Proven Process

The proven process is one of the four parts of the marketing strategy box on the V/TO®. EOS asks for the picture rather than the manual: the steps a customer moves through, in order, with a short phrase under each. The detailed version of the same work lives in the core processes, which are written for staff instead of buyers.

Buyers of professional services are buying a promise about the future, and a diagram is the cheapest way to make it concrete. There is a second effect inside the company. Drawing the steps usually reveals that two departments disagree about where one ends and the next begins, which is better found on a whiteboard than in a complaint.

Worked example: An architecture practice drew five steps and named them. Half the room put the budget conversation in step two and half put it in step four. Every client who had complained about scope creep in the past year had been through the step-four version. They moved it, and the diagram went onto the second page of every proposal.

Sources: Traction, Gino Wickman, chapter on Vision; eosworldwide.com/eos-tools