What is Trapped Value?

Trapped value represents untapped potential—when organizations fail to transform new technologies into meaningful capabilities, as the global consulting firm Accenture notes. Thought leader and renowned business author - Geoffrey Moore - highlights historical shifts:

• 1990s: ERP streamlined global supply chains, the internet connected the world, and Client/Server architecture set standards.
• 2000s: Smartphones revolutionized delivery chains, enabling digital services, real-time transactions, and disrupting traditional retail.
• Today: Generative AI and data integration are redefining products, services, and customer experiences.

Spotting Trapped Value

Unlocking this value starts with co-creation between buyers and sellers. Buyers bring commitment; sellers need business acumen, industry insight, and innovative thinking to engage today's savvy decision-makers. Moore recommends a Trapped Value Workshop to:

• Map inefficiencies
• Pinpoint missed opportunities
• Redirect misallocated resources
• Focus on high-impact priorities

Sellers should align this process with their expertise, solutions, and partnerships for maximum impact.

Quantifying the Prize

Once identified, trapped value must be measured. Moore estimates that unlocking $10M in value could yield a $1M engagement (10%). But patience is key—rushing risks losing the buyer's buy-in. A strong Business Case, co-developed with the buyer, empowers them to champion the initiative internally.

Making It Happen

With value defined, a clear Sequence of Events ensures success:

• Assign responsibilities
• Outline execution steps
• Set accountability milestones

This culminates in a Proposal or Statement of Work, launching the partnership to unlock trapped value.

Why It Matters

Sellers who master this co-creation journey become trusted advisors, helping organizations thrive amid rapid technological change. The rewards? Significant gains for both parties through strategic alignment and deliberate execution.

Research Interviews

• Designed to pique buyer's curiosity and stimulate buyer's creativity.
• Results across several dimensions are captured to be used in creating Peer Study.
• Offers the buyer the chance to “keep the conversation going” with an SME from the seller.

Engagement between Buyers and SMEs

• Designed to involve buyers in a non-salesy method for the purpose of developing co-created solutions.
• Yields enthusiastic buyer support for solutions that they have had a hand in developing.

Results

• Faster implementation driven by the buyer.
• Co-creative relationship leads to referrals.

Business Acumen

• Provides sales teams with a deep understanding of the market, including key trends, challenges, and opportunities.
• Equips sales professionals with a thorough understanding of the industries they serve, enabling them to speak the language of their prospects, and articulate value.

Approaching Prospects

• Guides sales teams to conduct detailed research on prospective clients, understanding their business models, pain points, and strategic goals.
• Develops personalized and targeted outreach strategies that resonate with the specific needs and interests of identified prospects.

High-Level Engagement Skills

• Helps master the use of frameworks and tools to communicate understanding and value with buyers.
• Fosters the ability to engage in strategic conversations that align with the client's business objectives and challenges identified during a meeting.

Positioning Value

• Advises sales teams how to position their value directly addressing the unique challenges faced by the buyer.
• Hones skills in crafting compelling value propositions emphasizing the tangible benefits and outcomes buyers can expect.

Crafting Business Cases for Co-Created Solutions

• Encourages sales teams to collaborate with buyers in co-creating solutions that precisely meet their requirements.
• Sellers learn to articulate the business case for co-created solutions, emphasizing the return on investment and long-term value.

Real Prospect Identification and Readiness

• Uses insight and analysis to identify real prospects with a high likelihood of conversion.
• Ensures that sales teams are well-prepared for prospect interactions, armed with relevant information, tools, and insights.

Continuous Learning and Adaptation

• Establishes mechanisms for feedback and learning from client interactions to continuously refine approaches.
• Fosters a culture of adaptability, where sales teams can quickly adjust strategies based on market changes and client feedback.

Continuous Intelligence Gathering

• Sellers stay informed about industry trends, shifts in customer behavior, and emerging technologies.
• Monitors competitors for product launches, customer announcements, marketing strategies, pricing changes, and partnerships.
• Keeps sellers abreast of any regulatory or legal changes that are impacting the market.

Analysis and Insight Generation

• Analyzes trends and patterns to forecast market developments and identify potential opportunities or challenges to act upon.
• Compares offerings, pricing, messaging, and positioning against key competitors to identify areas for differentiation.

External Insights and Expert Input

• Taps into external industry experts and thought leaders for insights and perspectives.
• Gathers feedback from customers and partners to understand their experiences and expectations.

Strategic Guidance

• Conducts regular briefings to the leadership team on market dynamics, competitive landscapes, and potential strategic moves.
• Develops scenarios based on intelligence to guide strategic decision-making and risk mitigation.
• Conducts regular SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analyses to inform strategic direction.

Unique Positioning of Offers

• Uses gathered intelligence to refine and enhance value proposition against evolving market demands.
• Identifies opportunities for offer differentiation based on market needs and competitor offerings.
• Adjusts marketing messages to reflect current market trends and competitive positioning.

Competitive Threat Mitigation

• Establishes mechanisms for early detection of competitive threats.
• Develops adaptive strategies to respond swiftly to competitive moves or market shifts.
• Fosters collaboration between sales, marketing, offer development, and customer experience teams to ensure a coordinated response to threats.

Accelerated Revenue Generation

• Uses intelligence to iterate and optimize go-to-market strategies for faster revenue generation.
• Aligns offerings with customer needs and preferences identified through intelligence.

Objective and Comprehensive Evaluation

• Identifies the specific factors that contributed to successful deals, such as offer fit, pricing, relationships, or timing.
• Understand the reasons behind lost deals, including competitor strengths, pricing issues, or offer shortcomings.

Actionable Insights for Sales Effectiveness

• Analyzes how well the sales team executed the sales process, identifying areas for improvement or refinement.
• Evaluates the quality of customer interactions, communication, and relationship-building during the sales cycle.

Message Resonance and Offer Refinement

• Assesses the resonance of the sales messages and value propositions with the needs and expectations of the buyers.
• Uses insights to refine offerings, ensuring they align closely with customer requirements and market demands.

Continuous Improvement

• Establishes a feedback loop to ensure that insights from win/loss analysis are integrated into ongoing go-to-market strategies.
• Briefs sales teams based on identified areas for improvement.

Go-to-Market Spectrum Enhancement

• Adjusts market positioning strategies based on feedback from successful and unsuccessful outcomes.
• Identifies opportunities to enhance competitive differentiation and address weaknesses revealed in the analysis.

Drive Greater Revenue Success

• Uses insights to make informed strategic decisions related to positioning, offer development, pricing, and messaging.
• Fine-tunes sales strategies based on what has proven effective and eliminates factors that have led to losses.

Enhanced Customer Understanding

• Gains a deeper understanding of customer preferences, enabling the seller to tailor offerings more precisely.
• Identifies areas where relationship-building efforts can be strengthened to improve customer loyalty and retention.

Non-Threatening Method

• Focuses on building relationships rather than immediate sales pitches. This involves understanding the executive's interests, needs, challenges, and priorities.
• Shares relevant and valuable content that addresses the prospect's pain points without being overly sales oriented.

Identifies Ideal Executive Prospects

• Uses research to identify executives who align with seller's ideal customer profile.
• Gains insights into the challenges executives face within their roles and industries.

Connecting with Executives

• Crafts personalized messages that first seek to connect on a personal level.
• Utilizes various communication channels, such as email, social media, and/or networking events to provide high-value, relevant content, and insight.

Executive Engagement

• Explores areas of business fit.
• Tailors value proposition to highlight how seller's offer directly addresses the buyer's pain points and contributes to achieving their strategic goals.
• Encourages dialogue and feedback, creating a mutual exchange of information rather than a one-sided sales pitch.
• By engaging buyers early and addressing their needs effectively, sellers can potentially shorten the sales cycle and expedite revenue generation.

Measuring and Iterating

• Measures the effectiveness of seller's outreach and engagement strategies.
• Based on feedback and results, continuously refine seller's approach to maximize success.

Comprehensive Research Request Desk

• Provides a dedicated team that handles research requests and helps sales teams gather relevant information about prospects, industries, and market trends.
• Ensures quick turnaround times to support agile decision-making.

Online Customized Knowledge Portal

• A centralized repository of sales-related resources, including ideal prospect profiles, market data, competitor information and articles.
• Implements access controls to ensure that sales teams can easily retrieve the information they need.

Ideal Prospect Profiles Analysis

• Develops and stores ideal prospect profiles, analyzing factors such as size, leadership, geography, and key technology-based initiatives.
• Evaluates potential leads against ideal profiles to prioritize and focus sales efforts effectively.

Interactive Weekly Sales Meetings

• Facilitates interactive weekly sales meetings to discuss and support ongoing deals, share insights, and address challenges.
• Strategizes and aligns sales efforts with broader seller goals.

Sales Tools

• Develops and provides sales tools that streamline the selling process, such as FAQs, Sequence of Events, and Peer Research Study.
• Offers resources to ensure that sales teams are proficient in using the provided tools effectively.

Streamline Selling Efforts

• Continuously reviews and optimizes the sales processes to eliminate bottlenecks and enhance efficiency.

Improving Outcomes

• Establishes feedback mechanisms to gather insights from sales teams and iterate strategies for continuous improvement.

Adaptability and Scalability

• Designed with scalability in mind, ensuring it can adapt to the changing needs and growth of the seller.
• Leverages technology to integrate tools and platforms for improved operations.