How to Uncover Your True Value Proposition for B2B Growth (with Revenue Strategist Mark Jaffe)

Welcome to the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast, where we talk with entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders at B2B services, tech, and SaaS companies to learn the systems and processes they've used to create success for their business. We'll also learn from marketing and sales experts, uh, to provide insights to help you grow your business. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and the podcast is brought to you by Modern Revenue Strategies and their 10x ROI B2B Growth Guarantee. Schedule a free diagnostic call to learn the fastest path to double your B2B revenues in just 90 days. Hello and welcome to another episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and today I'm very excited to welcome my guest, Mark Jaffe. Now, Mark is a veteran revenue growth strategist with more than 30 years of experience advising companies through critical growth and market expansion decisions. He's worked with leadership teams across manufacturing, technology, media, and professional services, including organizations exceeding $100 million in revenue. Mark is particularly known for his work on value proposition clarity, distribution strategy, and identifying practical paths into new markets without overextending the business. And we're going to talk about some of that today. Early in his career, Mark held senior roles in the entertainment and media industries, as you can see from all those lovely records on the back of his wall, and during a business— a time of significant business model disruption, giving him a firsthand perspective of how shifts in distribution and buyer behavior can reshape entire industries. Today, Mark works with companies that have hit a growth ceiling and need a clear strategic roadmap to move forward, helping leaders to see new options when existing approaches stop working. So, Mark, welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you, Marc. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. So, we've got some great topics to sort of talk through that you and I chatted about a little bit. But before we get into those, why don't you give our audience a little bit of a background? We touched on your media experience and all of those, you know, discs in the back certainly sort of beg some explanation. Tell us a little bit of your story of what you've done and how that led you to where you are today.

Well, thanks. So, I went to business school at USC, undergraduate UCLA.

Right on.

Right on. And I thought I wanted to go into advertising. So, I got a great job with Leo Burnett in Chicago and I, Hated it. I just realized it didn't take what I was best at and utilize that in a way that was maximizing my potential, which is a theme for companies too, when you think about it. And so I decided, I love music, I'm going to get in the music industry, which of course back then was very difficult because everyone wanted to get in the music industry.

Sure.

So I put out a resume and cover letter via snail mail to every president of every record company I could think of. And the COVID letter was not a cover letter. It was a comic strip where the 2 people in this comic strip— and I can't draw, so they were stick figures— were making fun of every aspect of me I can think of. And the last frame said, so you need to hire this man. And the other person said, absolutely. Total non sequitur. Well, the day after that, I get a call from A&M Records saying, come on in. The head of marketing wants to talk to you. And I'm thinking, wow, this is A&M Records. They're, you know, the best artists ever. And what he said was, what do you know about children's music? And I thought, that's odd. I know nothing about children. I don't have them. I'm not sure if I like them. Trust me, I've had them and I've learned to like them very much. I have kids. But I was so struck by it, I couldn't figure out why They had pegged me to start a children's entertainment group, which I ultimately did. And it was because of the comic strip.

Huh.

The president thought I had a sensibility that would be compatible with children. That to him was my core value proposition, which is why I got the job. And then I ultimately was recruited by the Walt Disney Company to revitalize their record company. And I grew that from a $30 million business to $120 million in 5 years and put out many of these albums. Like you can see with The Lion King up there, Beauty and the Beast, Mermaid, Aladdin. And then I realized I was getting a little old for the music industry in my late 30s. And so I started 2 enterprise software companies, one which had a successful exit. I also became the CEO of an accounting firm that I converted into a Diversified financial services firm. And then I realized, what do I really love doing? What's the through line in my career? And it is growing revenue. And I said, that's what I'm good at. I'm good at growing revenue. That's my strength. And so, for the last 18 years, I've been working with companies to grow their revenue, and I've had over 110 clients during that 18-year period.

That's great. Well, and, and one of the things that you hit on early with that comic strip and, uh, your, your foot in the door at A&M was this idea of, you know, sort of the, the core value proposition. Uh, and, you know, certainly something that we agree on a lot is that that's really the key to understanding how to be successful in a particular market. And I know you have a very specific approach there. Talk to us a little bit about how you help companies uncover or refine that core value proposition and how that really factors into your approach for growth.

Well, the most important thing is that companies have to be open to rethink the core value of their business, which especially for some companies that have been around for a while is very difficult because what they believe is their core value proposition is so ingrained But I think an easy way to understand it is the difference between wants and needs. I mean, one thing I learned in the software business is if your company, if your product is a want to have, like, wow, that's great. I think that would work really well with my company. I would love to use that. Let me get back to you. They're never getting back to you.

Right.

Because it's not a need to have. It doesn't solve a real problem. So the equation that has to work is why does your customer need you? Need you, not want you, but need you. And how are you able to best deliver the solution to that need? And so it's interesting how you could have a seismic shift in your company's business as a result of this exercise. And I'll give you an example.

Yeah.

So I, I'm currently working with a company for the last couple years actually now that started as a direct-to-consumer autograph signing merchandise distribution company. So basically they would put on live streams with your favorite TV or movie celebrities or music celebrities. They would sign autograph merchandise. So you, you would say, I'd like one of your hats. And they in that, in that live stream would say, hey Mark, I'd love to sign a hat. Thanks for being such a loyal fan. They'd talk about you, they'd sign it on the livestream, and then my company would take that video clip as well as the merchandise, ship it out to you, deal with all the royalty waterfall payments, and take care of the entire backend.

Wow.

And I said to them, and we were talking about their core value proposition, they said, oh, we know all the celebrities. That's really our value. And I thought, I don't think it is. I think that's a good way to implement your business. But your core value is your back office. I mean, it's so systematized and so exact and so accurate in such a complex area that that's your value. And all the time you spend getting and arranging celebrities is really more of a nuisance.

Huh.

What if you were to aggregate that value among scores of celebrities And let people whose job it is to be the gatekeeper to those celebrities, like a talent agency or like a sports team or a sports league, be the one to deal with all the mechanics of the celebrity relationship. That would allow you to focus on what you do. You would become a B2B company rather than a direct-to-consumer company because your contracts would not be with the individual celebrities and their managers. And being in the entertainment business, I know how cumbersome that could be. It would be with the entities whose business it is to do those relationship management activities. And you focus on big deals with these entities and you focus on executing with your core value proposition, which is all the back office. And that's what they've done. And they've signed a number of significant agreements and they anticipate within the next 2 years, 50% of their business is gonna be B2B. with ultimately the vast majority of their business being B2B, all because they realized their core value proposition was different and were willing to execute on that difference. Wow.

So that's really insightful, and I think, you know, something worth sort of unpacking a little bit for our audience, because there are certainly, you know, businesses that, you know, they, they think that they, you know, have a particular value proposition, or they've been operating against it, and Maybe it's gotten them to where they are. Do you have a process that you use to sort of help companies find those things that maybe are non-intuitive or might be different than their current assumption?

Yeah, my process is basically to go into an individual deep dive with each of the employees, each of the stakeholders in the company, customers, especially ex-customers. I mean, there's so much you could learn by diving in deep, giving people a trusted place in which to speak, and being nonjudgmental in your response.

Yeah.

And subsequent to that, I develop a summary and findings report also based on third-party research and a lot of additional research I do on my own so that the business owner and I are on the same page. Because if you're at different foundational places, the next step, which is the development of the strategic plan and the determination of the core value proposition, is not gonna work. And then we lock ourselves in a room, and I've been locked in a room with people for over 12 hours sometimes, because it takes a while to get there. And we go through a very detailed process in which to not only uncover the core value proposition, but to understand how to leverage that value proposition into new and diverse revenue streams. And then subsequent to that, we develop, and I know we're going to talk about this in a bit, the roadmap in which to achieve the ultimate goal of higher revenue.

Yeah, it's so often overlooked, the value of, you know, talking to your customers and not just, are you happy on a scale of 1 to 10? You know, that sort of standard customer satisfaction, but But really taking the time to create the space where customers can give you that valuable insight that can lead to a strategic direction for the company. And I always, you know, sort of advocate that marketing plays a really strategic role in a business when it's done well, because it is that sort of nexus point with the customer where you can learn things like, wow, they really value this. about us that we haven't been leaning into. And it can uncover things like deeper capabilities that you have or capabilities that you think are sort of ancillary or not really part of your core value proposition, but that actually open new markets up for you in the same way that you sort of described there.

Yeah, I had a company a number of years ago that developed practice management software for orthodontists.

Uh-huh.

And back then, the trend in practice management software was flashy, bright graphics so that when the orthodontist is doing his work, he could see all of the, um, your teeth and how he can move them and some of the advanced mechanics of simulating how teeth can move. And my company was, uh, falling behind in that, in perception, because they were based in the Midwest. They were not a Silicon Valley company. And they came to me to say, what could we do? I mean, we're losing the perception battle. And when I did the research, I realized a really important thing. The decision to buy this practice management software was made by the orthodontist or the head orthodontist who runs the practice. But the decision was based upon the opinion of the administrator who had to use the bulk of that software service to manage the practice.

Hmm.

And what did that person want? Something that works, something that doesn't break on, customer service that is friendly and easy to deal with. And I'm thinking, that is exactly what my Midwest company is known for— being nice, honest, dependable, reliable. It works. And if there's a problem, we're here for you. That's where they should be focusing. Their core value proposition was not on flashy graphics. It was on reliability and dependability. And once they decided to emphasize that, to your point about marketing, as their marketing message, their sales went through the roof.

That's right.

Because that's what the ultimate decision maker wanted. The ultimate decision maker was not the orthodontist who appreciated the graphics. It was the administrator who had to manage the practice.

Yeah. Well, and that even goes into the strategy of, well, what do we build next for the product? Instead of, well, let's try to build these flashy things to keep up with what everyone else is doing. Instead, they can build in redundancies that make the product more reliable and easier to use and more secure or have faster access to customer success. That really, that strategic point of view guides not only What are we saying to the market, but also what are we building and who are we building it for?

Right, right.

Yeah. And, and that insight, as you described, often opens up sort of new categories, uh, for businesses, either in sort of new services that they can offer, uh, as you, you talked about, uh, with the original company shifting from B2C, whereas now they're not offering access to celebrities, but they're offering this expertise in, you know, sort of managing the logistics. As companies uncover these insights from customers and other stakeholders and identify new markets to move into, whether it's creating a new product, you know, for existing customers or, you know, new customers for an existing product, that can be a risky, you know, sort of inflection point because They can make some missteps, and maybe they overly commit to a market that isn't really going to align with their core value proposition. Talk to me a little bit about how you work with companies as they are entering new markets to sort of establish like a beachhead or sort of find that safe space from which to grow and launch those expansions.

I'm glad you asked that question. I just finished an assignment with an extremely large safety equipment manufacturer. That had a large— a great reputation for intense, unrelenting testing of their equipment.

Okay.

And for the ability to apply certain aspects of their equipment to the specific needs of a market. The other companies in that space were run by big conglomerates and they were divisions of the company. But this company was a specialist. In this type of equipment, and so we determined that the market in which they were currently playing was not saturated, but the return on further investment and time and energy could be better served by a new market. Now, a new market doesn't necessarily know who you are or why you exist, and so you're absolutely right. The risk of going to a new market, whether it's a new geographic market or a new vertical market, in this case it was a new vertical market, is really high because you're an unknown entity or partially unknown entity, particularly if you're not a billion-dollar company, but more of a $100 million company. And so the beachhead strategy is really effective in getting known in the market and the most effective beachhead is to solve a problem that hasn't been solved.

Yeah.

So when we developed our roadmap for beachhead strategy into 2 markets, the number one thing we had to first determine was what was the problem that hadn't been solved and how could we solve it in a way that no one else had? And once you do that, if you're able to do it effectively and you have the right marketing and the implementation, you can now establish a beachhead. Oh my God, Mark Osborne's company solves this problem. We've been waiting for someone to solve this problem and you get known. And then all of a sudden, as you adapt all your other products to that vertical, people trust you. They've relied upon you. You've solved a pressing problem, and they now also think you can solve other problems and give products that solve other problems because you've built a level of trust that the existing competitors weren't able to do that.

Yeah.

But it's important to identify a true need. Remember, a need to have, not a want to have. And to actually solve that need in a way that does solve the problem for your ultimate customer.

Yeah. Well, and that, it's such a sort of different approach. Like I, I have a client that they offer, you know, a service that, you know, essentially every business needs on some level. And so they're like, well, the, you know, the market's endless. Let's, let's go after all of it. And I'm like, well, you know, if, if you try to be everything to everyone, you're no one to anyone. And so, So, what we did is using, you know, what we call like a bowling pin strategy, but very similar to the beachhead. And bowling pin strategy comes from Crossing the Chasm where he talks about like identify what's that lead pin where you can win in a particular market niche and it's big enough that it's worth winning. But the strategic position is that it'll knock over the pins next to it and help you open new markets where you can establish a new beachhead and then start to expand. And so now instead of Trying to be everything to everyone. They have a roadmap for the next 2 years of, we're gonna take this market niche, and then that's gonna lead into these other market niches, which will lead into these other market niches.

Mm-hmm.

So they can grow in a really focused but also, uh, comprehensive way.

That's a great point. You can't be everything to everyone, and I learned that the hard way. I've been doing this for 18 years now in consulting. The first 2 years, my value proposition was I could really help out your company. I'm really good at what I do, and no one ever called me.

Yeah. Right?

And so I focused in on revenue growth strategy, which is a very narrow piece of the market for business services consulting. But now all of a sudden I'm known for that one narrow piece. And of course I could do execution and implementation plans and so forth. But I have identified and I've focused on one narrow piece. And I think that's often what's necessary when one enters a new market with a new service or a new product.

Well, and so you hit on something there that you had also touched on before, but I think it's diving into, which is sort of this idea of, you know, the execution piece of strategy and how you need to not just have the strategy, Good idea sitting in a binder doesn't do anyone any good. But you need to sort of create that roadmap and then have sort of ownership to ensure that that sort of roadmap gets executed and that there's real traction with that. Talk to us a little bit about how you see that strategy should work in that sort of execution and how you actually bring it to life within organizations.

Well, great strategies fail at implementation. I mean, that's just a, a known fact and it's a frustrating fact. And so one has to design the implementation in a way so that the strategy can succeed. And the main issue is accountability.

Sure.

When you develop your roadmap, you need to have a specific champion for every item, no matter how small. Now, that champion doesn't have to do all the work. That champion ensures that the work is done. And so they are accountable in the roadmap. And you have regular points of accountability, whether the meetings are weekly or bimonthly. But the point is someone, one person is always accountable, not 2 people accountable for the same item, one person accountable for that item. And there should be 2 pieces of accountability. I often have CEOs tell me, I can't be the policeman anymore. And I—

Right.

My response is you should have never been the policeman to start. There are 2 types of accountability. One is accountability to you as the CEO. The other is accountability to the team because the team develops the implementation elements in the roadmap. The team says, I will take responsibility for this element. And then the team doesn't want to let their other team members down as well as not wanting to let the CEO down. Because if the right culture is developed going into implementation, no one wants to be the one that says, oh, my dog died. I couldn't do it that week.

Yeah. Such an important thing. And that's the common thing, culture eats strategy for breakfast because good strategy without good execution is worthless. And it's that culture that ensures that execution actually happens because there's this culture of accountability and this culture of sort of teamwork and collaboration, which is like, that's such a great example of how that sort of quote really manifests itself for success in companies.

I love that quote, culture over strategy. It's so true.

Yeah, it's definitely true. So, Mark, you're obviously an expert in a ton of super interesting areas, and we could talk about this all day, but I got to be mindful of your time. But before I let you go, Tell us a little bit about, like, who do you work with and how do you help them?

I work with companies that are looking to grow and are stuck or are growing at a rate that they believe is less than what they're capable of doing. And oftentimes these companies, whether they're B2B manufacturing companies, consumer products companies, or even service companies or technology companies, oftentimes these companies just need to reexamine their core value proposition and take a fresh look at how they could expand. And it could be new vertical markets, it could be new products. I one time had a skincare company that I noticed in my research was focusing on a younger woman, yet older women were buying their product because they— older women felt their needs, which, as you could imagine, change over time. were better satisfied by this product. So we came out with a product that focused on older women that satisfied the core needs of an older woman, and the company grew from $2 million to $20 million in a 3-year period. So I think companies sometimes need a fresh look, and that's what I provide. A lot of consultants look at what's there and say, how can I improve it? I look at not only what's there, but more importantly, I look at what should be there. And say, why is it not there and why shouldn't it be there? And that's where the innovation comes in. And that's what I specialize in doing, growing revenues as a result of a very innovative approach to developing strategy.

So that's so interesting and really hits on something that I've recently been reading a lot about, which is that in most of, you know, sort of business and management today, People do a lot of data analysis and primarily just to sort of confirm that what's happened in the past is likely to happen in the future. You bring such a unique perspective, which is the difference, which is what are the things that happened in the past that imply some change in the future? And that's where real innovation happens. And so that's so interesting and exciting that you bring that perspective to companies.

Thanks for that. And any companies that are between $2 and $150 million is really my sweet spot. And like I said, it's B2B manufacturing, consumer products, technology, and also services.

Fantastic. Well, what's the best way for folks to get in touch with you, Mark?

They could contact me, my email address, mark@markjaffe.com. Visit my website, markjaffe.com, and all the information will be there. I'd love to chat with you. And any company that just wants to chat, I'm happy to do that just as a way to get to know each other and hopefully give some, some insight.

Well, I've certainly enjoyed our chat today. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know our audience learned a lot.

Oh, thank you, Mark. I appreciate the opportunity.

All right. Talk to you soon.

Take care.

Thank you for joining this episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast. We hope you've gained insights to grow your business. If you enjoyed this discussion, Please rate, comment, like on your favorite platform, and share to others who will find it useful. Do you know a CEO, founder, or leader at an early-stage B2B services, tech, or SaaS company who would like to be a guest and share their story? Send us a note. Let's schedule a conversation.