Posts Tagged ‘Sales’

How question and answer helps sales teams

July 15, 2009

A prospect asked me an excellent question today. He wanted my opinion if Q&A (one of our upcoming features) would work for sales people. The typical objection he described is “sellers need answers very fast. Rather than using an on-line application, they will either walk down the hall, pick up the phone or send an e-mail directly to the expert who knows the answer. Therefore, for sellers at least, using some kind of Q&A technology, is futile.”

With most of the current slate of products and services available on the market, I agree with him.  However, I think things are evolving fast and this objection and situation will be gone soon.  Companies are going to need new technology (like GroupSwim) to harvest the critical information that passes back and forth in these emails and meetings to compete and scale their sales force.  We all know it can take weeks or months to bring a new sales team member up-to-speed.  A great question and answer solution like ours:

  1. Ensures the answers are right
  2. Involves other teams who can contribute to the “knowledge base”
  3. Makes it easy to use and find answers fast

This new technology DRAMATICALLY reduces the time a new sales executive needs to start working on prospects. One of our customers who is a VP of sales told us he had a new sales account exec ready to go in a matter of days when it used to take weeks or months. The benefits are even great if the product or service sold is complex or varies in different situations.

The content in the question and answer application also accelerates sales cycle.  Once many of the typical questions get answered and documents are added, the sales team simply searches for what they need and then continues with the pursuit.  They don’t need to walk down the hall, pick up the phone, or send an email any more – this saves time so they have more cycles to continue working on their quota.

As the technology matures and people can use it in the course of their work, it will become more natural to use for sales teams.  I think for now, the VPs and executives who realize this are already forcing change (some of our customers).  I think more and more of them will come to this conclusion over time.

As for the speed of response, the RSS feeds, Q&A workflow and email alerts can be tuned so that answers won’t sit unanswered.  It also allows other experts (professional services, engineering, etc.) to participate which improves the quality of the answers.  Finally, I think we’ll see goals and bonuses tied to participating in Q&A solutions in the future.  What do you think?

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Sales Collaboration Learnings from Sales 2.0

March 6, 2009

We attended the Sales 2.0 conference for the last 2 days.  It was a great experience.  While I didn’t get to hear every speaker, the ones I did hear spurred great discussion and ideas.  Here are some of the things that caught my attention:

  • I was very impressed by Brett Queener from SalesForce.com.  This company really knows how to do marketing and messaging.  They are a benchmark as far as I’m concerned.  While they don’t have the best software in my opinion, they do a fantastic job of focusing on business value, not features.  I really liked the video he showed on why cloud computing is awesome.  Here is a link to it if you are interested.
  • A question during this session I liked was how SalesForce measures ROI when prospects ask about it.  Brett’s response was to ask the customers what metrics they use today.  The implication is most customers probably have no metrics to calculate an ROI.  This is an excellent way to avoid or control this discussion.  If the customer is sophisticated enough to have good metrics, then they are probably willing to sign-up for it.  If not, it is a moot question.
  • On SalesForce, I do think there is mismatch with all the lip service they pay to usability and listening to customers on the product.  I find SalesForce to be very un-intuitive and hard to use.  It does some things well, but it is definitely not user friendly.  It is hard to believe that they have 3 rounds of user testing before releasing product.  Or, I would be interested in meeting these “customers” because I must be using a different version than they are.
  • Much of the focus in the sessions I attended was more on lead and demand generation.  I can see why given the state of the economy.  One of the speakers commented on how you need 50% more leads just to run in place and that sales cycles are all getting much longer as the economy sinks further into the abyss.
  • Twitter received significant attention during the wrap-up session.  In fact, there were at least 10 to 15 people including me who were tweeting updates the entire conference.  Click here to see the list of tweets used during the conference.  It was very interesting.  Most people there don’t get Twitter, which I can understand.  Sales people are very busy and want to focus on sales, not Twittering.  I had a good conversation at my table about Twitter.  My take on Twitter is it is good for company and personal exposure; I actually use it as a channel.  I monitor a series of key word searches for GroupSwim on Twitter using Twitter search and Google Reader.  I watch for things like “sales collaboration” or “customer community”.  When I see someone Tweeting a question about online collaboration or GroupSwim, I Tweet them back.  This is the only really practical application I’ve found for Twitter (I truly don’t care how good your burger was at lunch).  I was thrilled to speak with a prospect early in the week.  I asked him how he heard about GroupSwim and he mentioned that I had Tweeted him.
  • Gerhard Gschwandtner was great in pushing on how there are too many tools and too much information and knowledge out there to absorb.  He said the key to sifting through all the information was search and that having knowledge is no longer the advantage; the thing is the ability to find what you need when you need it.  I liked this comment given search is one of our strengths.
  • He also spoke of the ridiculous number of “Sales 2.0″ tools on the market now, and don’t just use these products without a plan on how they all fit together.  Don’t just buy something because it is the shiny object.  Twitter is free but I think it is the ultimate “shiny object”.  If I were Twitter, I would sell the company tomorrow.  They have never had to earn a dime and can only one direction from here, which is down.
  • Tom Barrieau of IDC made some great comments on the importance of tribal knowledge for sales teams.  He was referring to the documents and information that people trade, but aren’t formally released by marketing.  This is one of the key things that GroupSwim helps manage so I was obviously a fan instantly.  He also spoke of the importance of tagging which we also spend an enormous amount of time building.

There was much more than this at the conference but I missed much of it while sitting at the GroupSwim booth.  What did you learn or take away?

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Posted in GroupSwim, Random | 4 Comments »

Selling Sales Collaboration at Sales 2.0

March 4, 2009

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to bust out some alliteration like that.  We had a great day at the Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco.  This is a collection of sales and marketing professionals meeting to understand and riff on how the sales process is changing, and how the tools and process everyone uses must morph as well.

We had a great time speaking with folks at the breaks.  It was a real pleasure to show GroupSwim to people who instantly understood the business problems we solve and the value we provide.  We explained that communication and collaboration with sales and marketing teams is usually bad, and mostly reliant on email.  GroupSwim provides an excellent way for everyone to collaborate as a team, in a very easy and cost effective manner.  Our integration with SalesForce was a big hit and the application sold itself once we moved into demo mode.  As usual, I got very sick of hearing myself talk by the end of the day but it was worth the sacrifice.

We are looking forward to meeting more folks tomorrow.  Swing by if you are at the conference.

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Manage Collaboration Like a Project – Or Else

January 27, 2009

In order for a collaborative effort (requires more than 1 person and has an end goal) to achieve a successful outcome, it is useful to treat it like a project.  The “project” should have a goal(s), time-line, common tools and roles.  I’m not talking about creating a formal project plan, but some basic planning and organization at the front end of the collaborative effort is an excellent investment of time and potentially money.

Most collaboration is poorly managed or not at all.  While there is a HUGE variation in the level of effort, number of people involved, etc., the things good project managers do are helpful no matter how big the project is.  Even when two people are collaborating on the smallest of projects, the likelihood of success hinges on very predictable things.  First, the collaborators should agree on deadlines for when the work should be complete and if there are any interim milestones to consider.  Second, they should decide who is in charge or at least responsible for packaging up the final deliverable.  Or, they should at least give one person the responsibility for coordinating the work, even if they aren’t “in charge”.  Third, if it isn’t obvious, they should coordinate the tools or software they might use so they don’t end up with incompatible work that they need to rework in order to consolidate.  Finally, they should also agree on goals or what the end of the collaboration will achieve.  Is it a document, or a decision, or a piece of art, or meeting up at a ballgame, or some combination of many things?

Let’s review a recent example.  I led a team where we needed to collaborate on a long, multi-part document as part of a sales effort.  The content and data this document required did not exist, and it was both long and complicated.  It required focus, creativity and discipline in order to get it done by the time we needed it.

The team included 5 people in different parts of the company in different parts of the world and time zones.  We used GroupSwim Collaboration for the majority effort.  Two of us spent time mapping out the collaborative effort.  We developed the following “plan”:

  • Set deadlines over the course of 3 days, which is how long we had
  • Divided the document into separate sections
  • Assigned primary authors to each section
  • Created a wiki page for each section of the document and added the questions each author needed to address
  • Tracked people’s progress with a central wiki showing status and hand-offs
  • Reviewed each section as people completed them
  • Consolidated each section into one comprehensive document
  • Performed final edits and cleaned up language, voice, grammar, etc.
  • Formatted the document and then published

The process worked to perfection and we yielded a high quality piece of work.  It would have never worked without basic planning in the beginning to ensure everyone knew what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.  We saved countless hours of potential rework and produced a great outcome by treating the whole effort like a project.

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Lessons Learned from a Successful SaaS Trial

September 3, 2008

This is cross-posted with ReadWriteWeb where I will be occasionally writing on the Enterprise Channel.

A growing part of the software sales process involves offering trials or try-before-you-buy programs. Buyers love it but it puts pressure on the vendors to deliver during this important process. I recently trialed software from Vertical Response. They offer self-service email marketing services. I needed a way to create, send, and analyze our email campaigns. First off, I signed up. They did a great job across the board so props to them. Here are some lessons learned going through the process as a buyer.

Product

  1. Product worked well - I can’t emphasize this enough. I know it seems obvious but we all can list examples of the opposite. Be very careful putting software out to the world to try if it doesn’t work. You have one or two chances to impress someone, so you better nail it. Very rarely will the trial customer stick through a bad experience unless you happen to be in the enviable position of offering software someone has to buy and has no other options.
  2. Ease of use – the product is very easy to use.  It is simple and straightforward. Plus, they provide lots of videos to teach users how to use the product.  I find this particularly helpful.  It is great to have user manuals if you want to go deep, but a handful of simple, short videos is an awesome way to train new users with minimal effort.

Process

  1. Rules of the game – they did a very good job designing what the pilot includes and what I would be able to do. In their case, I received 500 emails to try the product (I signed up through SalesForce AppExchange). There were no limitations on features or number of campaigns.
  2. Provided true product experience – the trial provided functionality for the whole product suite and all features. I was able to fully understand what I would be purchasing and what I could do with it. I think other companies that provide trials, but only expose a percentage of the product features, are making a big mistake. In the case of Vertical Response, they make their money based on volume so it fits nicely in their model.
  3. Sales person was awesome – I received a very polite phone call and email asking if I needed any help. When I talked to him, he invited me to a weekly webinar to learn about the product. (Small aside – this is a great strategy and one I plan to start with our company). He did a great job on the webinar and really helped me get the most of out of the product.
  4. Make it easy to sign-up – Once I decided I wanted to use the service, it was very easy to enter my credit card and get started. It isn’t always so easy with business software, but it should be to take as much friction out of the process as possible.

Marketing

  1. Word of mouth – I had heard of this company from some of our customers, so I was already inclined to give them a fair shot. I can tell from my trial experience that they take care of their customers based on their responsiveness. Granted I was in their sales process at the time but I’m assuming the same responsiveness will apply as a customer. Bottom line – you HAVE to take care of your customers and delight them. If you pull this off, your customers start selling for you.
  2. AppExchange – they have done a nice job of promoting themselves on AppExchange. It is very noisy in there, and tough to figure out which solutions to use. I thought they were able to rise above the noise effectively through their write-ups and obvious success.

Have you trialed any software lately? Any lessons learned you would like to share?

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Another Key to a Vibrant Community

July 31, 2008

It is important to structure group sites that correspond with how people work and what they think about.  In a previous post, I discussed making things very clear for users on where to collaborate on topics.  I’m taking it one step farther and providing a very specific example of how this could work for a common situation.

This site is an internal collaboration site for a software company.  The site started with the sales and marketing teams, and other teams have joined along the way.  The site utilizes SSL and Active Directory integration for extra security.  It has the following groups and permissions inside the site:

  1. Competition – this is a private group for the sales and marketing team to gather information and field stories about the competition.  People can add discussions, emails, and competitive documentation so the team has one place to go for information on the competition.  They could also create a wiki page that lists the most effective points to make against specific competitors that can change over time.
    1. If there are one or two main competitors, you could create separate groups for each one to provide even more focus.
  2. Demonstration Best Practices and Scripts – this is a private group for sales engineers to swap best practices, scripts and other deliverables associated with providing demos during the sales process.  Other groups like Professional Services and/or Support might participate in this group to answer questions to help improve or troubleshoot demos.
  3. Feature Requests – this is an auto-join group where anyone in the site (all company employees) can log and discuss feature requests.  This way, everyone can see what others have suggested and lend their opinion as well.  It also gives the product marketing team an effective way to communicate with requestors and company employees about upcoming features.  It is a great feeder to a more formal product management process.
  4. Healthcare Vertical – this is a public group that anyone can join who either works or is interested in the healthcare industry.
    1. You can have as many of these as you want, depending on your company or products.  You could also have geographic and/or regional groups.
  5. Marketing Newsletters – this is an auto-join group with manager only posting. It can serve as a repository for all newsletters that only marketing can add.  You can post the newsletters as HTML so they will look and read exactly like the customers received.
  6. RFI (Request for Information) Q&A – this is a private group for the sales and marketing teams to contribute RFIs and RFPs they’ve received and submitted.  It is an excellent way to create an easy-to-use repository and add specific questions and discussions.  You can also add a wiki page with the standard company answers for the most common questions, and then adapt and modify them over time as the market or competition evolves.
  7. Sales Administration – this is a private group for the sales team.  It contains policies, procedures and administrative announcements that are relevant to the sales team.
  8. Sales Tools and Collateral – this is a public group for sales and marketing, but other employees can join if they are interested.  It is a manager posting only group so only named sales and marketing personnel can add content to the group.  However, the group is configured so others can reply and ask questions about the content posted.  This group might include presentation templates, white papers, datasheets, etc..
  9. Win-Loss Reports – this is a private group for the sales team to post win-loss reports and discuss them as a team.  It is an excellent repository so people can look for similar customers and situations and learn from their colleagues.

There can be other groups like Company Watercooler, Announcements, Knowledge Base, etc. that are auto-join groups and apply to the whole company or team.

The list above list represents groups closely associated with a sales and marketing team.  You can easily imagine similar kinds of groups if the group were Professional Services (Best Practices, Integration Materials, etc.), Customer Support (Product Bugs, Scripts, Training, etc.) or other knowledge-based teams.  I hope this helps you visualize how using specific groups within a site can help teams and companies collaborate more effectively.

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Challenges Marketing a Flexible Solution

June 3, 2008

We are in the process of refreshing our website, sales materials, presentation for Enterprise 2.0 (more posts on that later) and find ourselves in an interesting situation.  Our product provides value for many different economic buyers.  For example, it is great for sales teams, professional services, marketing, customer support, external customers, etc.; you get the picture.  It isn’t easy describing and marketing a solution to such a wide constituency of groups who all have different business issues, every day problems, compensation plans, and the like.  It is a conundrum (I try to use this word once a day if I can pull it off) because you don’t want to describe your offering so broadly that it doesn’t resonate with problems people are facing in their business or customer lives.  On the flip side, you don’t want to focus so keenly on one group that you ignore and potentially miss others.

Our plan is to focus on one internal group for our collaboration product and one for our Forums product for customer collaboration, nail those, and then take what we’ve learned and start adding other groups.  The product features and solution will still cover all types of groups, so this is more about how we market and to whom.

Seems logical.  What do you think?

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