There is no single way to build a truly customer focused B2B SaaS company. Rules and templates are of limited value and often constrain creativity unless they have been designed by you, for you. There is only one benefit of other people’s template: inspiration to help you build your own. There are however a few frameworks that are useful in guiding your journey to customer led growth.

In this blog, I want to share an overview of the five frameworks I use and how they inter-relate. In future blogs, `I will delve deeper into each one.

SIDEBAR: Frameworks vs Templates vs Methodologies

It might help to understand the difference between frameworks, templates and a methodologies. A framework is a basic conceptual structure. It describes what type of content is required but not the content itself. A template contains both structure and content with can be amended to suit specific circumstances. A methodology is a structured approach to achieve an outcome. I have listed them in order of degree of structure. Frameworks are structure light; methodologies tend to be very structured.

There are five frameworks that underpin building customer led growth capabilities.

• V3 - Vision, values and value proposition. These are high level descriptions of the company’s aspirations, principles that guide behaviour and how the company describes the pain/gain points it addresses and the benefits that customers achieve.

• Ideal Customer Profile - a detailed description of three things:

  • Target Companies - The characteristics of the companies that buy your products and services

  • Role Profiles - Details of the people - the key roles that you sell to and serve

  • Situational Factors - Things that describe a change in context that triggers a need

• Customer Engagement Blueprint - A very high level view of the customer lifecycle written from an outside-in perspective

• Value framework - a structured library describing the relationships between the pain/gain points of key roles, the metrics that matter to them and the product features and content you provide to enable them to achieve their goals.

• Metrics - the key metrics that inform on the overall performance of your GTM capabilities.

The diagram below shows how the three frameworks inter-relate to shape go-to-market capabilities. These three core frameworks sit ‘within’ the environment created by V3 and Metrics.

Here’s how the three core GTM frameworks inter-relate.

Think of the Value Framework as the repository for all information related to how your products, services and content (value elements) address the pain/gain each of your key roles face. Need to know what sales message or advice to provide to which role at what stage of the lifecycle? The Value Framework is your go-to source.

Role Profiles, a key part of an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) act as the base for developing and then channelling content and messaging to each of the key roles you sell to serve at different stages of the customer lifecycle - as described in the Customer Engagement Blueprint.

The Customer Engagement Blueprint sets out, at a very high level, the challenges facing buyers and users across the lifecycle. Described from the buyer/user perspective, it helps shape the content and messaging deployed.

Each framework is the subject of a separate blog which digs deeper into its content and application. [To follow]