Question

Topic: Strategy

Product Positioning Statement & Executive Level Meeting (1st Question I Have Posted)

Posted by Anonymous on 8/16/2004 at 11:28 PM ET 250 Points
My SVP has a meeting on Thursday with a prospective qualified buyer for a major potential financial content product offering of the Toronto Stock Exchange. I am "arming" him with a binder all nicely tabbed and containing:

Product Roadmap
Operational Metrics of the product
Product Performance parameters

Market Requirements generated from interviews done by myself and from independent 3rd party research

Competitive write-up

So a fair amount of work and effort has gone into this presentation/meeting (it is not the first on the subject - this meeting may even lead to a strategic close on the business)

My question as follows:

My SVP is meeting with a C level decision maker who is also the Economic Buyer and his product specialists may or may not be there. Given that it is the Economic Buyer, should I arm my SVP with both Buyer and User Personas and associated product positioning statements to illustrate/convey the demand side personas we have uncovered through our investigation and market sizing exercise.

Or would an Economic Buyer find the user persona and associated product positioning statement not useful?

Further, for clarity sake, the Economic Buyer is a C level executive in one of leading channel partners

Any insight would be most helpful - I am trying to apply the general principles of the Pragmatic Marketing Framework on this one

[inactive link removed]

Thanks in advance
Jason





[Moderator: Inactive link removed from post. 2/14/2011]
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 8/17/2004 at 8:39 AM Member
    Jason, I'm not ignoring you, just taking a look at your matrix and trying to soak up your question. Very well written! I love it!

    I'll be back so don't get bummed about no answers yet.
  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 8/17/2004 at 8:34 PM Accepted
    Jason,

    I wish I had more to add, but the others beat me to it. But, as promised, I wanted to respond anyway.

    I would say with 99% certainty that the Economic Buyer wants to see all sides of the process. It is a necessity to understand both Buyer AND User personas in order to make an appropriate assessment. Like Andrew stated, the worst that could happen is one could not be used, although I highly doubt it.

    You cancern is valid, though. The prep time could be cut short by concentrating on one persona, so I understand your query. Nevertheless, it is best to go in prepared to answer EVERYTHING...especially with C-Level execs involved.

    I deal with product marketing everyday. We have to work with inventors, owners, founders, distributors, buyers, VCs, banks, partners, you name it. I always make sure I have every part of the mix down pat before any meeting.

    I really like the layout of the matrix you provided. Pretty sharp. If you have any spare time, drop me an email, perhaps we can learn from each other.

    Again, the others pretty much said the same thing, so don't feel obligated to give me points.

    Good Job and Good Luck!!!

    P.S. I would really like to see how you put it all together. Sounds interesting. An NDA is no problem if necessary.
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