#006: The Sophistication Spectrum: How to Understand Avatars, Align Messaging, and Create Better Marketing

Written by Lynn Swayze

As a service provider who wants to be an expert, you know it’s important to know who you serve. In my marketing system, that who is called The Person You Serve, and it’s one of the 12 Messaging Factors. Other marketers call it an avatar or persona. 

In B2B, it’s often referred to as your Ideal Client Profile (ICP), which is a mix of firmographics (revenue, industry, employee count, etc) and jobs to be done (what they want to accomplish).

And if you know me, then you know I’m not a fan of typically-generated avatar or ICP docs, because they tend to lack the nuance and complexity required to be actually useful to develop offers and write compelling copy. 

One of those nuances is what I call the “Sophistication Spectrum”. And if you aren’t getting conversations and eventually sales from your marketing or sales efforts… or if the leads you’re getting aren’t matching what you’re offering… then it’s time to take a look at the Sophistication Spectrum and ensure that you’re aligned appropriately.

The Sophistication Spectrum in a Nutshell

The Sophistication Spectrum is how sophisticated your avatar is in regards to their overall transformation. Businesses mature from left to right and in an uneven fashion, often getting more sophisticated in one or two areas before they are propelled forward into the next stage through the velocity of their own forward momentum.

If you’re in B2B, then this concept is applied to the business/ICP and not to the individual. In B2B, you’re selling to avatars at a business in a certain stage of sophistication, whereas B2C sells directly to individuals with a certain stage of sophistication.

At the far left of the spectrum is the complete newbie (B2C) or idea-stage startup (B2B). At the far right are expert industry professionals and publicly traded corporations. And in the middle is where, likely, you’re trying to reach clients and customers. 

Note #1: This is a different, yet related, concept to the Messaging Awareness Stages taught by Eugene Schwartz. Those awareness stages are for developing messaging and engineering marketing campaigns, which is a level chunked down from core positioning and service packaging).

Note #2: I can’t give you a single Sophistication Spectrum that will work for every business, because every business is slightly different. But I can do it for my business, which is a Marketing Consultancy that serves lawyers, accountants, and agencies in Stage 1/2. 

As you’ll see in the image above, on the left-hand side are transformation points I personally care about when developing my information products and productized services. Your client or customer’s transformation from unsophisticated to sophisticated in each area will be unique to your business. For example, I didn’t include IT hardware, or IT help desk infrastructure, or legal compliance, or HR, or financials, or anything like that. Your business might care about those things; put them in.

In reality, businesses rarely grow in sophistication in an even pattern from one stage to another. They’ll often focus on one area, get it sophisticated, before they work on another, and eventually that forward momentum propels them to the next Stage of Sophistication. So a business might be great at operations, finance, documentation, and hiring, but poor at marketing. Or great at marketing but not at sales. And so forth. So while the sophistication spectrum can help you identify the forward movement and transformation your ideal clients want to have and are having on their own, it’s not so neat as to be able to exactly pinpoint all of the solvable problems in a business just by knowing their business stage. 

Want to Download the Spreadsheet? Click here.

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The Sophistication Spectrum Example

In this section, I’m going to show you how this looks for my consultancy at LynnSwayze.com. Obviously, your spectrum may be different and you may want to focus on areas of a business that I didn’t even include here. 

Sophistication Stage 0 – Idea Stage

In this stage, a future business owner who could potentially engage with my services has an idea for a business which I could potentially help with. 

Of course, there are areas of their business where there is a sophistication transformation, but which doesn’t necessarily impact my ability to get results or preclude a client from working with me: 

  • HR Team: None
  • Internal Documentation: None to a little 
  • Fulfillment: Enough to get a client or two

What I would sell: If anything, I’d sell my book, one of my courses, or maybe coaching for an idea they want to flesh out or for as-needed support.

Sophistication Stage 1 – Early (Solopreneur)

In this stage, an active business owner who could potentially engage with my services has started the sophistication process in at least one area of their business. Usually, business owners are optimizing for more leads/sales at this stage more than internal ops. This individual is a professional services provider (consultant, accountant, lawyer, etc) and has aspirations to scale. 

Note that if they don’t have aspirations to grow into the next stage, or believe that growth is impossible due to limiting beliefs or fears they refuse to address, then they are not a good fit. 

What I would sell: This business is starting to be at the point where I can actually help. If they have the budget, I can help this type of avatar get more sophisticated in one or two of the areas, such as productizing their services, updating their website messaging, building lead magnets, expanding their CRM, etc. 

Sophistication Stage  2 – Growing Business (Small Team) 

At this point of sophistication, businesses generally begin to get a feel for their unique approach to solving problems, who they like to work with, and who their best clients are. They have some financial runway to strategically invest in scaling up into the next level of sophistication, and know that they need to invest if they’re going to scale.

What I would sell: This avatar is very much feeling the pain points I can help with. I would sell ongoing consulting to systematically help them scale in each of these areas, leveraging the assets and the wins they’ve accumulated thus far. 

Sophistication Stage 3 – Established Business (Big Team)

At this point of sophistication, businesses are already working with multiple freelancers, consultants, and/or external agencies. They have really hit their stride and are ready to go big. They clearly understand the value of investing to see growth. 

What I would sell: This avatar is very much feeling the pain points I can help with. I would sell ongoing consulting to systematically help them scale in each of these areas, leveraging the assets and the wins they’ve accumulated thus far. 

Sophistication Stage 4 – Expanding Business (Enterprise) 

At this point of sophistication, businesses are well-established. They are good at  working with multiple freelancers, consultants, and/or external agencies. They have no problem investing in new tools or initiatives if the ROI looks promising.

What I would sell: At this level, I’m likely assisting with a specific initiative that is well-defined internally, such as optimizing their CRM or launching an Account Based Marketing (ABM) campaign.

How to Use The Sophistication Spectrum

Many businesses inadvertently target a too-unsophisticated level when they attempt marketing. This is either due to not being aware of the spectrum or it’s due to marketing to their internal pain points and not to the pain points, problems, and desires of their target avatar. 

Use the Sophistication Spectrum as a productization, sales, and marketing tool.

As a Productization Tool: 

Examine your best clients and determine where on the Sophistication Spectrum they fall. Are they truly Stage 0 or Stage 1 clients, or are they closer to Stage 3? Chances are, many struggling businesses who might hire someone like me tend to want to target Stage 1 or Stage 2. 

Your job as a marketing leader is to package your service in such a way that you help your client move from the phase they’re in when they come to you, to the next phase of their growth. So if they are currently in Stage 1, your product should only bring them to Stage 2. (Whereupon you’ll upsell them to the next level of work with you.) If they’re in Stage 2, then your productized service should bring them to Stage 3. 

As a Sales Tool:

As a sales tool, use the Sophistication Spectrum to craft promising and compelling language in your sales calls. You can use the Spectrum to paint the picture of how a client’s business will evolve and grow as a result of working with your firm. Yes, the business will have new problems (like needing to hire more staff, or invest in more advertising or growth tools), but they’ll also have more revenue and more traction. 

Or, use where they are unsophisticated in their business as a conversation topic to explore pain points and desires. Say you’re a HubSpot agency who sells RevOps. You could lean into their team size and reporting sophistication to explore how fixing these areas could lead to the next stage of growth. And then paint the picture of how getting more sophisticated and experienced in this area of their business helps them reach sophistication and growth in other areas.

Example: “Businesses in [the next Stage] are sophisticated in [these areas]. (Show examples, data, etc to prove your point). If you want to be where they are, you have to do what they do. It looks like you are missing 3 out of 5 sophistication points for [next Stage]. Let’s address [area 1] first, which will help us have [revenue, processes, data, etc] to scale in [area 2, 3, etc].” 

You can also use the spreadsheet (again, tailored for YOUR business) to prequalify potential leads. You can give it to your junior-level SDRs as a guide to prequalification. And then where a business is lacking is going to be where your higher-level sales person is going to start having conversations about what’s holding them back, what else they’ve tried, etc. 

As a Marketing Tool:

As a marketing tool, use the Sophistication Spectrum to better craft messaging and marketing which attracts businesses at the right stage of growth. Without the Spectrum, too many agencies and professional services firms target too early…. attracting the wrong customer over and over again. With the Sophistication Spectrum, you can better align your marketing to your ideal avatar. 

You can also use the Stages, and the areas of Sophistication within each stage, to craft hooks, lead Magnets, and “slice offers” which will lead to conversations about bigger engagements.

The Inverse Sophistication Effect

A warning:

One thing I discovered early on in developing this concept is that the earlier the Sophistication Stage, the more education, mindset reframing, and foundational business/systems work must be done in order for that business to implement whatever it is you sell.

Let me repeat that:

  • The earlier the stage
  • The MORE WORK which must be done 
  • (By you or the client)
  • In the areas of: mindset, education, foundational business/systems, foundational marketing/sales assets, etc., team size, etc
  • In order for them to implement
  • Whatever it is you sell (beyond fulfillment)
  • And get to the next stage of Sophistication

Which means selling to early stages may simply not be feasible given the kind of service you offer. (Solution: change your marketing/sales)

Or maybe your offer just is too unsophisticated for the type of business you want to reach. (Solution: change your service/packaging)

Case in point: I once worked with an agency that didn’t offer to optimize any of the marketing assets required to run advertising campaigns. To do their best work, they required customers already be in Sophistication Stage 2 or 3 in order to have runway and make the best use of their service. So for them, offering services to early-sophistication businesses was a recipe for failure, which played out in repeated client churn. Until they changed their entire positioning, they would continue to attract clients who would, inevitably, churn.

Summary

1. The Sophistication Spectrum is how sophisticated your avatar is in regards to their overall transformation.

2. Businesses mature from left to right and in an uneven fashion, often getting more sophisticated in one or two areas before they are propelled forward into the next stage through the velocity of their own forward momentum.

3. The less “Sophisticated”, the more fundamental marketing assets, mindset transformation, systems, team infrastructure, etc are needed for the business to implement about anything outside direct fulfillment

4. You can use lack of Sophistication in a specific area to offer education/lead magnets, pitch starter services, and shape sales conversations.

5. Once you know Sophistication level, THEN you can worry about awareness levels regarding whatever marketing messages you’re creating.

Conclusion

Once you know what the unique Sophistication Spectrum looks like for your ideal clients or customers, then things should start to click. Once you know where your ideal clients sit, then the next step is to engineer offers which uplevel your clients to the next stage. And once they reach that next stage, they will have more resources, information, or confidence which supports selling them something more expensive, recurring, or in-depth… hopefully with your brand. 

And when you want help implementing this concept in your business, let’s chat!

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