Commentary

In this episode of Success Beneath the Surface, Deborah Fell gives commentary on last week's episode with Tom Zucker, president of EdgePoint Capital. Tom emphasizes that gross margin is becoming a critical indicator of a company's value and that sustained margins are a reflection of the company's worth. He stresses that businesses need to offer distinct value propositions that set them apart from competitors and resonate with their clients and customers.
To illustrate this point, Tom provides an example of a closely held family business that developed a unique friction-break product with superior intellectual property. The company should have traded for six times its value, but it traded for north of 11 times because it offered a distinct value that no one else had, enabling it to maintain and grow its margins.
Deborah and Tom discuss the fragility of business owners and the importance of ego fulfillment in M&A advisory services. They also acknowledge that family dynamics are consistent among businesses, regardless of their size and sophistication. Join us for this episode, "Family Dynamics are Consistent Among Businesses of All Sizes."
Listen to the full episode with Tom Zucker here.
About Deborah's guest, Tom Zucker
Tom Zucker serves as the President of EdgePoint Capital, managing client transactions, overseeing its day-to-day management, and executing strategic initiatives.
Tom uses his extensive business and financial experience to assist business owners in completing transition events, acquisitions, or recapitalizations. His diverse experiences range from executing corporate divestitures for General Electric to assisting small closely held businesses in executing family ownership transitions.
Links from this episode:
EdgePoint Capital
Tom Zucker on LinkedIn
Deborah Fell on LinkedIn
Chief Outsiders

Last week, my guest Deborah Overdeput emphasized the opportunity for sales and marketing to drive success when they work together vs when they act in silos.  Deborah has a way of taking atmospheric statements like “sales and marketing alignment” and breaking them down into the practical day-to-day of what needs to be done and who needs to do what to move the business. She used the term “sales enablement” and I unpack what that means in this session.  I also bring in my perspective on the importance of understanding and supporting the prospective client’s research and buying process vs a one-dimensional internal view of the sales funnel.  
To hear the full interview with Deborah Overdeput, listen here.
About Deborah Overdeput:
Deborah has 20+ years of experience as a global marketing leader working with CEOs at financial technology (fintech), SaaS, business consulting, and technology companies to achieve double-digit revenue growth, turning flat businesses into growing enterprises. She applies modern marketing techniques to drive top-of-funnel activity and nurture leads, working collaboratively with sales to build revenue momentum.
Links from this episode:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahoverdeput/ 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahfell 
https://chiefoutsiders.com 

We had a great discussion last episode with Gary Stockman about balancing the push and pull of driving new business and maintaining profitability. Today, I want to dive deeper into one particular aspect of our conversation that shouldn't be overlooked - the value proposition that a company offers to its customers.
As Gary mentioned, it's crucial to understand what matters to your customers and what attracted them to your company in the first place. If you're feeling pressure on prices from customers because of the economic environment, it may be time to go back and understand if your value proposition is still unique and if it solves their pain points in a way only you can solve. To do this, I recommend talking to four or five of your top customers and having a CEO-to-CEO level discussion about their pain points and the current environment. You can also talk to your sales team and even have an outside firm conduct one-on-one conversations with your core customers to gain insights about how their needs and wants may have changed.
Maintaining a strong value proposition is anti-commoditization and can help you maintain price premium and profitability even in uncertain times.
Next week, we will be speaking with Deborah Overdeput, a fractional chief marketing officer for Chief Outsiders, who will share her expertise on sales enablement and the importance of the alignment of sales and marketing. Subscribe to our podcast and join us next week for another insightful episode of Success Beneath the Surface.
The full episode is here.