Coaching sales teams - avoiding Murphy's Law

Today we helped facilitate a teleconference between one of our clients and a potential customer.  The client has breakthrough process approaches that help their customers improve their ROI.   The prospect was looking for ways to scale their business.   Two days before the call, we held a “pre-call” to test our messaging, review prospect objections and very importantly, test internet connections, web conferencing connections, which example web sites we would use.  On the day of the meeting I called 15 minutes early to make sure everything was ready.   We tested each one of these things again.   The sales manager bought freshly made tacos for the delivery team to entice them to leave their day-to-day work so that we could present the best possible capabilities to the prospect.  Everything for a major client presentation is important.  Our client company was not accustomed to bringing in the entire delivery team on call as well as the sales team.    

 

You might have heard the old story about having an extra projector bulb for important presentations.   Today, the equivalent check list might look something like this:

 

1. Test the teleconference connection and pass code from different locations in the country
2. Test the web conferencing system from different networks, locations, and firewalls.  Practice, when relevant, passing control between different presenters smoothly using the conferencing software.
3. Determine who will speak first, who will do introductions, who will present web sites and PowerPoint, where relevant.
4. Create a list of FAQs and rehearse your answers to them. 
5. Encourage team participation on the call, rather than letting one person from your firm do all the talking.  Sometimes it might be better to have technical staff deliver the answer – even though they may not be the polished sales person, coach them on listening skills, empathizing with the customer requirements and concerns, and help them be participants in the call.  Your customer will appreciate this because after the sales person gets the contract signed, it is the delivery team they need to work with day-to day on the project.
6. Multiple reviews and quality checks.  Have more than one person review the presentation for accuracy, spelling mistakes etc.
7. Determine what you will do if your prospect asks for an unplanned demo of a technology or solution capability.  Will you accept the challenge on short notice?  If so who will show it and who will speak to the solution.?  DO NOT show unrehearsed customer solutions where confidentiality or unexpected results might cause you to be embarrassed and risk the sale in front of a new prospect.
8. Make sure you understand the goal for the meeting or expected outcome.  Is the team getting past an initial meeting?  If so, do we want to ask for a follow up meeting or on-site visit to continue the discussion at a deeper level and build the relationship?  If so, state this to the team in the pre-call so everyone knows what outcome you are intending.
9. Think about chemistry issues.  Will  the decision maker at the prospect company relate better to a senior female executive?  Are there common interests, sports, hobbies, etc. that mean that the young technician will have a better dialogue on the requirements document with the prospect?  Be ready to be a facilitator but to take a back seat and let the team members bond in a way that builds a relationship that will have lasting positive impact with the client.
10. Send a thank you note.  Email is ok but a personal letter and phone call is better.

 

When you are doing client presentations prepare, rehearse, and prepare again.  www.noworldborders.com  sales, marketing, business development expertise has helped many growing companies.  We can coach your delivery and sales team on the things that might require only slight adjustments in their approach that can help yield major gains with clients or shorten the sales cycle.

The Long Tail of Process Automation

The phrase The Long Tail was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article^[1] to describe certain business and economic models such as Amazon.com or Netflix. Businesses with distribution power can sell a greater volume of otherwise hard to find items at small volumes than of popular items at large volumes. The term long tail is also generally used in statistics often applied in relation to wealth distributions or vocabulary use.

The long tail theory can also be applied to process automation and process management. Organizations have thousands of interconnected business processes. This patchwork of process and logic includes human tasks as well as computerized activities that access and update enterprise systems and applications. While all of these processes work collectively to support the goals and strategies of the organization, enterprise software has typically been targeted toward high demand process that are roughly similar across the organization (CRM, ERP, HCM, sales force automation, etc.) For each process automated in one of these enterprise software applications ther are hundreds of highly customized, unique organizational processes that are nota dequately addressed by these systems. These processes are often being managed through e-mail, MS Excel, faxes and telephone calls or handled by custom coded software written by external consultant or internal IT organizations.

The Internet reduced inventory and distribution costs making selling niche products profitable. Similarly, BPM (business process modeling) helps meet niche requirements in areas where historically, enterprise software has fallen short, making the automation of all types of processes more affordable and cost-effective.

Commoditized processes such as order fulfillment and invoicing commonly lack variance and often they are the staple of rigid, off the shelf software such as traditional ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.

Typical processes that are roughly similar activities that differ across organizations are require some customization such as capital planning and IT provisioning due to minor variances, they may be streamlined by pure-play BPM software products.

Unique processes require highly specific activities that are organization-specific and often create sustainable competitive advantage, such as strategic sourcing, customer engagement management, have a higher cost of customization, and therefore require specialized knowledge and tools.

A recent MIT Sloan Management Review article, titled "From Niches to Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail," examines the Long Tail from both the supply side and the demand side and identifies several key drivers. On the supply side, the authors point out how e-tailers' expanded, centralized warehousing allows for more offerings, thus making it possible for them to cater to more varied tastes.

The Long Tail may threaten established businesses. Before a Long Tail works, only the most popular products are generally offered. When the cost of inventory storage and distribution fall, a wide range of products become available. This can, in turn, have the effect of reducing demand for the most popular products.

For example, Web content businesses with broad coverage like Yahoo! or CNET may be threatened by the rise of smaller Web sites that focus on niches of content, and cover that content better than the larger sites. The competitive threat from these niche sites is reduced by the cost of establishing and maintaining them and the bother required for readers to track multiple small Web sites. These factors have been transformed by easy and cheap Web site software and the spread of RSS.

No World Borders BPO / BPM team can help you determine which processes, tools and team members will help optimize your value stream projects. Whether you are optimizing your loss mitigation process in a mortgage servicing company or improving your Internet marketing and lead development plan, we have lived through these projects before and we can add immediate value.

With $50 Billion in Cash, is Buffett Preparing to Dine on Mortgage Industry?

"The bond market has seized up, stocks are in turmoil, private-equity funds are sidelined and hedge-fund managers and lenders are hosting fire sales.

These are happy days for Warren Buffett." - WSJ, 8/21/07

Warren Buffet held back on buying financial services companies as the private equity firms drove up prices. Now with the credit crunch hitting even the largest lenders, Buffett is rumored to be considering buying even parts of Countrywide. Countrywide's assets, including its debt-servicing business and its portfolio of high-quality mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, could be attractive to Berkshire.

Due diligence firms that value portfolios of loans could help with this process, such as First American's Second Loan Outsourcing unit for home equity loans, and other firms that specialize in determining the health of mortgage loan pools.

Another one of the implications here is that purchased assets must be integrated in a complex, highly regulated business.  This requires industry knowledge, experience with process innovation, data normalization, compliance, analytics, and other methods and technologies.  Process flows, mortgage technology, and complex regulations must be mastered to improve the value of these ailing companies. Lean manufacturing techniques are just one of the areas where No World Borders provides value.

American Airlines Sues Google - Use of Internet Brand Names by Competitors

A number of companies have sued Google for trademark infringement in recent years, accusing the company of improperly selling their trademarks as keyword triggers. Late last week, American Airlines joined the party, claiming that when consumers google “American Airlines,” “Aadvantage,” etc., they are directed to “sponsored links” that include rivals’ Web sites and sites that sell tickets for other airlines. Google makes much of its money through these “sponsored links.”

No World Borders SEO and Google paid search advertising partner team can advise you on proper use of these links and search terms, maximizing your investment and reducing the risk. We've worked on engagements in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, utilities, enterprise and consumer software, financial services (including mortgage, insurance, investment banking) and other industries. Our team can arrange a consultation to determine the effectiveness of your campaign, establish baseline metrics on your site page views and costs today and design a plan to help improve your website marketing ROI.

Deming - Design, Quality, and Innovation

William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900–December 20, 1993) was an American statistician, college professor, author, lecturer, and consultant. Deming is widely credited with improving production in the United States during World War II, although he is perhaps best known for his work in Japan. There, from 1950 onward he taught top management how to improve design (and thus service), product quality, testing and sales (the latter through global markets)[1] through various methods, including the application of statistical methods such as analysis of variance (ANOVA) and hypothesis testing. Deming made a significant contribution to Japan's becoming renowned for producing innovative high-quality products. Deming is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese heritage.[2]