The Sales Accelerator, a Sales Performance Support Tool

In 2004 we introduced a sales performance support tool, The Sales Accelerator, to Sterling Commerce. The tool was in use for five years until it was replaced by a second generation tool "The Sales Center." I would like to use the next two entries to look back at the tool and challenges it faced over it's five year lifespan.

The Accelerator was created to help with information. In today's world information is the problem. Not a lack of information but rather the opposite, an abundance of information. The problem became finding the right information and delivering it to the user in a timely fashion in a manner they could easily access and process.

What is the right information for sales? I believe we understand the categories of information a salesperson uses. We can use these categories to organize the information. I believe there are 5 basic categories of information. 1 is Information about people/groups we interact with in the sales process. This section we called People. 2. Information about Process . What is the Sales Process? What do I need to do to sell? 3. The information about the Product salespeople need to know to sell it. 4. Information about the Tools you use to sell. Lastly number 5. information about the Industry in which you sell. The tool is organized into these five major areas. A tab for each from the main page that people should be able to find the information they are looking for in three mouse clicks. Nesting beyond this is confusing. Using these categories, 3 clicks is a realistic goal. In the sections below I will speak to the organization of information within each category. But first we should mention that there are those people who feel any organization is unnecessary because with a Google" like search you can find anything without any clicks. I believe the organization or structure of the information is important to understanding it and using it effectively. So the "Google" search will help find the information but the structure is still key. Lets look at the organization/ structure of each of the key areas.

People: During the course of a sales salespeople need to know information about the people who they interact with during the sale. This includes many groups (marketing , contracts, development, services , delivery etc.) When you clicked on people you see all the groups sales would interact with. Then by clicking on a group they would find the information they need. What do they do for sales? 2. When do they do it? 3. What do they need from sales to do it? The problem is many of these groups are responsible for maintaining the information about their group and what they do for sales. They tend to provide way more information then the three things sales need to know from them. That is why a sales advocate/ enablement/ operations etc. will review content to this area of the tool before it is posted.

Process: The process tab when clicked on shows a graphic of the sales process steps. When you click on the step, it reveals the tasks that make up that step. The third click reveals how to perform the task, step by step.

Product: When you click this tab you get a list of the product and solutions. When you select the product, for each product, you find information about the 7 w's of the product. We talked about this in detail in an earlier entry but to summarize about they are What is it I'm selling? , Who do I sell to?, Why do they want it?, What is the value? What does it cost? Who is the competition? and Where have we done this?

Tools: When you click on this tab you see a list of tools arranged by sales process step/stage. When you click on the tool. You will find a page that describes the tool, explains or links to training aids to use it and provides a link to the tool.

Industry: When you click on the Industry tab, you see a list of the industries we sell in. Clicking on the industry reveals the specific information for that industry. In the Accelerator we presented the information by industry challenge, who within the customer organization faces this challenge and how our product solution met this challenge. I have experience from another company where we presented the information in a unique fashion. We used an organization chart of a customer/prospect company within tr industry. and revealed the information when you clicked on targeted individuals within the company. This is also discussed in an earlier entry.

In the next entry we will discuss the lessons learned from The Sales Accelerator case study.