By Ian Richardson, Managing Partner, Richardson & Richardson Consulting
Podcast Season 1, Episode 4 Guest: Dave Poole, Director of Sales & Marketing, Solutions Granted
Dave Poole is a US Army veteran that began his IT services journey in 2008. In his first IT services firm, he was able to move the company from utilizing a break/fix IT support model to leveraging Managed IT Services support strategy. He exited successfully in 2013 from that business. In the years that followed, Dave concentrated on expanding the sales and marketing processes for multiple organizations. Today, Dave is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Solutions Granted. This position gives Dave the ability to work with a successful, and growing team of professionals, delivering cybersecurity solutions to MSPs. I spoke with Dave a while back and had a few great takeaways around differentiation, realistic goals, and routine market research from our conversation. I wanted to share those with you here.
Differentiation:
Every “market” eventually becomes crowded. When competitors recognize opportunity, they will flood a space, put another way, once there is “blood” in the “water”, sharks will naturally gravitate to the area to investigate and feast on opportunity. If you focus on why your different, versus speaking about what makes you the same, you’ll stand out in a crowded room and be able to capture attention of your prospects.
Realistic Goals:
Nobody likes to “miss” goals, and a goal that doesn’t push your limits doesn’t create much business value. Making sure to look at various perspective points, talk to involved parties, and set goals that are realistic yet challenging is a necessity for any growth-oriented organization.
Routine Market Research:
Having battle cards against the solutions, competitors, and alternatives in your space allows you to ask good questions without “throwing shade” at your competition. By keeping an eye on the moves the marketplace is making, you can opportunistically step in when a competitor experiences a short-term difficulty and capture wins from customers and prospects that might be experiencing that difficulty personally.
I gain so much value from meeting with fellow entrepreneurs and leaders. Each and every person I speak with brings their own experiences, knowledge, and viewpoints to the table, and without fail, I walk away with a head full of ideas and motivation to do better in my own business. I so greatly appreciate Dave’s willingness to come onto W.I.N. and share his story.
If you’re interested in joining me on an episode of W.I.N., it would be my privilege to host you. You can book your spot by visiting https://randr.consulting/connect and selecting the Podcast Booking option from the services menu. You can find previous episodes of W.I.N. on our website and subscribe to it on whatever your platform of choice is.
Always Forward,
Ian
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