The Proof

Performance Works completed our project six quarters ago. And we’ve now had six record quarters in a row after several years of flat revenue. That growth has been a comprehensive company effort, but I’d be the first to say Ken gave our marketing and sales teams the focus and ammunition to start the run. And six quarters later, the markets Ken defined remain our top focus.

Performance Works helped the Docker sales organization develop a clear, compelling, consistent message for customers on an accelerated timeline.They then lead the training for our sales organization in North America and EMEA. Their insights, professionalism, focus, and commitment to collaboration resulted in a great sales message the entire company now uses.

The entire sales team has been raving and our CEO thought the deck and sales training were perfect. I highly recommend the Performance Works team.

Communicating complex messages in a simple and comprehensible way is an art. It’s so easy for technology companies to fall into the grandiose: “we transform” or “we power” or “at scale.” Many get so stuck on how they speak inside their company they forget to look from the outside in. And even when they try to listen to the voice of customers, partners, and competitors, their internal filters transform what they hear.

Ken Rosen at Performance Works helped us understand the voice of our customer and interpret it in a clear, compelling way that represents the depth of our knowledge while being easy to consume. This is the art. Ken worked tirelessly, devoted to finding the truth, and poured through customer interviews and materials to get to the essence of who we are. He also did it in record time, bringing my executive team and CEO along on the journey.

I have hired many messaging experts in the past; going forward, I will hire only one, Performance Works.

Ken has always inspired me with outstanding thought leadership and extraordinary insights. Each interaction yields immense learning. The value of his work has been priceless in every engagement over the years — always exceeded my expectations. And he does it all with full passion and amazing positive attitude, which is contagious. I really enjoy working with Ken!

Complex problems are often a matter of opinion. Put intelligent and energetic people together to solve a problem or define a message, and complexity bias raises it’s ugly head. Ken has an amazing ability to help organizations focus … deconstructing messaging complexities, and creating simple narratives on the essence of value to boost growth. His passion for the mission is contagious, which makes him an incredible partner to not only define value positioning, but also to deliver clear and engaging communications training.

Amazingly inspirational comes to mind when thinking about Ken. I worked with Ken when he was coaching the senior Cisco management team. I’ve been impressed by Ken’s ability to translate communication tips, feedback and techniques into an easy to absorb format that sticks with you forever! And he does everything with a genuine positive energy that motivates you to be your best all the time. Ken has my warmest recommendations as Executive coach and I look forward to new opportunity to work with him!

I engaged Performance Works to help with our market segmentation and positioning strategy.  Ken told me at the outset if we do our job right—and I emphasize “we” because they work so closely with clients—I’ll want to knock myself on the head and say “Is that it?,” because it will be so basic and fundamental to who we are and what we offer.  I have been in our space for 12 years and never have I felt as good and strongly that we hit the positioning on the head. 

The combination of his intellectual and creative curiosity combined with his absolute drive to find the truth provide a unique combination invaluable to any company.  I highly recommend him and his team to anyone.

I worked closely with Ken Rosen and Performance Works over the past 12 years. We met when he was recommended by a board member to select target markets and re-position BlueArc. The result was two years of record sales. I then asked him to be my co-founder and VP of Marketing for Drobo, a company still delivering award-winning products to enthusiastic customers. Most recently, he served as interim CMO when we merged Connected Data with Nexsan. I have no doubt Ken is among the best at understanding markets and creating messaging to increase revenue. If you need your sales and marketing teams to break through the noise with a message that gets customers to buy, talk to Performance Works.

Ken’s coaching was engaging, educational, genuine and motivational. Working with him has helped me to increase my ability to consider and tailor relevant information for a specific purpose to increase the impact. While presenting, preparing slides or writing emails I keep unpacking what he taught me. And I see a big improvement in my speech , slide building and writing. He gave me valuable tips and feedback to improve my verbal, visual and written communication. He made a great impact on me and, I know, the whole team!

Loree Goffigon has led several strategic efforts for BP over the last 10 years. In a true partnership, these efforts focused on delivering outstanding work environments, greatly enhancing employee collaboration and morale. Loree is personally committed to excellence and brings a strategic focus to all her efforts in an energetic and engaging fashion. She clearly values teamwork and communication and works diligently to ensure alignment at all levels.

Faced with a daunting restructuring — selling IronKey, acquiring Connected Data, and starting our asset management business — we needed to reposition Imation and its subsidiary Nexsan to reflect our newly differentiated enterprise storage offering.

I asked Performance Works to assist in restructuring the Marketing organization and creating a communications strategy to position Nexsan for growth. With Performance Works’ assistance, we created a leaner, more profitable growth business. It has been a delightful experience working with Ken Rosen and I look forward to our next project together.

Performance Works’ deep knowledge of vertical markets and use cases delivered tremendous value to HGST.  We especially appreciate how they apply the voice of the customer to the technologies we sell.  Most consulting firms lack the industry expertise to apply technology to customers’ actual use cases.  Performance Works knows the verticals and translated the language for our sales teams to create new opportunities.

Ken’s commitment was “deliver, deliver, deliver.” I am not one to work with consultants who can only collaborate with me so I can find the answer myself. I needed positioning expertise and needed it quickly. Ken’s strategic thinking coupled with the drive to execute resulted in a highly successful firm repositioning. I found Ken equally at ease in the board room and shoulder-to-shoulder with me in execution and we have engaged with him to continue with us next year.

I had the pleasure of hiring Ken for a go-to-market strategy project for one of our early stage investments. We had a stellar technical team, but no commercial leadership. Ken stepped into that role and immediately earned the respect of the team and board, becoming a trusted and valued member of the company’s leadership. Performance Works took an unbounded, undefined project and quickly led the market segmentation, identified our best initial target customers and prospects, and clearly articulated a compelling value proposition. Aside from being exceptionally bright and skilled, Ken is a pleasure to work with and I would definitely work with Ken again.

As a sales leader in high tech, my most difficult task is ensuring our sales teams translate complex product features into business value. How do customers and prospects become more competitive by accelerating revenues or reducing expenses? On numerous occasions, and accelerated time schedules, Ken developed and delivered specific training curriculum and tools enabling my entire sales organization to speak to customer value creation, not just technical differentiation. As a result of this work, we increased sales productivity by 80% over a twelve month period.

Ken has been a key consultant to the first spin-out venture from IBM Research. He led the marketing aspect of the venture and, by asking the right questions, kept us focused on the issues which matter to customers. Ken combines a very sharp, analytical mindset with a practical, hands-on, pound-the-street attitude. I found Ken a pleasure to work with — he keeps to his commitments, gets things done, and is just a fun person to have around. I’d be delighted to engage him again if the opportunity arises.

Ken was able to easily, efficiently, and charismatically identify the value and simplicity in my desired communications. I worked with him on and off in a wholly collaborative manner over two years, across multiple projects. Working both face to face and virtually, Ken’s energy and passion remained incredibly high, even across antisocial time zones. Ken was able to help decipher the true value in a communication, and always did it in a truly friendly, helpful and collaborative approach, making him the first name I think of for future projects.

I knew we needed to sell higher in the organization with a broader value proposition at a higher price point. Performance Works repositioned our company in a way that interests executives, provides strategic value for customers, and separates us from commodity products. Our new approach has worldwide applicability, supports a senior management sale, and justifies enterprise-level pricing.

I’ve led sales teams for multiple world-class companies. And the sales training with Performance Works was the best I’ve seen. The market requirements and pains were well-researched and the delivery was designed for action. Every one of my reps called to tell me they were shocked to receive clear, compelling versions of a short elevator pitch, longer elevator pitch, short presentation, and extended presentation prepackaged and ready to use. It’s obvious they understand what sales teams need in order to be successful.

Ken Rosen and I partnered on two complex projects, each requiring a high degree of coordination, creativity, and attention to detail. In both cases, Ken was a creative leader, sparking innovative approaches. He never caves to pressure just to get things done, but only stops when he is satisfied we have turned all stones and found the best possible solution. His quick mind and amazing energy fueled all aspects of our projects. The bottom line: not just satisfied clients, thrilled clients.

We needed to rethink our workplace strategy to increase collaboration, flexibility and utilization. Loree Goffigon,  was very valuable in helping us navigate the organizational and functional challenges that goal presented. She paid close attention to the varied needs of our people and forged consensus around key ideas to move us forward. I heartily recommend her and her team to any organization wrestling with complex issues requiring both a strategic vision and an executable plan.

One of the things I like most of about working with and talking to Loree Goffigon is her passion for new ideas. She brings a truly genuine level of enthusiasm to her work that energizes both the process and those she works with. She is always ready to consider a new perspective and ready to tackle a challenging problem and the result is answers that are both practical and inspirational. Her team helped us create a new workplace model that shifted our approach to collaboration and idea sharing and, as importantly, resulted in a work environment that fit us like a glove. She changed how we thought about the potential of our project.

Ken Rosen helped my organization—and me—develop more than I ever hoped. And at two to three times the pace and growth I expected. Ken helped me not only see how to become a better leader, but helped me get there too. He is an incredibly observant and trusted business partner, and I would not want to imagine running my team without him.

Ken Rosen has an uncanny ability to simply make your life easier. Ken’s value goes beyond smart and efficient execution; he helps you redefine scope to gain more meaningful insight. He helped SunRun develop a deeper understanding of our diverse customer community by approaching the task with rigor, imagination and even audacity when appropriate. Ken left us with practical tools to implement change, but more importantly taught us new skills for approaching challenges as they arise in the future.

Ken Rosen has a unique ability to see beyond product capabilities to an understanding of how products benefit the businesses that use them. His articulation is eloquent, his working style is great, and his contributions to me and my organization have been outstanding. If you get the chance to work with Performance Works, you should.

We found Performance Works to be very knowledgeable about organizational culture, politics, structure and dynamics. Their analysis was insightful and their recommendations sound and realistic.  They understood the County’s needs and were very adept at facilitating discussion at workshops. They were quite perceptive and quickly grasped our specific issues.

I worked with Loree Goffigon on a strategic positioning project for the college, and she was great. She’s incredibly sharp, strategic in her thinking, and really sees how the big picture goals connect to the tactics of execution. The concept strategy was exactly what was needed. I was very pleased with the quality of her work and would recommend her without hesitation. Plus she is a lot of fun, and that means something too.