David Taber +Associates | Example Projects

David Taber +Associates provide leadership and hands-on
expertise for software vendors.

"Strategy is for amateurs. Logistics is for professionals."
- General Norman Schwartzkopf

Example client engagements:

Market Strategy	Partner Strategy	Corporate Strategy
Product Plans and Roadmaps	Partner Program Design	VC Funding
Pricing and Business Models	Partner Recruitment	Mergers/Acquisitions
Lead Generation and SFA	ISV / SI Business Negotiations	PR, Visibility, Analysts
Marketing Audits and Best Practices

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Product Plans and Roadmap Projects

Your engineers, sales force, and investors need a clear, executable, sellable
path forward for your products. Unfortunately, most MRDs are long yet vague,
not providing inspiration or even useful information for your team.

We have a better way...

·	Product Scenarios and Target-Customer Use-Cases
·	ValueFirst Market Requirements Documents
·	Customer Identification, Segmentation, and Demand Forecasts
·	Product Line Tradeoffs, Roadmaps, Price/Feature Change Schedules, Open Source Projects
·	Customer Validation of Early Access Products
·	Pilot Programs for Early Adopter Customers
·	Customer Conversion and Upgrade Programs

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Marketing Audits and Best Practices

Drawing on best practices metrics from dozens of companies and 24 years of Enterprise Software experience, we guide you with comparative metrics.

David Taber +Associates will not only tell you where to do better, but where better execution by itself won't be enough.

·	Budgets, pipeline models, and marketing ROI
·	SFA / CRM / Telesales / Telemarketing / Pipeline metrics
·	Product life-cycle management
·	Closed-loop web marketing metrics
·	Messaging, value proposition, branding, and collateral
·	PR, Analyst Relations, IR, and Visibility

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Improved Lead Generation and Sales Force Automation

Most clients ask for Lead Generation ... but most programs are a waste of time because they don't result in profitable revenue.

David Taber +Associates focus on your profit-generation cycle, from customer definition, to prospecting, to cultivation, to closing the right deals.

·	Lead Generation Campaigns
·	Web community development and harvesting
·	Lead cultivation, conversion, and metrics
·	SFA, Web-based marketing, and closed-loop marketing
·	Telesales, Telemarketing, and Reference Marketing
·	Sales tool design and delivery

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Pricing and Business Model Engagements

"Products win customers. But business models win markets."

By itself, changing price will not solve any business problem. But a well planned and executed business model with the right prices can be a killer advantage for you.

·	Designing Pricing, Licensing, and Metering models
·	Creating price lists and discount structures
·	Defining product packaging or bundles to optimize revenues
·	Designing Partner-friendly pricing models
·	Writing terms and conditions for Partner contracts

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Market Strategy Projects

Market strategy must be completely baked in to your sales and investor strategy. How you choose your customers, how you go to market, and how you light the fire in your marketplace will determine more of your success than any specific product technology or sales tactic.

·	Corporate positioning, including VC / industry analyst pitches
·	Value proposition, product category creation, tag lines
·	Product Strategy, working closely with Engineering and Sales
·	Business Cases, including market sizing, ROI, competitive assessment, open source projects
·	Vertical Market selection, capability development, and partner selection

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Partner Strategy

You never succeed alone.

The partners you choose, and what you choose them for, will define much of your future opportunity. Even Microsoft has excelled through its partners.

·	Defining the role of partners in the execution of your business model
·	Setting efficient investment and pipeline thresholds for partners
·	Designing a sales model that really leverages partners
·	Tuning partner strategies for visibility and investment appeal
·	Avoiding partner pitfalls in product strategy and in field engagements

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Partner Program Design Activities

The devil is in the details. Do it wrong, and all you get a "Barney partnership."

·	Selecting and qualifying ISV, OEM, and SI partners
·	Vertical market development and partner matching
·	Designing Partner-friendly pricing and licensing models
·	Writing terms and conditions for Partner contracts
·	Working as a local agent for companies that do not yet have a US operation

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Partner Recruitment Campaigns

You're known by the partners you do business with, yet many companies leave
partner recruitment to telesales reps.

Recruiting the right partners yields better quality revenue streams, with dividends
in market credibility and M & A prospects.

·	Survey and analyze competitors' partners; develop a profile of your ideal partner
·	Select the implementation areas where your partners should take the lead
·	Discover specialist implementers with unparalleled domain expertise and customer access
·	Qualify the implementers and identify any special requirements. Design contracts, negotiate exclusivity as needed, and sign them up
·	Refine the rules of engagement with *both* your sales organization and theirs

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PR, Corporate Visibility, and Analyst Initiatives

"Nothing is as credible as someone who has nothing to sell."

Get corporate visibility without spending a ton.

David Taber +Associates can get it for you because we know the right people, as well as the right tactics. We rarely recommend advertising, branding, or image marketing because these simply don't work in enterprise software.

·	Thought leadership -- creating it, harnessing it
·	Speaking venues -- inventing and capturing the ones that matter
·	Industry analyst interactions -- conventional tours don't cut it anymore
·	Search engine tactics -- using the web as your audience
·	Creating a Buzz / Word of Mouth -- your references are your core asset

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ISV / SI Business Relationship Initiatives s.

Designing the right business relationships with ISVs and other technology partners requires some finesse and savoir faire. You need to choose someone who's done it before, for world leaders in partner-driven software businesses.

·	Designing partnership programs, including all elements of sales, marketing, and support relationships
·	Creating the royalty structures, referral fees, reverse royalties, and other incentives that will keep the partners selling with you.
·	Writing the price lists, term sheets, and program collateral that makes it all real.
·	Creating web sites & partner extranets that make it scale without a ton of new effort.
·	Negotiating contracts and technology-cooperation agreements

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Corporate Strategy

"If you can't say 'no,' you don't have a strategy."

·	David Taber works as a strategic advisor, a confidant that has no agenda, no axe to grind, and no conflicts of interest.
·	Assessment of your true strategic situation.
·	Identification of your best options.
·	Development of your opening gambit, your moves, and your end-game.
·	Creating and delivering the materials and evidence you need to win in negotiations.

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VC Funding

Venture firms provide the fuel for your business engine. David Taber +Associates provides the accelerator pedal.

·	Refining your pitch, business plan, and
·	Tuning your delivery and readying you to overcome the most skeptical Q+A
·	Helping you choose which VCS to pitch to, and why
·	Helping you through due diligence to build credibility and overcome objections.
·	Helping you get follow-on rounds through such work as market re-validation, customer and partner referencability, business-model redesign, sales/marketing audits, pipeline assessment, and corporate burn-rate reduction.

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Mergers and Acquisitions Engagements

Mergers & Acquisitions are the most strategic of transactions, yet many consultants can only work generically. David Taber +Associates has the deep domain expertise and business savvy to help you select, nurture, and close the right strategic partner.

·	Surveying and analyzing competitors, customers, and channel partners
·	Investigating "G2" via discussions with target companies' customers, consultants, tech support, user community, and implementation partners
·	Screening and qualifying targets via gap analysis, and then creating a target-specific value proposition that uniquely focuses their interest
·	Approaching each target's product planning group with a highly tailored proposal
·	Overcoming internal objections and surviving evaluation cycles

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