Quick Tips - July 11, 2007

How can you equip your sales force with the information, documents and persuasive tools they need to be productive in the field? Two experienced practitioners – Harry Ostaffe, Product Marketing Director, and Ed Korona, Director of Product Management, both with the Ericsson Corporation – bring a combined total of nearly 40 years experience in the development, marketing and sales of technology products. In a recent Product Strategy Network talkcast, the two men shared their insights into arming and educating the sales force. Their conclusion? Of all the tools in the sales rep’s arsenal, the well-crafted case study may be the most powerful.

Create a checklist of items for your sales force toolbox.  A well-armed sales force requires a lot of information tools. For each new application, new product or new release, post descriptions on your company’s Intranet, prepare a general solution description document, and develop a sales guide that discusses in detail how to sell and position the product. For existing customers, include best practice case studies, data sheets, white papers, and PowerPoint presentations covering product features, solutions, applications, the product roadmap, customer references, and competitive analysis. They will all come in handy.

Create good case studies. Case studies work well because they allow the sales team to quickly identify types of prospective customers and to show actual reference solutions to prospects. They offer credible proof that the product works for someone else. Document the performance results – how much time or money was saved by the customer, and how much additional revenue it helped to generate.

Convince customers to become case studies. If a company isn’t agreeable to doing a case study, do a generic one and just reference their region, industry, process, or application; you can always add the name later on as you gain approval. Explain that you’re not sharing any competitive intelligence or company secrets. As long as you keep out their specific solution details, companies are usually willing to be used as a reference because it also becomes an advertisement for them.

Be patient with Corporate Communications. Approval of a case study will generally require the other company’s corporate communications okay. With larger customers, you may get local acceptance for being used as a reference, but the request may have to go back to their corporate office to make sure they’re comfortable with how everything is presented. Use your sales teams help to shepherd it through the process at the customer site and communicate consistently with your account team as they try to push along the request, because approval times could go on for months. Therefore leave enough time to allow that process to take place.

Think globally. Develop as many case studies as possible showing the same types of applications and regions of the world where the product would actually be used. For international sales, showing success in that specific part of the globe is particularly valuable because the prospect is able to see more readily how the product you’re providing actually meets their local requirements.

Focus on demonstrated benefits. Case studies should clearly communicate how your product helped that customer – the savings in time or money they achieved and the process improvements they enabled. However, traditional arguments of operational cost savings don’t resonate as well today because they can be difficult to prove. So look to revenue growth your product allowed the company to realize. Show how new revenue can be generated, or how your product can help the customer extend their current technology platforms into new products or services.

This is part one in a three part series focusing on Enabling Sales.  (Click here for part two, featured this week, Quick Tips - "Building the Sales Force Tool Kit".)

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