Revolutionary Marketing and Sales Strategies

Marketing and Sales Targeting

Link: Small business - advice to help start a business.

"Take potential and existing customers’ characteristics into account when you are considering whether relationship marketing can work for you. Some customers may only be looking for the cheapest product and the quickest way of getting it, and will have no interest in high levels of service or loyalty schemes, for example."

Michael King, President of Grizzard Performance Group, in deploying CPM (Customer Profitability Management) model would add to this that we need to ensure that we are pursuing clients that are the most profitable.

Bob Beck, President of Sales Builders, Inc., would add to this that if cheap price is what the client is looking for, it is likely that you're marketing and selling too low, hierarchically, in the client organization. Staff level people understand price because that is what they are measured on. Senior-level management understands overall organizational value. To learn more about this subject from Bob here are some options:

• Order a copy of his new book "Mutual Respect: The art and practice of the Quid Pro Quo selling approach"
• Review his Quid Pro Quo training courses
• Review Executive Link (Vertical-specific, role-specific prospect intelligence)

Selling Power Magazine Comments on Mutual Respect

We just got some incredibly strong, positive comments from Gerhard Gschwandtner, the Editor-In-Chief at Selling Power Magazine on Bob's new book, Mutual Respect.  Here's the text from his email to Bob:

Bob, I could not put your book down - I just finished reading the entire book. It kept me up past my bedtime. Here is what I think.

• Your quid pro quo premise is sound and it applies to every salesperson in the world.
• Your personal stories are absolutely fantastic. A great read. Very educational. You learned from the Kenny Rogers song..."you gotta know when to hold'em, when to fold'em and when to run..."
• I was pleasantly surprised that you wrote about the Selling Power team calling on you, selling you advertising, creating a safety net and getting you clients. That's a great testimonial and you are very gracious to write about that. I am sure that John will be happy to read p 134.
• The takeaway lessons - they are valuable and helpful for any sales manager and salesperson.
• Suggestions for improvement. Of course, if the book had your wife's picture on the cover, you might sell a few more. :)

Thanks for sharing the fruits of your long and hard labor with me. It was a fun read because I know you and I love reading sales stories that come straight from the battlefield told by a road warrior who has been knocked around a bit, but never suffered a knockout. All the best Gerhard

Understanding Customer Relationships

Excellent article that points to complexity of establishing and maintaining customer relationships. We, humans, are certainly complex organisms (hahaha). The text in teletype italics is a paragraph that I pulled from the attached article that gives a ton of credence to our Executive Link application. That very issue is what we have tried to achieve in the R&D of the product. The ability to have this level of insight is what it takes to legitimately lay claim to the consultative selling definition.

Data Alone Won't Help You Understand Customer Relationships - by Jim Barnes, Barnes Marketing Associates, Inc.

"Conventional marketing research is often flawed in that it asks customers what we can do to improve. The answer usually is that we should do what we already do, but do it faster, more accurately or more often. It doesn't give us the insight that we need to impress a customer or to establish an emotional connection."

Link: Item.

Six Sigma Client Acquisition Strategy and Execution

Walter Shewhart, J. Edwards Deming, Kaoru Ishikawa, Joseph Juran, Armand Feigenbaum, Genichi Taguchi, Dorian Shainin

Who are these people?  What is their claim to fame?  How in the world do they relate to Marketing and/or Sales?  They are centainly not a name like Tony Parinello, Bob Beck, Rick Page, Michael Bosworth, Stephen Heiman, or Neil Rackham ... Sales Gurus.

Each one of them are considered to be a modern era "quality guru".  The below attached article is about applying traditional quality practices into Marketing and Sales.

Unlocking A Six Sigma Mindset in Pursuit Strategy

The Grand Canyon & Sales and Marketing

There continues to be a Grand Canyon like gorge between Sales and Marketing organizations.  They work from different perspectives and most often the only collaboration that occurs is at an annual planning / strategy meeting (and even this is unusual).  What is absolutely obvious is that they need to be more communicative, collaborative on a real-time basis, especially in the technology fields.  With the rapid development and obsolescence cycles the technology industry experiences, anything other than real-time is going to kill any potential of alignment. 

Then the question reverts to ... "aligned on what?"  I hate to sound like a broken record (or CD for today's generation) but a sale happens because of a relationship between people.  Marketing and Sales must be aligned, real-time on creating messaging that solves a specific issue for a specific vertical for a specific PERSON/ROLE.  And the feedback as to how successfully that is occurring must be real-time and collaborative so that adjustments can be made on the fly.

This article from CRM Guru website, written by Scott Santucci, is dead on.  This is an issue that CRM applications were not, and are not, designed for, or ever intended to resolve, but that they have been unrightly criticized for:

The Sales and Marketing Divide -

What has been missing is the capability to work from a common base of knowledge.  This is the divide that we have bridged with our Executive Link application.

Customer Loyalty

This article is scary. It is the anti-thesis of everything I preach.  Read it and cringe!!!! 

Link: DMNews.com | News | Article.

There's good news and bad news

• Good? I / we have a lot of work to keep us busy
• Bad? I / we have a lot of work to keep us busy

CRM Failures - Really?

Stories and statistics of CRM projects being deemed failures 75%+ of the time are running rampant in the marketplace.  In my opinion, unfairly so.

SearchCRM.com 2004 Link: 'F' word still dominates CRM thoughts.

The perception of failure is usually due to wishful thinking or unrealistic expectations (or maybe overselling).  What is it that we really expect a CRM tool to do?  To increase sales?  To lower cost of sales?  If you think of what CRM tools do ... the answer is neither.  CRM tools are critical to a businesses success needed them to track and manage past/present/planned activity (calls, meetings, to-do lists) and to keep track of sales pipeline quantity/timing/probability.  Yes, they do provide some level of efficiencies from a time management perspective and help sales efforts from the perspective of ensuring that we are following up on a regular basis.  But ... CRM, in and of itself, does nothing to help us sell more, sell faster, or sell more profitably.  Sales occur because:

• of a relationship developed between the sales person and the decision-maker based on credibility, knowledge, trust, confidence
• the decision-maker feels the sales person understands their issue(s)
• the decision-maker perceives that the sales person's organization has a solution that will alleviate his/her pain

The degree to which the above three bullet points are true also play a large part in determining the quality (or reality) of the sales pipeline.

CRM tools are not, and never were, intended to help us sell more, sell faster, or sell more profitably.  So if that is the expectation that the 75% failure rate is based upon ... it's an unfair measuring stick.

Executive Level Sales Strategies

Back in January I attended an AIMA (Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association) meeting where the topic of discussion was "alignment of sales and marketing organizations".  John Neeson, one of the co-founders of Sirius Decisions (and a 12 year Gartner executive), was one of the panel members.  After the event I was fortunate enough to meet and have a brief discussion with John where we had a real meeting of the minds.  John connected me with Paul Shiman, who heads up the research for Sirius.

I am constantly in search of new insights from the best and brightest minds in the marketing and sales areas ... especially as it relates to high-level c-suite sales.  My purpose is to verify, and continue to verify, what we, at Sales Builders, say in our marketing literature.  Remember now, that the roots of Sirius go back to Gartner and some serious research (no pun intended .. yes it was ... hahaha).

Paul and I even almost said it in using the same wording:

If you are to gain access to the executive suite, they expect that you come to the table already aware of the issues they are facing in their industry and their role in that industry.  They don't have the time, and will not take the time, to teach you.  You cannot gain access by pitching your offering.  You must approach the executive and constantly work with them from an empathic viewpoint ... from their seat. 

If not, then, like the author of Mutual Respect, Bob Beck, says ... "you'll be thrown under the bus with the rest of the people that the executive perceives to be 'quota-carrying sales reps'."

Believe me, our conversations will continue ...

Mutual Respect - The Art and Practice of the Quid Pro Quo Selling Approach

Yes ... it's finally out.  Bob Beck's new book, "Mutual Respect: The Art and Practice of the Quid Pro Quo Selling Approach" is finally out.  We got about 500 copies in the office today.

Bob Beck's newly released book

Cross-Functional Team Selling

Jim Barnes is an ex-KPMG Partner, a close friend of mine, and an extremely highly-valued personal advisor. His company, Customerteam, has developed, an innovative approach where enterprise-wide selling efforts are team-based, cross-functional, and address specific customer issues throughout the quote-to-cash cycle. Here's a blurb that I perfectly align with from their homepage:

… the best way to manage your most important customers.

In the beginning of the 21st century, the large corporation dominates the economic landscape. Acquisitions and mergers continue to occur in every business category. Fewer and fewer companies control the lion’s share of sales, and of course, revenue.

Naturally, these powerful firms are quickly becoming your most important customers. If you provide them with the level of service they require, your business will be in excellent position to prosper and grow.

That’s where Customerteam comes in. We’ll help you create a unique and highly effective team around each of your largest customers. Each team enables you to provide substantially better service, and to become more profitable as well.

The marketplace has evolved. Today, it takes a team to succeed.

This short clip certainly puts it all in perspective. If the market has truly evolved, and believe me it has, what have you done to change how you go-to-market with your solution offering.

Customerteam Video Clip

Certainly, if we combine ... :

• Customerteam's team-selling approach with ...
• Grizzard Performance Group's CPM (Customer Profitability Management), with...
• Sales Builder's Executive Link application

... We will have successfully instituted a well-oiled team of trusted advisors who serve the specific needs of our best and most profitable customers both in acquisition and retention phases ... the most correct, customer-centric focus possible.  And yes ... that IS intended to imply that being customer-centric across all clients is a mistake.

Putting the Relationship Back Into Relationship or Consultative Selling

The ultimate objective of any business is the creation of value for shareholders.  If we are not achieving this it's time to completely rethink the business or shut the doors.  As a sales organization we are out there in front leading this charge.  In trying to accomplish creation of value we are faced with a wide array of compelling offerings to help our sales organizations sell more, faster, more profitablility, gain market share, pull in new customers and retain those customers that we bring in. 

Throughout my career I have found one constant in sales and that is that "most often sales occur because of a relationship between individuals."  I can hear all the product people screaming now ... yes, I yield to your superior technical skills ... product features and functionality are important.  Before I yield too easily though, what I am saying is that relationship with the decision-maker trumps product.  It is the rare occasion when truly Company A buys from Company B.  It is more typically Bob buying from Suzy because of a relationship they have built based on experience, trust, credibility, capability, knowledge and one another's understanding of each other.  This is why in the large brokerage firms they have "no-compete" clauses in their broker's contracts as they know that they their clients are really the broker's clients, not the firm's.  Client's will usually follow the person, not the firm.

As published in previous posts though, the type of relationship matters.  Decision-makers have never been busier, more accountable for results (compliance and performance) and had fewer resources to accomplish all of this.  They don't want or need a lunch buddy or golf buddy relationship, they WANT and NEED a "trusted advisor" who can help them solve their problems.  To be this "trusted advisor" is a much sought after role and requires:

• awareness of this person's issues
• awareness of this person's industry
• knowledge to understand their issue from a global, organization-wide perspective
• an understanding of that person's role in the organization and how you can best help them
• executable ideas to help them resolve their issue
• a desire to make the decision-maker the "hero", not yourself

At the risk of self-promotion my company has launched an extremely effective and efficient method of enabling this type of relationship-building throughout an organization.  The tool is called Executive Link and it is designed to help a marketing and sales organization to better understand vertical-specific, role-specific issues so that they can craft their messaging/talk track/value proposition to meet a specific person's needs.  That's all I'll say there.  Here is a link to Executive Link:

Executive Link - Enabling True Consultative, Relationship-based Selling

In future posts I'll cover other, non-self-serving, key components of a successful sales organization from a people, process and technology perspective

CRM Bits - Emotive Attributes of the Customer Relationship

This IBM guy, Scott Walters, has some great insights into where CRM applications fall short.  His comments refer specifically to the Financial Sector, but, believe me, these issues cross sectors.  Remember ... value is not derived from technology in and of itself.  Value of this type of technology is only realized when it enables and strengthens relationships with key influencers and decision-makers within our best client's organizations.

Scott Walters, IBM Global Consulting Services - CRM article

Enjoy!

Strategic Alliance Alignment - Marketing and Sales

Last night I was at a networking meeting with a group of strategic alliance professionals.  The topic of discussion primarily revolved around metrics that the best-of-the-best use to manage their alliances.  It is clear that this is such new space for most organizations that there really is no well-entrenched "best practice".  One common point of agreement was that 70-80% of the time that alliances are established to DRIVE REVENUE and ACCELERATE OF MARKET PENETRATION.

The format of the event was a panel discussion.  I won't name names, or organizations, to protect anonymity, but the companies were all gigantic technology & healthcare names.  Primary discussions revolved around expectation setting, developing business cases, joint initial planning sessions, ownership/coordination of professional services groups, metrics (the actual topic) and governance issues.  For each of their specific situations they truly have been pioneers in this space and have a great handle on those issues ... these are extremely bright people.

Given that "70-80% of the time strategic alliances are established to DRIVE REVENUE and ACCELERATE MARKET PENETRATION" I asked a question of the panel that earned me this look (click on the image ... very funny):

Dead silence ... deer in the headlights!

The question I asked was regarding "how they align, communicate and collaborate with their partners from a marketing and sales perspective."  If revenue and market penetration are THE reasons for these alliances, it would seem that these are incredibly critical areas ... especially in their verticals, where technology is in a constant state of change.  They must be able to quickly and efficiently disseminate real-time intelligence/knowledge-sharing to a large, cross-organizational, cross-functional and geographically dispersed team.  To drive the alliance to its full success potential both/all partners must have real-time, perpetual:

• Inter-organizational alignment between the Marketing and Sales groups (that's tough enough)
• Intra-organizational alignment between each partner's Marketing and Sales groups
• Knowledge/experience sharing
• Feedback and metrics to improve effectiveness

The question is ... what do we align on?  Think about what we're trying to accomplish (DRIVE REVENUE and ACCELERATE MARKET PENETRATION).  What will determine our ability to succeed?  The degree to which we are able to help decision-makers solve issues they are currently experiencing. 

We, collectively, as an alliance, must align our Marketing & Sales strategies, and tactical efforts, on solving vertical-specific, role-specific issues that the senior executives (the decision-makers) in our target market are currently experiencing.

I'm sure that it's somehow my fault but I really don't think these extremely bright people got this.  If you know me, I communicate in writing much better than when speaking.  Maybe that's it ... yeah.  Or maybe it could be:

• NIH Mentality - Not invented here/pride/ego
• Their experience and intelligence have limited their view to exclude this aspect of the alliance
• They simply don't understand the value
• They don't believe it can be done and have tossed the notion aside
• That I'm wrong, as I'm not the sharpest knife in the block

You Best Know VITO ... Very Well

What could just an average salesperson do with this arrow in her/his quiver?  How about a great salesperson?  How about an entire sales organization?  Better yet, how about Marketing, Sales and Product Development/Management?  Would that define "customer-centric" or what?  In fact, it would redefine that term to "customer role-centric."

Vertical-Specific, Role-Specific Intelligence - EXAMPLE: Healthcare CFO Profile 

Intelligent Selling

This below link is another weblog I publish dedicated to dicussions related to gathering and leveraging prospect and client intelligence.  In a previous post I quoted a study from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School that conducted a survey in which the #1 reason executives grant access to salespeople is ---- Ability of the salesperson to understand their issues.  Plainly said, "Executives buy, not because they understand, but because they feel understood."

http://trustedadvisor.typepad.com/prospect_intelligence