Revolutionary Marketing and Sales Strategies

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