Acclaimed author and thought leader, Geoffrey Moore (“Crossing the Chasm,” “Inside the Tornado,” “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers,” and more) will join us to discuss what companies must do to “provoke” sales during difficult times. During an economic downturn, it’s critical to persuade your customers that your product is not just nice-to-have but an essential tool for their businesses to survive. Provocation-based selling goes far beyond consultative or solution-selling and differs from product-based selling, which pushes features, functionality, and benefits. Provocation-based selling helps customers see their competitive challenges in a new light that makes addressing specific painful problems unmistakably urgent.

In this episode, Steve and Geoffrey will discuss how companies and startups can put provocation-based sales strategies to use, including:

How to identify critical issues faced by customers
How to formulate a unique point of view, or your “provocation,” around high-impact issues
How sales and marketing can adapt to formulate provocations
How to deliver the message to customers
How to adapt your organization

And, tune in live to get your questions answered during our live Q&A!

About Geoffrey Moore

Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and advisor who splits his consulting time between start-up companies in the Wildcat Venture Partners portfolios and established high-tech enterprises, most recently including Salesforce, Microsoft, Autodesk, F5Networks, Gainsight, Google, and Splunk. Moore’s life’s work has focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations. His first book, Crossing the Chasm, focuses on the challenges start-up companies face transitioning from early adopting to mainstream customers. It has sold more than a million copies, and its third edition has been revised such that the majority of its examples and case studies reference companies come to prominence from the past decade. Moore’s most recent work, Zone to Win, addresses the challenge large enterprises face when embracing disruptive innovations, even when it is in their best interests to do so. It’s time to stop explaining why they don’t and start explaining how they can. This has been the basis of much of his recent consulting.

Moore has a bachelors in American literature from Stanford University and a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington. After teaching English for four years at Olivet College, he moved back to the Bay Area with his wife and family and began a career in high tech as a training specialist. Over time he transitioned first into sales and then into marketing, finally finding his niche in marketing consulting, working first at Regis McKenna Inc, then with the three firms he helped found: The Chasm Group, Chasm Institute, and TCG Advisors. Today he is chairman emeritus of all three.

https://hbr.org/2009/03/in-a-downturn-provoke-your-customers

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