Before you approve another GTM investment in a portfolio company, there's a question worth asking.
Does the business know why customers choose it?
I mean the reasons customers would give you, in their own words.
What was happening when they started looking? What had become difficult enough to do something about? What alternatives did they consider? Why did they eventually choose this supplier? What do they value now that they are customers?
You might assume the answers are already known.
The website can give you a useful clue about whether what customers value is transferring to the market
We've now assessed 1,057 B2B software and services homepages against six questions a prospective buyer needs answered.
This week, I looked at treasury and payments.
Eight companies a corporate treasurer might consider.
Here's how they introduce themselves.
Read the eight openings again.
Several promise a better outcome. Kyriba goes further, naming a specific problem a treasurer might recognise: “Visibility is not keeping up.”
Now look a little further down.
Agicap: “All on one platform.”
Kyriba: “One platform, limitless Liquidity Performance.”
Embat: “One connected platform.”
TIS: “One centralized system.”
Four companies making variations of a unified-platform promise.
I'm sure there are meaningful differences between their products.
But a treasurer encountering these websites for the first time has to work rather hard to find them.
Swap the logos on those platform claims and how much would really change?
TIS has impressive customer results: Unilever saving over $10 million annually, TomTom cutting forecasting time by 70%, and Archroma consolidating 15 eBanking tools into one channel.
Yet its homepage leads with “Global payments and cash intelligently managed.”
At the very bottom of the page: “Stop struggling with fragmented operations.”
TIS already has the customer proof and a recognisable buyer problem. Why make buyers hunt for both?
Across the treasury sector, the same words keep appearing: platform, visibility, intelligence, real-time and AI.
Every supplier promises progress. Few explain what's wrong with the buyer's current situation or why changing is worth the effort.
Our Value Transfer X-Ray tests whether a homepage makes the buyer's problem, the supplier's difference and the evidence clear.
It reveals what the company communicates. Not what the company actually knows about why customers buy.
A generic homepage doesn't prove the company lacks customer understanding. Its best salespeople may know exactly why customers switch, but that knowledge isn't reaching the market.
Equally, a brilliant homepage doesn't prove the sales team can explain why a buyer should change.
A website reveals how well a company communicates its understanding of buyers. It doesn't prove how much the company actually knows.
To establish that, speak to the customers who made the decision. Find out what changed, and if you need help, you know what to do.