Does Technology Help Sell

Can companies impact sales productivity positively with targeted investments in both technology and tools to provide additional support for their sales team's ability to win.

How many of you agree with this? I say tread carefully because once you start down the path to sales force productivity tools you become a slave to them. I'm not against them I'm just cautious about where and how to deploy them. And I would caution readers to have a well defined process in place before undertaking any sales force technology initiative.

So where and how can you make use of these tools? I have two ways that I've started.

1) Contact management. One of the best advancements I've seen has been the success of enterprise contact management programs. SaaS providers such as Salesforce.com have really made it easy to maintain, track, and report on customers and pipelines. Their move into more mainstream CRM for the masses has allowed small and mid-sized businesses to have the same technology as larger companies. As a user I can tell you it takes work and dedication to set up, run, and maintain. The information out is only as good as the information in. I've personally lived through the frustration with bad data and the clean up isn't ever worth it.

2) Shared storage. I started using Box.net as a way to keep centralized files. I can allow employees and customers to only see certain folders. It has made filing sharing easy(ier). It is like an FTP site but easier to use. Again it takes a lot of work to make sure the files are always up-to-date and that outdated materials are removed.

There are many great companies that provide sales force tools and I would love to hear about their products and your personal implementation and success stories. Comment here or you can email me directly at rgoldberg@stagesofinnovation.com.

Rob Goldberg 2009

Sales Magic Wand

What if you could arm your sales executives with the right resources for each challenge posed by a customer/prospect or competitor? What impact do you think having such a powerful "magic wand" would make on you or your team's ability to win deals.

They already have a magic wand, in fact they have 2. its called their ears. If your sales people listened more they would be able to respond to "challenges" from prospects, customers and competitors.

We use a process we developed at Stages of Innovation (http://www.stagesofinnovation.com/) called the Marketing Optimization Grid. We use it for new products as well as helping to tweak existing ones and to sell against the competition.

It is a series of 4 grids that in Grid 1 work through the customer needs and which stakeholders either have the need, influence the sale, or is a decision maker. In Grid 2 you are looking at what features of your product or service you should be emphasizing so your customer can receive the benefit to satisfy their needs. Grid 3 takes you out of selling and into marketing and focuses on positioning by looking at how you should package the offer. And finally in Grid 4 you look at value proposition by looking at what they are giving up to use your product or service.

We start at Grid 1 for new products. At Grid 2 to tweak our existing products. And at Grid 4 and work backwards to look at competitive products. The process backwards decomposes the competitors offer and identifies the gaps in meeting the customer's needs. It becomes very easy to sell against the gaps.

It works but it requires your sales people to stop talking, ask questions and listen to the customer.

To find out more take a go to my web site at http://www.stagesofinnovation.com/

Rob Goldberg 2009