This document outlines a Lean approach to marketing and sales. It describes using value streams to map out the customer journey, with pillars representing different stages like collaboration, sales, and repeat business. Value stream teams focus on understanding customer needs and delivering value. Kanban boards are used to visualize workflow and identify bottlenecks. The document also discusses using tools like SWOT analysis and a capabilities matrix to develop strategies, and applying principles of continuous improvement, respect for people, and flow to marketing processes.

1. Marke ng with Lean Book Series
Understanding the value that you create with the customer is the star ng point and
will determine the rest of the structure.
Below the roof of the house lays the substructure of a five‐step Lean process. Lean
is a system focused on and driven by customers. Op mizing value from their eyes
and in an efficient manner takes your processes to a level not experienced before.
The company is supported by several value streams.
Each value stream represents a product (service)/market.
Value Streams
Value Stream
Each Value Stream is supported by
the pillars. These Pillars represent
the Customer’s Journey. It does not
ma er how many pillars you have,
just that each customer journey is
depicted. They may represent; di‐
rect sales, web sales, dealer sales or
may concentrate on other channels
that make more sense.
In a typical customer group, I have defined
three stages or cycles of working with a cus‐
tomer: collabora on, sales/buying and repeat/
upsell. There is nothing to say that there can‐
not be one stage or 12 stages. These stages
were simple created for clarity and explana on
of the process. The nomenclature within each
cycle depicts what might be happening during
that decision process.
You may have one team handling the en re journey or different teams working
on each sec on. You may have other groups working horizontally and ver cal‐
ly. It is what makes sense for you and more importantly your customers.
Overview of People:
1. The Value Stream Manager (VSM) represents the product/service markets and
the business.
2. The Sales and Marke ng Team (Team) is a cross‐func onal group whose number
and exper se are derived from the decision‐making path of the customer. This
Team does the sales, providing content, technical func ons, trials, tes ng, etc.
3. The Team Coordinator (TC) maintains the integrity of the processes through
coaching and predefined control points.
Using a Kanban board for this process will help
you iden fy where the process is not working
or where the bo leneck is occurring. Each seg‐
ment or swim lane may have a single or mul ‐
ple teams working on it. It really just depends
on how you structure it. Don‘t think of Kanban
as a planning tool; think about it as an execu‐
on tool. Improving your marke ng process
does not have to cons tute wholesale changes
nor increased spending.
Inventory for sales and marke ng is prospects! As you think about what stops
your marke ng from being effec ve it is about trying to appeal to the masses and
as a result losing effec veness both in me and money. Work in process is waste‐
ful. It is wasteful in your personal life when not managed well, it is bad in manu‐
facturing, it is bad from a sales and marke ng perspec ve. Quit marke ng at the
top of your funnel. Instead learn how to manage your Work in Process!
The benefits of Kanban can become a driver for crea ng a culture of con nuous
process improvement. It also allows for other crea ve ideas for visual manage‐
ment of budgets, conversion rates, me spent, ac vi es and more.
Collabora on
It doesn’t necessarily ma er which tools the organiza ons use, but which tools
are effec ve with the customer or the par cular value stream segment, repre‐
sented by the pillars. The number and depth of blocks will differ with each or‐
ganiza on. What is important is that they are all considered and that the foun‐
da on is strong enough to support the pillars. Below the founda on is a sub‐
structure of A3 problem solving that will be the prac ce that is implemented
throughout the founda on. This allows us constant feedback and will alert us
if the founda on starts to weaken.

2. The Lean Marketing
20-minute Plan
Do a SWOT Analysis
Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats
Internal External
Strength
Things we do better
Opportunities
Things to capitalize on
Key Leverage Points
Opportunities we can leverage our strengths against
Weakness
Things we do worse
Threats
Things to worry about
Business Implications
Threats our weaknesses make us vulnerable
Key Leverage Points — Business Implications
= Sustainable Competitive Advantages
Key leverage points that can be sustained
Painting the Vision with SOAR
(Strength, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results)
Tactical Strategic
Key Leverage Points + Business KPIs
= Sustainable Competitive Advantages
Positive Core of Organization
Business KPIs
Key Performance Indicators that we can measure
Strength
What is our Core
Opportunities
What might be
Key Leverage Points:
Opportunities we can leverage our strengths against
Aspirations
What should be
Results
What will be
Develop Current State
Develop Future State
Soar Analysis derived from
The Thin Book of SOAR; Building Strengths-Based Strategy
June 13
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Executive
Retreat
7:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Press
Conference
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Project
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Status
Report
Party
Company Meeting
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Corporate Event Calendar
Contoso Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
The example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real
company, organization, product, domain name, email address, logo, person, places, or events is intended or should be inferred.
Complete Calendar
Return to top and repeat cycle

3. Lean Marketing
for Service Dominant Thinkers
Traditional sales and marketing evolved around sales with linear thinking and
the traditional sales funnel.
Successful products and services have now evolved into an eco-system.
We are only as effective as our value proposition is at the point of use. At the
heart of this system is Service Dominant Logic.
The value stream team is first and foremost the listening post for the customer
(prospect). The team provides the customer with the information, technology, and
support that is required. This is done through an understanding of what is needed in
the job to be done value proposition. Passing through from one spiral to the next is a
result of the customer or, better put, the result of our increase in knowledge about
the customers’ “job to be done and the match of our proposed value proposition.
Our Value Proposition is delivered based on Customer needs.
 Think SDCA: A tactical team works with a customer needing standard products/
services.
 Think PDCA: A problem solving team works with a customer needing slight alter-
ations or bundled products/services.
 Think EDCA: A creative team works with a customer that needs new or major
changes to product/services.
A Lean Enterprise will react to these offerings more quickly and more effectively than
a traditional company. This is how the five principles of Lean Thinking complement
Service Dominant Logic thinking.
 We have Identified Value at the place of use.
 We map value through the Marketing Gateway of SDCA, PDCA, EDCA
 We create flow by the value proposition determined by the customer.
 Establish Pull through the value proposition offered at the place of use.
 We seek perfection through the application of continuous improvement.
Jobs To Be Done | Innosight attributed to Clayton Christensen
Sd-Logic is from Vargo & Lusch, 2004
Marketing Gateway of SDCA, PDCA, EDCA is from Graham Hill

4. Lean Marketing Conversation
- popularized by Brian Joiner and Yoji Akao
Applying the Lean Marketing Conversation develops deeper perception of custom-ers and experiences they should have with us.We combine the standard CAP Do Cycle with C. Otto Scharmer’s work that hecaptured in the book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges.
The Theory U, when applied to the CAP-Do cycle, does a remarkable job of ex-plaining the shift required from internal thinking as an organization and movingto collective/external thinking. Scharmer calls this link the field structure ofattention.
Theory U asks us to first learn by reflecting on
the experiences of the past. Looking and
Thinking corresponds Checking and Acting.
Theory U states that we must learn from thefuture as it emerges. Plan and Do representthe interactions of learning by doing.
It is the collective thought and how we develop that in our interactions. This is
what makes Lean powerful. The CAP-Do cycle symbolizes this process. Lean En-
gagement teams face new challenges that are solved by collective thought. This
collective thinking needs to be done internally, externally and across organizations.
It will not come naturally and needs to be created and learned.
A secret to Lean is the state of reflection or Hansei.
Reflection needs to come before the Plan stage.

5. Lean Sales & Marketing
Workflow Layout
The point to marketing is just not
filling the top of a marketing fun-
nel, especially, when you have lim-
ited resources. The point to mar-
keting is to create a great deal of
awareness supplemented with
good data so that the prospects
that are handed off to the sales
process are of value. It can be
something as simple as narrowing
down an inbound marketer’s call
list to a certain company size and
title. Scalable human touch is im-
portant and outlined below is the
initial process I foresee. Sales cy-
cles take real time and energy.
I take the Sales and Marketing Graphic and stretch it out to a spread-
sheet, so that we can budget, determine hours and review our work in
process. Work in process is the number of prospects that enter a block
(to do), the number we budget to work on (doing) and the number
ready for the next phase (done). This way we pull into the next phase
the work that is required. We determine conversion rates and locate
bottlenecks. All blocks may not be measured or budgeted or even time
allotted. This is how we set up the daily, weekly and monthly planner.
You may need multiple value streams for
your most important products/services
Most of the time you will only
need to separate part of the
value stream to gain proper
measurements and budgeting.
Today’s marketing bag is full of tools and technology that can be
utilized. For example, where your primary customer spends their
time is imperative. It is how you allocate and spend your “time” in
social media that is important. This is a basic structure of a tactical
marketing outline that would be discussed.

6. If you can build a culture of learning, growth
becomes part of everyone’s job. It is this
aspect I believe that separates good compa-
nies from great companies. Lean is first and
foremost a knowledge building exercise.
Lean sets the ideal, however, you must un-
derstand your organization, the culture that
exists and the culture that your customers
expect and are willing to derive value from.
You have to make the process your own. If you are successful at implementing
Lean, it is simply not Lean. It’s yours.
We like to view growth through our customer eyes or are customer needs. It
helps viewing this simple matrix and formulating your strategies accordingly. Use
of this matrix forces to look beyond our own product and services.
Lean Scale Up
The next step is to allocate your resources (Time, People, Money) associated
with your different growth strategies. If you believe, which I do, that you
must have a profitable and well-differentiated core your resources will be
allocated to SDCA. This would be the pattern found in established companies.
I use the same matrix but add Lean thinking to the concept assigning a
Lean Process to achieving the outcomes in each individual box.
What does a Lean Startup look like? The Lean Startup will look something
like this. The cycle of EDCA is similar to Lean Startup. This is where your
resources and focus are until you prove product/market fit. After doing
that, you will not standardize your product immediately, instead you will
PDCA till a standard market and customer becomes well defined.
So how does the adoption curve look in this scenario?
The foundational principals of Lean can and should be applied
to your growth practices.
Marketing with Lean Book Series
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