After management teams have defined their Vision and Goals for the company, we explore the Credibility of the business in the eyes of partners.
We work with Series A-C businesses, so this auditing process reviews the team, the business, the founding insights and current traction in order to reveal any barriers that might exist for potential partners working with the company.
We conduct due diligence on the business for partners before they ask so when the company scales its engagement with Enterprise customers, potential investors or channel partners they can do so with confidence.
How we audit credibility
Credibility (noun: the quality of being trusted and believed in) is obviously pretty essential when it comes to selling, and the good news is that it can be measured.
The challenge is that a lack of credibility might not be obvious to the managing team, yet may be presenting a massive risk for partners.
Every customer, investor or partner wants to de-risk their involvement in the relationship. Marketing can absorb a significant proportion of any annual budget and, in our opinion, marketing should be seen as a massive risk. So all marketing should be de-risked. And that starts with the credibility of the company spending the marketing money.
We use a Credibility Audit to evaluate client organisations. We do this for investment due diligence purposes on behalf of Venture and Private Equity firms, as well as for CMOs who need to find blind spots.
Each of the four points of the diamond influences the other.
Team
It doesn’t take a prospective buyer or partner long to spot inconsistencies in the quality of a Team. Each of the team members needs to talk the same way about their vision, product or service, and each needs credible backgrounds and insights. We work with journalists to validate our positioning work, to ensure the ideas we create are newsworthy. Similarly we use our investor network and other critical eyes to look at teams and how they present themselves.
Traction
While obvious, Traction can be seen in terms of insight, team energy, client wins and technology or product progress. Is your technology evolving quickly enough? Are you responding to customer needs seriously enough? Do clients stay with you, etc.
Business
This is the commercial and operational health of the company as measured in metrics such as sustainable income, a supportive culture, doing the right thing with ESG initiatives and corporate governance. We explore if the company can make and grow money, and if partners (investors, customers, channel agents etc) are likely to profit from their association with it.
Insights
Insights come from the Team, affect the Traction which in turns affects the Business and revenue. We see insights as fundamental. In a world of near limitless software and hardware potential, what sets teams apart is their insights and how they execute on them.
IP, patents, PHDs, experiments, ways of working, a testing culture and knowledge sharing, all contribute to the flow of insights. They build trust and goodwill with partners and reassure customers that the company can help them succeed.
Buyers seek insights into how to solve their problems. They struggle with a gap in knowledge; they don’t know how to get from where they are to where they want to be. So they buy products and services to get them there. Hopefully, your insights have the answer they seek.
Your Insights will act as a catnip. In fact, for many organisations the greatest source of insight-based help available to customers is in their onboarding and consulting functions. We recommend taking this content and making it into marketing to inspire confidence that you know what you’re doing.
Your insights into the market and solving buyer problems are pure gold. Don’t keep them to yourself.
The Credibility Audit, in summary
Credibility comes from who you are, what you do and how you do it. These elements can be measured and tracked. They also provide the foundation for good marketing, because the more you share about how you do things differently, the more confidence partners will have.
To learn more about how these tools ladder up to create a powerful new positioning and marketing strategy for your B2B business you can either:
- Get in touch and we’ll take you through the thinking and how it applies to you
- Or watch the Webinar series here