597. Jim Ettamarna, A Framework for Commercial Excellence

Show Notes:

Jim Ettamarna, a renowned expert in commercial excellence, defines it as incorporating commercial efficacy and efficiency. He believes that there are two key branches to drive down in this area, and it holds tremendous potential for clients and organizations. Jim's framework for commercial excellence is value creation, which involves understanding market demand, go-to- market models, market growth, and demand trends with a focus on each specific industry.

A Six Sigma Lean Framework

Jim uses a lean framework, starting with Six Sigma, to standardize the right work and ensure associates and employees are conducting the right activities and behaviors. He also emphasizes the importance of systems in psychology in commercial results, as it helps design standardized systems for onboarding talent, enhancing team engagement, and engaging with customers. In sales, motivation is crucial, and the human element of having a team is essential. However, dealing with complex buying processes can be challenging, so it is essential to tune processes and approaches to the specific needs of the customers.

A Go-to-market Model

The go-to-market model is a linkage between strategy and execution and commercial excellence. It should be tuned for the company's strategy and the strategic context. For example, a $300 million middle market private equity-backed company serving the Durable Medical Equipment market that sold to 5,000 independent organizations and specialty retailers. The company had to strategically think through market growth, accounts to capture, and the buying cycle for customers. To drive efficiency and effectiveness, the company had a set of building blocks, including an online component, independent sales reps, an inside sales team, and specialty sales people. The strategy piece involved determining what would drive value, growth, renewals, base volumes, and pricing. The go-to-market model was designed around these building blocks, and commercial excellence was driven by optimizing these aspects.

Components of Commercial Excellence

Jim discusses the importance of breaking down commercial excellence into various components, including channels, sales operations, content, and management systems. He emphasizes the need for segmentation at the top level to understand what will drive value and optimize the go-to-market model for the business. Within this model, he suggests ways to optimize each element, such as sales enablement, which includes training, scripts, and engagement strategies. He also emphasizes the importance of benchmarking and understanding the nuances of sales teams. He shares an example of a furniture retailer where he worked with 2500 full-time employees and 1000 part-time employees. The performance of the company was analyzed using Pareto curves, but some outliers were more successful than averages. To replicate these outliers, he spent time in the field with the best sellers and identified their backgrounds and profiles. He also highlights the importance of identifying B+ and A minus players and setting them as standards. The A plus players are often unique individuals that can be difficult to replicate, but they can still learn from them. Segmentation is crucial in understanding customer nuances.

Value Mapping and Needs-based Segmentation

In the past, value mapping and needs-based segmentation wer