How to Jump-start a Sales Campaign

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The Changing Sales Environment

B2B sales was once a transactional activity. The B2B rep
acted as a point of contact who carried information
to the customer, did a little selling, and then carried
the order back. The rep would then (sometimes)
make certain that the order was fulflled and serviced
correctly. But the main purpose of B2B selling was to
handle a series of discrete transactions in order to make
the sale and then move on to the next opportunity.
However, over the past two decades, technology has
fundamentally altered the way bussinesses sell to one
another. B2B communications have gone from episodic
(telephone calls, memos, and
faxes) to instantaneous (email
and instant messaging), while
information about B2B products
and services has gone from
hand-delivered brochures to
always available web pages.
At the same time, technology has changed the way
that customers learn about vendors. Prior to the Internet,
interaction between a vendors customers was primarily
through user groups that meet once a year. Today,
however, online communities provide a worldwide forum
for compliments and complaints alike.
These technology-driving transformations have had
an enormous impact on the role of the B2B sales rep.
Today, the customer can get product information at
the brochure level with a few keystrokes and without
having to sit through a sales presentation. In fact, the
customer can probably order the sales reps ofering
right across the Internet, without ever interacting with
the sales rep at all.
As a result, selling B2B has moved to a much higher level
of consultative and solution selling, a transformation that
places extraordinary demands on the sales professionals
that have replaced the traditional sales reps.
Not only do sales professionals need the traditional
people skills that have always been essential to selling, but
they are now also expected to become trusted advisors
who can work with customers to improve the customers
business. And to do this, sales professionals must be able
to credibly advise a broad range of decision makers.
Unfortunately, few sales professionals have the
business experience and acumen to immediately add
value to a conversation with a customer, according to
Lee Levitt, program director of the sales advisory service
at the market research frm IDC. Based on our survey of
B2B buyers, a quarter of the sales reps in the business
world go to face-to-face meetings totally unprepared
and only 16 percent show up for such meetings well
prepared, he says.
To make matters worse, marketing groups often do a
poor job creating materials to help sales professionals
prepare themselves. IDC estimates that fully 90 percent
of the materials made by marketing groups are never
used by a sales professional, but are simply wasted efort.
Not surprisingly, many sales professionals (and
the organizations employing them) are both losing
customers and missing new opportunities due to a lack
of the basic business knowledge required to understand
and address their customers true needs.
This white paper explains how technology has turned B2B sales from a transactional
activity into a consultative activity and why that transformation has made it more
difcult for sales professionals. It then diagnoses the problem: the lack of actionable
information that can help the sales professional move the sales process forward.
Finally, this white paper explains how a new class of online application can provide
such information, thereby making it easier for sales professionals to sell in a
consultative manner.
How to Jump-start a Sales Campaign
WHI T E PAP E R HOW TO J UMP - S TAR T A S AL E S CAMPAI GN
Sales professionals must
be able to credibly
advise a broad range of
decision makers.
Informations Key Role
A sales professional can only become a trusted advisor
by having a basic understanding of the two elements
of a business partnership: 1) the way the customers
business works and 2) the way the sales professionals
own business works.
This understanding is only possible when sales
professionals can position themselves as experts and
speak the language that customers and prospects can
understand. Sales professionals must be up-to-date on
the trends, opportunities, cares, concerns, and challenges
that people in the target
industry are experiencing.
The ability to show
this kind of industry
acumen sets the tone for
the entire engagement
and determines whether
the sales cycle will move
forward. Furthermore,
having well-grounded understanding of these key
business issues provides a deeper insight into customer
needs and makes it easier to position products and
services strategically to make positive changes in the
customers operations and fnances.
Imagine three sales reps (Tom, Dick, and Mary) from
three diferent landscaping contractors, all vying to
become the replacement vendor to a regional chain of
golf courses.
Tom is an old-school order-taker. To get into the
account, he simply ofers the chain a 10 percent discount
below what their current contractor is charging.
Unfortunately, the cost savings to the chain to change
suppliers is likely to be less than the extra expense in
terms of paperwork and hassle. Whats more, that 10
percent would come right of the contractors bottom
line, which could make the deal unproftable.
Dick gets on the Internet and does some research
before making the sales call. He discovers that the chain
is having signifcant cash fow problems. Therefore, to
get into the account, he proposes long-term fnancing
of the frst two years at a favorable interest rate, thereby
alleviating the pressure on the chains cash fow.
Mary gets on the Internet and does extensive research,
not just about the chain, but also about the entire golf
course industry. She discovers that the reason the chain
is having cash fow problems is that regional water rates
have been going rapidly upwards. Therefore, in order
get into the account, she proposes a plan to gradually
convert the landscaping to eco-friendly plants and
grasses that will consumes 45 percent less water
every year. As a result, her proposal gets taken to top
management and she eventually gets the order.
Obviously, todays sales professionals would be well
advised to imitate Mary. Unfortunately, imitating Mary
could easily mean spending hours and even days
digging around on the Internet to fnd the kind of
information that will prove useful in crafting that initial
value proposition. Then, its likely to take even more
time to digest and analyze that information and turn it
into sales-ready questions and presentations.
So, while its true that sales professionals have
information at their fngertips, there is so much
information on the Internet that sorting through it, and
making sense of it, has become a monumental efort.
In fact, the efort can become insurmountable if a sales
professional is tasked (as is often the case) with calling on
multiple sectors inside a variety of industries.
WHI T E PAP E R HOW TO J UMP - S TAR T A S AL E S CAMPAI GN
Sales professionals
must be up-to-date on the
trends, opportunities, cares,
concerns, and challenges
that people in the target
industry are experiencing.
Jump-starting the Sales Process
Fortunately, there are now a number of information
aggregators who can provide sales professionals with
information thats already been collected, fltered, and
analyzed. For the purposes of this discussion, well use
First Research as representative of this type of service
and examine the advantages that using such a service
has over do-it-yourself research on the Internet.
Taking the golf course example above, a Google
Search on golf course business issues provides two
useful links, one to Golf Business magazine and the
other to Golf Course Industry Magazine. Both sites
are extremely rich with information. However, it could
easily take a week or more of reading to view all the
articles, take notes, and
then understand all of that
data in context.
By contrast, First Research
has an industry profle on
Golf Courses thats updated
monthly. Among a wealth
of other data, it contains
summaries of the size and
shape of the market, the competitive landscape, how the
business model functions, specifcs on basic operations,
the cost structure, how marketing is accomplished, the
fnancial environment, the regulatory environment, and
basic human resource issues.
The profle then provides a summary of critical business
issues such as declining participation, land use restrictions,
water access problems, environmental concerns, and
barriers that keep people from trying and adopting the
sport. Various trends and opportunities are spotlighted,
along with typical roles played by executives in the industry.
More importantly for sales eforts, the profle includes
a long list of questions, categorized by customer job title,
that are likely to start a sales conversation. (Example:
for the CEO, a good question is What course design
modifcations does the company plan?) Finally, the
profle contains a typical balance sheet for a golf course,
as well as sources of industry information, including (of
course) the two publications that were found using the
Google search.
As is clear from the example above, First Research
provides a much quicker way for sales professionals
to learn about an industry than does do-it-yourself
Internet research. Sales professionals using this type of
service make their sales calls fully aware of the roles that
decision makers typically play in that industry, the basic
fnancial parameters of the industrys business model,
and key jargon and terminology.
Whats more, sales professionals armed with this
kind of information will be well aware of the typical
questions that are likely to spark a useful dialog with
a wide variety of decision makers in that industry. This
allows sales professionals developing a B2B account
to quickly jump-start the sales process, by entering
the sales engagement with a clear understanding of
the prospects industry and the likely concerns of the
plethora of decision makers involved.
In short, sales professionals require new technology
to deal with the technology-driven transformation of
B2B selling from the transactional into the consultative
model. First Research represents a viable example of
how technology can play a key role in turning sales
professionals into the trusted advisors that customers
now demand.
- GEOFFREY JAMES
Sales professionals armed
with this kind of information
will be well aware of the
typical questions that are
likely to spark a useful dialog
with a wide variety of decision
makers in that industry.
WHI T E PAP E R HOW TO J UMP - S TAR T A S AL E S CAMPAI GN