Launch Clinic

Your product launch won’t be successful if your sales team doesn’t trust you

Have you noticed that your sales team isn’t very excited about your next product launch? You’re getting a “yeah, whatever” vibe from them and it’s driving you crazy. So crazy you’re at the point of believing the launch goals are in jeopardy, and you should.

How did the last launch go?

This problem started with a previous launch; probably the last one. You know, the one where you got the Sales team all hyped up and then failed to deliver. It’s another checklist product launch that crashed and burned.

They didn’t get hyped up because of the product. They got hyped up because they believed the product was going to be the fast path to reaching quota.

This idea was set in motion perhaps by you (or the CEO, or development, or…), and you were a hero until your sales guys realized that the product a) was much harder to sell, b) took much longer to sell, c) wasn’t as interesting to buyers as they were led to believe.

Now you have an uphill battle on your hands.

Hero to zero

Your salespeople stopped selling the old product and focused their energy on selling the products in the portfolio that would help them make quota. By this time they’re behind and they are pissed off (sorry, Mom) they were led down this garden path that wasted their time.

Their sales leadership didn’t really care that the new product wasn’t selling. They wanted answers to why quota wasn’t being hit. And when they found out it’s because the team was selling a product that buyers weren’t buying, they were told to stop selling it immediately.

And they won’t soon forget.

Brute force produces temporary results

You might be thinking that since everything is dialed in the next launch, you can get the CEO to force the sales team to sell the product. If they were required to sell X dollars of the product as part of their compensation they would see what a great product it is, and sell even more of it.

Don’t count on it. This is about compensation not about the product. The sales effort will be superficial just to make a point. The result will “prove” the product doesn’t sell and the CEO will drop the mandate.

And you’ve lost even more trust.

A stick doesn’t work so try a carrot

The pressure is on for you to deliver a successful product launch. You know your sales team will be skeptical and you have your work cut out for you. Don’t try to fix the trust problem all at once.

First, consider your audience. We hire sales guys to sell stuff, not to be product experts. Always keep that in mind and you will make good choices.

Next, focus on enabling your sales team to sell (notice I didn’t say “sales training”). I’ve covered this in previous posts:

3 Tips for Product Launch Marketing Success (part 1)

3 Tips for Product Launch Marketing Success (part 2)

3 Tips for Product Launch Marketing Success (part 3)

By enabling your salespeople with the knowledge they need to move a buyer through the buying process, they’re more likely to listen and embrace what you’re sharing with them. Continue down this path and you’ll regain trust and be viewed as a partner in helping them achieve quota, not a supplier of stuff when they want it.

The Cranky Sales Engineer and responsiveness from Marketing

I just finished reading the third installment of blog posts by the Cranky Sales Engineer who is guest blogging at the Cranky Product Manager. He’s written three posts that I recommend you read. Having spent time in the SE ranks I can relate to what the CSE is saying.

In the CSE’s most recent post - Guest Post: The Cranky Sales Engineer on how to get R-E-S-P-E-C-T – I can relate to what it feels like to attempt to get answers from Marketing or Product Management, only to find I couldn’t get an answer.  The prospect wants it today. If you’re in the field you know that it’s incredibly important to get fast turnaround when you’re trying to win the business.

I’m a big proponent of an approach where Marketing and Product Management should equip sales channels to close deals with markets of buyers.  They shouldn’t be helping individual sales guys work individual deals.  Stop and think about that for a moment. Some of you will jump for joy. Some of you will shriek. The phrase “everyone is in Sales” is a load of crap. We’re all in the revenue game and we each have a contribution in achieving revenue goals, but we’re not in Sales.

Marketing managers and product marketing managers the rest of this post is for you. If you are spending more than 20% of your time responding to deal-specific requests from Sales you have a problem. Put another way, 20% is equal to 1 day per week. When you are helping individual salespeople work deals you are doing sales support, not marketing.

There are three primary causes for this:

1. Your organization doesn’t have sales engineers and you’re left filling the gap. Sales engineers perform a vital function in the sales process and their role in the revenue game is often misunderstood. When Marketing fills the sales engineer gap that helps close a deal, do they get credit? Rarely.
   
2. You haven’t done an adequate job in sales readiness. Requests for information is caused when there are gaps in the sales engineer’s knowledge that shows up in the reality of the field. Pay attention to this and fill the gaps quickly. Assume everyone has the same question and make sure you answer it for everyone once. Make it easy for the field to find answers and they’ll do it on their own.  BTW a sales presentation, a product demo, a brochure and a web page is not sales readiness.
   
3. Your organization doesn’t have a culture of accountability. Even when you do a great job of sales readiness and are responsive to legitimate field requests, and you still get the same stupid questions over and over again you might have an accountability problem. The answers are available if the field would take the time to look, but they don’t. Push back. Be firm. Say no and point them to the resources.

Some of these causes you can fix.  If your organization doesn’t have sales engineers you could track the amount of time you’re providing for sales support (and not marketing) and make a case for sales engineers. If you’re not doing a good job of sales readiness, shame on you. You’re digging your own grave. That’s completely your control and no one in the organization should impede your sales readiness efforts. If your organization doesn’t have a culture of accountability you may have a bigger challenge.  Start by pushing back.  Don’t be an enabler of bad behavior.

Technorati Tags: sales readiness,sales engineer,accountability,sales support

Too much sales support isn’t healthy

Every week I have the privilege of working with product marketing managers from a wide range of companies.  For the most part they’re in a technology related business and most of them have one consistent, blaring issue.  That issue is getting salespeople to sell the products that they - the product marketing managers - are responsible for bringing to market.

The biggest complaint I hear is the amount of time that product marketing managers spend supporting salespeople with things like one-off PowerPoint slides and one-off brochures.  Some of you report the amount of time you spend supporting salespeople can exceed 80%!

I have news for you.  If you’re spending that much time supporting salespeople you’re not in marketing, you’re in sales support.  Assuming a 40 hour work week (LOL) that means you have 8 hours to dedicate to product marketing.  One day per week.  Four days per month. Product marketing in this case can hardly be called part time. Is it any wonder you’re not getting ahead?

Sales Velocity Webinar replay available

Thanks to everyone who attended the Product Launch Readiness: Planning for Sales Velocity webinar today.  The webinar was recorded and is now available for replay here.  Feel free to replay it as much as you want and be sure to pass it along to friends and colleagues (family might be pushing it).

There were a large number of questions that I will do my best to answer over the next few days.  The answers will be posted on the webinar archive landing page.

The very kind comments were welcomed and humbling.  Thanks also to the new Twitter followers!

Thanks again.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the slides from the presentation and a buying cycle funnel like the one I used in the webinar are available for download by going to:

http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/request

After entering you will see a listing of webinars and stuff related to the webinar.  You’ll need to enter your name and email address to get through.

Webinar tomorrow: Planning for Sales Velocity

I just completed the slides for a webinar I’m giving tomorrow morning at 10am Pacific titled Product Launch Readiness: Planning for Sales Velocity.

The topic originated by asking the question, “Why do some products takeoff at launch (sorry, bad pun) and others appear to start strong and fizzle out like a lawn dart?”

I’ll address specific ways to stack the deck and create an environment that ensures Sales Velocity.

You won’t get any boring death by PowerPoint.  I’ve got lots of visual slides that will move quickly, so you will need to fasten your seatbelt and put your tray in the upright position.

To signup for the Planning for Sales Velocity webinar go here.  It will be recorded and available for playback on the same day.  I’ll write another post with the details when the recording is available.

Lack of organizational readiness is the #1 killer of successful product launches. You’ve identified a market problem that is pervasive, urgent and the market is willing to buy. You’ve developed a great product that satisfies the need. You are ready to go to market, but are you confident that the rest of your organization ready to sell and support your new offering? You could easily lose an entire quarter or more while the rest of the organization catches up. Learn some of key secrets to a successful product launch that can set the stage for sales velocity.

Register here

Interview with Adam Shapiro - CustomerCentric Selling

Recently I sat down with sales and marketing process consultant Adam Shapiro. Among other things, Adam helps his clients implement the CustomerCentric Selling methodology.  You can find out more about Adam at SalesReformSchool.com. Having been a student of Solution Selling, I was intrigued about the CustomerCentric Selling approach which is a continuation of Michael Bosworth’s excellent work.  I bought the book and am incorporating the methods and tools into Launch Clinic’s selling approach.

Adam, what is Customer-Centric Systems?

CustomerCentric Systems, LLC is the business entity that owns the CustomerCentric Selling® methodology.  Generally, we define CustomerCentric Selling® as asking directed questions to empower buyers to visualize how they can use your offering to achieve their goals, solve their problems, and satisfy their needs and then facilitating the customer buying process. Specifically, our clients strive to meet this definition by codifying a set of best-practices behaviors and processes that start with the integration of sales and marketing.  The methodology creates an environment which honors the needs of buyers as they make decisions, while also equipping sellers with internal and external tools to achieve higher revenues. 

There always seems to be friction between Sales and Marketing.  What do you think are the primary reasons for this?

One of the tasks of leadership is to help teams overcome the regrettable human shortcoming of wanting to blame someone else for your own failures. In business, specifically sales and marketing, this plays out all too often.  Sellers think that if only marketers gave them good qualified leads, they would sell more.  Marketers believe that if sellers had any skills, they would close more of the leads that marketing produces.  Too often, they don’t meet in the middle with agreed upon definitions and process.  What is a qualified lead?  How does a lead get qualified?  Who takes care of this qualification step?  Who makes sure sales is following the product positioning course marketers have set?  But, it is more than that:  Marketing and sales often fail to get to together to figure out the go to market sales strategy:  What are the highly likely titles in particular industries who will be involved inn selecting, funding and implementing what we are trying to sell.  What business goals and priorities do they have that map to our offering?  What issues are keeping them from achievement of these goals/priorities. 

How do you suggest our readers address the Sales vs. Marketing friction?

First, both have to agree on the best practices sales and “product marketing” process.  From initial interest – inbound or outbound – through sales conversations, evaluations, commitment and closing, sales and marketing must agree to and stick to the process.  Next, with input form sales on what’s resonating with buyers, marketing needs to put together the framework for the conversations that need to take place between buyers and sellers during each step of the selling-buying process.  What are the likely goals of the folks involved in buying our stuff?  What issues, challenges, and objectives do they have in reaching those goals?  What situations do they find themselves where they would want what we offer?  Need to use what we offer?  What’s the value then to the customer of reaching that goal? How will they evaluate us or our offerings?  How can we help?  What concerns will they have in implementing our offerings?

Once sales gets these answers from potential buyers, there needs to be a feedback mechanism for informing product people that goes beyond the water cooler.

How does launch planning play into this friction?  Are organizations unknowingly adding to the problem?

Yes, organizations add to this problem.  Mostly, product management and product marketing.  To their credit, these two groups are made up of visionaries – folks who instantly “get it”.  They understand instantly why the market needs what the seller has.  Too often they announce to the world, “Look at the marvelous thing we have created! It has X, Y, and incredibly, Z features. Everyone will want one!”  And some like minded buyers  understand completely and buy.  Most, however, do not.  These are the mainstream buyers who have to understand three things generally to make buying decisions - call them visions.  1) How will I use it?  2) What’s the value of using it to me (or my organization) and 3) How will I implement it?   An “Incomplete” on any of these three and the buyer is not likely to buy that particular offering.

Often, the folks involved in the launch, understand and convey BROADLY these three visions, but they fail to convey how to bring buyers to see these visions specifically to the key group charged with conveying this message – sales! 

Imagine a product launch with a tight web site, brilliantly executed analyst meetings, and maybe even a snappy video for a trade show.  After these events and tasks are complete, marketing execs tell sales, “Go Sell! The market is waiting!”  What happens next?  Sellers go out and have conversations with prospective buyers.  What are these sellers saying, asking?  Does marketing and product management even know?  How do they or sales management audit those conversations?  Is there a feedback mechanism for buyers?  Usually, there is no pattern or roadmap for these discussions.  Largely, sellers are winging it.  Marketing, then, has lost control of the message.

What advice would you give to Marketing teams that are being pounded by their sales team?

When working with product management to launch a new feature or product, have you anticipated what should happen when sellers start making sales calls?  Instead of loading them up with feature descriptions and benefit statements, provide them with usage scenarios that are tagged to specific titles in targeted organizations.  Anticipate the goals and issues of these titles.  Set a conversation template for mapping these titles and issues with the successful usage of your offering.

You can reach Adam Shapiro at ashapiro@customercentricsystems.com

When to Ramp Up the Sales Force

Early stage companies often start ramping up sales as soon at the product is out of development.  The product is ready and it’s time to sell.  You hire experienced sales guys.  As many as you can.  The deals don’t close as quickly as expected.  You are burning through cash.  It must be the sales guys.  Somehow the wrong guys were hired.  It couldn’t possibly be the product.  Fire them and get new sales guys.

Many of you reading this will probably have at least one experience in your career to relate to this scenario.  I’ve recently read a paper titled "The Sales Learning Curve" by Mark Leslie and Charles Holloway.  Their hypothesis is that like manufacturing, sales must go through a sales learning curve to work out the kinks and shortcomings in the product, and to understand the most effective methods to sell the product.  Once that happens then it’s time to ramp up sales.  More importantly there’s no way to shorten the learning curve.  It varies in duration from company to company and it happens organically.

During the Sales Learning Curve your team will go through the process of learning how to acquire customers, what customers want in the product and the sales tactics that work.  Once you’ve been through the learning curve you can confidently begin ramping sales.

This process unfolds in three phases, each requiring a different size sales force that have different skills:

Initiation Phase - completion of beta testing and have few prospects.  Hire a few salespeople to learn how customers will use your product and to help other people in the organization refine the product offering.  These salespeople must be good communicators, tolerate ambiguity, have a deep interest in your technology, and can make their own sales models and tools.

Transition Phase - a critical mass of customers is acquired and sales are accelerating.  Keep the initial sales team focused on learning.  Now add salespeople who can operate within an evolving sales model, but don’t need to have the analytical and communication skills of the initial sales team.

Execution Phase - you’ve developed the formula for sales success.  Hire traditional salespeople and give them a territory, sales plan, marketing materials and price book.

The trick is knowing when you’ve transitioned from one phase to the next, and The Sales Learning Curve offers methods to identify when transitions are occurring.

If you are in a startup and feeling the pressure to add salespeople quickly, read the The Sales Learning Curve today.  It could mean the difference between success and failure.

Qualifying leads is like a series of rooms with escape doors

The analogy of a funnel is almost universally used to visualize how leads go through a process of qualification that eventually results in a sale. But everyone knows that not every lead result in a sale. A funnel implies every lead is squeezed and smashed through the bottom of the funnel. Wrong analogy.

Think of the lead qualification process like a series of rooms connected by doors. Some doors lead to other rooms but some lead outside. If a lead continues to have an interest in your product and the qualification criteria determines that they are still qualified, then they get to go on to the next room. Eventually the last room is where they purchase.

Now if the lead loses interest in your product or it is determined that it is no longer a qualified lead, it’s time to go outside. See ya. You got nothing to bring to the party. At least not for now. Those leads that bail or get qualified out may turn out to be qualified leads at a later time. Keep track of them for later cultivation. Mystery of the unqualified leads that are magically squeezed into a Funnel is solved.

What is your lead qualification process? What are the most important characteristics that define a qualified lead? Given those characteristics, how many actual qualified leads does your marketing efforts generate?