Shonna Waters, PhD
Erin Eatough, PhD
In today's data-driven business landscape, companies have access to vast amounts of information - extant and internal - that offers enormous power to give them a competitive edge. However, simply possessing data is not enough. The real challenge lies in effectively harnessing and leveraging that data to drive sales, influence buyer decisions, and ultimately, achieve business success. This is where expert commercial argumentation comes into play.
Expert commercial argumentation is the process of crafting compelling narratives that are grounded in research, evidence, data, and insights, to appeal to both the logical and emotional aspects of decision-making. It goes beyond merely having a researcher on staff who can crunch numbers and generate reports. Instead, it involves a multidisciplinary approach that combines the skills of psychology, behavioral science, and commercial value articulation to create persuasive arguments that resonate with buyers and motivate them to take action.
The Importance of Rigor and Relevance, Simultaneously
One of the key components of expert commercial argumentation is the ability to identify and curate the most rigorous and relevant data points from various sources for high impact. With the abundance of data available, it can be overwhelming to determine which pieces of information - either from internal teams or from external sources - are truly valuable and will make a meaningful difference in the sales process.
Many companies collect data from their customers, users, or do market research. There are thousands of scientific papers that come out each year. But, having scientific or product-relevant data is only half the battle. Access to data is not enough. To truly make an impact and have a differentiated voice among the noise, companies must be able to translate complex data and findings into clear, concise, and persuasive arguments that directly tie to your buyer’s pain and your product promise. This requires the ability to distill insights into key takeaways and present them in a way that is compelling, easy for buyers to understand, and highly motivating. To do that, having experts of authority that are scientifically grounded and understand the commercial strategy with your market is critical.
The challenge is that data of most flavors comes with a tradeoff between rigor and relevance. Achieving an evidence-based narrative that is rigorous and trustworthy, and yet relevant to the commercial interests of a company - simultaneously - takes a lot more than just pulling in a statistic. For example, when relying on something like industry data alone, we often see that rigor is low, creating risk of skepticism. But if you have the rigor of academic work, we often see a gap in relevance to a company’s offer. Furthermore, translation of rigorous data and its interpretability are major challenges to making it useful.
To achieve commercial credibility, you need both rigor and relevance. This requires having talent with not just deep technical expertise, but that expertise combined with strong market communication skills and the ability to craft compelling narratives that tie data and insights together in a logical and persuasive manner for commercial purposes. Companies must be able to explain the significance of the data, draw connections between different pieces of information, and articulate how the insights support a value proposition or product promise.
What about Internal Data or Researchers?
Commercially relevant insights and narratives are not the same as user research, market research, or product research. It requires scientific talent with deep expertise that can harvest commercial value from those existing sources of insights. Also, while existing data can be a hugely valuable starting point, companies may also need to generate new insights to address specific buyer concerns or fill gaps in their knowledge or argumentation. This is where the ability to design and execute net new research studies comes into play. Creating compelling commercial teachings spans from asking the right research questions, choosing appropriate methodologies, and knowing the analytic strategies and techniques that strengthen commercial arguments and sales narratives. Needless to say, this requires an ambidextrous perspective, one that is rooted in technical methodology but informed, experienced, and sensitive to the needs of multiple functions at once including product, marketing, and sales.
The Competitive Advantages of a Fractional Lab
Cross-functional expertise out of the box. To achieve expert commercial argumentation, companies need a unique combination of talent across a range of skills and expertise. High impact value articulation is achieved through combining research, data analysis, insight translation, psychology, behavioral science, marketing strategy, and sales strategy. The problem is, it is often extremely difficult to find all of these strengths in one individual, and it is perhaps even harder to effectively create the right coordination and attention across multiple disparate functions internally.
Agile, on demand iteration. As companies expand into new markets, existing market conditions evolve, and buyer needs change, companies must be able to adapt their arguments and messaging to stay relevant and effective. Companies need to continually have a finger on the pulse of their markets and be attuned to feedback from buyers, sales teams, and other stakeholders. It is often necessary to experiment with different narratives and approaches, form new hypotheses, conduct new research, and optimize their arguments over time.
Cutting through market noise with differentiated insights and credibility. Right now, we are at an inflection point. With the rise of AI, there is more noise in the market. For example, there is more vapid and fluffy content, new barriers to persuasion with a rise in market distrust due to AI content, and a heightened burden on companies to showcase credibility that their product or solution is actually effective, to win. The ability to effectively harness and leverage data and turn it into unique, unparalleled expert commercial argumentation is how savvy companies will command market trust, drive sales, influence buyer decisions, and achieve long-term success.
Ultimately, access to a fractional lab unlocks high impact, expert commercial argumentation. Fractional Insights is an unprecedented expert-level lab that brings together diverse authoritative and scientific talent to help companies articulate value, enhance win rates, and accelerate business growth. We use the best available data to strengthen the connection between real organizational problems and innovative solutions, drawing a throughline from research for revenue. We offer flexible access to pre-vetted, high-caliber talent and expertise without the overhead of a full-time in-house team, ultimately driving business success.
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