Trusted advisor relationships are not product centric.

Increasingly, Global 2000 CIO's are moving into the position from a business background and not a technology one. All are moving away from technical mumbo-jumbo into business discussions and for the topic of this discussion all are receiving hundreds of calls a week from well intentioned salespeople about a product or service will solve one woe or another.

I worked for companies who pumped out product after product, the proverbial, spaghetti on the wall. Unfortunately they were field tested when a sales person stuck a spec sheet in front of the client, because of a briefly mentioned business or technology issue yet to be solved. I talk with many product managers, many never spent a day in the field. Product pumping often starts at the top, one CEO went as far as saying lead with service X, if that does not sell, switch to product Y and if that fails move to service B. This particular company had a very high turnover rate and had up to 3 or 4 salespeople covering the account in as many years. So much for a trusted advisor relationship.

As a father of four kids, I hope that we all learn from experience. Here is what I learned;

Listen first and ask questions. Find out what the business issue is, find out how that ties to the companies vision and mission. Ask the person what they think the solution is, pull out the nuggets where you can add unique value and articulate your value.

Have product marketing talk to users about what is lacking in the market and build relevant solutions around those issues.

Have specific messages for each executive. Generic messages are just that. Know the business problems you are going to solve and defend your unique value with rigor and passion.

Boutique firms need to establish clear and concise value propositions that need to be clearly differentiated against larger competitors.

Bottom Line: Competitive advantage does not come from generic messaging. Marketing and sales campaigns must be aligned to problems and not products or services.