Raisin Wine

Micro Entry: Are good sales people born or made?

2010-10-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

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Sales is two parts art and one part science.

The subtlety of the art is in the ability to cognitively understand and appreciate human behavior and sociology, and to be able to guide the moving parts to your benefit and theirs. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a "type A" (god I hate that term). It simply means you have to be comfortable enough in your own skin and intelligent enough to know how much you really matter. To position yourself appropriately.

The science is the process. Bad business cycle science can limit the best and good business cycle science can hide the worst. Even the best process cant supplant the human element but it can at least provide an adequate guide rail to give the motivated amongst us a chance to achieve the goals of the organizations we serve.

Even the most gifted relationship builders cannot overcome a lack of discipline though. Eventually comes down to having a "mothers sauce". There has to be a methodology that tells you when you are full of it.

Sales people need this, and if we don’t have it, we will glide on our gift. That is until the ugly truths start to show itself. This happens usually when personnel changes in key accounts.

The best of us understand that Sales is a discipline like any other. There are some rules, though none are seeming hard or fast rules, and there are guiding principles and indicators that must be adhered to.

to answer the question. It is talent plus good methodology that equals a good sales person. It is the talented sales person that disciplines themselves and buys into the processes.

You Inc.

2010-09-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

This entry has nothing to do with sales and everything to do with sales at the same time. It has to do mainly with leadership, but as one very wise and successful leader has taught me, "every good leader is a good sales person". This entry is about "You" the reader of this entry. Whether you run a business, or are employed by a company and sit in a cubical, you are still a business, and the name of that business is (your name) Incorporated.

A lot of people in corporate business seem unable to grasp the concept that no matter what they do for their company that they're essentially a sole vendor to that company and therefore selling a service to them. That service is their profession. You're a business and it's your job to run your role in a manner as such and to prove the value of your business to the company that's buying your service. An employment agreement is no more than a services contract. You are "You Inc." and you have a business to run. The problems I experience in talking to professionals about this is that most of them perceive the value proposition of their business incorrectly and have no consistent leadership in place.

Which brings us full circle back to leadership. Yes, leadership, the most overwritten about subject in business and life. There seems to be an overabundance of formulas and steps and instruction books on how to be a good one. The truth in my opinion is that a lot of consultants are getting rich from helping unnatural leaders feel comfortable leading something that they shouldn't be leading.

Leadership essentially isn't your fault. Some leaders end up there by accident, relationship, and others by reward for performance. These paths to leadership at times and by fate pick someone fit to actually lead, but many times they don't. True leaders, have a natural sense of self that guides them in their decision making. This sixth sense is the talent quotient of leadership but it's just one piece of the pie, and there's more to it than natural talent. I believe that upbringing, environment, influences, professional experience, education, desire, resilience, emotional makeup, and last but most importantly, common sense all play a role. The best decisions made by leaders are the ones that are clear, decisive and have an unmistakable direction while maintaining brilliant simplicity in their solution to a problem or opportunity.

I believe that we all have at least some of the basic elements of leadership in us to some degree that can be nurtured to perform as a guiding principle up to our natural ceiling. That ceiling is higher for some and lower for others. The limits of our makeup will limit the effectiveness of the kinds of things that we can lead, and the reach of how complicated and meaningful those things that we can lead are. The only things that fully maximize your leadership quotient is common sense. The quotient won't change much but you will operate it at it's fullest of potential if you adhere to these few common sense rules that I've learned that will help you lead "You Incorporated" more effectively.

Note: These aren't magic steps to becoming a good leader as much as they are a loose rough sketch of tips.

1. Make decisions
Even if you're the lowest of low persons on the totem pole in the mail room you still have decisions that are yours and solely yours. If you're decisive with a solid rationale that you're willing to defend then people will begin to perceive you as a person that can make decisions, a (gasp) decision maker. This perception doesn't start when you're given the power to make bigger decisions with more responsibility, they start when you tell the mail room manager that you're switching staple suppliers and the unemotional reason as to why you're doing it.

2. Place a (correct) value on your attention and time
If you're too accessible you're not a commodity, and you're not valuable. Limit your accessibility to matters that are urgent to the mission of the organization and your role at that very moment. Pay good and detailed attention to those matters at the expense of a timely response to the peripheral and supportive tasks and messages. Soon enough you will only be bothered by people with things that are important to the success of what you are doing. Your time will be seen as valuable and hence your insight on matters valuable.

3. Deliver insight not just production
Anyone can be a worker bee. Anyone can deliver work, answer phones, and deliver spreadsheet reports and data. Data entry and administration is the world of the worker bee, the tactical tool, not the strategic instrument. Become perceived as a strategic instrument and shake the clothing of a tactical tool. Look at what your client (your employer) is trying to achieve and provide intelligent work to them that helps them achieve it. In other words, if you're a janitor, don't just mop the floor at 5 PM, watch the lighting system and make sure to tell operations that the lighting system is turning off some of the floors too late costing the company XXX dollars". If you're a an IT infrastructure admin, don't just tell your manager about availability of your networks, tell him that you read up on events that lead to a power surge in that part of the country where availability is lost daily at that time, and how avoidable the loss is if other factors are managed or mitigated by providing backup power to those machines.

4. Speak clearly
The economy of words is perhaps one of the most undervalued economies in the world. Learn to say less, use less words and to say more with what isn't said. Your goal is to communicate the same prose, emotion and description with as few words as possible. You will find out that your word choice will become decidedly more colorful and interesting and that people want to talk to you more. When they do, listen.

5. Listen more
No more needs to be said on this one.

6. Stop apologizing
Apologies signify weakness. Instead of apologizing offer an immediate solution that will act as a counter balance to rectify the error. Admit your error, yes, but do not apologize. Accountability and submissiveness are two distant cousins that should not be confused with one another in the work place. Admitting that you made the error is considered strong and a great sign of leadership, saying sorry or I apologize for the error, or some variation of conveys emotion and is as such considered submissive, weak, and insecure. Do not communicate with the affected parties in order to take accountability unless you have devised your solution before you speak to them and can also end the conversation with your solution if possible. Own your error and commit to it's solution, but do not come with hat in hand.

7. Stop thanking so much
There are times and places to thank, but if you are always thanking those around you you begin to look like a beggar that feels fortunate just to be there. Your time and talent is of import to your colleagues, clients, and superiors or they wouldn't have you around. Allow them to keep that perception of you by voicing mutual benefit as much as possible. Turn "Thank you for spending an hour with me" into "I believe that hour was a great and valuable use of our time". It makes all the difference in the world. When it's suitable to thank due to someone making a concession of some sort or enduring some sort of discomfort to honor your requests then that's when you should thank them. A strange thing will happen, your appreciation will be seen as sincere and it will be.

8. Pick your ideas wisely
Most innovators won't admit this but a lot of them steal others ideas. What makes them successful is that innovation isn't magic, it's a fancy word for problem solving. Innovators take interesting ideas and give them that last component that takes them from being interesting into being substantive and usable ideas. Part of leadership is innovation. If you're going to solve a problem by using an idea from someone else as a launching pad, then pick wisely. Learn which ideas of others are worth looking at and improving. Here's a hint, there are very few of them. Learn when to take credit for improving an idea to create a solution and when to step away from an idea that shows signs of weakness.If you decide to walk away give credit to it's interesting quality's only and then walk fast.

Best of luck with "You Inc." this year.

Naithan Jones

all contents of this blog are the copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

How to create a pipeline methodology that produces wins

2010-07-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

A good sales person or manager inspects themselves critically at every turn in order to find out "what could I have done differently that would have changed this outcome for the better?". In the spirit of that self inspection and the few times spent in bars after a decision that didn't go my way I present this post. This is the formalized conclusion and response of one of those self inspection conversations. You know the ones where you're with your colleagues after a bad day, Scotch in one hand and an unsigned contract in the other. This process repeats until you get tired of the same result and decide to create a strategy. Well this is high level sketch of the strategy I came up with some years ago, and I must say my fortunes since those days have changed dramatically. This is a methodology built to help sales professionals understand their sales pipeline and to guide appropriate action.

Who is are the decision maker?

No one really wins because of price. OK I take that back, no one really wins because of value, or vision match to the objective. OK let me restate this again, it's all of the above plus some. It's consensus. It's not the "silver bullet" that most sales people think wins deals. Sales processes don't have a silver bullet even though managers tell you to look for one. The decision maker is rarely one person, it's at least two, and some of the time three people. Yes I agree one person will ultimately sign your contract but not without the buy off of others they trust as they evaluate. Who ARE the decision maker? Stop trying to be the (cheapest/most technically sound/ easiest to use) because someone you trust in the sales process has told you that's their goal. The truth is it's a little of this this and little of that. If you don't have two or three people or at least a strong case as to why there is only one person that you've pleased enough, then you're likely to risk the sales process.

Your goal is not to be the cheapest vendor, but inexpensive enough. Enough so that person in the room that manages budgets and projects is willing to work with the other person in the room trying to deliver some sort of technical result. Enough so that this person also feels your product/service is technical enough or delivers the desired result. This is an overgeneralized example. So who is are the decision maker then? Well, do the leg work and find out by building a process.

Philosophy:
The philosophy is called "3D". These principles drive system ensuring that it works

Duality - ensuring that you are using triangulation (to find out who is buying) and benchmarks (to give color as to why they are buying) in order to find the decision makers behind the decision maker.

Documentation - ensuring you have a documentation tool to code the maturity of the sales opportunity cycle and capture content to justify that coding.

Discipline - submitting to some form of accountability mechanism (person or report) and SLA (service level) in order to ensure appropriate action within appropriate time to ensure that steps are not missed or acted on too late.

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The System
This system was devised to either avert a lost sale by being able to see missing pieces of the picture before they harm the sales cycle or to provide intelligence on non sales related issues that have caused a lost sales cycle.

*Triangulate (CRM requirement) Open Cycle (OC)
the decision making process to ensure that you have found the top three values and value holders in order to talk to the decision maker community. I use a formula that says OG*P + U + I / IG =DM

Organizational Goal times Power plus User plus Influencer divided by Individual Goals = Decision Maker.

Create fields that force you to answer all of these questions

Mid Cycle (MC)
Propose and pose (Sales professional requirement)

Individually summarize and confirm the desires of the triangle group verbally and give them a loose verbal proposal based on initial stated needs. Record this in your CRM or spreadsheet or where ever you're documenting this and then go to work. Ask the tough questions as you put together your final proposal.

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*Mature (CRM requirement) Benchmarks 1-6

In order to rank how mature the sales cycle is you take the intelligence and knowledge about recent wins and losses and boil them down to the key questions. Wins = why and why you. Losses = the most key tough questions you asked yourself after these losses that you should ask yourself during a sales process. Write every single thing you know down and find the common themes for all of them and then find five to ten questions that are essential and make these your benchmarks. Put them in your CRM and then based on how much of the picture (or how many of the questions you have answered) rank the cycle higher and the probability of closing it stronger for each piece of the information you have. (for forecasting reasons)

Example:
(Created fields)
BM1 = Alignment (three fields) (Asked and answered: anxiety question / vision match / differentiators)
BM2 = Competitive intelligence information (strength and weaknesses) important to this sales cycle in particular, and as asked from the prospect and known about generally.

BM3 = Buying process (understanding of the client purchasing process from beginning to end, the "the who's and hows")

BM4 = Action item client / date (action item agreed upon at the conclusion of last meeting and date to be delivered)
BM5 = Action item sales / date (action item agreed upon at the conclusion of last meeting and date to be delivered)
BM6 = Plan (Three fields) (presentation meeting date with triangle group, mutually agreed upon delivery date of contract, client stated goal for acquisition or start date)

Benchmark ranking metrics:

% Probability of closing sale
% Amount of total estimated sale in funnel

              1 completed = 15%
2 completed = 25%
              3 completed = 50%
4 completed = 75%
              5 completed = 85%
        6 completed = 100% of total estimated sale is committed

Formula: AP - C x BP + CP = WS

Aligned Prospect minus Competitor times Buying Process plus Closing Plan = Won Sale

Assumption: Most good sales people do not use a methodology and are still able land one in four potentials forecasted, which accounts for 25% of the total value of their pipeline. This system is designed to accurately forecast the total maturity of individual sales cycles and the predictable sum value of your total pipeline simultaneously. To provide a micro and a macro picture of your pipeline and a good individual understanding of the pieces and parts inside the technical sales process.

(Example: I have a potential in my funnel that only has three benchmarks completed. The deal is estimated at 100K. There is a 50/50 chance that the deal will fall through, and only 50K is also forecastable)

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Closed Cycle (CC)
Propose and close (Sales professional requirement)

(8Check boxes)
boxes next to each date field in BM^checked as completed.

(Two final boxes for CW/Closed Won or CL/closed lost)

This is obviously a starting point for a methodology and not a fully fleshed out system, but if you take the principles and apply them to your culture and CRM then I'm confident there will be marginal improvements to your sales closing ratio and relationship development.

Naithan Jones

all contents of this blog are the copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

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What can Chef Ramsey's kitchen teach us about business and sales?

2010-06-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm originally from the U.K. and my brother has been a chef for the past twenty five years. When we get together to spend time and watch television,and inevitably the channel either ends up on a European motor sports broadcast or a repeat of a previously aired "Kitchen Nightmares" reality program. This show, for those not familiar with it, follows a world renowned chef named Gordon Ramsey around as he surprises failing restaurants and their owners by showing up on their door to consult them on what's wrong with their business. Inevitably there's a battle of wills between Gordon and owner due to some sort of misguided and stubborn commitment to the owners original, and failing, vision for how to sell food. After finally succumbing and listening to Gordon, and after some bumps in the road they always turn it round by the end of the hour. Gordon is not pleasant. He's brash, vulgar, loud, to the point, and most importantly, he's always, and I mean always right.

After watching an episode this past evening the topic of conversation switched to business and sales, and how everything that Chef Ramsey does to quickly turn a failing kitchen around is fairly analogous to any failing sales process or under performing business. I wrote this entry to list the recurring themes that stand out as sound best practices for sales and business from Chef Ramsey.

For sake of analogy, lets view the greeters and menu as the marketing materials (or PDF slicks, websites, etc.), the kitchen is the back office, the food is products (if you sell those) and the service are services (if you sell those).

KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid
One of the first issues Chef Ramsey seems to find consistently is a bad menu, and usually bad is quantified as a menu that's too large. Whether the food is good or bad, the customer has no idea what you do well. This puts the kitchen in a position where it cannot run efficiently due the scope of ingredients and diversity of orders, and there is waste as a result due to overstock of wide variants of ingredients needed to support the menu. Customers suffer long waits, the Kitchen gets backed up and confused, and the food is delivered poorly. Chef Ramsey invariably throws out the hodge podge menu and starts again with a paired down menu. He identifies where the restaurant is geographically and targets it's core buyer demographic. He builds a new small and targeted menu that's easy to market, easy for the service to remember and thus sell, simple for the kitchen deliver, and in the end all of this ends up for a product that will be sold much more, and will bring the customer back. He gives the place a (GASP) identity.

What is you vision?
You better know the answer, because your prospect will eventually ask. Understanding your client's mission and how your vision supplements that is the key to understanding how "KISS" applies. Vision > Features + Substance > Style = Identity. One of the biggest reasons for sales funnel degradation is that our buyers really don't see us as clearly as we think they do, and that's because we've committed to selling features instead of selling vision and subsequently forfeiting a chance to build an identity with our client. This mistake leads to vendor white noise and eventually a choice made by price only and not necessarily by overall fit. Good news if you're the cheapest, but you won't always be, and eventually your client will figure out you don't have a vision and go elsewhere. As an overall business or as an individual sales person we should pick four or five things that target a theme and that you can do well and that you can master selling. In our world as sales people this means find the industry vertical where your product has the biggest sweet spot, identify the role in that vertical that typically spends on your offering and then find out what they bought, why they bought in the past and why they would buy it again, and guess what? There is your menu. It should be no more than four or five things. Get the orders that sell and that the kitchen is good at making quickly out of the kitchen fast. Really simple isn't it, stupid?

I personally believe these two things that Chef Ramsey emphasizes are directly analogous to most businesses and sales processes.

The art of prospecting IT managers and executives via email

2010-02-02T09:33:00.001-08:00

The art of prospecting IT managers and executives via email

I recently had some sales executives ask me about my high success rate for gaining time on calendars that are usually too busy to accept meetings with sales people and vendors in general. I took a moment and documented my strategy. Live conversation is the most preferable means of prospecting anyone, but when live conversation isn't available the only other option is email and not voicemail in my opinion. Here is high level breakdown of my success with this approach.

1. The assumptions

• Managers and executives receive an overwhelming volume of voicemail from vendors due to their close proximity to budgets and decisions. As a result your voicemail will become part of "Vendor White Noise" as written in this blog post: "Vendor white noise" why are you different and why should your buyers care

• For the reasons stated above, managers and executives do not check their own voice mail.

• The administrators that check their voice mails are instructed to delete voice mails like yours.

• Managers and executives are constantly in meetings.

• Managers and executives do check their own emails usually during meetings and usually via media device or PDA.

• For these reasons personalized and specific email is the most effective static message based prospecting tool for managers and executives.

2. The tactics

• If you're asked to leave a voice mail by the admin, ask for an email address instead and qualify the request with a sympathetic remark about voice mail volume.

• If you cannot acquire the email from the admin then ask for her to leave a written note.

• If your request for a written note is rebuffed then ask if it is OK to call back at a more suitable time, ask what that suitable time is, and then set your CRM activity manager or outlook reminder for that time.

• You still need that email address, so the next thing to do is to guess the persons email address by using other email addresses in the company as a guide to how this persons email address is likely written.

3. The cautions

• Know your value proposition inside and out and be able to communicate it in a concise way.

• Have an objective and an agenda for your first meeting with this target that does not include selling.

• Do not attach any documents to your email because they are cumbersome to PDA's and are also considered taboo when sending someone an email who you dont know. If they reply and request more information then is the time to attach one or two at the most of the most relevant documents about your company.

• Remove your signature, it is also cumbersome to PDA devices. replace with a PDA friendly text tag with your name, company name and one link to your website beneath that.

• The purpose of the email is to get an appointment not to continue the conversation via email. Do not get pulled into an email exchange about your service/product if you can help it. Always defer back to meeting at a defined time to discuss the subject fully, again emphasizing 15 minutes as the time investment.

• Do not engage in mass mailing list marketing emails. Mass email programs serve a purpose for the marketing and brand development portions of a company but not for individual sales executives. The individual sales executive should never send out mass emails themselves from their email address as this can hurt their chances more than help them. They should only send out personalized well researched email specific to who they are targeting.

4. Knowing how to write the prospecting email that executives will read: (The most important part)

Example email

Subject:

“your decision on (their company name’s) IT off shoring Q2 2010” (using a date in subject helps to get by spam filters)

“your panel discussion at the IT works conference, November 2009” (get this information from Googling their name)

“Congratulations on your promotion Jeff” (get this information from the local business Journal online or linked in)

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Blog note: Dare I say that the subject line is the most important part of your email. If your subject line isn't personal to them and their role in some way then the chances are they will not read this email)

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Email Body: The body should be very brief and to the point with a quick value proposition and then it is more likely that your emails contents and it's objective will be read (keep it below 4 short sentences). This is so that your pitch can be read on one screen quickly without them having to scroll, which they will likely not do.

Example:

“(Persons name)

Good morning/afternoon, (Person). (reference the subject line with a brief sentence here). Do you have time available on your calendar in the next few weeks for a short 15 minute introduction?

(my company name here) is a (three words that describe what your company does), with a unique focus on (three to five words that describe how you do it). Our clients tell us that we provide value to them by (short sentence that describes the unique way in which you do what you do that distinguishes you from your competitors without mentioning competitors directly or indirectly)

Do you have 15 minutes (and no more) available in the next two weeks to meet?”

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There you have it. I welcome who ever reads this blog to try these approaches and then to comment back on their thoughts.

Cheers,

Naithan C. Jones

All contents of this blog are the copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

What is the culture of a high performance sales organization?

2010-01-15T13:38:00.000-08:00

Why do some sales organizations continually achieve high levels of performance output despite change in their line of business, or in their organization? A lot of it is culture in my opinion.

There are several cultural factors that contribute to successful sales teams.

Organization:

I feel there isn't enough focus on personality and worldview in the hiring process. A lot more weight gets placed on degrees, even degrees that are non germane to the role. From my experience interviewing candidates I have rarely felt that the answer to "why do you want to be in sales, and why do you want to sell this?" has been sufficiently answered with the correct vision statement or ethic.

When I interview, only 10% of my interview process covers experience. Experience is very easy to see on the resume. Instead I focus on, what books are they reading and why? I ask them where do they want to go and travel and why? I ask them to give me interesting examples of overcoming adversity in their personal life. I ask them what their sense of purpose is. I ask about the civic and social organization they have been a part of. I ask about what sports or team dependent hobbies they have been a part of. I then ask for references from one of these teams and organizations and not from their pre-written reference sheet.

There is a reason I do this.

Personally I have found that people who love to travel, have a fondness for sociology and human behavior, are very driven by the approval of others, a curious person by nature that investigates themselves critically first, and generally have a positive attitude about risk are more likely to do well in a B2B or enterprise sales role.

I also feel that there seems to be an incorrect assumption that good account executives will make good managers. This is not a good assumption. To manage the personalities that are successful in these roles I think you obviously should be somewhat practiced and achieved in the role, yes, but I don't necessarily think the leader should come from the top sales person of the year or the presidents club winner. Instead, I think you have to observe a sales team for a while. You look at your most successful teams and you look at every member of those teams. You look for the person that seems to be the calming force and the person that people trust on that team. When it is a panicked time and everyone is lamenting change, who calms this situation and provides the team with strategy and objective reason to build on. Consistently. In many cases this is your next leader.

Competency/Skillsets:

For many of the reasons stated above I don't think there is an understanding of how to develop good sales people. To develop a good sales person, first you have to see how much they love sociology and human behavior. If a person does not crave to learn about human behavior and why people behave in certain ways then I think that is a problem that must be overcome.

You start with an account executive eager to understand why people will (extend your cold call longer than 10 seconds, accept an appointment, accept a follow up appointment) and why particularly for them and their own style can these things be improved. You start with things like preparation, proper pre call planning, proper presentation planning.

some samples of things I do to help my culture.

I will not allow my reps to use power point longer than four slides. (agenda, two slides with graphical representation maximum pertinent and pertinent to the topic, close). I ask them to write their notes like a report and email it to clients after the presentation.

I want my sales reps, not the technology, engaging the client. The newer reps suffer more from this reliance than some of the more seasoned ones.

this forces the rep to develop as a presenter and to stand out from other competitors.

Why don't I allow PPT more than 4 slides? 1. Because it takes the audiences eyes off of the presenter. 2. Because it makes lazy presenters that read from the script 3. Because clients see power points from vendors all of the time 4. Because clients have to sit through many ppt. presentations within their own company.

I do not allow selling of product over the phone.

They are only allowed to sell the value proposition over the phone and they are selling an appointment. Relationships make sales. I want my reps selling our services in person. I want them to shake hands with the people they are selling to and I do this again to stress the importance of engaging a client and understanding what they are trying to achieve. My ethic is that "sales are a mere byproduct of a correctly focused relationship".

I don't want to come across as trying to be an authority, and this example blog is certainly anecdotal. I find many of the experiences and conclusions I hold in this entry to hold very true though.

all contents of this blog are copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

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12 philosophies for each month the year (Quick Entry)

2010-01-07T13:56:00.001-08:00

1. Don't take yourself too seriously and others will.

2. Don’t take others as seriously as they take themselves and they will respect you (if not immediately, eventually)

3. Delay imminent failure long enough to outlast it.

4. The first step to being a leader is to be yourself without apologizing.

5. If you don’t like the conversation, change the subject. (sales)

6. Say nothing, but look as if you’ve said everything. (leadership)

7. Fix it first, apologize after. (leadership)

8. Your biggest successes and failures are hidden in the things that will cost you the most to replace that you also pay the least attention to currently.

9. The best question you can ask yourself perpetually is "why is this important and why is it the most important thing right this second". (personal ethics and business data analysis)

10. People cannot validate success or achievement, only the achievement itself can do that. (business ethic)

11. document everything.

12. It's better to be always strong and sometimes wrong, than always right and sometimes weak. . . . . . . Lead with conviction and passion always and people will follow you.

all contents of this blog are copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

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A loss prevention styled risk management program for client retention

2009-11-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

Or at least the initial wireframe recipe for such a thing. I’ve often wondered that if businesses viewed client loss through the eyes of risk what it would look like and how it could change the culture of business. Here is my attempt at the beginnings of such a program in theory.

Understand the costs associated with retaining a revenue generating client versus the costs of replacing the revenue a client generates to understand the efficiency of the predicting factors and contributors of client loss.

1. Identify the top risks and threats that cause client erosion
Competitors
Buyer change (org, title, power)
Market change
Maturity (product or service is outpaced by org maturity and ceases to be relevant)
Financial challenges
Broken relationship

2. Identify “stop valves” for number 1
Competitive weakness
New buyer relationships
Market change management
Product or service delivery
Creative pricing models
Relationship management

3. Identify “tools”
Competitive intelligence
Client Relationship Management
Market intelligence
Product or service development
Empowered pricing liaisons
CRM and smart metrics

Create a strategy and place an agreed upon goal for each business unit involved as the “playbook”

Build cross silo information sharing and collaboration program as a “playing field”

Set goals based on trending percentages and improvement targets as the “score board”.

create stakes for the winners and losers via scoreboard results.

wash, rinse, repeat.

all contents of this blog are copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

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Maturity Model For Client/Vendor Relationships

2009-09-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

Click on image to see in fullsize view of maturity model

The Raisin Wine Client/Vendor Relationship Maturity Model 1.0

I’ve long used maturity models to help me understand the development profile of business initiatives. I likewise have never found one for sales or relationship management MM that I thought was practical for what has proven itself to be “mature” through experience and results over time. I took a few minutes to rough sketch what I think a good maturity model for enterprise and specifically what enterprise IT services and products should look like from both a vendor and client standpoint.

1. Unengaged.
Potential or former client is unaware of your ability to deliver to their initiatives and has not been contacted by your organization. Contact has been infrequent, limited, or null with key stakeholders within the *PBI. Key initiatives are unknown and undocumented in CRM. In this stage there is likely to be a misunderstanding of your value proposition and where your offering sits. There is likely to be a commoditization of your offerings and your buyer will relegate your name to processes that are managed by vendor relations organizations (Ex: RFI/RFP)

2. Aware
Potential or former client has a peripheral understanding of your offering and its ability to deliver value to their initiative. Contact has been made with at least one person within the *PBI group . Surface level understanding of the initiatives has been gained. The ability to deliver value to this initiative has also been relayed to this person/s. These understandings have been documented in CRM and the proper resources have been identified. Relationship organization has actively identified an opportunity on the horizon and forecasted it. Understanding of potential client organization is chaotic and confusing. This includes an immature understanding of how the organization purchases or how the final approval steps work. The relationship organization is only focused on sales from the micro level. A macro level understanding of the relationship has not yet blossomed. Focus is 50% achieved.

3. Engaged
Potential or former client has interviewed your organization. Your relationship organization has engaged this organization in trust building exercises in order to deliver the value proposition of your offering to the *PBI group. There is a full understanding of the value that your offering provides to their initiatives and why it is unique from your competitor’s. Relationship management is maturing. There is a clear understanding of the roles in the *PBI group and who has the final authority to approve buying. These understandings are documented in the CRM. The relationship organization is properly coached on the strategy best suited to deliver your unique value to this initiative. Both organizations are focused on understanding how to sell and how to consume this offering properly. Full focus is achieved.

4. Supported
Potential or former client becomes existing client. Vendor relationship begins. Honeymoon period exists between vendor and client. Relationship organization begins to transition some of the day to day relationship to the delivery organization. Macro level relationship management begins. Offering is delivered and supported. Initial results are analyzed and discussed. Client feedback is documented in CRM and proper support is initialized. Honeymoon stage wanes slightly and encounters challenges. The *PBI expectations are managed.

5. Customized
Client culture and expectations has been fully learned. Offering and delivery of offering has been customized to client initiatives more directly. Relationship organization has started to deliver to organization specific needs. Introduction to the decision processes in highest levels of power and influence in the business begins.

6. Managed
Client is fully managed with dedicated support, relationship and offerings. Vendor is partnered with client. Vendor organization has distinguished itself. Trust has been gained through consistent and valuable response of support and relationship organizations. Vendor is now attached to client business cycle and business model . Perception of vendor is “trusted partner” that is an integral part of client business model.

*Power, Budget, Influence

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CRM: The enemy of sales and business development

2009-08-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

The title of this entry is a little provocative, I know that. It should say something like "improperly focused CRM initiatives, the enemy of proper business development activities", or "poor understanding of effective business development processes and behaviors are the cause of ineffectual CRM initiatives", but both of those titles were a little too wordy for a subject line so I went with what's there. In any case let's get to the meat of this blog post before we lose the plot.

Some of you who know me know that I am not a fan of stats for stats sake. However, the following stat pretty much underlines a suspicion of mine. Gartner analyst Robert DeSisto was quoted as saying that "As many as 85% of companies that buy CRM software to automate sales efforts don't pick the right tools because they fail to define business objectives or develop processes for meeting objectives."

That's probably right on the mark, the reasons are legion, and seeing as though I have a deep and unexplainable affection for lists and bullet points, I am going to list why I believe this to be true.

1. Most mainstream "out of the box" and hosted CRM applications are not CRM's at all. They are a hodge podge of reporting and data entry widgets thrown together. A true CRM defines what a good business producing relationship looks like and then provides a structured place to guide the development of that relationship with data as a partner and not a surrogate to the relationship. If the sales people see CRM as a chore that doesn't benefit them, guess what? They won't adopt it, some will be unduly disciplined for a bad investment that someone else made, and eventually CRM will fail.

Build your methodology before you build your CRM. I say again, build your methodology before you build your CRM. It should start quality before quantity. Build your client relationship philosophy before building your methodology. Write your mission statement for the sales organization before you write your client relationship philosophy. (this statement should match your value proposition for what your business does). You can't begin a good CRM without addressing it through these steps.

I am not talking about activity metrics, I am talking about a methodology that tells you the health of existing clients and the health of new business opportunities or "new relationships". Take existing healthy clients and reverse engineer how they became such loyal and healthy client relationships and the key behaviors that developed that profile and build metrics for that. This will reward properly focused client behavior and not just doing activity for activities sake which can lead to scorched earth territories and sales force churn. This is the kind of data that will help sales, marketing and sales management know exactly how mature an opportunity or existing client relationship is and to forecast accurately. It will also help to socialize the concept of CRM due to it's ability to help the sales professionals understand their business, and hence they will adopt it.

2. Homegrown CRM initiatives fail for exactly the same reason that out of the box CRM initiatives do and also for other reasons.

The main reason this happens is because they fail to listen to what sales is telling them and instead listen to what stats are telling them. This is a mistake and I am going to write a separate blog post on this. Use the input of the sales organization to tell you what's important, use stats to tell you HOW important those things are and how to prioritize them. Relying on stats for business intelligence is what organizations do when they have lost vision and do not have leaders in place that are secure enough to empower their sales organization. Don't do that. They are your business.

3. Simplicity and cleanliness is key.

More data is not necessarily better data. The issue I have with alot of CRM tools is that I don't know which information will help me sell or analyze my business mainly because I have to sift through too much interesting but non critical data and enter too much non critical information. This in turn takes me out of my role, which is selling or running a businesst. Whittle your CRM down to only the essential business and relationship impacting information and get rid of all of the rest. Most CRM tools are probably 70% to 80% overweight with reporting tools that are an impediment to production and whats worse is that many organizations make the mistake of requiring the use of unnecessary reporting tools in the CRM as a key indicator to professional performance. Too much information, too hard to pull a meaningful report and too much data and information to be useful to managers, business analysts or most importantly use in the sales process. Guess what sales people won't use it and your investment has a higher chance of failure.

I welcome comments to this blog entry.

all contents of this blog are copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

"Vendor white noise" why are you different and why should your buyers care?

2009-08-21T14:03:00.000-07:00

Information Technology vendors and those that support their efforts face an ultra competitive market filled with hundreds of thousands of vendors competing for the ear of their buyers. A common mistake in crowded markets is to approach your buyer in the same way your competitors are. You might read that and say "well thanks for the obvious tip sherlock" but let me explain. There are some common mistakes that many organizations and sales people make that actually put them deeper into the sea of white noise, when their intent was to use the tactic to separate themselves. Here are some basic do's and don'ts.

Don'ts:

1. Value added features do not resonate with buyers. They look at it like another feature. Buyers don't purchase strategic products and services because they have more bells and whistles they buy because it fits their objective or initiative attached to that objective. You may think that by telling a story about how your product is different with a feature will resonate but it will actually make you look like you are selling and obscure your message. You should have one message and it should directly relate to the one thing in your offering that addresses their core need. To become successful in their role and fulfill a task related to that.

2. "Soft Savings". Do not ever use this term in relation to your product or service and do not try to present case studies for it. It implies several negative things. One: that your offering is overpriced and that you are compensating. Two: that you are not fully engaged with the core reason why they want the product or service in the first place, and three: that "soft savings" are nothing more than a trojan horse in a conversation in which you have commodotized your offering unnecessarily.

3. FUD (Fear uncertainty and doubt). A great many use this as a way to sell IT and it is an inherently flawed approach to a professional discipline like IT. For one, senior managers recognize it more and more and see it as a low brow and insulting way to sell to them. They know the risks of failure in their organization much better than you ever will and they don't need to be "warned" or given stats on dooms day events if they don't use your service specifically. They are smart enough to be in the positions they are in. A better approach is to attach your offering to their success and not their failure. Human psychology works in that anything you relate to your concept will inevitably bring about those emotions whenever that concept is seen. Why would you want your name associated with fear and failure every time an email or voicemail with your name or offering on it appears in front of your buyer?

Do's

1. Ask what will make your client successful. Marketing managers should write value propositions that address these desires if there are core themes that arise in your core buyer by role. Sales should find the key elements of the offering or service that relate to that component of their personal success and ONLY talk about that part of the offering. Why? Because that's the value to your buyer not anything else. caution: It is never price, even if they say that it is. You're either talking to the wrong person or you panicked and didn't sell to the value.

2. Do you know your buyer? Efficiency is key, success is about qualified relationships and quantified relationships. Do VH targeting exercise. Draw a line horizontal and one vertical. What is your key vertical industry demographic and then what is your key horizontal role and job title inside of that vertical. Then with brevity write and rehearse a value proposition that speaks to that person and their success and learn how to talk to that person. Profile him. Chances are this person buys the most and buys the fastest, and your offering helps him, which is why we do this. At least it's why I do it.

3. Spend time building relationships not sales funnels. Business is a byproduct of relationship building.

I hope these keys serve you well.

Naithan Jones

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When does "selling value" as a concept become more than just a tired cliche'

2009-07-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

Micro entry here:

"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten."
- Larry Anderson

For years now technology buyers have been sold on "the value" of products and services by providers and wanna be's. It's reasonable to assume that the market place is numb to such superfluous and lofty claims anymore. My opinion exists mainly because we as technology providers never substantiate such claims with "skin in the game" or to put it more plainly, with a stake of our own in it.

Why not lead with the stake and not the promise? Why not start your offering at the ROI instead of ending it there? Well, an MBA or business analyst would say that's madness and is a gamble you are sure to lose as an organization, I say that's conventional thinking, and those who know me can attest for my searing hatred of "conventional thinking". I say to those who think such a thing, that the burden is on you to prove me wrong and not vice versa.

A challenge for a sales professional or leader out there. Set a clear objective with a client, any client, and dare then to hold you to it. Then over deliver and prove to them that you over delivered. Build a vehicle for delivery so that you can do it efficiently and with good organization. I have a methodology for such a thing that I won't share here, but come up with your own and prove it out. Through the process find out what does and doesn't work and then refine that process, and then take it to another client.

Build a business delivery model around ROI not around your offering. This is what will seperate you from the white noise of vendors in your space.

all contents of this blog are copyrighted property of Naithan Jones

IT Versus "The Business"?

2009-06-23T20:02:00.000-07:00

Really? What?

I grew up in Europe. Two years were spent living on a vineyard on the Mosel river somewhere close to Trier. During harvest season my family and I helped to harvest (unvive) the grapes for the beginning of the fermenting process. The tool that was handed me a vineyard knife or a pruning razor as some call it. I didn't know how to use it and didn't care for it very much. I tried instead to pick my share via hand. This ended up being both painful and slow. After some time I had fallen back behind the pack and my parents were well up the hill. The uncomfortable lesson, a misunderstanding of tools will cause you to use processes that you know well out of comfort, and in the process slow you down and eventually cause you to dread the tool more and experience pain.

I say all of that to say this. IT is a pruning razor. Yet we have business executives and their colleagues, line managers, railing on IT for no good reason other than to say "hey it feels unfamiliar to use you and it is hard to use you, so we would rather endure pain than to do it, but (hold your breath here) we're going to blame you when we fall behind". Is there much logic here?

You're likely wondering where this all came from and how it relates to IT sales. I'll get to that, just stay tuned. I ran across a blog post from a blogger Susan Cramm a former CIO whom I typically enjoy reading on her Harvard Business Review blog. She's witty, insightful, and at times provocative. This is certainly one of her provocative moments as she rails on technologists for getting in the way of those real business leaders doing the all important job of, you know, actually running a business. Her blog post "8 things we hate about IT" Can be seen here: The 8 things we hate about IT

I assume for now that she is referring to the royal we.

My response to this:

There seem to be certain industries that are notorious to blame IT for their own lack of desire to include IT as a strategic partner in the business mission. Yes, I realize that's a sweeping generalization and it doesn't always hold true.

There seems to be a pervasive “cost center” mentality placed on IT from executives in certain organizations, and then a resulting passive animosity that seethes below the surface and emanates from the line managers and their teams or the user groups and communities within production sectors of the business.

The “8 things they hate about IT” are really the 8 things they hate about their culture. IT is merely reflection of the approach to innovation and agility within these businesses.

Typically there is a poor understanding of who and what it is and typically the complaints are coming from an entity that as a culture only notices IT when they “get in the way”.

However, there are companies that have not only embraced IT as a strategic partner to the business but have used IT as the chief enabler via components like BPM/BPO, Architecture, Applications (CRM/Portals/ECM) etc. We have seen CEO's leverage these practices to great gain in productivity and output as well as positive organizational change. This has all been documented and proven via legit measurements that have been tied directly back to IT as the leading driver. This isn't 1997 anymore, IT has (ahem cough cough), arrived and has a ticket to the dance.

Companies that have followed this path have also have created channels within IT and cross functional project managers to align IT tightly with business and the user communities and hence these are the companies that the HBR writes about frequently in it’s blog posts about innovation ironically enough.

I'm going to write another post about how the best and brightest business people are coming out of business leadership roles more and more and migrating into management roles in IT. More and more CIO's are coming from the financial or operations segments of the business (so says Gartner and other industry research firms). This is like I said, a topic for another day though.

The key here: It sales leaders - key in on business enablement and especially in organizations that have just made leadership changes in a strategic manner and are looking to innovate. Key in on strategic business initiatives and try as much as possible to understand and learn the why's wheres and how to's about these initiative and then find out the role your client in IT is playing in these initiatives. Even if it doesn't impact what you can sell them, so what. If you can demonstrate your desire to closely understand the change that your client is enduring when the time comes for them to utilize what you offer as a piece of their tactical toolkit it doesn't become a sale or an RFP it becomes what I rail about alot, a "natural byproduct of a correctly focused relationship".

Cheers!

Chief Federal Technologist tells IT to lead us out of the mess

2009-06-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

I want to first say that as much as possible I will leave political leanings out of this blog for the risk of muddying the waters. That being said, this administrations seems to have a focus on IT and that can't be a bad thing for all of us who have staked our career in technology. The words this week from Obama's executive technologist seem to point to a direction and a focus.

Chopra speaks to information week, here:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=JKAG3ZGYDGEJYQSNDLOSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=217801252

My comments:

Chopra is keen and understands something very basic, that IT has matured past cost center stigmas and up to business enabler outside of just enterprise and into SMB. With the advent of Cloud and other forms of infrastructure as a service IT has a real potential to create innovative and productive IT. Daryl Plummer of Gartner writes about it in his blog here: http://blogs.gartner.com/daryl_plummer/2009/05/24/can-the-cloud-return-us-to-growth/

The key for Technology widgets based companies will likely be the ability to transform themselves into a services based model or at least the perception of such. IT executives are increasingly looking to innovative service models that allow them to deliver IT in a strategic manner instead of like a commodity. If the CIO sees IT as strategic, likely the businesses will as well.

The days of pushing a box are reaching limited returns. Everyone does that and all of the competitive white noise has been heard over and over again. There really is no reason for the US to be a manufacturing economy anymore in this era, as long as we invest in technology leadership and set the tone and course for the rest of the world with IT thought leadership then at the end of the day the same goal is achieved, we have value to add to the global economy in a way that can replace an assembly plants input to output in the economy by x2 or more.

The question is, who will find the right raisins to add to this maturing and fermenting market that is emerging? and how can we leverage the value propositions of this new infrastructure into something that tells a story to business?

We will all have find out how to do this.

all contents of this blog are copyrighted property of Naithan Jones