I just completed the slides for a webinar I’m giving tomorrow morning at 10am Pacific titled Product Launch Readiness: Planning for Sales Velocity.

The topic originated by asking the question, “Why do some products takeoff at launch (sorry, bad pun) and others appear to start strong and fizzle out like a lawn dart?”

I’ll address specific ways to stack the deck and create an environment that ensures Sales Velocity.

You won’t get any boring death by PowerPoint.  I’ve got lots of visual slides that will move quickly, so you will need to fasten your seatbelt and put your tray in the upright position.

To signup for the Planning for Sales Velocity webinar go here.  It will be recorded and available for playback on the same day.  I’ll write another post with the details when the recording is available.

with David Daniels
Instructor at Pragmatic Marketing

 

Lack of organizational readiness is the #1 killer of successful product launches. You’ve identified a market problem that is pervasive, urgent and the market is willing to buy. You’ve developed a great product that satisfies the need. You are ready to go to market, but are you confident that the rest of your organization ready to sell and support your new offering? You could easily lose an entire quarter or more while the rest of the organization catches up. Learn some of key secrets to a successful product launch that can set the stage for sales velocity.

Register here

I recently received an invitation to become a member of CLOSE - Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness. It looked interesting enough so I joined. After the registration process was complete I was presented with a page on the site and noticed a “True or False” item in the Daily Digest. The title was “Myth: Marketing Focus”. So I clicked. What the heck.

The True of False statement was “Marketing should focus on brochures, web site communication, and tradeshow management”. The myth was presented by Paul DiModica of DigitalHatch.

Paul’s answer? False. Good, I agree, continue reading…

Revenue is revenue. Marketing’s primary business responsibility should be creating qualified sales leads for Sales.

I took a look at the link provided to one of Paul’s articles and I agree with a lot of what Paul is saying in his article, but he’s dead wrong on this myth. Stating that Marketing’s primary business responsibility is creating qualified leads for Sales is the typical “I don’t really understand the role of marketing” response that I see from Sales.

Selling is a tactical activity. Always has, always will. Marketing is strategic. People who have the misfortunate title of VP of Sales and Marketing cannot possibly being doing both activities very well. More often than not the focus is on selling (naturally) and marketing becomes a sales support function, reacting to the whim of the sales force.

Marketing is strategic. Marketing’s primary business responsibility is to identify problems in the market and drive the development of products and services that solve those problems. Generating leads is just one of the myriad of tactical activities Marketing performs.

Oh, and by the way, does Sales ever agree that the leads are any good?

Failure to prepare the Sales team to sell should be a crime.  A lot of effort goes into the design and build of the product.  Marketing does its best to create demand.  Public Relations is working hard to get ink.  But is your sales team ready to sell?  Do they have the essential tools they will need to start closing business right away, or will they be left to their own devices to figure it out? Your organization could easily lose a quarter or more in lost revenue opportunity while this thrashing about is taking place.

It should be no surprise that the relationship between Sales and Marketing can be tenuous at best.  In some organizations it doesn’t matter how hard the Marketing team works to support the Sales team.  There always seems to be some complaint about how Marketing isn’t doing enough.  That dynamic has existed for years and will continue to exist into the future.  So my best advice is to get over it.  The objective is to sell more stuff, and everyone has to do whatever it takes to sell more stuff.  Period.

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The Launch Clinic think tank has been hard at work developing a list of things you can do to improve the launch performance in your organization this year.

2008 Todo List

#1 - Implement a launch methodology or framework - forgive me for being a little self-serving but we know it works.  We hope you use our approach but what’s most important is it should be on the top of your 2008 list.

#2 - Use a dedicated Launch Manager - product managers are often the go-to-guys for managing a launch but they have too much on their plate.  As a result launch planning suffers and so do sales.

#3 - Start a blog - be sincere and talk about what you are passionate about.  A blog is a great way to build a following and get feedback.  It’s so easy to start a blog nowadays there’s just no excuse.  If your IT guys are in the way then use an outside service.  The information you share and gain is just too important to wait.

#4 - Start using cross-functional teams - CFTs work and successful companies know it.  All it takes is a little know-how and some patience but the rewards are immense.

#5 - Get better acquainted with your sales team - this are the guys who are on the front lines every day and have direct feedback with customers.  Get out in the field with them at least once a month to see what’s going on.  What you’ll learn will amaze you.

Recently I sat down with sales and marketing process consultant Adam Shapiro. Among other things, Adam helps his clients implement the CustomerCentric Selling methodology.  You can find out more about Adam at SalesReformSchool.com. Having been a student of Solution Selling, I was intrigued about the CustomerCentric Selling approach which is a continuation of Michael Bosworth’s excellent work.  I bought the book and am incorporating the methods and tools into Launch Clinic’s selling approach.

Adam, what is Customer-Centric Systems?

CustomerCentric Systems, LLC is the business entity that owns the CustomerCentric Selling® methodology.  Generally, we define CustomerCentric Selling® as asking directed questions to empower buyers to visualize how they can use your offering to achieve their goals, solve their problems, and satisfy their needs and then facilitating the customer buying process. Specifically, our clients strive to meet this definition by codifying a set of best-practices behaviors and processes that start with the integration of sales and marketing.  The methodology creates an environment which honors the needs of buyers as they make decisions, while also equipping sellers with internal and external tools to achieve higher revenues. 

There always seems to be friction between Sales and Marketing.  What do you think are the primary reasons for this?

One of the tasks of leadership is to help teams overcome the regrettable human shortcoming of wanting to blame someone else for your own failures. In business, specifically sales and marketing, this plays out all too often.  Sellers think that if only marketers gave them good qualified leads, they would sell more.  Marketers believe that if sellers had any skills, they would close more of the leads that marketing produces.  Too often, they don’t meet in the middle with agreed upon definitions and process.  What is a qualified lead?  How does a lead get qualified?  Who takes care of this qualification step?  Who makes sure sales is following the product positioning course marketers have set?  But, it is more than that:  Marketing and sales often fail to get to together to figure out the go to market sales strategy:  What are the highly likely titles in particular industries who will be involved inn selecting, funding and implementing what we are trying to sell.  What business goals and priorities do they have that map to our offering?  What issues are keeping them from achievement of these goals/priorities. 

How do you suggest our readers address the Sales vs. Marketing friction?

First, both have to agree on the best practices sales and “product marketing” process.  From initial interest – inbound or outbound – through sales conversations, evaluations, commitment and closing, sales and marketing must agree to and stick to the process.  Next, with input form sales on what’s resonating with buyers, marketing needs to put together the framework for the conversations that need to take place between buyers and sellers during each step of the selling-buying process.  What are the likely goals of the folks involved in buying our stuff?  What issues, challenges, and objectives do they have in reaching those goals?  What situations do they find themselves where they would want what we offer?  Need to use what we offer?  What’s the value then to the customer of reaching that goal? How will they evaluate us or our offerings?  How can we help?  What concerns will they have in implementing our offerings?

Once sales gets these answers from potential buyers, there needs to be a feedback mechanism for informing product people that goes beyond the water cooler.

How does launch planning play into this friction?  Are organizations unknowingly adding to the problem?

Yes, organizations add to this problem.  Mostly, product management and product marketing.  To their credit, these two groups are made up of visionaries – folks who instantly “get it”.  They understand instantly why the market needs what the seller has.  Too often they announce to the world, “Look at the marvelous thing we have created! It has X, Y, and incredibly, Z features. Everyone will want one!”  And some like minded buyers  understand completely and buy.  Most, however, do not.  These are the mainstream buyers who have to understand three things generally to make buying decisions - call them visions.  1) How will I use it?  2) What’s the value of using it to me (or my organization) and 3) How will I implement it?   An “Incomplete” on any of these three and the buyer is not likely to buy that particular offering.

Often, the folks involved in the launch, understand and convey BROADLY these three visions, but they fail to convey how to bring buyers to see these visions specifically to the key group charged with conveying this message – sales! 

Imagine a product launch with a tight web site, brilliantly executed analyst meetings, and maybe even a snappy video for a trade show.  After these events and tasks are complete, marketing execs tell sales, “Go Sell! The market is waiting!”  What happens next?  Sellers go out and have conversations with prospective buyers.  What are these sellers saying, asking?  Does marketing and product management even know?  How do they or sales management audit those conversations?  Is there a feedback mechanism for buyers?  Usually, there is no pattern or roadmap for these discussions.  Largely, sellers are winging it.  Marketing, then, has lost control of the message.

What advice would you give to Marketing teams that are being pounded by their sales team?

When working with product management to launch a new feature or product, have you anticipated what should happen when sellers start making sales calls?  Instead of loading them up with feature descriptions and benefit statements, provide them with usage scenarios that are tagged to specific titles in targeted organizations.  Anticipate the goals and issues of these titles.  Set a conversation template for mapping these titles and issues with the successful usage of your offering.

You can reach Adam Shapiro at ashapiro@customercentricsystems.com

Early stage companies often start ramping up sales as soon at the product is out of development.  The product is ready and it’s time to sell.  You hire experienced sales guys.  As many as you can.  The deals don’t close as quickly as expected.  You are burning through cash.  It must be the sales guys.  Somehow the wrong guys were hired.  It couldn’t possibly be the product.  Fire them and get new sales guys.

Many of you reading this will probably have at least one experience in your career to relate to this scenario.  I’ve recently read a paper titled "The Sales Learning Curve" by Mark Leslie and Charles Holloway.  Their hypothesis is that like manufacturing, sales must go through a sales learning curve to work out the kinks and shortcomings in the product, and to understand the most effective methods to sell the product.  Once that happens then it’s time to ramp up sales.  More importantly there’s no way to shorten the learning curve.  It varies in duration from company to company and it happens organically.

During the Sales Learning Curve your team will go through the process of learning how to acquire customers, what customers want in the product and the sales tactics that work.  Once you’ve been through the learning curve you can confidently begin ramping sales.

This process unfolds in three phases, each requiring a different size sales force that have different skills:

Initiation Phase - completion of beta testing and have few prospects.  Hire a few salespeople to learn how customers will use your product and to help other people in the organization refine the product offering.  These salespeople must be good communicators, tolerate ambiguity, have a deep interest in your technology, and can make their own sales models and tools.

Transition Phase - a critical mass of customers is acquired and sales are accelerating.  Keep the initial sales team focused on learning.  Now add salespeople who can operate within an evolving sales model, but don’t need to have the analytical and communication skills of the initial sales team.

Execution Phase - you’ve developed the formula for sales success.  Hire traditional salespeople and give them a territory, sales plan, marketing materials and price book.

The trick is knowing when you’ve transitioned from one phase to the next, and The Sales Learning Curve offers methods to identify when transitions are occurring.

If you are in a startup and feeling the pressure to add salespeople quickly, read the The Sales Learning Curve today.  It could mean the difference between success and failure.