It is product management / product marketing's responsibility to ensure that the sales team and channel partners understand how to sell their products.

1. Nothing Happens Until Someone Sells Something:
Best Practices to Enabling Your Sales Channel to Effectively
Sell Your Products
Presented by:
Tom Evans
Lûcrum Marketing
September 14, 2011
Copyright 2011- LÛCRUM MARKETING

2. Presentation Agenda
• Typical scenario with sales teams
• Why this happens
• What you (PM) can do
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

3. The Scenario
Product (Smart Credit) targeted for credit issuers to better
manage credit lines and interest rates based upon the
credit risk of their clients/prospects, resulting in more
balance build and less delinquencies and write-offs.
“The events depicted in this presentation are fictitious. Any similarity to
any person or company, living or dead is merely coincidental."
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

4. The Lead
• Sales meets an IT Manager of credit card issuer at a trade
show.
• IT Mngr – “I need a solution to detect payment fraud. Can
you do it?”
• Sales – “Yes we can!”
• Sets face-to-face visit
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

5. The Prep
• Sales to:
– Marketing – create new collateral that shows “our
payment fraud solution.”
– Sales Engineer – create a new demo that shows “our
payment fraud solution.”
– Sales Engineer – help me with a new presentation
about payment fraud.
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

6. The Sales Presentation
• PowerPoint Presentation
– Let me tell you how great our company is.
– Now, let me describe our Evolutionary Statistical
Algorithm (ESA) and how great it is.
• Demo of every conceivable feature (isn’t this neat).
• IT Mngr – “Do you have feature A, B, C?”
• Sales – “Yes we do” (liar)
• IT Mngr – “Here is RFP, Send a proposal”
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

7. The Proposal
• Sales to:
– Marketing – create a new proposal template for
payment fraud.
– Sales Engineer - answer this RFP.
– Engineering – We must have features A, B, C in the
product now to win this deal. We have a final demo in
three weeks.
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

8. The Close
• IT Mngr – “We think we are going with Competitor X who
has the exact solution we need (and is being used by
companies a, b, c).”
• Sales - Discount the price!
• Sales - Discount it some more!
• Sales - Send in the cavalry (executive team)
• Sales - Oops – we still lost it – Why?
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

9. The Why?
• Opportunistic v. Targeted Opportunity
• Sales message was technical v. speaking to business
needs
• Never engaged executive that owns the problem
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

10. The Impact
• Wasted resources on an opportunity that was a long shot.
• New features in the product that nobody needs.
• A frustrated and irritated executive team.
• Confusion in the market place on what the company does.
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

11. The Real Why This Happens
1. That’s just the way sales people are.
2. They were never properly enabled with the right
knowledge and tools.
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

12. The Real Why This Happens
1. That’s just the way sales people are.
2. They were never properly enabled with the right
knowledge and tools.
PM
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

13. Goals of Sales Enablement
• Ensures everyone (marketing, sales, executives) is
marching to the beat of the same drum.
• Defines clear target market.
• Communicates clear & consistent messages.
• Enables sales to talk with the right buyers.
• Pursue target opportunities that company can win.
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

14. Sales Enablement (Base Components)
• Product Backgrounder
• Needs Discovery Guide
• Executive Level Presentation
• Message Driven Demo
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

15. Product Backgrounder
• Target Markets / Segments
• Market Needs / Challenges
• Buyer Profiles - Personas / Needs / Challenges / Goals
• Market Messages
– Value Proposition
– Positioning Statement
– Key Messages
– Key Benefits
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

16. Needs Discovery Guide
• Aka - Pain Sheets / Solution Development Prompters
• One per buyer role per market segment
• Challenges / Impact / Capability / Benefits
• Match to your sales methodology (if any)
• User buyer’s language/terms
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

17. Executive Level Presentation
• Market / Buyer needs
• High level discussion of how your solution addresses
needs.
– Remember the key messages
• Benefits / Value Proposition
• Case Study
• 10 to 15 slides
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

18. Message Driven Demo
• Communicates key messages.
• Show how buyers needs are solved.
• Build it as story.
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

19. Now What?
• How do you get sales to use these new tools?
– Have an executive sponsor (Sales VP/CEO).
– Train them and train them some more.
– Test them on their knowledge via certification process.
– Make the tools real (not ivory tower).
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

20. Closing Thoughts
• Train the sales team & then test them (certify)
• Review on a regular basis.
• Make sure marketing and the executive team participate.
• Use for sales channel.
• Much of info should already exist - MRD, Market Plan, etc.
Enhances your role as market expert!
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING

21. Thank You
Tom Evans
Lûcrum Marketing
tevans@lucrum-marketing.com
+1-512-961-5267
@compellingmktr
Copyright 2011 - LÛCRUM MARKETING