Oh, Now I Get It!
Ahhh! Vacations are great. I had only half of one in the last two weeks and now that I’m back things still seem brighter and happier than before. The highlight was spending time with my wife and kids. (My daughter is in high school, Read more
Got a Technical Team? Here’s a Great Way to Help Them Sell
Recently I spoke with Burke, the VP of Business Development for an engineering firm in the material handling industry.
Unlike many people in this industry, Burke has a marketing background rather than a technical one. Since he joined the firm, their business is booming, seemingly unaffected by the recession. I asked him about that.
What he told me was really useful from a sales and marketing point of view:
“However, I discovered that was not the problem at all.
“Our prospects are warehouse managers who have to put together proposals for projects and get them approved. Some justification is involved for both business (cost) justification, and justification for technical architectures and other decisions.
“What I learned was that we were not helping prospects assemble their information in a way that was sellable up the chain of command.
“So, I put in place a process for doing that:
- “We take a consultative approach,
- “We gather the information,
- “We put the argument together,
- “We build the PowerPoint® slides
- “Literally, all the warehouse manager has to do is present it up the food chain and we’ve been winning a lot more often than we used to
“So, setting up a structure to follow for handling the customer’s information enabled them to become more productive, because it helps them partner better with the customer. They now know they should be looking for business as well as technical information, and they know what to do with that information before they give it back in the form of various documents, including proposal documents. The questions, the steps, and the documents we provide help the warehouse manager ’sell’ to others within their own company more effectively.
“You need business ROI, we got that. You need rationale for the controls architecture, we got that. You need a throughput analysis, we got that. You need a time-phased projection of the project cost, we got that too. Whoever they need to talk with inside their company, we help them do it.
"We’re easier to deal with than the other guys, and we’re winning more deals as a result."
I thought that was a great example of how sales is supposed to work. It is supposed to be simple.
Of course getting to that simplicity within your organization is not always so easy!
That’s where we can help you, hopefully a lot:
There are lots of new free materials, including articles, videos, recordings, and Read more
Got a Technical Team? Here’s a Great Way to Help Them Sell
Recently I spoke with Burke, the VP of Business Development for an engineering firm in the material handling industry. Unlike many people in this industry, Burke has a marketing background rather than a technical one. Since he joined the firm, their business is booming, seemingly unaffected by Read more
