We recently connected with Lisa Dennis and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Lisa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

I was walking my dog in the local park. A neighbor was out there with her 2 dogs, and introduced me to a friend of hers who she was doing a project with. As we were chatting, my dog pulled his leach out of my hand and took off towards the playground area. This park was on a very busy, traffic-filled street, and he was still a young dog who didn’t always come back when called. I panicked and took off after him. The guy I had just met sprinted past me and managed to catch my pup just before he shot into the street. What a relief!! I thanked him profusely and dragged my “bad boy” home.

As part of the back story, I had been in business for exactly 2 weeks when this happened and was trying to figure out how to get started, after being in corporate America for 15+ years. Who was I if I didn’t have a corporation attached to my name?

Anyway, 2 weeks after the dog escape and rescue, my phone rang. I answered it and a man said, “Hey Lisa, it’s Jim.” I said hello – but had no idea who it was. I played along and asked him how he was. He talked about a trip he just came back from, and then said, I need to talk to you about some work. Well, now I had to admit I had no clue who he was…which I should have done from the start. So I confessed: “Jim, I have a confession to make. I don’t really know who you are? Have we met?” He laughed and then told me he rescued my dog from certain death. “OHHHHH, that Jim!” We had a good laugh and then got down to a project discussion. He hired me to build a website and a marketing plan for an online school he was starting. Very first client – found by my puppy.

The lesson I took away from this – which has served me well in a 26 year entrepreneur’s career is that you could find customers literally anywhere – and you have to be aware, listen hard, and be ready when it happens organically.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have spent my career as both a marketer and a seller – which is not typical. I was a product manager for a time, and discovered I also needed to be able to sell – to not only clients, but to my company’s sales team to get their support for my product line. Having both disciplines in my repertoire has been a major strength in my business – both from a client perspective – since I understand both sides of the house, but also as an entrepreneur who can shift as needed when economic downturns happen and still be successful.

I have been running a consulting business in both areas for the B2B market – with a concentration in technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and professional services. On the marketing side, I consult on marketing strategy, messaging and positioning, value proposition development, and I am an expert on Account-based marketing. On the sales side, I focus on sales strategy, sales enablement, sales messaging and training.

My offerings can be found here: https://valueproposition.com/services/

I also founded the Knowledgence ABM Graduate School two years ago – and information on that can be found here: https://abmgraduateschool.com/

What I am most proud of is the joint work that my clients and I have accomplished and how much we have been able to teach each other in that work. The collaboration has helped their outcomes and my own growth. The partnership aspect is what makes me love my business. I am not afraid to ask challenging questions, and I am always ready to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty to get the work done. I don’t dispense advice, I help make things happen side-by-side with the client and their team.

In terms of the overall theme of the work I do – it is all about helping clients be able to engage with their customers from the buyer’s perspective and language. It isn’t about pushing product or services anymore, it’s about deep understanding of the prospects’ situation, industry, business and needs and to be able to engage in informed, relevant ways that reflect the buyer in a way they can easily and clearly recognize. While that may seem obvious, it is hard to do well, given that most marketing and sales people are hyper-focused on their own products and services. It is about making a switch from “inside-out” marketing/selling – to leading 100% from the buyer point-of-view which is “outside-in”. It is what I call the mirror-effect – when the buyer hears, sees, reads, experiences your company, they recognize themselves. This has a big impact on engagement – making it easier for them to step forward.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Right after 9/11, 6 of my clients got laid off. My husband did as well. Huge pressure. What was clear right away was if my clients aren’t working, then I’m not going to be either. SO – I switched my objective to helping each of them in any way possible to land a new job. I reached best practices for job hunting, resumes, etc.. I spent regular time with each of them to help with all of that – and I introduced them to people I knew, invited them to events I was running. I invested in them – all free of charge of course.

Meanwhile, I needed to hustle some business – and took on some much smaller clients than I was used to. One of them was quite memorable. I had been doing business with large enterprise B2B companies before 9/11. Now, with my key clients out of work, I needed to shift. I took a referral from one of my only small business clients – and he referred me to a funeral home – one of the better known in our area. I met with them, and won a project. Our first meeting was in the showroom where all the caskets were. It was different and a bit humbling. But it was work with people who really cared about THEIR business. I built out an advertising strategy, and ran local ads for them with a totally different approach than they were using. It was effective and before long all the competition was imitating what we were doing. Annoying to them, but definitely a compliment on our work!!

As my other clients landed jobs and got settled, our work together resumed. I learned it is all about being able to pivot, and playing the long game.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The resource that helped me the most was being a member of a mastermind group – there were 8 of us, all women entrepreneurs. We served as an advisory board to each other’s business. We were totally transparent – sharing financials, strategies, challenges, mistakes – all of it. We also were held accountable for an annual plan. I was in the group for almost 8 years – and it completely changed my business in ways that I don’t think I could have done alone. They were objective, direct, creative, supportive and kicked my butt when I needed it. They made me think much bigger, and cut out things that were not helping my focus, my direction, or my bottom line. I was a lone-wolf consultant for years before this. With them, I learned to build partnerships, and bring in help, and expand my resources so I could do better business.

My ability to run this business and move into my 27th year has a lot do with what I got out of that experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: Valueproposition.com, and also ABMgraduateschool.com
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/knowledgence