What are you actually selling? A masterclass in value proposition, with Aruna Inalsingh

Aruna Inalsing: Foreign.

Nitin Karthik: Tales from the front lines. I'm your host, Nitin Karthik. As the author of the Amazon bestseller Product Marketing Wisdom, I've always found that real world case studies are the true litmus test for the effectiveness of any product marketing strategy. And that is why in this show we dive into the minds of industry titans and as well as rising stars unpacking their expertise in action packed episodes that showcase the power of product marketing through real world case studies. And today my friends, we're joined by product marketing maestro Aruna Inalsing. Aruna is a fractional CMO and a uh, go to market leader driving rapid growth across technology and manufacturing companies. She has optimized seven figure marketing budgets to lift inbound sales by 30%. She's also led large scale engagement programs improving operational efficiency by 99%. And she's also built high impact demand generation and partner marketing engines for organizations including Honeywell, Parker, Hannifin, BT Radiance and Justly Markets. With deep expertise in branding, workflow optimization and market strategy, Aruna consistently delivers measurable pipeline growth and roi. She holds an MBA from Duke University and is a Six Sigma master black belt. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Aruna. Aruna, welcome to the show.

Aruna Inalsing: Nitin, thank you so much. That was an absolutely wonderful introduction and synopsis of what's taken a long time to build. Looking forward to sharing with you some of the experiences and successes that I've had. And I actually have a specific case study that I'd like to share with you.

Nitin Karthik: I love that, I love that Arna. And I'm so excited. So as you alluded to Aruna, today we'll give the audience a uh, situation from your experience, a case study and we will use the ABC framework. So we'll talk about the antecedents, the prior challenges, we'll talk about the behaviors, the actions that you took and we'll talk about the conclusion, how things played out. So with that, pick a situation and Aruna, uh, tell us what were the antecedents? What were the prior challenges?

Aruna Inalsing: So it's really interesting. Just today I spoke with a woman that I met about a year ago and a year ago she had this inspiration of something we are all very familiar with, AI Artificial intelligence. And her take on it was everybody's familiar with the term artificial intelligence, also known as AI, but nobody quite knows what to do with it. Nobody quite knows how to make the most of it. Nobody even knows how to use it in a way that's really adding value. And so she Boy, uh, gave me a whole great long list of all the things she was going to do to become, you know, um, kind of a master, right? A master. Master and commander of AI. Um, she's a lawyer, so she was going after companies that were in highly regulated environments. So she plugged along, year goes by, life is good. And then I get a call. And what is the call? Well, Aruna, I know a lot of people and people love my presentations, they love my knowledge. However, I can't get them to buy my service and I don't know why. And she needed help. Um, so I said, well, innocently, send me what you have and let's talk about it and, um, we'll get you to where you go, which is basically lead gen and conversions, right, in marketing terms. Um, and she sent me these four documents. And I will tell you, the documents were well written, very informative, but they were like research papers, not the kind of things that CEOs in law firms or fintech firms or investment bankers want to see. So that was my challenge, is to quickly convert her into what we call go to Market speak.

Nitin Karthik: Wow, I love that. And Aruna, what's interesting is I think there must be so many people in the audience who are struggling with that exact same challenge. You know, right now we have this data deluge, right? There's too much information. How do we make that presentable? So I love that. So thank you, Aruna, for laying the stage. Now, Aruna, uh, uh, given this challenge, how does that guide your behaviors and the actions that you took?

Aruna Inalsing: This is a tough one because it's, um, a world common problem where everybody loves what they're making and they think everybody else should love it too. So if they've made it and they're selling it, people should be running to them to buy it. But it doesn't work that way. And you know, when you're dealing with the founder of a company, it's extremely difficult to tell them, maybe it's not right. You know, maybe you need to rethink what you're doing. Because they see that as a criticism of the greatness that they're bringing to the party. So we started with, um, a very simple response. I reviewed the very quickly, by the way, I didn't need to become an expert in this masterclass. I quickly reviewed the four pieces of literature. Um, one was a sales sheet, one was, um, an introduction letter, one was a proposal to somebody, and one was a deck, right. Of what they were going to share with the client. Um, I quickly reviewed it um, and realized the problem is there's no solution selling. This person has not identified the pain points, hasn't looked at the options that are available and they haven't proven why they are the solution and the better than everybody else. But I didn't say that. I sent an email basically saying, hey, I think you need to learn a little bit about the buying process, about the marketing funnel and about um, solution selling. And let's talk about that the next time we meet. And I set up a scenario where we would have an open ended meeting to teach her some marketing things through her literature. So that way we can improve her work, uh, in context of her feeling comfortable rather than criticized.

Nitin Karthik: Wow, look at that. You know, you had this challenge and you handled it so delicately. That's what I love about that. Sometimes it's about the way we message it, not just the message itself. So beautiful. So Aruna, uh, now I think we're all in suspense, right? So now bring it home. So tell us about the conclusion. So tell us, how did the situation play out for you?

Aruna Inalsing: Knitting. Two hours later we had some decent results. Um, it was interesting. So we set up a meeting. This was the meeting this morning. And you know, I basically nerd nerdily enough. I took my notes and I took the four documents that I'd gotten from this client and I put little notes next to them and I said, why don't we start like just looking at my notes and let me explain that to you. So number one, this is a great informational sheet. However, it's not clear what people are going after. Uh, like what's the problem? What are they trying to solve? And um, well, the woman, uh, responded back. In this case, it was a woman with a long explanation. And I said, you're a lawyer, aren't you? She said, I am. I said, you know, I'm a business person. I said, I'm going to tell you, most business leaders, they have like a version of add. If you don't hook them right away, they're going to get lost in all the fray. Um, so I literally took her through. You know, there's a, um, an exercise called like the seven whys. You think people need you. Why? You said, well, they need me because they don't understand AI in the world of compliance. And I said, okay. I said, if someone were to say that to you, would you get excited about talking to them? She said, no. I said, exactly. I said, what can we say? And so we literally went through three versions of the exercise only to find out this CEOs need to be worried about the privacy of the information that's being stored. And with AI, employees are using public networks, which means they're sharing confidential information which then will be used. Right. Deep learning by other people. This is not what you want. And so we built this list of, are you worried about security? Are you worried about confidentiality? Is there risk to your company? Might you get fined? I'm going to tell you something. CEOs listen to that. And so she got excited because we started to define those pain points. From there, we basically extrapolated that to a meeting that she's having. So it was pain points with, here's my solution and here's why I'm better. Here are the seven steps to get us there. Here are your three options on how I can serve you. And I recommend option two because it's robust, it provides policies, and it's ongoing feedback for continuous improvement.

Nitin Karthik: Wow. Brilliant. Look at that. You had this challenge. You handled it so tactfully and it came away where the client, I presume, was very happy with the advice. Right. And a lot of it was basically herself. Answering your own questions. Would you be excited about it? No. Okay, let's talk. Why I love it. So excellent. Uh, I really appreciate that case study, Aruna. So thank you. I think the audience can learn so much from that. Now tell us, Aruna, if people wanted to learn more about you and what's next for you, where can they do that?

Aruna Inalsing: Right Now I've got two ways. So, you know, we're all on LinkedIn, so they can certainly check me out under aruna and Alsing LinkedIn. My company's name is any marketing service. A n I marketing Marketing service, singular. And I have a website, any marketingservice.com that shows about how I can help companies within 15 minutes or within 15 years, depending on what your needs are.

Nitin Karthik: I love that. 15 minutes or 15 years. I think I may be stealing that. Excellent. So thank you, Aruna. Folks, there you have it. Please reach out to Aruna for more insights. And for even more insights, check out my Amazon bestseller, Product Marketing Wisdom at productmarketingwisdom. Com and see you next time on Product Marketing Maestros.