Glad to say, the sales meeting in 'Vegas seemed to go very well. The past couple of these things that we've held haven't really worked, though for different reasons in each case. Any way, this time we (a) prepared at length and in depth, (b) had something tangible we wanted to communicate: a new positioning and (c) didn't make the whole thing overly long or comprise nothing but sitting through Powerpoint slides.
One big concern coming in was that we wanted to effect change: moving our sales team to recognise the process-level value we bring to customers and get them away from just trying to sell tools. Process-level sales, when successful, are much "stickier" than selling tools which, ultimately, are relatively simple to swap out.
For the first time in 2 years, it's really starting to feel like we have a team that can get the right stuff done, and that we share a consistent view of how to present our value to customers.
Onwards and upwards!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Good Sales Meeting
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2 comments:
Congratulations. Always a challenge to get the team lined up. Finding the same challenges myself at moment, sales reps swear blind that deals will happen, but i know we have not got out out phase 2 of the buying phase (this is a great benchmark). For me the acid test for a deal is:
- whats the problem/need the customer is fixing?
- is it big enough to justify some expense?
- who is sponsoring this?
- can we solve it?
- whats the sequence of events between now and the deal closing?
If we get 2 or 3 answers i know the deal will slip or not happen at all!
All great points. Yeah, your average sals rep lives and breathes optimism; sometimes that's well placed, but sometimes it isn't! We focussed a lot on the value proposition in this meeting, trying to get more of this notion that maximum value fot the customer comes only when they change their process to exploit what we do. TBD to see how many got it!
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