Entries Tagged 'big picture' ↓

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2008 is ending and for many companies, sales reps, sales managers, marketing and channel managers all need to start thinking:  How do I build pipeline for 2009?

Three ways to build pipeline with partners:

#1 Manage more Partners

Don’t limit the partners to pure product-complementariness, although if you haven’t fully explored that, keep doing it.  But get creative!

For example, an electronics design firm partnered with a real-estate broker who specialized in very early stage electronics companies.  Real estate doesn’t have much to do with component designs, but the people the agent spoke with were the same people the electronics design firm wanted to reach.

#2 Fully define Targets and Territories

Each individual rep should be able to understand their business with key target accounts that fit the defined profile.  Only with that in hand can you begin to fully leverage partners.  If you can’t share your plan, it becomes hard for partners to jump on board.

#3 Instill a Give to Get Ethos

Sure the economy is tough and the first instinct is to think dog-eat-dog.  But customers needs and products are so complicated, I’m not sure it’s quite that zero-sum.  Help the smart and talented partners out in these tough times and it will begin to pay back.

Allyforce addresses these key principles by making it simple to manage the exchange of contacts and account information between sales reps and their partners.  It’s so easy to set up, each individual rep creates their own accounts and starts inviting their respective partners.

Interested in building out your Pipeline for ‘09 through Partners?  Sign up and start to get a brief tutorial on how to introduce this new paradigm to growing your sales!

photo credit: victoriapeckham

Have you heard of the Wisdom of crowds?

It’s the idea (roughly) that getting multiple people to help solve a problem — from guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar to coming up with a good logo to solving a complex chemical problem — leverages people’s collective wisdom.

What if you could do that with prospecting and sales?

For example, suppose you are a rep selling…(let’s pick something not technology related first)…HR Outsourcing.

You want to find as many companies and people to talk to about this.

You could just rely on the phone book, hoovers, or your own network to get out and go make cold calls.

But what if you put together a “crowdsource” — we call them “allies” — of other sales reps in your territory selling into the same types of companies and the same types of people.  Here are some companies which would have reps selling such services:

• SaaS accounting services
• Recruiters
• 401k management providers
• SaaS Performance Review Software
• Org chart software
• Compensation consulting firms

Each of them are making cold-calls, leveraging their network, and meeting people.  And if you picked the right folks, all in your territory.

If they were all together at the water-cooler for an hour, do you think you may uncover at least one new deal?

And wouldn’t you have insights into a company or person that the others didn’t but would find valuable?

Now imagine you could do this on an ongoing, automated, and secure fashion?  Do you think you could start to get a ‘crowdsourced’ picture of your territory, your accounts, and your prospects?

photo credit: Steph & Adam

Two forces can either help you in your sales career (if you are lucky) or hurt you:

territory and timing

If you have a great territory with prospects needing your prospect and timing that they are able to buy, you’re golden.  Life is good.

But in general, time and territory conspire against your success.  And they go hand in hand.

Territory

The notion of not having enough “good accounts” can be tuned to “the well-known companies in the territory are a bad fit.”  Now, there are some territories which are better than others.  Selling something related to financial services in New York is a better fit than in, say, New Orleans.  And selling software-related services better in Silicon Valley than just about anywhere else.

So let’s say you can’t control that.  The challenge is to dig deeper, faster, and cover more of those unknown accounts.  The reality is, bad territories mean you have to uncover many more stones to find the gold.

That really wouldn’t be a problem if you had infinite time.

But you don’t, which leads us to…

Timing

If you don’t get to a customer before your competitor does, you’re in tough shape.  I’ve been in deals when working for a smaller vendor where, because I got there sooner, I had a much higher chance of winning.  I could shape vision, build relationships, sometimes just outright close it before the competition got there.

If you can’t cover as broad a territory as possible in as little time, you are letting territory and timing work against you.

Answer: Wisdom of Crowds

There’s a notion that if you can get a group of people to help, say, guess the number of marbles in a jar, they’ll come pretty close.  What if you could leverage all the information, contacts, and feet on the street of non-competing sales reps in your territory?

Would you know more about accounts, such as who to call and maybe what their needs are, faster?

Sure, it happens informally all the time.  But most people don’t really leverage these other sales reps because of a number of reasons which I’ll blog about later.

But if you want to master the forces of territory and timing to beat your quota, you need to leverage more feet on the street, now, by exchanging contacts and information with as many sales reps in your territory as possible.

Get going!

In the end, a big part of sales is a numbers game.  The more of the right people you can talk to in the shortest amount of time can yield you the right results.

Challenge? Finding those people.

Check out this brief presentation which looks at how smart, well-networked reps are solving this problem today:

http://demo.allyforce.com/insurance/player.html

Anything that can help you get in front of more people is essential for success today.

photo credit: Bob Jagendorf

What’s not to like about trade-shows?

You get to stand and talk to customers who come and want to learn about your product.

If you’re a rep, maybe some of those will be qualified.  Maybe one or two may even fall into your territory.  Psyche!

The question I ask is how do I turn ever event or effort into something that can potentially yield residuals.  I need to have an ongoing source of potential leads and people to talk to.

And guess what, tradeshows are that place.  Just not where you think they are.

The real gold in tradeshows

The real gold lies in the other attendees, like yourself.  Yes, you are all technically competitors because you are going after the same pool of dollars from the same pool of customers.

But, look, haven’t you had prospects who could not and would not buy what you have, but could be a great fit for something else?

What if you could trade in that contact for one who was a better fit for you?

Aha!  Now what if you did that for different customers across a range of different non-competing sales reps?

More aha!

Stay tuned, find out more!

photo credit: René Ehrhardt

Here is an exercise which could have a profound effect for you.

In fact, I have been doing it myself every day for the past couple of days.

What I’ve been doing is going online to a job-posting site for sales positions.  I look at the sales-position and the industry and I put it into a spreadsheet.  I keep doing this, each time categorizing the industry they are in, as well as their target market.

For example, I will determine whether they sell to Enterprise or to SMB, and if Enterprise, try to determine the title of the person.

I picked some non-tech industries to broaden my perspective.

I came up with eco-systems of companies that are looking to hire.  They appear to be selling to similar industries, but with different products.

I came up with one: selling to restaurant.

• gourmet chocolate and dessert materials
• wine
• restaurant-related advertising
• “green” receipts for processing credit cards
• some kind of a machine for the kitchen (not sure exactly what it did)
• “green” plates and utensil
• credit-card processing

For the most part, the sales people hired for these positions will ultimately be calling onto the same types of businesses — restaurants — and in most likelihood, needing to talk to the owner at some point.

What if they were all in each others’ eco-systems, exchanging information and leads as they came upon them doing their own prospecting?

So…here’s an exercise: can you think of who is in your selling eco-system?