As a vendor, how do you become a part of the strategic budgetary planning process for capital and/or operational improvements for your clients? If you’re involved or have a dotted line to this process, you’re well ahead of the game and definitely ahead of your competition. Keep in mind that your competition may not be a direct competitor, but rather another vendor in another part of the business competing for those same coveted dollars you’re after. Budgetary planning is strategic and often times spans over a 3-year period or more. This lines up very nicely with success-based solution providers focused on cost savings. This is a good partner profile to align with in an effort to insert yourself into the budgetary planning discussion.
For example, VeriShip states they save on average 23.8% against a shipper’s annual small parcel spend if they participate on their full 3-D solution stack (Data/Audit, Diagnosis/Intelligence, and Design/Contract Engineering). To be clear, clients recognize their savings incrementally over the term of their engagement with VeriShip. When a client signs up for their service, they don’t receive a lump sum deposit on their projected savings that can be used to fund other initiatives. Their service creates hard dollar savings right from the start, but these savings are incremental and recognized month over month.
Their incremental cost savings approach aligns very nicely with long-term strategic budgetary planning. Over time their clients can factor the cost savings achieved through VeriShip’s parcel intelligence platform into their long-term budgetary planning. If a client spends $1M a year on small parcel and they know they have large capital and/or operational improvements they need to budget for over the next year or two, they can look at their first year savings and factor that into their budgetary planning. Given VeriShip’s average savings percentage noted above, they can factor in $119k (net vs $238k gross) into their budgetary planning for the following year. These saved dollars free up budget to advance other initiatives that have a cost component.
If you’re a vendor competing for those coveted budgetary dollars to close the deal, VeriShip provides you an opportunity to insert yourself into the strategic budgetary planning process. Bringing VeriShip to the table can bring value to your clients that puts you at a competitive advantage. Think of this as another alternative financing/funding vehicle, but minus a lender. These are lost dollars that VeriShip can recover for your clients (see Couch Money).
VeriShip is a great example of a success-based solution provider, but there are many companies that operate under the same revenue model. These are great partner targets that can be leveraged to help fund your core offering and accelerate your sales cycle. It all boils down to meaningful value to your clients. That value can be direct or indirect — that’s the Power of Influence.