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Steve Patti CMO, ex-agency CEO, entrepreneur, growth adviser

Austin, Texas Area

Multi-disciplinary marketer (insights, brand, demand, product, channels) with diverse work experience (Fortune 500, mid-market, start-ups). CMO with experience building Challenger brands. Hands-on experience setting up best practices Marketing organizations (people, process, technology) in Tech, Banking, and multiple industries. Strategic adviser to agencies who want to shift from being a production shop to advising the CMO and delivering lifecycle marketing value. Previously built a $20MM global marketing firm in just 3 years. Adjunct Professor in Entrepreneurship program at Trinity University (Forbes Top 10 in USA).

Areas of Expertise

  • Reviews 32
  • Answers 2

Tactical tips on positioning and increasing profitability from 7 to 8 figures

Source: Clarity Mario Peshev Sep 28, 2023

The time spent with Steve was nothing short of valuable. Tons of value right from the start. Steve knows his stuff inside and out and was able to apply his expertise to my specific use case.

Source: Clarity Aaron Keith Apr 24, 2023

Excellent call. Steve has a depth of experience in marketing that's hard to beat.

Source: Clarity Becky Lawlor Apr 20, 2022

Great call with Steve re: agency positioning, operations, scaling. Highly recommended.

Source: Clarity Ian Nagy Aug 3, 2021

extremely useful! Looking forward to talking to Steve again!

Source: Clarity Jakub Sarlina Jun 8, 2021

We got tons of help and info. Steve really pushed himself to provide value - which he certainly did!

Source: Clarity Csaba Zajdocs May 6, 2021

He is an excellent counselor very experienced, one hour isn't enough, he pretty much rebuild my project and gave it a hard rock base.

Source: Clarity Jose Valle Feb 18, 2020

Steve is brilliant. He is already thinking 5 steps ahead when it comes to strategy. He knows the industry in and out. He understands why and how a customer buys, and how to design your message accordingly. He finishes your questions and is already ready with a genius idea to address it. He is also fun to talk to. Highly recommended. Looking forward to many more calls with him.

Source: Clarity Jyot Singh Jan 18, 2020

Awesome. First 5 mins already paid for the entire call. Steve gets marketing at a higher level. Look forward to more conversations with Steve.

Source: Clarity Kess Eburu Jan 15, 2020

Fantastically useful, go call Steve today and get some great advice and help :)

Source: Clarity Ben Fox Aug 14, 2019
Steve Patti, CMO, ex-agency CEO, entrepreneur, growth adviser answered:

Change the billing terms. Instead of providing services and then asking to be paid -- ask for a retainer upfront that must be paid in advance. While many corporations like to play games with first classifying their agency as a "vendor" (instead of professional services), and then secondly requiring Net 60 or Net 90 terms -- this requires the agency to act as a bank to finance the client. If your standard terms are Net 30 and your clients are not paying on time -- simply explain to them that you are no longer extending credit terms due to their failure to remit timely payment. Change the terms to retainers (payable on the 1st day of each month or quarter). I had to do this with Dell and several others who were killing our cash flow by accumulating huge payable amounts and not paying on time due to overly complicated invoice approval processes and Accounts Payable delays. Remember -- credit terms are a privilege that must be earned. When the "trust is broken" you must change the billing terms.

Steve Patti, CMO, ex-agency CEO, entrepreneur, growth adviser answered:

The discipline of "sales enablement" has become a top priority for many enterprise businesses. Depending on the definition you embrace, the idea is that smart companies equip their customer-facing staff with the necessary buyer insights, narratives, and sales collateral/tools to engage in meaningful conversations with buyers and customers to progress the dialog toward a sale.

I spoke at a Business Marketing Association event in southern California in January 2015 where we discussed one of the biggest challenges facing modern B2B sales organizations: lack of value proposition in their "sales bag" that is both differentiated and quantifiable (financially speaking).

So sales organizations show up to B2B sales conversations talking about features, specifications, awards and "value" from the seller (brand) perspective -- not the customer perspective. My friend Scott Santucci led the sales enablement practice at Forrester Research for 6 years and Scott points to the fact that buyers determine what is valuable -- not sellers.

Author/consultant Keith Pigues (panel speaker also at the BMA event) has book called "Winning with Customers" and asks B2B executives two questions:

Q1: Do your customers make more money doing business with you as opposed to your competitors?
Q2: How do you know?

There is an entire methodology behind what he calls the DVP (differential value proposition) -- the ability to quantify whether you are helping your customers either increase revenue or reduce costs. After all, businesses are in business to make money -- period. To appeal to the CFO and other wallet owners in a B2B sales, you must quantify a differentiated value proposition in financial terms. Only then can Marketing "communicate value" and Sales "sell value."

Want to know more?

Check out this LinkedIn Pulse post I provided on Feb 3:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sales-enablement-king-wearing-any-clothes-steve-patti?trk=prof-post

Need help getting this right? Ask me.

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