Moving Off That Revenue Plateau with Your Key Relationships – In Just 7 Minutes with Jose Palomino

Resources/Links:

• To get more FREE amazing and promising tips on how you can grow your business, click here: valueprop.com/tensteps

Summary

Have you been paying expensive just to get off that revenue plateau and continue growing?

Being frustrated, spending more, and trying everything won’t get you off that plateau or even anywhere. Not until you are able to look at your business holistically and systematically, you won’t be getting anywhere off that plateau.

Jose Palomino, the CEO of Value Prop Interactive, helps mid-market B2B companies struggling with sales growth and margin pressure sharpen their competitive edge to win more and better business. By empowering owners with a winning strategy, he has unlocked over $250M in new growth for dozens of owner-led B2B companies even in commoditizing markets.

Push yourself out of that revenue plateau by listening to Jose’s promising tips and insights on how you can grow your business while spending less. He also shares the importance of keeping in touch with your key relationships in the business and why these relationships should be valued more.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:46 – Jose’s ideal client: It’d be the owner or CEO. An owner that actually is operating a business in a B2B context, typically between like $2 and $20 million in revenue, lower number if they’re more services, bigger number, or they make something physical.
• 02:09 – The problem he helps solve: When I think back on all the clients I’ve worked with, they were at a point of being stuck. They felt stuck either in revenue stuckness or not quite sure how to get to the next thing.
• 03:12 – The symptoms of the problem: The first and most obvious one is a revenue plateau, right? So they’ve hit a certain level of growth. They hit a certain number, but they’re there for four years.
• 05:18 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Jose: One of the first is because of frustration, they think hiring an expensive ‘he’ll-solve-it’ headcount is going to solve the problem.
• 06:48 – Jose’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): First, write down your top 10 client relationships, and the human beings that are most important to your business. Then call them. Especially if you’re the owner, actually pick up the phone.
• 07:37 – Jose’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): To get more FREE amazing and promising tips on how you can grow your business, click here: valueprop.com/tensteps
• 08:03 – Q: How easy is it to get help? A: Very easy! I make it really easy for somebody to just reach out and let’s have a quick conversation.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Until you look at your business holistically, you really aren't going to get off that plateau.” -Jose Palomino Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland beaming out to you from the very sunny Sunshine Coast in Australia. I’m joined today by one of the smartest guys I know, actually– and I’ve never told him that, so don’t let him hear me say that, sort of thing– Jose Palomino. Jose, welcome!

Jose Palomino 00:28
Well, glad to be here, Tom! Thanks.

Tom Poland 00:30
I mean, you’re already a smart guy. You actually look really intelligent, as well. It’s just-

Jose Palomino 00:34
Oh boy! That’s a good pair, right?

Tom Poland 00:36
One could argue that’s even more important. So, Jose, where are you calling in from? Where are you hanging out?

Jose Palomino 00:40
Yeah, I live in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. So I’m on the east coast of the US.

Tom Poland 00:45
Philly! I only heard good things about people that come from Philly. And you’re also the CEO of Value Prop Interactive. What I’m really interested in, folks, about what Jose does is that he’s unlocked well over $250 million in growth for dozens of B2B-only businesses, but he also works with people who feel that they’re in a commodity market. In other words, your product, the great unwashed masses, don’t realize that your product might have differentiation. It appears to be the same set of golf clubs, or the same car, or the same consulting service, or whatever it is. Everyone else is offering. And so part of, I think, your core, your fundamental point of difference, and your superpower, if you like, is that ability to differentiate in the marketplace and to generate demand through that differentiation, even when the product might appear to be the same. So that’s a little bit about Jose, folks! Let’s dive a bit deeper into his magic. Jose, our seven minutes is going to start now. Sir, question number one, who’s your ideal client?

Jose Palomino 01:46
It’d be the owner or CEO. An owner that actually is operating a business in a B2B context, typically between like $2 and $20 million in revenue, lower number if they’re more services, bigger number, or they make something physical.

Tom Poland 2:00
Right, perfect! So very clear on that. And what would you say, how would you define the problem that you solve for them? What do they come to you for?

Jose Palomino 02:09
Yeah, generally, when I think back on all the clients I’ve worked with, they were at a point of being stuck. They felt stuck either in revenue stuckness or not quite sure how to get to the next thing. They had a desire to get to the next thing– next level of growth, next market, whatever. Not quite sure how to get there.

Tom Poland 02:28
Right. But they know it’s there.

Jose Palomino 02:31
They know it’s there. They feel it. And they’ve tried stuff but it just, somehow, doesn’t come together. Their team doesn’t pull it together. They’re not quite sure of what to do next.

Tom Poland 02:41
A lot of those folks, when I have a conversation with them and one of the comments they make is, “People think I’m quite successful, but I just don’t feel it yet. I know I can. I know there’s a lot more power in the engine if I could just extract it.”

Jose Palomino 02:54
Absolutely!

Tom Poland 02:55
So that’s a nice bridge to question three. What would you say are some of the typical symptoms of your ideal clients before they engage your services? What’s going on in their business or their life which would give our listeners a bit of a head up, kind of like, “Yeah, that’s me too”?

Jose Palomino 03:12
Sure. The first and most obvious one is a revenue plateau, right? So they’ve hit a certain level of growth. They hit a certain number, but they’re there for four years. You know, adjusted for inflation, they haven’t really moved. Or maybe, they’ve moved backward a little bit. So they’re on a plateau, that’s a really good thought, right? They were climbing the mountain. They hit a plateau. They know there’s more mountain to climb, but they can’t quite get there. Now, one of the other symptoms, and these are all kind of connected, is they’re spending money on marketing and sale, but they’re not really seeing the results. It’s not a lack of investment. Sometimes it’s a lack of investment, but, often, even with the investments, it’s just not moving. And then some of the more tangible manifestations that show up in their business is margin pressure from even their best customer, constantly being asked to kind of settle for less. And I make sense if you’re a small company, you have a big client, that’s a big corporation. They are professionals at squeezing you! And then the sales cycle stretches out. And, almost last but not least, they have customer concentration. They realize, “Boy if I lost Acme sprockets, we’d be up the river without the proverbial paddle.” And I think the final thought there, Tom, that really shows up is when people say, “I know if I asked my entire leadership team what our differentiator is, what our value proposition is, I’d get different answers from everybody. We don’t have a unified value proposition. We don’t really have an answer to the question, ‘Why people should buy from us.'” Especially, commodity categories.

Tom Poland 04:38
Right! And so, they’re feeling like they’re in a commodity category, and their leadership is homogenized, one of the occasions when you do not want to celebrate diversity, is when you get people to articulate your competitive point of difference.

Jose Palomino 04:53
You want to be on the same page and decide what that is.

Tom Poland 04:56
Focus and clarity. You’re dealing with people who are fairly successful by anyone’s standards. And you’ve already alluded to the fact that they’re trying stuff. They’re mostly spending money on marketing. They’re not moving the needle, but they are trying stuff. So you must see a lot of mistakes that people make before they come and find your solution. Give us two or three of those common mistakes that you find people make.

Jose Palomino 05:18
Great question, Tom. Yeah, I think one of the first is because of frustration, they think hiring an expensive ‘he’ll-solve-it’ headcount is going to solve the problem, right? So the guru guide that they’re going to bring on staff, overpay for like a VP of Marketing and Sales for a small company that’s like not realistic, or they hire an agency or somebody who’s going to fix it. The biggest mistake that really summarizes it is they’re not looking at their business systematically. There’s a reason you are where you are. There’s a reason why you grew to the plateau you got to, good things. There are reasons why you can’t get off that plateau. And it’s probably a combination of things. It’s not just sales, marketing, or lead gen. It could be your customer success program. It could be your working capital constraints that you can’t buy the machine. You need to be competitive. All those things tie together and create that stuck condition. And until you look at your business, kind of, not the overused word, but “holistically”, you really aren’t going to get off that plateau.

Tom Poland 06:19
And I think the big challenge for business owners is that we are so deep in the forest, we often don’t see the trees. We develop these blind spots, and we develop these biases. And that’s one of the beauties about having someone from the outside come in they don’t have that same blinkers. So there’s value in that and in and of itself. Let’s go to question five, one minute, 45 seconds left. You’ve got a top tip? A real quick top tip, just one thing that’ll take people to step in the right direction.

Jose Palomino 06:48
Yeah, so this is going to have just a few small steps to it, but it’s the same action, which is this. First, write down your top 10 client relationships, the human beings that are most important to your business. Then call them. Especially if you’re the owner, actually pick up the phone. And I can’t tell you how many owners I talked to and they say, “Well, the last time I talked to my customers was x years ago.” And just ask them, “Hey, what’s challenging your business? What’s costing you time and money? And what can we do to help even if you don’t think it’s what we do? Just tell me what it is.” And then do some of that stuff because it can help you move off that plateau with at least a couple of key clients. And these are important relationships.

Tom Poland 07:28
Perfect! Thank you for that. Just under a minute left. Question six is a valuable free resource. Real quick. Can you give us a URL where people can dive a bit deeper into this?

Jose Palomino 07:37
Sure, valueprop.com/tensteps for our 10 Steps to Growth Mini Course. It’s a $200 course that is free with this link for the next two weeks For your guests listening to this episode.

Tom Poland 07:52
Perfect. Thank you, sir! So valueprop.com/ten, the word ‘ten’, steps. Last question, sir. 24 seconds left. One question I should have asked you but didn’t.

Jose Palomino 08:03
How easy is it to get help?

Tom Poland 08:05
Great question! How easy is it to get help?

Jose Palomino 08:08
Very easy! I make it really easy for somebody to just reach out and let’s have a quick conversation. They can go to my name, josepalomino.com. Schedule a 30-minute call with me.

Tom Poland 08:18
Perfect!

Jose Palomino 08:19
And we’ll just figure out if there’s a ‘there-there’ based on their problem and what we do and I’ll be happy to help them.

Tom Poland 08:24
Jose, thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, and your insights. Cheers!

Jose Palomino 08:28
My pleasure, Tom. Thanks for having me!

Tom Poland 09:36
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.