a metaphor for the two kinds of consultancy go-to-market Luk Smeyers and I are seeing all the time: If capability-selling consulting firms were car manufacturers, they wouldn’t be marketing their car... but every component that’d go into it, separately. (Bear with me for this one... I know it sounds absurd when you put it that way, but it’s the consequence of how these firms are built and run.) See, a capability-led firm is designed to sell “what we can do” and answer almost any question even remotely related to its area of expertise. Which, usually, means its go-to-market has to match that breadth - multiple plans, multiple motions, multiple campaigns, each one carrying a different service line to a different audience for a different reason. Case in point: I’ve recently run a geography-wide review of ~60 boutiques... and found several shops running 58, 72, even 132 LinkedIn ads across a wide variety of themes and promos... wild, considering they were all below 120 people. I mean, great for them to DO marketing (no complaints from me, here) - but this chasing all kinds of clients with all kinds of ideas must cost them a lot. With great complexity ... comes great overhead. But, back to my car metaphor, ok? If capability-led firms are promoting parts, then proposition-led firms market the full car, perhaps even the driving experience. And they can do it, too - because they’ve made those choices around which specific business issue to solve, and for whom... and how. So they’re not bringing a grab-bag of losely related capabilities to market - but a single, unifying story. And when the entire firm stands for a single proposition, then a single plan and motion can drive a lot of the “top-of-funnel” business development effort and result - because you promote a single thing (the “entry point” to firm’s wider variety of solution variants and versions), and then present options and details when a prospect has stepped onto the showfloor and asked for them. This is how product companies - a car OEM, say - have always gone to market. Focused, coherent, efficient. The product is the story. Everything else follows from it. And the consulting firms which figure this out don’t just simplify their marketing. They simplify their entire commercial model and delivery day-to-day - through fewer wrong-fit conversations, a cleaner pipeline, and a BD motion that compounds rather than sprawls. The tl;dr for this post is therefore: The “promoting components” model might still work. But it’s often an exhausting way to grow a business, and creates overhead which, in these days of softening demand, can become outright risky. So... perhaps borrow a page from the book of product companies then? Hope this helps! | 11 comments on LinkedIn

The consulting vicious loop. The pressure to protect revenue can quietly become the reason performance gets worse. We see this pattern far too often in consulting firms, especially when growth becomes harder and every opportunity starts to feel too important to lose. The decisions that feel safest in the short term can create a vicious loop that becomes increasingly difficult to escape. I mapped out how this loop works in my new carousel. Good reading!

We asked 149 GTM professionals one question: When you’re behind on revenue, what’s the first lever your leadership pulls? The results: 30% said add pipeline and increase acquisition spend. 24% said improve mid-funnel conversion. 20% said defend retention and reduce churn. 26% said diagnose the constraint before deciding. Nearly 3 in 4 leaders reach for a specific lever before identifying where the problem actually is. Adding pipeline to a leaky system does not fix the leak. It accelerates the loss. Every revenue model has a constraint. One stage where friction is highest and leverage is greatest. Acquisition, conversion, and retention are all valid interventions. But pulling the wrong lever at the wrong time compounds the gap. Diagnosis is not delay. It is the fastest path to the right intervention. The Bowtie model was built for exactly this moment. It gives revenue leaders a shared view of the full customer lifecycle - so when performance slips, you can see where, not just react. Revenue recovery is a design problem. The leaders who close the gap fastest are the ones who identify the constraint before committing resources. #RevenueArchitecture #GTMStrategy #RecurringRevenue #SalesLeadership #RevOps #RevenueOperations #B2BGrowth

Wanneer zet je ABM in? Wouter Dieleman gaf hier een lekker concreet antwoord op in B2B-Breindump. Kijk naar je contractwaarde. Alles onder de 20-25k per jaar en de businesscase wordt al snel lastig. Want hoe meer je richt, hoe meer je investeert per account. Die twee lopen gelijk op. Mattheus Swinkels voegde er iets aan toe: de grootte van de DMU. Als er maar één persoon beslist, heb je ABM waarschijnlijk niet nodig. Maar als je een heel team moet meenemen in een traject van maanden? Dan is gericht werken geen luxe maar gewoon logisch. Hoe maak je dit hard? Schrijf gewoon de businesscase uit op een servetje (of in een excel). Wat steek ik erin? Wat verwacht ik eruit? Als dat niet klopt, begin dan niet. Simpel. Maar hoeveel bedrijven slaan die stap over? Volledige aflevering met Wouter en Mattheus staat op Spotify.

A DIY guide to building an RGB LED Pixel Bar display using ESP32-S3 and custom components.

How to use SPICED to develop spot-on Personas for ABM (in HubSpot) 🧡 3 steps: 1️⃣ Map out the full ICP buying committee [image 1] • Determine BC members for all ABM buying roles. • If you’re on HubSpot, use its buying roles below to ensure consistency. • Add secondary and tertiary buying roles. • Determine where in SPICED Persona is involved [image 1] • Add all Personas to HubSpot [image 2]. Use alliterations like CCO Charles to improve memorization. • Surfe syncing Pro tip in the comments 📌 HubSpot buying roles: 1. 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿: The person with the final authority to approve or decline a purchase. 2. 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿: The individual responsible for controlling the budget. 3. 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻: The person advocating for your product or service within the business. 4. 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿: A person who, while not having final decision-making authority, significantly influences the decision-maker. 5. 𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿: The person who will be using your product or service. 6. 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿: An executive who supports or champions the purchase but is not the final decision-maker. 7. 𝗟𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗹 & 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲: The individual who ensures that your product or service meets the company’s legal and compliance standards. 8. 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿: A person who may impede or oppose the sales process. 2️⃣ Develop SPICED for the top 3 personas in ABM worksheet [image 3] 1. Champion 2. Decision-maker 3. Influencer [𝗦]ituation: Leads to pain ⤵️ [𝗣]ain: Drives the necessity for change or impact ⤵️ [𝗜]mpact: Is needed to adhere to a critical event ⤵️ [𝗖]ritical [𝗘]vent: Determines decision making ⤵️ [𝗗]ecision: Is based on Decision Criteria & Process used in ME𝗗𝗗IC ⬆️ Learn how to use Jacco van der Kooij’s SPICED in ABM and Enterprise selling [📌 LinkedIn SPICED post pinned in comment] • Use SPICED for ICP as the foundation for Personas [image 4 - 📌 SPICED post in comment] • Leverage application-specific AI. I used Koen Stam’s and Simon Orlob’s Custom GTM GPT to help describe SPICED for Personas [📌 link pinned in comment] 3️⃣ [Optional] Enrich Personas in HubSpot and LinkedIn Sales Nav • Fill out Persona details in HubSpot [image 5] • Develop Persona in HubSpot’s Persona tool [image 6 - [📌 tool link pinned] • Consolidate Personas into 5 Sales Nav Personas [image 7]. 5 is the maximum allowed. Learn about the difference between HubSpot and Sales Nav Personas [📌 LinkedIn video post pinned in comment] You can go advanced with this, but start with steps 1 and 2 for basics. Check all the pinned content for context. Good luck everyone 👏 Come find me in DM or the comments for a copy of the ABM worksheet. #ABM #HubSpot #GTM

The famous Lünendonk Consulting Ranking Germany was published again. The top 20 consulting firms grew by 4,1% (vs 7,5% in the previous year). OK, that’s not double-digit growth anymore and is a decline vs last year. Still, they are growing, despite the tough challenges in the German economy. To all the doom writers trying to tell us AI will destroy consulting, think twice before writing that again. Congratulations to all the top 20 consulting firms!

A fable about ovens, founders, and prioritization in product development.

Solvimon’s Quote Templates are now live. In every sales organization you typically have at least five similar/ quotes that you maybe only modify a couple of parameters on. Solvimon’s quote templates help you get to that signature faster. Create and manage quote templates today in Solvimon. And as always, you can also do this via our API and MCP to automate it even further.