As I mentioned in my last post, while with Sterling Commerce, we created a sales performance support tool called The Sales Accelerator. The tool organized information for salespeople. The problem, today, with sales information is not the lack of it (we have tons) but rather, finding the right information when you need to know it. We chose to organize the information into the following categories, which became tabs in the tool: People, Process, Product, Industry, Tools and Training. All of the information was placed under one of these tabs. The product was successful and used effectively by the sales force for five years.
Over time a number of challenges emerged. The first was, since we built the tool, people believed we were responsible for the information. What we did was organize the information to be effectively consumed by the salespeople. Once we placed the information in the Accelerator people assumed we were responsible for keeping it updated. We could not do this effectively for the massive amount of information we were organizing and placing in the tool. Information became out of date. So over time the effectiveness of the tool diminished. We should have clearly stated to the people supplying the information that they were responsible for its accuracy and timeliness.
A second and related challenge was that we assumed responsibility for the physical updating the information. At first this was a manageable task, but as the tool grew, it quickly became a more than full time job (which we already had without the added responsibility of managing the tool). We should have provided the owners of the information access to and an easy way to update the tool.
The strength of the tool was it's intuitive organization and how this matched the complete flow of actual work done by the sales force. Now I work in training and coaching salespeople, worldwide, who are new to IBM B2B & Commerce products. We have a wealth of good information for these people to consume. However, this information is scattered among media library sites, wiki's and various web pages. So I'm going to create another sales performance tool called the B2B & Commerce Virtual Water Cooler. This time the tool will actually just be a community site using the Accelerator structure to house links to the information. It will contain little or no information itself but rather use its organization to link to the actual information. I will let you know how this works out. Good bye for now. Next time I will speak of the three key ingredients for sales effectiveness and more: Belief , Practice and Execution.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Thursday, December 23, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Industry Information Packaged for Salespeople
When I worked at NCR, I was working with the Computer Systems Group (CSG) which later was spun off and now is Teradata, named after it's core software product. Like many companies this group was making the transition from selling hardware to selling software and services. Key to this sale, also like many sales today, was to sell to the business user. Teradata was and still is great product. Key to it's sale was getting to the key executives within the key industries where it had been or could be effectively used (Transportation, Communications, Health care, Insurance, Utilities and Retail).
In the course of the sale, the salesperson could introduce the internal industry consultants, who were well known and respected in their industries and they could speak to the very specific industry challenges that Teradata solved. The problem was there were 5 or 6 industry consultants and over 200 salespeople. The consultants needed the salespeople to get to the right person in a company and qualify that there was an opportunity and THEN bring in the industry consultant. That was the learning challenge. In short, give the salesperson enough industry information to identify the opportunity. We did this in a very unique way. I spent time with each industry consultant and we created, for their industry, organization charts with key target individuals identified. So we developed hot linked organization charts for each industry. When you clicked on a target individual it would open up the business challenges faced by this individual. You could then drill into each challenge and a series of questions would appear that the salesperson could use to probe for pain and then opportunity. The result became what was known as the Industree tool (tree for the branching ability of the tool to go to different people within the organization and identify their challenges and then provide probing questions) and on-demand, on-line, web available resource.
From my perspective this tool was unique in that it took the industry information and put it in a sales friendly format. It was delivered to sales by an organization chart. The content was delivered in a people framework. Salespeople sell to people so this was a key connection. This was vastly different than the typical industry presentation of business challenges by industry, it ties the challenges to specific roles within a company and then delivers the role unique content
It is the sales trainers job to deliver the marketing material, industry (without changing them in message or content) and otherwise in a sales friendly format. This is not easy but essential to help the content stick.
This was a performance support tool example. In our next entry we will talk about a performance support approach for managing and delivering all sales information/content.
In the course of the sale, the salesperson could introduce the internal industry consultants, who were well known and respected in their industries and they could speak to the very specific industry challenges that Teradata solved. The problem was there were 5 or 6 industry consultants and over 200 salespeople. The consultants needed the salespeople to get to the right person in a company and qualify that there was an opportunity and THEN bring in the industry consultant. That was the learning challenge. In short, give the salesperson enough industry information to identify the opportunity. We did this in a very unique way. I spent time with each industry consultant and we created, for their industry, organization charts with key target individuals identified. So we developed hot linked organization charts for each industry. When you clicked on a target individual it would open up the business challenges faced by this individual. You could then drill into each challenge and a series of questions would appear that the salesperson could use to probe for pain and then opportunity. The result became what was known as the Industree tool (tree for the branching ability of the tool to go to different people within the organization and identify their challenges and then provide probing questions) and on-demand, on-line, web available resource.
From my perspective this tool was unique in that it took the industry information and put it in a sales friendly format. It was delivered to sales by an organization chart. The content was delivered in a people framework. Salespeople sell to people so this was a key connection. This was vastly different than the typical industry presentation of business challenges by industry, it ties the challenges to specific roles within a company and then delivers the role unique content
It is the sales trainers job to deliver the marketing material, industry (without changing them in message or content) and otherwise in a sales friendly format. This is not easy but essential to help the content stick.
This was a performance support tool example. In our next entry we will talk about a performance support approach for managing and delivering all sales information/content.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Product Information packaged the way salespeople use it: The 7 "W's"
What information do salespeople need regarding the product? Often times marketing tries to make this determination and they create the information from what they think the salesperson needs. Since marketing is going to create the material, at least initially, it is important it be assembled in salesperson's terms. This what I call the "7 W's": What is it that I'm selling? Who do I sell it to? Why do they want it? What is its value? What does it cost? Who is the competition? and Where have we done this? This simple formula can take mountains of information and reduce it to a usable sales friendly package.
What is it that I'm selling? At least initially, this is a simple description of the product and its capabilities/functionality. This generally does not include a lot about how it does what it does. This is the technical part of the conversation and is necessary in dealing with technical audiences. It is my experience, that when this is necessary, this conversation is best delivered by the sales engineer.
Why do they want it? This is the business challenge that the product/solution addresses. Most marketing materials contain this information but it needs to be modified for sales. It needs to be presented in terms of who specifically in the target company has this challenge and questions provided to help the salesperson probe this person to uncover if it in fact it is a challenge this person faced.
You can see that the next "W", who to sell to? is intertwined. If you look at salespeople, their job is to sell to people. So when training them you have to be certain that the materials are set up to identify these people and help the salespeople explore these peoples challenge.
The next "W", what is the value? also needs to be related to the individual target individual(s) with in the target company. What is the specific value?, not just financial to that person.
If you can determine the value for the targeted individual you can put this in perspective to the cost information of the product solution. So yes they need to know the cost but they need to have it justified by the value.
Salespeople need to know the competition and their position and pricing to anticipate objections and competitive tactics.
Where have we done this is very important information for the salesperson. Prospectives are many times more receptive to the opinions of their counterparts at companies in the same industry. So success stories and customer references become key components of the information required to successfully sell products.
To successfully train on a product/solution be sure you can repackage the materials to answer these 7 questions.
In the next entry I will give an actual example of how we took industry information and aligned it, packaged it and distributed in a way that matches how salespeople think and work.
What is it that I'm selling? At least initially, this is a simple description of the product and its capabilities/functionality. This generally does not include a lot about how it does what it does. This is the technical part of the conversation and is necessary in dealing with technical audiences. It is my experience, that when this is necessary, this conversation is best delivered by the sales engineer.
Why do they want it? This is the business challenge that the product/solution addresses. Most marketing materials contain this information but it needs to be modified for sales. It needs to be presented in terms of who specifically in the target company has this challenge and questions provided to help the salesperson probe this person to uncover if it in fact it is a challenge this person faced.
You can see that the next "W", who to sell to? is intertwined. If you look at salespeople, their job is to sell to people. So when training them you have to be certain that the materials are set up to identify these people and help the salespeople explore these peoples challenge.
The next "W", what is the value? also needs to be related to the individual target individual(s) with in the target company. What is the specific value?, not just financial to that person.
If you can determine the value for the targeted individual you can put this in perspective to the cost information of the product solution. So yes they need to know the cost but they need to have it justified by the value.
Salespeople need to know the competition and their position and pricing to anticipate objections and competitive tactics.
Where have we done this is very important information for the salesperson. Prospectives are many times more receptive to the opinions of their counterparts at companies in the same industry. So success stories and customer references become key components of the information required to successfully sell products.
To successfully train on a product/solution be sure you can repackage the materials to answer these 7 questions.
In the next entry I will give an actual example of how we took industry information and aligned it, packaged it and distributed in a way that matches how salespeople think and work.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
A Simple Metaphor
Making something that is technical, simple, is a challenge. I said in my previous entry, I would give an example. When I was hired at Sterling Commerce, my first assignment was to teach our managed file transfer solution to some sales new hires and managers. I was given a power point deck of 60 slides (including many technical ones) for a 1.5 hour presentation. I really struggled with this task. I was new, so I said to myself: " learn the material and use the deck provided." So I prepared for session with that as the game plan. Two days before the session I determined I could not deliver this as prepared. It was not me and as a trainer you must be yourself.
I thought about it and came up with the metaphor that file transfer was like playing catch, you know with a ball, like you did as a kid. The night before the class I went around the house gathering props. I borrowed a softball, basketball and baseball from my daughters and a huge Pilate's ball from my wife. I grabbed all the ping pong balls I could find, added a Frisbee and even added some toys from our dog to my collection. I then found a fishing net and a racquetball racket and a scoop like net used also to play a type of catch. I showed up at class the next day looking a lot like a person returning from a garage sale.
I told the class that I was going to do a demonstration of challenges of file transfer and I would need some help. So I got two volunteers up in front of the class and had them start tossing a soft rubber ball back and forth . And I said; "See isn't file transfer easy?" Then I asked; "Or is it?" as I turned one of the volunteers around, so he could no longer see the ball coming and it hit him softly in the back. So then I said it is easy if you know the file is coming. With some methods of file transfer you don't know a file is coming. That becomes challenge number one to know when a file transfer is coming.
I then had another volunteer come up and I gave him a bag of about 20 ping pong balls and asked him to toss them gently to the other volunteer. Obviously the person could not catch all of the ping pong ball thrown at once and some went on the floor. Managed file transfer challenge number 2 is many small files delivered at once.
I then asked another volunteer to roll the big Pilate's ball at the other volunteer. This was to illustrate the challenge of receiving a very large files (terabytes).
I then gave the one volunteer a baseball glove and started tossing the baseball and the softball but then added a basketball, and Frisbee and the glove was no longer adequate to catch all the different objects being thrown. This illustrated the challenge of receiving different, multiple file protocols.
Then while they were playing catch I asked another volunteer to take the fishing net and try to grab the ball in flight. This of course represented the challenge of hackers trying to intercept the file.
I then directed the volunteers to opposite ends of the room and asked them to toss the ball back and forth across the length of the room. I then turned the lights out in the middle of the toss and the ball fell to floor. This was to indicate the challenge of a loss of power in the middle of a file transfer.
After illustrating the challenges I then continued to illustrate in the demonstration how our products overcome these challenges.
I left the PowerPoint slides in their handouts as addendum's and in subsequent classes I eliminated them all together. PowerPoint has become a crutch for trainers and salespeople alike. Over the years I have seen the salespeople from this class and they have remarked how effective and memorable the file transfer session was. To simplify a technical topic there is nothing better than a good metaphor.
In our next entry I will talk about the challenge of taking product information and repackaging it a way salespeople can most effectively use it.
I thought about it and came up with the metaphor that file transfer was like playing catch, you know with a ball, like you did as a kid. The night before the class I went around the house gathering props. I borrowed a softball, basketball and baseball from my daughters and a huge Pilate's ball from my wife. I grabbed all the ping pong balls I could find, added a Frisbee and even added some toys from our dog to my collection. I then found a fishing net and a racquetball racket and a scoop like net used also to play a type of catch. I showed up at class the next day looking a lot like a person returning from a garage sale.
I told the class that I was going to do a demonstration of challenges of file transfer and I would need some help. So I got two volunteers up in front of the class and had them start tossing a soft rubber ball back and forth . And I said; "See isn't file transfer easy?" Then I asked; "Or is it?" as I turned one of the volunteers around, so he could no longer see the ball coming and it hit him softly in the back. So then I said it is easy if you know the file is coming. With some methods of file transfer you don't know a file is coming. That becomes challenge number one to know when a file transfer is coming.
I then had another volunteer come up and I gave him a bag of about 20 ping pong balls and asked him to toss them gently to the other volunteer. Obviously the person could not catch all of the ping pong ball thrown at once and some went on the floor. Managed file transfer challenge number 2 is many small files delivered at once.
I then asked another volunteer to roll the big Pilate's ball at the other volunteer. This was to illustrate the challenge of receiving a very large files (terabytes).
I then gave the one volunteer a baseball glove and started tossing the baseball and the softball but then added a basketball, and Frisbee and the glove was no longer adequate to catch all the different objects being thrown. This illustrated the challenge of receiving different, multiple file protocols.
Then while they were playing catch I asked another volunteer to take the fishing net and try to grab the ball in flight. This of course represented the challenge of hackers trying to intercept the file.
I then directed the volunteers to opposite ends of the room and asked them to toss the ball back and forth across the length of the room. I then turned the lights out in the middle of the toss and the ball fell to floor. This was to indicate the challenge of a loss of power in the middle of a file transfer.
After illustrating the challenges I then continued to illustrate in the demonstration how our products overcome these challenges.
I left the PowerPoint slides in their handouts as addendum's and in subsequent classes I eliminated them all together. PowerPoint has become a crutch for trainers and salespeople alike. Over the years I have seen the salespeople from this class and they have remarked how effective and memorable the file transfer session was. To simplify a technical topic there is nothing better than a good metaphor.
In our next entry I will talk about the challenge of taking product information and repackaging it a way salespeople can most effectively use it.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
"Simplify, Simplify, Simplify"
I have taught some very technical training but it is important to heed the advice of Thoreau and "Simplify, simplify simplify." Yes it is important that our salespeople be comfortable and competent with the technology but it is not something to hide behind. A good salesperson is able to speak to his or her audience at the appropriate levels and in a language that speaks to that audience.
Here is where a good trainer can really help a salesperson. The use of stories, analogies, metaphors and good examples can break down a technical presentation into an effective and memorable one. This is something effective trainers do all the time so if you can look at the technical products and explain them in simple terms you can help the salesperson accomplish one of his most difficult tasks.
Technology unfortunately often is used as a crutch to fall back on in a presentation. It becomes sort of a comfort zone for some salespeople. Simplifying the product will help them present effectively to other audiences such as business users and financial decision makers. I have a great example of this using a simple metaphor that I will share with you in the next entry.
Here is where a good trainer can really help a salesperson. The use of stories, analogies, metaphors and good examples can break down a technical presentation into an effective and memorable one. This is something effective trainers do all the time so if you can look at the technical products and explain them in simple terms you can help the salesperson accomplish one of his most difficult tasks.
Technology unfortunately often is used as a crutch to fall back on in a presentation. It becomes sort of a comfort zone for some salespeople. Simplifying the product will help them present effectively to other audiences such as business users and financial decision makers. I have a great example of this using a simple metaphor that I will share with you in the next entry.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Example Readiness to Execute: "Great Beginnings"
When I talked about the importance of a good closing to your session, I mentioned that this paved the way for the learner to go out and execute the learned behaviors, concepts and practices. The example I have chosen to share is one I used to close new hire training sessions. I call it "Great Beginnings."
After a multi-day session, with of lots of great information, where they have met many talented and key individuals within the company, you need to send the new salesperson off with the belief that they have joined a great company and will be a key part of great team and do great things in the future.
This the closing I give them. I start by giving them some well known quotes from literature and ask them to identify the author and the work. For example:
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
"Happy families are all alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy it's own way." Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
"Call me Ishmael." Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary" Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven.
"Whose woods are these? I think I know. His house is in the village though." Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Eve.
Then after guessing them correctly I ask them: What do all these quotes have in common? Invariably one or two of them figure out that they are all opening lines.
I then say; yes but more than just opening lines, they are all "great beginnings". This week you had your "great beginning" with us. If you think about those quotes they were all great beginnings to even greater stories. Let us all hope that this week. like these quotes, was for you a great beginning to an even greater story with us! Welcome to you all and good luck!
In the next entry I will talk about a key element in producing effective sales training for a technical product.
After a multi-day session, with of lots of great information, where they have met many talented and key individuals within the company, you need to send the new salesperson off with the belief that they have joined a great company and will be a key part of great team and do great things in the future.
This the closing I give them. I start by giving them some well known quotes from literature and ask them to identify the author and the work. For example:
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
"Happy families are all alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy it's own way." Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
"Call me Ishmael." Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary" Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven.
"Whose woods are these? I think I know. His house is in the village though." Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Eve.
Then after guessing them correctly I ask them: What do all these quotes have in common? Invariably one or two of them figure out that they are all opening lines.
I then say; yes but more than just opening lines, they are all "great beginnings". This week you had your "great beginning" with us. If you think about those quotes they were all great beginnings to even greater stories. Let us all hope that this week. like these quotes, was for you a great beginning to an even greater story with us! Welcome to you all and good luck!
In the next entry I will talk about a key element in producing effective sales training for a technical product.
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