Stop Competing on Price: Fix Your BPO’s Positioning

Amanda Quinn 0:00
Welcome to Build a Better BPO, the podcast where we help business process outsourcers break free from the one-size-fits-all approach and build stronger, more profitable businesses.

Milan Batinich 0:10
If you're a BPO leader looking to improve margins, reduce employee churn, and create long-term client relationships, you're in the right place.

Amanda Quinn 0:18
I'm Amanda Quinn, principal at Quinn Growth Advisors. I help BPOs refine their positioning, market their expertise, and move beyond the outdated labor arbitrage model.

Milan Batinich 0:28
And I'm Milan Batinich, CEO of Milan Motivates. I help BPOs and CX leaders build stronger, happier teams by improving employee engagement and retention.

Amanda Quinn 0:38
Each episode will bring you insights, strategies, and real-world examples to help you stand out in the BPO space, attract better fit clients, and build a more sustainable business.

Milan Batinich 0:49
We're cutting through the noise with actionable takeaways. No fluff, no vague theories. Just proven strategies from industry experts and BPO leaders who are making it happen.

Amanda Quinn 0:58
So if you're ready to build a better BPO, let's dive in. Yep, and typically I find that when I say branding, most people think of logo. And to be clear, that's not what I'm talking about. What branding really means is when prospects come across your company, what do they think of? What does it remind them of? What emotions and feelings and values do they think of when they think of your brand? And it's really tied to positioning as well. And positioning is kind of where in your prospect's mind does your brand fall when it compares to other uh other competitors. So this matters because most BPOs don't have good positioning and their brand is an afterthought. And as a result, they struggle to stand out, they struggle to be seen as meaningfully different from competitors, and that leads to them competing on price. And so it's important for BPOs to be really intentional about their positioning and not just let the prospects come up with positioning for them because it's gonna end up in a place where brands aren't known for anything and prospects are forgetting them.

Milan Batinich 2:45
That makes sense because then their their whole outreach or their whole sales tactic is based, like you said, on price or based on geo or other things versus their brand.

Amanda Quinn 2:55
We want prospects to know about your company and to immediately be able to categorize you because that's how they remember. And when you do that really well and you start like owning that spot in their mind, what happens is when a prospect kind of has a need for services like that, they're gonna seek you out. They're gonna remember that your BPO is great at solving problems like that, like theirs, and they will come come for you. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean they will reach out to you, which is the goal, right? We want we want to be in a place where leads are reaching out to us and putting their hand up and saying they need our services. We don't always want to have to rely on outbound sales efforts. The goal would be a combo of sales and marketing to be able to bring in both outbound as well as inbound generated leads.

Milan Batinich 3:46
How does having a quality brand or being known as the go-to brand for X or Y or whatever it is, how does how does that play into sales and marketing? Can you expound on that a little bit more?

Amanda Quinn 4:00
Yeah, sure. The act of sales and marketing is really trying to educate and convince a prospect that you are the best fit for them in whatever problem that they're trying to solve, whether that's software, that's technology, that's labor, right? When you have a brand that has a very clear positioning, and again, by that I mean it's really clear what you do and for whom, your prospects, when you start hitting them with messages, sales messages, marketing messages, those messages are gonna be so much more concise and consistent. And that's gonna mean that it's gonna take less touch points for your prospect to become interested in what you have to say. If you're that dialed in, and the person that you're reaching out to should be in that target market that you've already set for yourself, your messages are gonna be so much more resonant because you're gonna be speaking about their exact problems, their struggles, the emotions that they're having as they're encountering those problems. And so you're gonna be able to make so much more traction than a BPO that is just speaking in generics.

Milan Batinich 5:08
Got it. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so then moving on to for the BPOs watching and listening, would you hire you test? So talking about the BPO brand test. So can you talk through a little bit of that?

Amanda Quinn 5:21
Yeah, absolutely. And this is really an exercise to help BPOs kind of get out of the daily grind of their own view of their firm. So, as much as possible, with fresh eyes, go to your website, go to your LinkedIn page, look at your your sales deck. And I want you to think if I were a prospect, would this compel me? Would this make me pay a price premium? That's the really good question. Would I be paying willing to pay more to work with this company than I would and think of your nearest competitor, your, you know, your nearest competitor? And if the answer is no, then you know that you have work to do. And so it's just a really good exercise to help BPOs um put themselves in their prospect's shoes and ensure that what they're doing is consistent across all of those platforms and it's actually resonant and it speaks to that target market.

Milan Batinich 6:12
Okay, that makes sense. And I'm sure we'll talk about how to turn the no into a yes, right? If those BPOs are answering no to that question, that they would not hire themselves.

Amanda Quinn 6:21
Yes, yes. The really common mistakes that I see a lot of BPOs making is like I was just saying, like being really generic. That is the number one mistake I feel like BPOs make. And it comes from lack of positioning. It comes from trying to serve a number of different verticals or do a number of different functions and trying to compellingly speak about all of those capabilities on one landing page. It's just, it's impossible. And so as a result, what you end up saying are generalities. We provide cost savings, like you focus on your core mission and we will help you do it cheaper, you know, your non-core stuff cheaper, or we are really CX first, like you will get access to our management team, very basic things. And those are compelling because every single BPO can say them. And so it's really important for BPOs as they're thinking about this to like really get clear on like what is their special sauce? What do they know and do better than anybody else? And dig in. Don't just take that for granted. Like, if if you feel like you have an area that your team knows really well, that is maybe a type of client that you guys work with and you understand the nuances of this type of client or this use case really well, those are those are good signs that you have something there that can be used to help you specialize, that can be used to help you kind of cement much better positioning than that broad messaging that, like I said, that most firms have right now.

Milan Batinich 7:54
Right, that makes sense. And then more prospects will be seeking you out because you are known as the expert within that specific industry, right?

Amanda Quinn 8:02
Right. And ideally, what this looks like is once you start saying and really consistency, like with marketing and and sales, consistency is key, right? So you can't just do this for three months and say, oh, it didn't work, and then we move on. It's like going to the gym for three months and being like, I don't have six pack. Why isn't it working? Which I know you know very well.

Milan Batinich 8:22
So that's great. It's a great way to put it. Absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 8:25
Yeah, the key is like, okay, so this is our secret sauce. We're gonna dig in here. Now, like, let's expand it. So, what that looks like is if we're really good at this thing, and I'm gonna just give an example just to help kind of clarify this. So let's just say your firm does medical billing, because that's the first thing that came to my mind. And you guys are experts at it. And in particular, you really work well with regional hospital groups that have lots of different payer, uh, payer situations, and your your clientele, let's just say it's maybe more rural, and the traditional digital way of serving them hasn't worked primarily. And your secret sauce is the fact that you have a really good way to get a hold of these folks, um, get them on the phone, ensure that you can collect their inform insurance information, yada, yada, yada. But what you want to start doing is really focusing on the outcome. So not only are you gonna start talking a lot about that medical billing and that regional hospital center kind of prospect that you um you've identified as as your best fit, but what what do you what are you offering to them? Like what is the value that they're getting in working with you? What are the outcomes that they're getting? Because I think this is a really big missed opportunity. Because BPOs are so focused on their own capabilities in their marketing, they're not talking about what those capabilities can unlock for the prospect. And that's where like you get into more emotive and compelling marketing and sales messages. Because now as a prospect, I'm hearing not I'm not hearing like I'm gonna save money. I'm hearing um that uh finally the nightmares of chasing um patients and having to collect insurance, like that nightmare is gone. Like I'm here, and and I can envision what that means for me if I'm um the admin at the hospital that's overseeing this function. And it it becomes a lot more transformative. And finally, I'm like, okay, okay, like I want I want to hear what what do you do? Um, how do you do that? And so the more that BPOs can start talking about the outcomes, they're gonna find that their sales and marketing goes a lot further.

Milan Batinich 10:35
Yeah, that that makes a hundred percent sense. And I'm sure at this point in the podcast, everyone that's listening is thinking, wow, this like you know, light bulbs going off. They're like, we have majority of our clients in this one industry or this one vertical or horizontal or whatever it might be, and they're probably thinking, Wow, this makes so much sense for me and my company, but you know, I'm sure you run into BPOs that are like, This makes sense, but what about all these other potential opportunities then that I'm gonna miss out on? So, how how can you alleviate the fears, the the FOMO, the fear of missing out that they have that those BPO leaders have of yeah, but I'm I'm gonna miss out on all this potential other business outside of what I'm an expert in. So, how how do you respond to that?

Amanda Quinn 11:20
Right. And it it is so fear-based. You're totally right. It's a mindset that we need to get BPOs over. And so the way that I I guess I have a number of different ways I would respond. One of them, one of them is if you agree that buyers want to work with somebody who's an expert, that buyers would prefer to work with an expert over a generalist, then you choosing to remain a generalist is basically opening up your firm to have your business being taken away by somebody who's willing to make that risky decision, someone who's willing to make that bold move. Because another BPO, I guarantee you, also is really good at medical billing in that case and can easily start pivoting into the hospital system, this regional hospital system. And if they beat you into that space, it's gonna be so much harder for you to compete.

Milan Batinich 12:17
Yeah, that that makes sense.

Amanda Quinn 12:19
So that's one thing I would say. Another is just because your team, like referrals are great. I'm never gonna say we turn down a referral or advise against it because I get the value that having like a deal magically pop up on your lap could present for your firm. But so, so if that happens, sure, take take deal if it makes sense for your team and you feel like you would do a good job at serving that that client. But what we're talking about here is more your like outbound. Like, what is your sales and marketing, your prospect-facing messages? Because you really want those to be really focused around a niche, those to be really dialed in about a specific problem so that that buyer can see themselves in your messages. And so if your website and your LinkedIn page and all of your content is all geared around a particular industry and solving a particular type of problem, but you happen to have a kind of like at a left field deal that comes your way, and maybe you have some clients that are similar and you know you'll do a good job at it, then take the deal, like no problem. What I've what I will surmise is that the more that BPOs start to go down this path where they are willing to make this decision to niche down and they are um kind of committed to serving their clients better in this way, what they're gonna find is when they start getting more of the same types of work, more of the same types of campaigns supporting the same types of clients over and over again, they're gonna start getting better at serving those clients because they're gonna do that same thing over and over again. They're not going to reinvent the wheel every single time. And so the more that the percentage of the business shifts to kind of more of the specialized model, the more those referrals that are coming in from the side might be viewed as a distraction. And at some point, you're gonna hit there's gonna be a swing in the pendulum where it's not worth taking those on because it is such a disruptor to the business. And it's gonna be a different way to maybe your teams are organized around it differently, or the knowledge, the training that has to happen to support that that campaign is gonna be too great. So, yeah, BPOs may find that at that point it's not worth it, and you can refer it out to another BPO that you know does take that kind of business and get a referral fee. So, yeah, it's I totally understand the long-winded way of saying is uh Milan, I understand the fear. Like I get it, it feels like you're shutting a door, but reality is that door is gonna be shut whether or not you like it, and it's better that you walk through it first.

Milan Batinich 14:58
Yeah, that makes sense. And I would think as BPOs hire new sales execs, if they are already focused on a specific niche, then the ramp up period will go so much faster than trying to boil the ocean, than trying to reach out to okay, here's 20,000 prospects across a million different industries, so good luck to you. And it's taking a year for the salesperson to close their first deal with if they're already experts in a specific niche as they expand and grow, it'll be that much easier. Very good. That's awesome. So, Amanda, I just want to pivot a little bit. So, how would you advise fixing a BPO's brand and positioning?

Amanda Quinn 15:34
I think it really boils down to like that first step is figuring out your niche. You gotta figure out what where you should specialize, what is your secret sauce? And I help my clients a lot with this because it can be it's a bit of a an art and a science to figure that out. It may be really clear. For some firms, it's tremendously and instantly clear where they want to focus. For others, where they may be operating in a number of different functions and supporting a number of different types of clients at verticals, it may be less clear. And we need to do both a combo of research, market research, as well as internal research to figure out like marry the your secret sauce, like where what kind of campaigns does your team like doing, and where does the market need you kind of marry those two together to arrive at that answer? But that's definitely the first step because it's a waterfall from there. And if you don't make that first step, then you're gonna just keep staying in this generalist, uncompelling value prop position. So then from there, really getting a good understanding of your buyer and what do they care about and what moves them and what motivates them and what are they struggling with, what are the factors going on in the industry and related technologies, the more that you can become truly an expert in who that client is, that prospect is, the end buyer, all the decision makers around them, what does that buying committee look like? The more powerful and more resonant your messages will be. And you can become a lot more thoughtful as you unleash your go-to-market strategy. So, first is kind of identify your niche. Second is understand your buyer. I'd say third is make your messages consistent. So what you say on your website, your buyer should be able to see it, see themselves in what you're saying. You're showing up, and the way you're showing up is you're hitting their pain points and their struggles, and you're you're basically giving them hope. That's what they want. They want to see hope. They want to feel hope from what you put out there. And so I want consistency across your LinkedIn, um, your your website, all of your sales collateral. And then lastly, I'd say the this is the big opportunity too, is really starting to be intentional about thought leadership. And the reason I say it's an opportunity is because most BPOs don't do it right now. Because it makes no sense to do it. When you're a generalist, I mean, what are you gonna write about? Why to outsource?

Milan Batinich 18:00
Right.

Amanda Quinn 18:01
And I mean, we've all seen those, right? We've seen those posts on LinkedIn. It's so vague, it's so uncompelling. And so now, once you start getting really focused, now you can start being insightful and helpful to your audience. That's the goal. You want your content to be consistently out there, being absorbed and being seen as helpful. Because the more your your content's helpful, that's the more your brand's helpful. And the more your brand's helpful, the more likely you are to be invited to RFPs. You know, research has shown that. You're like 86% more likely to be invited to RFPs. Yeah, so it's it's huge. It's really, it can really move the needle. And no BPOs are doing it. So it's like untapped, fertile ground. And I mean, Milan, you see this when you put on your BPO salesperson hat, right? You know how hard it is to get your messages opened and to get your clients to to see your BPO is meaningfully different. And I don't, you know, it's it's it's a struggle, it's a slog. So the more that you can make your salespeople's lives easier by nailing down your positioning, like wouldn't that be a dream for you as a salesperson?

Milan Batinich 19:06
Yeah, and the positioning and having the consistent branding that's going out to the marketplace. Yeah, because as much as salespeople love the in and outs of cold calling and prospecting, ultimately we love sales because we love closing the sale, right? Closing the deal. You know, and I don't I've never met a salesperson that is like, I really want to just cold call people eight hours a day, Monday through Friday. Don't really want to attend meetings, don't really want to close deals, don't want to make commission. Can I just cold call people? You never hear that from salespeople. They want to move quickly, and by having that specialization, that expertise, you can move a lot faster because you're considered the expert. You are the go-to for that, like you said earlier, medical billing. You're the go-to for that specific industry. Makes a ton of sense. So, Amanda, from here, what are you know, any last takeaways, final takeaways, any specific action steps that you would recommend to those listening and watching?

Amanda Quinn 20:00
I would just say really get intentional about your positioning. Like, write write your statement and what do you do and for whom? I'd say, like, if you can get to that one sentence statement about your brand, that will help tremendously and stick to it. Those two principles I think are so important. But yeah, if if BPOs out there hear this and it resonates and you want to learn more about how your BPO can can differentiate in the market, or you need help specializing and want to kind of break free from your competitors, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or my company, Quinn Growth Advisors. We'd love to hear from you and help in any way we can. Awesome.

Milan Batinich 20:38
Well, thank you for everyone that tuned in to today's episode. And Amanda, thank you so much on speaking about branding and positioning for the BPO. Absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 20:46
It was my pleasure.