MarketSense

Success in a Sales 2.0 World – a Marketing Viewpoint

To date, I don’t think that Sales 2.0 has gotten much traction in corporate marketing organizations. I don’t hear my marketing friends talking about it. I don’t see articles on the challenges to and benefits realized by marketing organizations that have embraced Sales 2.0. Yet, I believe that the goals of Sales 2.0 cannot be achieved without the equal, coordinated, and cooperative support of corporate marketing.

For those of you who are new to Sales 2.0, let’s start with a primer on Sales 2.0. In the Sales 2.0 “commercial “ video for this year’s conference, Sales 2.0 was defined as:

“A marriage between best practice methodologies and productivity-enhancing technologies to achieve two things. One to improve productivity and number two to accelerate the sales cycle.”

Indeed, the focus of Sales 2.0 over the past couple of years has been to encourage the adoption of a variety of technologies, products, and services in sales and marketing organizations. Some of these technologies help improve corporate intelligence about the prospective customer. Other technologies assist the sales person in communicating with the prospective customer. Yet other technologies help sales manage the internal sales process.

From the marketing perspective, it is not the technologies that interest me. Many marketing organizations, especially those in high technology, already use these technologies. Instead, I see two aspects of Sales 2.0 that I believe are essential for marketing’s success in today’s web-based business climate.

1. Focus on the customer’s buying process.


The truth is that when it comes to the buying process, the customer is in control. As the authors of the 2003 Harvard Business Review article “The Customer Has Escaped” put it, “customers act like their own ‘general contractor’.” Customers select the information, components, and purchase channel that meet their needs. Marketers and sales need to understand the customer, the customer’s needs, and customer’s buying process. Then they need to design a buying experience that facilitates that buying process.

2. Alignment of sales and marketing organizations.


The customer’s buying process crosses the boundaries that exist between marketing and sales organizations. Sure, there are problems of transferring information about the customer from one organization to another. But more important is the creation of a seamless buying experience that builds persuasive momentum from the first customer touch. That seamless buying experience can only be achieved when marketing and sales tackle the design and implementation of the buying experience together.

It is critical that marketing and sales understand the difference between the corporate sales process and the customer’s buying process. The vast majority of businesses today force the customer to fit into “the way they do sales”. What a frustrating experience that is from both sides. If marketing and sales don’t embrace the customer’s buying process, they will find it very difficult to consistently accelerate their sales process.

Making PowerPoint Visuals Speak - Creating Visual Mini-Stories

Nothing kills a sales presentation (or any presentation) more than pages and pages of slides with lots of bullets and text.

You are about 10 minutes into a sales presentation by company XYZ. The presenter brings up a slide that has three bullets on it. The presenter starts talking about those bullets,

but your mind is already taking the short route and reading the bullets. While the presenter drones on in the background, you immediately see where he is going. You are done with the slide, but the presenter is still in the process of talking through the first bullet point. You are ready to move on, but he isn’t so you tune out.

The whole idea of a sales presentation is to allow your audience to see themselves in the vision you create.

A vision is a visual mechanism. Bullets with words are a verbal mechanism. How easy is it for your audience to see themselves in a vision painted by bullets?

I love to board talk my presentations. When I board talk my presentations, I carefully select my most compelling concepts and create a flow from one point to another. More importantly, I interact with my audience in a way that builds a visual that not only draws in but includes the audience. No wonder board talks are so effective. They help build that personalized vision for the audience.

Achieving this same experience is a lot more difficult to do with a PowerPoint presentation. But we can leverage board talk techniques which will help us create more compelling visuals for our canned PowerPoint presentations.

Rule #1: Prioritize your concepts by the impact you expect them to have on your audience. Use only the most compelling ones.

To do this effectively, the marketer has to go beyond the words and really understand the impact of the ideas he/she is trying to communicate. In our example, there are three competing ideas being communicated. Chances are by focusing on one, the audience can extrapolate the other two. Do you really need to call out all three? Isn’t one impactful concept better remembered than three equally boring marketing claims?

Rule #2: Develop the flow of your main concepts by focusing on contrasts.

Contrast compares the before and the after. It is typified by movement of some sort. It helps you define flow. By understanding the underlying contrast in your main concept, you start to focus on the visual idea to support it.


In our example, contrast adds details. Low customer retention means that a business is constantly striving to add new customers to replace customers who are leaving. It is like a zero sum game. Improved customer retention means that a business is building momentum in the marketplace. More and more customers are being exposed to the product and signing on.

Rule #3: Identify the visualization that will illustrate your concept in a way that ensures the impact you want to achieve.

There are many ways to visualize concepts. Rule #3 asks you to choose a visualization that is dynamic. If we used a static graph in our example, you would never create the emotional feel of the momentum that customer retention can achieve. By using animation to build the visual bit by bit, you start creating the feel of that momentum.

Putting the 3 Rules Together

The secret of using these three rules is that you are creating a mini-story around a critical concept you want to communicate. This mini-story allows the audience to engage with the concept. It helps them build an emotional crescendo that leads to the “aha moment”.

The final product of using these rules is the combination of story and visual that begins with the before. Both develop and build together until they reach the climax. That climax is the point of maximum conceptual impact. You repeat this for slide after slide after slide.

Sales Presentation Design – Tell Their Story

I have been exploring sales presentation techniques in the past few blog entries. We’ve seen the how an audience’s attention span constrains our presentation length. It also forces us to reconsider the order of information in the presentation. We need an attention grabber to focus the audience’s attention on the presentation. We want to put our most relevant and potent information at the front of the presentation when we have the audience’s maximum interest. That takes us through the first 5 minutes of the presentation.

Our goal in the next 10-15 minutes of the presentation segment is to engage the audience so that we maintain their attention as long as possible. The best way to do that is to organize the presentation around a storyline. We need to tell a story.

But what story do we tell? Potential storylines include the story of our company, the story of our product, or the story of our successful customers. However, the best story to tell is not any of these. The best story to tell is the story of the prospect we are speaking to.

The first reaction I get when I recommend this course of action is “But how do I know the prospect’s story? Each prospect is going to have their own unique story.”

When you first start selling a new product, it does seem like each prospect has a unique story. But after you have talked with a number of prospects, you will see patterns emerge. In these patterns you will find pain points shared, circumstances replicated, and common issues. From these patterns you can craft common scenarios and an underlying framework for your storyline.

At this point you are probably wondering, “But what about us, our products, our services? Where do they fit in?”

Your company, your product, services, and solution are supporting cast members in the story. Remember, this is not your story. It is the prospect’s story. Your company, product, services, and solution are not the main characters.

In your first sales presentations to a new prospect, you are not selling your product, services, or solution. You are selling the idea of transformation. You are creating a vision of how much better things could be. Your company and product are the means for achieving that transformation and that vision.

Before anyone can sell a prospect a particular product or solution, the prospect must decide that they want to solve their problems, address their issues, and improve their circumstances. They must desire transformation. They must see themselves in the vision. When they do, this vision becomes a powerful motivator in the sales process.

They are not going to find that vision in the story of how your company was formed.

They are not going to find that vision in the feature details of your product.

They are only going to find that vision in a story that starts and ends with them.

It is time to take stock of your sales presentations. In your review, identify the following:

1. Estimate what portion of the presentation is about you, your company, your product, and your solution. Estimate what portion of the presentation is about your prospect. If 80% of the presentation is NOT about your prospect, you have work to do.
2. What is the transformation you are suggesting? Do you clearly compare and contrast before and after effects? How well does this transformation apply to your prospect’s situation?
3. How visual is the vision you are painting? How easy is it for the prospect to visualize themselves in the vision you are creating? Is it relevant to the prospect’s situation?
4. Is there a discernable storyline and plot in your sales presentation? Is it easy for someone to give? Is it easy to follow?
5. Do you need more than one scenario to plug into your storyline? How different are the situations, transformations, and visions you need to develop to match the different prospects you see?