1. “We Needed a Deep-Dive Engagement on Our Strategy, Positioning and Prioritization”
I’d like to share the experience I had working with Bob London of London, Ink, when he engaged with CrossCountry Consulting, on a deep-dive strategy, positioning and prioritization project in 2014-15.
By way of background, we were already growing very rapidly based on the reputations and networks of our partners and managing directors—without any strategic framework or proactive attempts to understand our differentiators and what they mean to the customer. Essentially we needed to assess, understand and ultimately establish a connection between our unique strengths and what is meaningful to customers—from their point of view.
2. Helping Us Understand What The World Looks Like From Our Customers’ Perspective
Overall Bob did a fantastic job of helping us understand what the world looks like from our customers’ perspective (he calls this the Customer’s Elevator Rant) and translating those insights into a vision, mission and strategy that (a) truly differentiates CrossCountry in the market; (b) makes all of our marketing and business development efforts more effective; and (c) sparked passionate buy-in from our leadership team and the entire company.
Throughout the process, Bob challenged our thinking while remaining very easy to work with—he delivered a great client experience in terms of investing in the relationship and adding value.
He was essentially “embedded” with us during the engagement and ultimately was involved in helping us select a full-time marketing director. Bob’s work on strategy, positioning, messaging and prioritization, helped our new marketing director hit the ground running to execution against our goals.
3. We Regularly Refer Back to Bob’s Work
We regularly refer back to Bob’s work, particularly the insights he extracted from his one-on-one interviews with our clients and other decision-makers. Those discussions revealed real-world pain points and needs—in the customers’ language, not marketing-speak—that revealed a number of “rants” that were previously unspoken and therefore unmet by others in our space. These insights became the basis of our new strategy.
Because of the impact and value Bob brought to CrossCountry, I am very enthusiastic about recommending him for his unique brand of customer-infused strategy, positioning, messaging and marketing planning.
