Thanks everyone who participated in this webcast from The Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM). Company executives are under enormous pressure to meet monthly & quarterly sales targets and are always looking for ways to accelerate sales. No matter if your sales cycle is one week or 2 years, they all feel that the sales cycle is too long. The sales cycle has a direct impact on revenue and this becomes even more visible in a challenging economy and highly competitive markets. Join Tom Evans as he shares insights on how to empower your sales team to grow sales revenue. Key Takeaways from participating in this webinar: - Understand five indicators that your company is having issues with long sales cycles - Learn the eight most common barriers that cause sales cycle issues - Discover six actions that Product Marketing can take to improve on sales cycles Who Should Attend: You should attend this webinar if you have experienced any of these: - Your product is falling short of revenue targets. - At the end of every quarter, your sales team faces pressure to accelerate deals. - Too many discounts are made in order to close sales. - Prospects keep delaying purchase decisions. - Conversion rates of prospects to deals are low. About the Speaker: Tom Evans is Principal at CompellingPM and is an internationally recognized authority in product management, global marketing, business partnerships and entrepreneurship. In his extensive experience, he has helped start-ups through Fortune 500 companies create and launch winning products and has led business development efforts in the US and global markets. About AIPMM The AIPMM is the hub of all things product management. It is where product professionals go for answers. With members in over 65 countries, it is the worldwide certifying body of product team professionals. It is the world's largest professional organization of product managers, brand managers, product marketing managers and other product team professionals who are responsible for guiding their organizations, or clients, through a constantly changing business landscape. AIPMM's certification programs are internationally recognized because they allow product professionals to demonstrate their expertise and provide corporate members an assurance that their product management and marketing teams are operating at a high competency level. Visit www.aipmm.com. Upcoming Webinars: http://aipmm.com/aipmm_webinars/ Subscribe: http://www.aipmm.com/subscribe LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/aipmm Membership: http://www.aipmm.com/join.php Certification: http://aipmm.com/html/certification Articles: http://www.aipmm.com/html/newsletter/article.php

1. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
AIPMM Webinar Series
www.aipmm.com

2. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com

3. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
Founded 1998
World’s largest professional association for product
management, product marketing and brand management
Provides professional development and certification
• Certified Product Manager
• Certified Product Marketing Manager
• Agile Certified Product Manager
• Certified Innovation Leader

4. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
AIPMM Certifications
AIPMM offers globally recognized certifications:
• Certified Product Manager (CPM®)
• Certified Product Marketing Manager (CPMM®)
• Agile Certified Product Manager (ACPM®)
• Certified Innovation Leader (CIL®)
• Certified Brand Manager (CBM®)

5. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
• One Amazon $50 gift card
Participate and Win!

6. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
AIPMM: @AIPMM
Tom: @CompellingPM
Tweet!

7. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
Today’s Speaker
Moderator:
Therese Padilla, President, AIPMM
Presenter:
Tom Evans, CPM, CPMM
Compelling PM
tevans@compellingpm.com
@CompellingPM
www.compellingpm.com

8. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
FEATURED PRESENTATION

9. What Product Marketing Can Do to
Overcome the Eight Most Common
Barriers to Accelerating Sales Revenue
Tom Evans
CompellingPM
@compellingpm

10. Symptoms of Sales Cycle Challenges
• Your product is falling short of revenue targets.
• At the end of every quarter, your sales team faces
pressure to accelerate deals.
• Too many discounts are made in order to close
sales.
• Prospects keep delaying purchase decisions.
• Conversion rates of prospects to deals are low.

11. Eight most common sales cycle barriers
1. Lack of sales methodology
2. Sales team (channel) has not been properly enabled
3. Solution does not address a significant (or top of mind) pain for
the economic buyer
4. Your message doesn’t communicate compelling value
5. You’re selling to the wrong level of buyer
6. Sales leads not well qualified
7. Sales tools don’t help advance the sale
8. No system to track sales process (lack of visibility)

12. 1. Lack of Sales Methodology
• Issue
– Sales team does not have disciplined process to
move prospects to closed opportunities
• Steps to Overcome
– Choose a methodology that best matches
company’s needs.
– Train the full sales team (plus marketing and
executives)
– Build sales tools to support the methodology

13. Example tools for “Solution Selling®”
• Reference Story
– Helps show that salesperson is knowledgeable of
buyer’s problems
– Helps buyer admit pain
• Pain Sheets®
– Helps salesperson diagnosis Pain for different buyer
profiles
• Telephone Script
– Creates interest in first 20 seconds
Reference: Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets by Michael Bosworth, 1994
Solution Selling & Pain Sheets are registered trademarks of Solution Selling, Inc.

14. 2. Sales team not enabled
• Issue
– Sales is selling anything to everyone with little
effectiveness
• Steps to Overcome
– Create well defined market plan (target segments,
buyer pains, messages, etc.)
– Create core set of sales enablement tools
• Executive Level Presentation, Product Backgrounder,
Needs Discovery Guide™, Message Driven Demo™
– Train the sales team (plus marketing and executives)
Needs Discovery Guide and Message Driven Demo are trademarks of The Lûcrum Group, Inc.

15. Sales Enablement (Base Components)
• Product Backgrounder
– Succinct key elements of market plan
• Needs Discovery Guide™
– Per buyer profile: Challenges / Impact / Capability /
Benefits
• Executive Level Presentation
– High level discussion of how your solution
addresses needs. (10 – 15 slides)
• Message Driven Demo™
Needs Discovery Guide and Message Driven Demo are trademarks of The Lûcrum Group, Inc.

16. 3. Solution does not address a
significant pain for the economic buyer
• Issue
– Solutions solves problem, but not a big one.
– Solutions solves big problem for user, but buyer
doesn’t feel it.
• Steps to Overcome
– Discover key issues for buyers in your market
• Market trends, business drivers, strategies, challenges,
goals
– Identify a need that increases the importance to the
economic buyer?

17. 4. Message not communicating
compelling value
• Issue
– Message does not cause buyers to want your
solution.
• Steps to Overcome
– Discover key issues for buyers in your market
• Market trends, business drivers, strategies, challenges,
goals
– Develop message(s) that speak to these
– Focus on the top 2 – 3 messages that have the
highest impact (value & differentiation)

18. Six Steps to a Compelling Message
1. Who is our audience?
2. What are we selling?
3. Why should our customers care?
4. What we can do for our customers?
5. Why us?
6. Create your message(s)

19. 5. Selling to wrong level of buyer
• Issue
– Selling to the user, technical buyer or middle
manager who has no authority to buy and little
influence.
• Steps to Overcome
– Sales training and/or sales enablement problem
• Or maybe a hiring problem
– Product doesn’t address an executive level
problem

20. 6. Sales leads not well qualified
• Issue
– Bad sales leads waste time of the sales team, results
in low conversion/close rates & long sales cycles
• Steps to Overcome
– Define a well defined target market (Market Plan)
• Specific segments & buyers
– Define lead qualification criteria
– Lead nurturing programs
• Move lead to qualify prospected (sales ready)

21. Lead Qualification/Scoring
• Work with sales
• Start with perfect lead
• Demographics
– E.g., revenue, employees, project budgeted, company
profile, buyer role, order size, urgency
– BANT – Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline
– Source
• Interactions
– Forms completed, click email links, downloads, website
pages, phone call, data completeness

22. 7. Sales tools don’t help advance sale
• Issue
– Many bottlenecks in funnel, low conversion rates, sales don’t
use tools, etc.
• Steps to Overcome
– Ask the sales team
– Understand the typical “buying process” (and players)
– Understand the key concerns, roadblocks for each buyer
type at each phase of the sale
• E.g., Cost (TCO), Needs Assessment, Business Case, Risk, ROI,
References, Approval

23. Understanding the Buying Process
• What are the typical phases of the buying process?
• Who are the typical buyers & influencers?
• Who is involved at each phase?
• What are their main concerns at each phase?
• What are they doing at each phase?
• What are the typical barriers to moving ahead?
Build tools that address buyers and influencers needs
at each phase!

24. 8. No system to track sales process
• Issue
– If you can’t track sales opportunities, you can’t manage
them
• Steps to Overcome
– Implement a Sales Force Automation (SFA)/Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) system
• Full picture of prospect
• Put more rigor into sales forecasts (e.g., probability of close)
• Manage sales funnel, close rates
• Monitor sales projections & sales team performance
• Access to current sales tools

25. Summary
• Deeply understand the buyers and user in
your target market
• Create a powerful messaging platform
• Well defined Go-to-Market Strategy
• Define and manage your marketing & sales
funnel
• Create effective sales & marketing tools
• Enable your sales team

26. My Next Webinar
How to Develop a Deep Understanding of Your
Target Markets – The Starting Point for Great
Product Marketing
June 21, 2013
http://bit.ly/1780s4y

27. Upcoming Training
• Optimal Product Management & Product
Marketing
– June 10 – 12 (Dallas)
– Sep 9 – 11 (Austin)
• AIPMM Certifications
– Aug 6 – 7 (CPM – Austin)
– Aug 8 – 9 (CPMM – Austin)
More dates/locations - www.280group.com

28. Free 1 Hour PM/PMM Consult
• First ten to submit information on form
• http://compellingpm.com/freeonehour/
• Please include background on topic or issue
• Must include company info (no Gmail)

29. Thank You!
Tom Evans
CompellingPM
tevans@compellingpm.com
@compellingpm
www.compellingpm.com

30. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
Q&A
Moderator:
Therese Padilla, President, AIPMM
Presenter:
Tom Evans, CPM, CPMM
Compelling PM
tevans@compellingpm.com
@CompellingPM
www.compellingpm.com

31. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
Upcoming Courses
Course & Location Dates Days Time
ACPM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
Teqcorner, McLean, VA July 22, 2013 M 8:30 am – 5 pm
CPM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
Teqcorner, McLean, VA July 23-24, 2013 T, W 8:30 am – 5 pm
CPMM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
Teqcorner, McLean, VA July 25-26, 2013 Th, F 8:30 am – 5 pm
Contact Cynthia Petti, cynthia@280group.com for more information. Additional
certification prep courses are available in Austin, San Jose, Seattle, and London.

32. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
Upcoming Courses
Course & Location Dates Time
CIL® Certification Prep Course & Exam
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Jun 5-6, 2013 9 am – 6 pm
CPM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
Dubai, UAE
Singapore
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Amman, Jordan
May 19-23, 2013
May 27-29, 2013
Jun 3-4, 2013
Jun 17-18, 2013
8 am – 5pm
8 am – 5 pm
9 am – 6 pm
8 am – 5 pm
CPMM® Certification Prep Course & Exam
Dubai, UAE
Singapore
Amman, Jordan
May 26-30, 2013
May 30-Jun 1, 2013
Jun 19-20, 2013
8 am – 5 pm
8 am – 5 pm
8 am – 5 pm
Follow the links provided to get more information regarding these courses.

33. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
For More Information About
• AIPMM membership benefits
• Certification courses near you
• How to prepare to take a certification exam
Hector Del Castillo, CPM, CPMM
Senior Product Innovation Consultant
hmdelcastillo@aipmm.com
linkd.in/hdelcastillo

34. © AIPMM 2013 www.aipmm.com
Please Join Us Again!
AIPMM Webinar Series:
Effective Go To Market Strategies, Friday, Jun 7th, 12 pm ET
Accelerating Your Product Management Career, Friday, Jun 14th, 12 pm ET
http://aipmm.com/aipmm_webinars/
Global Product Management Talk:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/prodmgmttalk
Stay Informed!
Newsletter: http://www.aipmm.com/subscribe
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/aipmm
Membership: http://www.aipmm.com/join.php
Certification: http://aipmm.com/html/certification/