I have been involved in several sales cycles for software and services over the last 11 years. It has usually been grueling affair trying to manage the whole process and working 80 hours week to bring it completion. Over the years, having worked in consulting and sales, I have come to the conclusion that selling is the most difficult task for an organization. I have grown to respect sales organization and the effort that they put to bring it to a closure, not only for their effort but also working in an environment of uncertainty.
This piece is not about the sales process but the support structure required making the sales process effective. The three key dimensions that organizations should focus on are Marketing, References/Case Studies and Customer Testimonials.
Customers have become savvier buyer of software and services over the years. Although some customers fall into the category of Leaders/Innovators, who are open to new ideas and willing to try out new innovative solutions, a great majority of them usually are followers who are primarily looking for success stories. Empowered with a list of references, the sales team can quickly gain the confidence of the buyer. Customers usually prefer references in similar solution areas and similar industries. References and case studies help to clear the first hurdle whether the experience of the software and services has been successful in a similar environment. It removes the first line of skepticism and the customer moves to the next step of analysis.
Once the references veil has been lifted the next thing the next step to bring the customer at ease is existing customer testimonials. In order to create a positive customer testimonial, three things has to be in place. The first one is a successful implementation and experience where the existing customer is willing to stand and vouch for the product and service. The second is a strong personality within the existing customer base who can help influence the community and the third a user community, blogs, discussion sites where the new customer can visit and gather perspectives. A positive customer testimonial goes a long way in increasing the effectiveness of sales process.
The Marketing organization in a software and services company holds a significantly important role is creating messaging and disseminating the message across the community. The first step for the marketing group is to create an effective and simple message that comprehensively describes the offerings that the company has to offer. The message should be simple and effective which the sales team can easily explain in a form of an elevator speech. The second step is to work with analyst and publications editors to get the message across. The analyst and publications are very powerful and have existing customer base that are eager to hear/read about the new solutions and practices. On several occasions when I have visited customers, we tend to discuss the new trends and technology. Customers would inevitably turn out some document that were written by analysts and would want to understand how our solutions fit into the model. Being in the top quadrant requires not only implementation successes but close alignment of the company’s message with the analyst. The other medium to disseminate the message is attending community conferences and organizations. Executives and managers attend conferences to listen to new trends and this is the best place where you can talk one-on-one in an outside location.
In summary – the Marketing, References and Customer Testimonials play a key role is enabling sales. The software and services SG&A are one of the highest in the industry. A small change in the effectiveness of the process can reduce the overall cost of sales and increase the margins.
Like to hear of other support organization and structures which will increase the sales effectiveness.
1 comment:
Sunil,
Seems like we have come to difference conclusions from our experience in selling when it comes to customer references and testimonials. Having sold as well as having been a customer of various services and software, my conclusions are customer references are more hygiene factors than anything else.
In other words, if you cannot produce some good names as references, chances are you are going to be severly handicapped.
However, if you do produce some good references, you are not going to get as high a mileage as you think. And that is because, rest assured that your competitor is also producing equal number of great references. How many sales cycles have you seen where your competitor has not shown some good references too? (my guess is many times you cried foul - that the competitor is twisting facts and so on - and that further goes to confuse the customer).
A related point is I have noticed that more and more customers have become reluctant to give references in general (in fact some of the larger corporations have very strict rules of what canbe said and what cannot be said). First, they believe they are open to liability if they "corroborate" or "promote" one vendor. Second, they do not want to talk any numbers since that would expose internal workings of the company.
Last year, when I was in the market to purchase certain services, I had three competitors presenting the same customer name as "references".
Anyways, I am highly suspect of the push that you get in a sales cycle thru these sales instruments. Not having them is dangerous though. Like I said, it is a hygiene factor today.
Rajib Roy
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