Month: March 2010

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Improve Your Sales Demos

Looking to Improve Your Sales Demos?? Effective sales demonstrations are one of the most important pieces to progressing your opportunity forward in the sales cycle.  Software vendors who already have an in-house demo environment for their Sales Engineers may feel that they have all of the bases covered…. Wait, you may also want to consider that you software solution may be a point solution in the grande scale of all of the business applications required by an organization.  In economic times that are much more difficult to sell in,  it is even that much more important to show off much more compelling demos.   SO….. a great hosted service for companies looking to demonstrate their software solution integrating to other systems is Skytap.

Skytap offers web based access to vmware images and data centers so that your Sales Engineers can book configure a custom environment for their demonstrations.  Take a look at your Sales Engineering organization and spend some time looking at Skytap to help improve your sales demos!


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Some Japanese Buddhist proverbs too big for Twitter

Seeing as the trend lately is to over-think the obvious…

Some Japanese Buddhist proverbs too big for Twitter:

– All evil done clings to the body.
(The consequence of any evil act or thought never,–so long as karma endures,–will cease to act upon the existence of the person guilty of it.)
– Better to shave the heart than to shave the head.
(Buddhist nuns and priests have their heads completely shaven. The proverb signifies that it is better to correct the heart,–to conquer all vain regrets and desires,–than to become a religious. In common parlance the phrase “to shave the head” means to become a monk or a nun.)
– Meeting is only the beginning of separation.
(Regret and desire are equally vain in this world of impermanency; for all joy is the beginning of an experience that must have its pain. This proverb refers directly to the sutra-text,–Shôja hitsumetsu é-sha-jori,–“All that live must surely die; and all that meet will surely part.”)
– All things are merely dreams.
(Literally, “ten thousand things.”)
– Even a common man by obtaining knowledge becomes a Buddha.
(The only real differences of condition are differences in knowledge of the highest truth.)
– All lust is grief.
(All sensual desire invariably brings sorrow.) <- sounds like Tom, eh? :)
– One must go outside to hear Buddhist doctrine or the sound of rain on a straw roof.
(There is an allusion here to the condition of the shukké (priest): literally, “one who has left his house.” The proverb suggests that the higher truths of Buddhism cannot be acquired by those who continue to live in the world of follies and desires.)
– Out of karma-relation even the divine nature itself grows.
(There is good as well as bad karma. Whatever happiness we enjoy is not less a consequence of the acts and thoughts of previous lives, than is any misfortune that comes to us. Every good thought and act contributes to the evolution of the Buddha-nature within each of us.) <- sounds like Sharon now, eh? :)
– Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon’s reflection on water.
(Allusion to a parable, said to have been related by the Buddha himself, about some monkeys who found a well under a tree, and mistook for reality the image of the moon in the water. They resolved to seize the bright apparition. One monkey suspended himself by the tail from a branch overhanging the well, a second monkey clung to the first, a third to the second, a fourth to the third, and so on,–till the long chain of bodies had almost reached the water. Suddenly the branch broke under the unaccustomed weight; and all the monkeys were drowned.) <- I love a happy ending… :)
– To save folk having no karma-relation would be difficult indeed!
(No karma-relation would mean an utter absence of merit as well as of demerit.)

..and my favorite of this first bunch:

The priest who preaches foul doctrine shall be reborn as a fungus.

(no explanation needed!)

Beware false prophets, for they are “fungus among us“…

pat
:)

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The End of the In-Person Sales Kick-Off Event?

Due to the significant economic downturn in 2009, some companies have replaced their large in-person sales kickoff meetings, and even many of their training sessions, with virtual meetings. How effective are these virtual meetings? Do they impact sales productivity? Is it really worth giving up the Las Vegas or Florida gathering altogether?

Here is some anecdotal insight from some of my Sales Advisory Service clients in response to these types of questions:

  • “We had a virtual kickoff last year. It was extremely painful: Logistics were difficult, our regular speakers were not dynamic enough in front of a camera for the virtual audience, and we weren’t able to replicate the in-person networking and bonding. Next year we’re returning to an in-person sales kickoff event.”
  • “We are planning a virtual event for later this year.”
  • “We leverage 100% virtual training for new hires, and we’re considering extending this to our kickoff meetings.”

Although several companies indicate negative results for the success of their virtual sales events, there is no question that the use of virtual events will play a greater role among sales organizations for training their teams. Drivers are obvious, including the reduced costs for travel and venue and the reduced time that sales folks spend traveling to events. Companies need to improve their ability to develop and execute these events; for example, invest in marketing of the event beforehand, develop a curriculum that is better suited for a virtual environment, and try not to replicate all aspects of an in-person event in a virtual environment.

However, don’t abandon the in-person events just yet. Spending 8 hours sitting in front of a computer attending a virtual, live event will not capture the full attention of your average sales rep. And if it does, that sales rep may be better off in a software development role versus sales. Direct, b-to-b sales people enjoy directi interaction with other human beings; especially those people that can help them reach and exceed quota. And regardless of the bad press that the large sales meetings get, they offer significant value to the sales organization in increasing and better leveraging tribal knowledge: return on your investment that cannot be replicated in a virtual environment.

Please feel free to share your experiences with virtual sales events below.

Copyright 2011 IDC. Complete articles may be reposted. Reproduction in part is forbidden unless specifically authorized. All rights reserved. Please contact IDC for information on republishing or web rights.
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Sales Enablement Not Working?? "Say It Ain’t So, Joe!"

Much focus has been given to the topic of sales enablement during the past couple of years by consultants, research firms, marketing and sales automation vendors, and marketing and sales operations teams. Not to mention the associated financial investment that accompanied these efforts. So with all of this attention to the discipline of sales enablement, how much of an impact has it had on sales’ relationships with customers?

First of all, here’s IDC’s definition of sales enablement to ensure that we’re all on the same page:

  • “The delivery of the right information to the right person at the right time in the right format and in the right place to assist in moving a specific sales opportunity forward”

As one of many indicators of sales enablement’s progress, IDC tracks IT buyer experience with sales and marketing teams on an annual basis. In early 2009 IDC’s Sales Advisory Service provided the following output from a survey of 200+ IT buyers: IT buyers indicated that over 50% of sales reps are unprepared for their initial customer meetings. (57% to be exact) The same buyers indicated that sales folks need to “put away the generic pitch” and engage in more of dialogue with customers. This is old data and not applicable any longer, right?

IDC recently completed an update of this study. IT buyers now indicate that ~54% of sales reps are unprepared for their initial customer meetings. A marginal improvement over 2009, if you could call it that. “Say It Ain’t So, Joe!” Why hasn’t all of our effort and investment in sales enablement paid off!

Well, bad economy aside, I do see some reasons why we aren’t seeing greater levels of improvement in this study year over year. Here are just a few of those reasons:

  1. This data is an average across all IT buyers surveyed, and includes IT buyers’ views on many different vendors; many of which have yet to even begin a comprehensive sales enablement initiative. A question for you. . . Are you surveying your specific customers to gauge their level of satisfaction with your sales teams’ knowledge?. . . . And gauging to what extent this impacts revenue, share of wallet, etc? How has this trended over time?
  2. Sales enablement initiatives are only in the early stages of execution. Many companies are just starting to put the right resources in place to support this effort, from a people, process and technology perspective. (contact me for a copy of a recently published document regarding guidance for a sales enablement organizational framework)
  3. Sales reps still need to be held accountable for leveraging all of the resources that a company provides to aid in their success. They say that “you can lead a horse to water, but can’t make it drink.” Well, the horse will eventually have to drink the water to survive.
  4. Sales enablement is not the panacea for all of sales’ productivity challenges. Other key elements for productivity improvements as detailed in IDC’s Sales Productivity Framework include: customer intelligence, sales management, sales methodologies and talent management.
  5. Let’s refocus our analysis on the customer. Customers are becoming more sophisticated about technology solutions and vendors prior to sales even having that first meeting; and IDC customer experience data proves this statement. Thereby increasing the importance of “Customer Enablement” before, during and after real-time customer engagement. Yes, marketing (corporate, product and field marketing) do matter. . . and more than ever.

Let’s be clear, sales enablement must remain a top priority for your organization in 2010, for sales and marketing. However, sales enablement should only be part of your overall strategy for sales productivity improvement; and development, execution and governance of these initiatives across large, complex organizations takes a lot more than one visionary and some great PowerPoint slides.

Please feel free to comment on this topic below as well as sharing what you’re seeing “in the field”.

Also, our Sales and CMO Advisory teams will be at the upcoming IDC Directions events in Boston, MA and Santa Clara, CA in the next couple of weeks, presenting more insight into how sales and marketing teams can improve their productivity and overall effectiveness. Go to the link above to find the agenda and more details!

Copyright 2011 IDC. Complete articles may be reposted. Reproduction in part is forbidden unless specifically authorized. All rights reserved. Please contact IDC for information on republishing or web rights.