How Dan works
How we work: the five stages
The Proposition does five things, bought one at a time, fixed price and fixed scope. Research what your customers actually think. Build the story from it. Test the story before you spend behind it. Build the go-to-market engine. Train the people who have to sell it. You can start at any of them and stop whenever you are happy.
1. The Mirror — proposition research
What your market really thinks of you, in its own words. Dan interviews your customers, the prospects you won, the prospects you lost and people who have never heard of you, reads the competition, and runs a workshop with your own team. You get the customer's number one problem in the customer's language and the gap between that and what you currently say. Read about The Mirror.
2. The Message — proposition development and positioning
The story, built from the research rather than from a workshop whiteboard. Where you win, who you are for, why you and not the other three, and how that changes by sector and by decision-maker. One narrative the whole company can tell the same way. Read about The Message.
3. The Proof — proposition and communications testing
Find out whether it lands before you spend behind it. Propositions, pitches, campaign copy and customer communications tested against the people who have to understand them, reported by segment with the specific words that failed. This is also where Consumer Duty communications testing for financial services sits, including testing against vulnerable customers. Read about The Proof.
4. The Engine — go-to-market, sales and marketing
The system that carries the story to market. The go-to-market plan, the sales tools and collateral, the marketing approach, the numbers and the operating rhythm. The story stops being a document and becomes how the company sells. Read about The Engine.
5. The Room — coaching and training
The people. How to sell to a CEO, in person or on a call. Value selling, pitching, presence, and live coaching on real deals. Sales teams Dan has coached have gone on to close more than $1bn. Read about The Room.
Do I have to buy all five?
No. Each stage is bought on its own and stands up on its own. Most clients start with The Mirror because the research makes everything after it obvious, but plenty arrive with a specific problem — a pitch that is not landing, a communication that has to be tested, a sales team that has stalled — and buy only the stage that fixes it.
What order do they go in?
The natural order is the one above: find out, write it, test it, build the machine, train the people. In practice clients move around. Testing often comes back around after go-to-market. Coaching often comes first because a live deal will not wait.
Who does the work?
Dan Ilett personally, with specialists in research, design and sales enablement brought in where a project needs them. More about Dan.