“Most outsourcing service providers – no matter their size – believe they differentiate themselves from their competitors and clearly convey the message about what makes them special. But that’s not actually the case, based on feedback from buyers of outsourcing services. Marketing initiatives of most outsourcing service providers often end up just being a case of ‘me too.’” 

Add to this phenomenon the fact that most start-up firms and smaller, niche service providers focus all their energies on their business proposition and don’t have a lot of money for marketing to build their brand and convey what makes them special, and it’s easy to see how buyers encounter difficulty in determining which provider is the best for their outsourcing initiative.  

An outsourcer’s differentiation message is more important than ever these days because of the shorter sales cycles and new competitors entering the market. The marketplace is much more competitive now, but the messages are muddy.

I spoke with two industry experts about what they described in the quote above as the “me too” outsourcing marketing dilemma. Joe Vales is known as “the Father of BPO” and is recognized as one of the top 10 influencers of outsourcing. He is the Founder and Senior Partner of Vales Consulting Group, which provides strategic advisory services for mature outsourcing firms. Kerry Ann Vales is Director of Marketing Services, Vales Consulting Lite, which provides a new kind of marketing and sales support service for younger outsourcing firms. 

Q. What causes outsourcing firms’ marketing messages to often become more muddied than clear? 

Kerry Ann: In my work with Vales Consulting Group, and as a freelance business writer, I’ve had the unique opportunity to observe the difficulties larger firms face when communicating a clear and concise marketing message across all the different silos of an organization. The VP of one division may feel that the marketing strategy developed isn’t well suited for his silo and refuse to implement it, whereas another VP may choose to implement only parts of it. The result is the organization loses all focus and ends up with several different messages all going in different directions. With the outsourcing industry as large as it is, if you want to compete you cannot afford to lose focus or you will find that focus isn’t the only thing you lose as contracts keep going to your competition.  

Joe: As a good example of that, we spent over a year developing a client’s value proposition and the sales and marketing tools to support that. But that brand positioning – which has powered significant growth for the division that is our client – is clear on only that division’s page of the broader company Web site; the rest of the site has a mixed bag of messages, which significantly dilute the brand power of the company. 

Kerry Ann: With a smaller firm or a start-up, the message is on their home page and on all pages – the entire Web site shows the core of what the firm is all about. With a smaller, entrepreneurial firm, there is no middleman, nothing gets lost in translation because of silos. There are no roadblocks to conveying one message. 

Q: Besides the challenge of silos, what are some other differences between large and small firms and start-ups as far as developing their marketing message? 

Kerry Ann: Right away, one of the first things that we look at when working with a company of any size, large or small, is their value proposition. Does the value proposition clearly identify all of the company’s strengths and unique position in the market? Without a unique and powerful value proposition in place, it is almost impossible to develop a successful marketing strategy. So that is a struggle that all firms face in developing their marketing message – they fail to start at the value proposition. 

Once you get past the value proposition, we find that different-sized firms have different problems. Larger firms hire big expensive marketing firms to develop their marketing strategy, but often fail to follow through or even change focus altogether just six months down the road. That hurts their focus and their brand. Smaller firms can’t afford to hire big marketing firms but lack the time or expertise to develop a strategic marketing message themselves, so they get stuck in limbo. And, finally, start-ups have their own unique set of challenges. They are in a hurry; they need impact and focus, and they need results right away. 

Q: What led you to establish Vales Consulting Lite?  

Kerry Ann: Smaller, entrepreneurial firms and CEOs have great services; but they don’t know how to convey to the market what they do. They also need a lot of personal attention and handholding, and it’s very inefficient for a lot of marketing firms to provide that kind of service. 

I branched out with Vales Consulting Lite to help smaller, entrepreneurial outsourcing firms shape their go-to-market approach as well as their value proposition and core marketing message and materials. We take what they do well and shape it into a message that customers can understand and immediately know how their services can help them. 

I like working with smaller companies and helping them develop winning strategies, knowing that even if I’m not a part of their team in a year, they will continue to succeed as a result of the work we’ve done together. It’s personally rewarding to watch them jump into the market and take off with the new strategies we developed. 

Q. How quickly would a smaller firm see results from your approach to marketing? 

Kerry Ann: We turn conversations with our clients into tangible material and put it into action within a month. As part of our contract, we develop a clear list of deliverables that we will complete in the first six months. Small entrepreneurs need to see quick results. That’s the pressure they’re dealing with. 

Q. As you mentioned earlier, they’re also dealing with financial pressures. What makes your services affordable to smaller firms? 

Kerry Ann: We built the concept of Vales Consulting Lite on a shared-services type of operation. What we do for one firm is repeatable for another firm in a different market segment. The shared-services model allows us to manage multiple clients and give them access to big ideas and senior resources yet also give them a cost structure that is 75 percent lower than the market because the cost structure is spread across a large number of firms. 

Q: Are the Vales Consulting Lite services appropriate for any smaller, entrepreneurial, outsourcing company? 

Kerry Ann: Yes, but we have a specific focus on the types of companies we accept as clients. The first key is that they have the potential to redefine or reshape the market. It’s more than just having good products and services; they have the potential to become a big idea in the marketplace. 

Next, the CEO/founder needs to want to take the company message further than just presenting the value proposition and needs to be eager to work side-by-side with us on the goals to achieve the best positioning for the company. We look for start-ups that are younger than five years and smaller than $5 million. 

Joe: It also needs to be a company that wants a long-term relationship with us. When the smaller firm with the big idea succeeds, it can become a Vales Consulting Group client in two years when it needs more help in dealing with market influencers (such as outsourcing advisory firms) or building a world-class sales process, or expanding into new markets. Our third business – Vales Advisors – helps firms in the $10 – $20 million range find capital to grow even faster. 

Joseph Vales, Founder and Senior Partner, Vales Consulting Group, has over 30 years of experience holding senior management and consulting positions in strategic planning, marketing, and sales. He is a recognized authority on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and has been cited by many outsourcing and business magazines as the “BPO Pioneer,” “Father of BPO,” the “Dean of BPO,” and “The Universally Acknowledged Marketing Guru of the BPO Business.” He was also selected as one of the “Superstars of Human Resources Outsourcing” each year from 2003 – 2008 and also given the prestigious “HR Outsourcing Thought Leader of the Year” Award in 2005 by a leading industry magazine. He has developed strategic marketing projects, corporate identity and branding programs, value propositions, key marketing/sales messages, and thought leadership and internal/external communications programs for several large BPO, ITO, and software firms. Joe is recognized by leading research firms/analysts as one of the top 10 influencers in outsourcing and, as such, is in a unique position to introduce clients to outsourcing providers seeking alliances and to the outsourcing investment community. You can contact Joe at jvales@valesconsulting.com. 

Kerry Ann Vales, Director of Marketing Services, Vales Consulting Lite, has eight years of diversified corporate marketing and communications experience, as both a freelance business writer, and for the past seven years with Vales Consulting Group, a strategic advisory firm. She leads all client services and deliverables of Vales Consulting Lite, a new form of marketing and sales support service that allows younger, entrepreneurial firms to receive world- class advice at a fraction of typical consulting fees for project-based services. Kerry Ann contributes to the development of go-to-market strategies, value propositions, sales presentation toolkits, and thought leadership white papers. In addition, she manages the public/press relations program for Vales Consulting Group, writing and issuing news releases and working closely with the media to arrange interviews with client executives, and plan/contribute bylined articles.  Kerry Ann has a deep understanding of business and a keen ability to communicate the right message to targeted audiences to both meet and exceed client expectations. You can contact Kerry Ann at kvales@valesconsulting.com. 

Since 1998, freelance writer Kathleen Goolsby has studied outsourcing relationships’ successes, failures, trends, and best practices. She has interviewed more than 860 executives at buyer and service provider companies and is the author of “Critical Requirements for Building and Sustaining a Successful Outsourcing Relationship,” a chapter in Global Outsourcing Strategies: An International Reference on Effective Outsourcing Relationships (December 2006, Gower Publishing). As a freelancer, she also currently serves as the Senior Writer for Outsourcing Center (whose parent company is sourcing advisory firm, Alsbridge) and has authored dozens of articles as well as white papers. In a past role, she was editor of Outsourcing Venture (a former print publication). You can contact Kathleen at ksgoolsby@gmail.com.

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