“Game changer” is a term that gets tossed around a lot these days in politics and business. As is often the case with trending buzzwords, this one gets used far too loosely.
But when CUNA Mutual Group decided to bolster its marketing and sales message to its customer base of credit unions nationwide, the 75-year-old company brought that message to life with what Sales Enablement Manager Adam Birenbaum called a true “game changer” — and he has the results to back it up.
CUNA Mutual sells insurance, retirement and investment products to credit unions, their employees and their members. Upon determining the need to refresh its marketing message and align it with the company’s sales pitch in order to upsell current clients and drive new business, CUNA Mutual brought in Corporate Visions, Inc., a leading sales and marketing messaging company.
CUNA Mutual began working with Corporate Visions in July 2011 to develop its unique Power Positioning — the messaging and angles that would help them stand out from the competition — for one of its core product lines, lending solutions. Together, they identified the pains that credit unions face today, the reasons for the pains and what CUNA Mutual’s unique differentiators are that solve prospects’ pains. “The time was right to create an aligned and compelling story around ‘why change?’ and ‘why now?’ for our sales executives when they go to battle,” Birenbaum says.
Following the success of the Power Positioning workshop, with the goal of building a sustainable process for creating and delivering marketing and sales messages, CUNA Mutual also engaged Corporate Visions for two-day Power Messaging workshops from April to July 2012. More than 400 sales and marketing professionals participated in these workshops.
Through Power Messaging workshops, Corporate Visions consultants help salespeople and marketers better understand the brain science behind decisions, and teach techniques to reach their prospects’/customers’ through every interaction, from phone to email to online to in-person.
The resulting sales tell the most impressive story. BeyondROI, a third-party evaluator that partners with Corporate Visions to measure clients’ results, worked with CUNA Mutual to evaluate the impact of the engagement and found that sales reps attributed a total of $2.2 million in closed business directly (at least in part) to the Power Messaging workshops, and another $21 million in potential new business.
The tried-and-true sales methodology of solution selling — discovering the client need, assessing the pain point and proposing a solution — wasn’t substantially changed, but the Power Messaging workshops brought life to each of these steps.
“We tried refreshing our value propositions ourselves many times over the years, but the biggest difference this time around was the greater alignment between our sales and marketing teams, along with the talent of Corporate Visions and their methodology,” says Birenbaum.
“A lot of times you only get one shot with a prospect, so you have to come out strong from the start. Our sales and marketing teams are more aligned than ever, which allows us to be more effective, compelling and memorable in how we sell.”
To hear more stories from CUNA Mutual and other Corporate Visions clients, including Motorola Solutions, Superior Essex, UPS and others, be sure to attend the annual Corporate Visions Marketing & Sales Alignment conference, held in Chicago from September 17-19, 2013. Go to CorporateEvents.com and click on the “News & Events” tab to register. Enter code ‘SMMMAG’ for $100 off.
Success Story Summary: A total of $2,227,500 in closed business and $21,034,738 in new potential business was reported in 63 RealityCheck® success stories with specific examples of how Power Messagingwas used in the sales process.
