Cliff Notes® For Selling

Most of our technology clients are involved in complex sales across several vertical markets. The sales cycles are often quite long, and there is a learning curve that goes along with each sale. So by the time the deal closes, the Account Executive and the Sales Engineer have built a lot of knowledge about all the aspects of selling the solution. The TRICK is keeping that knowledge in-house, and making sure that if the sales person leaves, that knowledge doesn’t go walking out the door with him. Additionally, our clients want to duplicate the successful sale across other geographies or verticals. To help enable this, we developed a process for writing up sales guides. The goal of these guides is to share the best selling practices and help our clients duplicate these wins. When a new sales person gets hired, reading these guides can help shorten the learning curve - anything that gets a sales person selling faster is a good thing, right? Here is the outline we follow, (with modifications for each client’s unique requirements.)

Goal
Create guides that share best selling practices and duplicate successful wins.

Process
Initiation: Make this a part of each win evaluation process – a senior level manager will identify those wins that should go into the Sales Guide.

Maintenance: Reviewed twice annually and new Guides included, old deleted as required.

Development: Sales team and engineering can be interviewed immediately after the win.  Account managers, channel reps and clients then interviewed after the solution is implemented/proven.  Zephyr Strategy will take the lead on scheduling all interviews, writing Guides, gaining approvals of identified approval points of contact.

Vertical Market Descriptions: The client will work with Zephyr to assist in developing & updating each vertical market profile for the Sales Guide.  This should include:

Vertical definition

• Trends, issues and challenges
• Organizational structures and decision maker profiles
• Hot buttons and key applications/opportunities for client solutions

Should this sale go in the Guide?  Here are some qualifying questions:

1. Is this a strategic win – that is, one that represents a significant market opportunity?
2. Can this win be replicated?
3. Are the participants available to create in internal sales case study (for the Sales Guide)?
4. Is the client open to interviews for:
5. An internal sales case study?
6. An external (customer focused) case study?
7. When will the solution be implemented? [or, when was the solution implemented?]
8. When should we follow up with the client?

Account Manager Questions – for each Guide, account managers would provide details to flesh out each of the bulleted sections describing the successful Guide.  This is typically done through an interview with a Zephyr writer.  We do not expect the AM to write up this report, nor do we expect them to be able to answer all these questions.  We will work to capture as much data as possible.

Opportunity (client/account) profile

• Client name, size of business, industry
• Where did the lead come from?
• How long was the sales cycle?
• Who are the clients/stakeholders served?
• Who was the channel partner (if appropriate)?

Decision makers and influencers

• Who where the key players on the customer’s side in this sale?
• Job titles

Budget cycle, justification, authority

• Describe the client’s budget
• Justification requirements
• Who had procurement authority in this sale?

Business need (pain points)

• What was their pain?
• Why did they initially want an <insert> solution?
• What made our solution an ideal answer?
• What was your sales process?  How did you go through discovery?

Competition

• Who was the competition?
• Why was your company selected?
• In what ways were we the superior solution?
• What tactics proved most successful in addressing the competition’s positioning or claims?
• Was this an existing installation for the competitor?
• What were their major dissatisfactions with the competition?
• What did they like and want to keep?

Detail of solution provided

• Describe the solution we provided.
• Supply a diagram/schematic and list of products.
• Key applications
• How does the client use the solution?
• What applications?

Results (benefits)

• How do these applications of the solution assist the client?
• Do they measure or quantify ROI? How, and what are the results (projected and actual)?
• List of references & contacts for more information.