Never, never, never give up … now … change the value proposition with Sales Enablement
“Never, never, never give up” … It’s a great mantra, but it has to be followed with intelligent application, investment and action, or its just another cliche.
The Situation
A newly joined account manager was trying to sell to the largest technology customer, a Mobile Telecommunications company, in the region. A new business prospect with a very large competitive incumbent. The Account Manager did everything right; engaged the key players, presented the technology, gained commitment for a competitive benchmark, and agreement that the winner takes the core business for the next 2 years. A great job, a model sales job.
The Snapshot gives the view of a narrow engagement focused on the Product and its Features, Benefits and USPs. This was the de facto working model and the one familiar to the organisation and management tree. Paraphrasing this organisation and many others … “We have the very best product, go and sell it”.
The Challenge and Great Threat
But. The incumbent supplier has a newer product, and it happens to be faster! The account team and management ask for all possible resources to be aligned to the benchmark, which of course they get. But being the biggest player in the market doesn’t make you the winner by default. So, find a way to be quicker, win the deal, it’s a “must win” for everyone!
But, we weren’t ever going to be quicker in that benchmark, the competitor had a significantly faster solution at that time, we were fighting logic and physics – but the emotional requirement was don’t give up, and don’t lose. We’ve all seen this situation. And where the blames goes if you lose.
So, if we accept the reality of the situation, we will lose. If we don’t accept the reality, call foul, blame the benchmark (as some recommended), we definitely lose, probably very badly and leave broken glass everywhere and no future in the account (US Presidential Elections anyone).
The Solution
Shift the paradigm. Change the Customer Value Proposition, let’s get the customer to need something more than a fast benchmark at a point in time. What does he really Need?
The Declaration
So, we told the customer we would run the benchmark, but that we would most probably lose. We were in a technology cycle: the competitor is quicker now, we will probably be quicker next year and we would probably win a benchmark next year. “But can we discuss all the other technology, delivery, services and partnership we can bring to your business and show you the impact it could have beyond raw speed?”. With acceptance comes trust.
As our competitor focused on running the benchmark in his technology center 5000 miles away, we got on with losing the benchmark locally. The only people working on the project (and the account) were our local team winning trust and belief within all levels of the customer, and building entirely new relationships. We built a comprehensive joint vision for the short and medium term exposing all our technology, hardware, software, services, current and in the roadmap. We used our best experts from the different technology groups to give a window into how our other customers best deployed their solutions and the business returns they recognised.
The Aggregate View. The new approach enabled us to engage more personas within the customer and move the sales project from a technology features and benefits duel to a broad company competition where the delivery skills and organisational capabilities became the, de facto, core differentiators.
The Result
So, we lost the benchmark, won the war and an initial $3.5M project became >$150M over the following years, the biggest site in the hemisphere and one of the best, and broadest, reference customers in the whole world.
Lessons Learned. Sales Enablement in Action.
So, we lost the benchmark, won the war and an initial $3.5M project became >$150M over the following years, the biggest site in the hemisphere and one of the best, and broadest, reference customers in the whole world.
Its sometimes good when the Customer thinks you’re going to lose, and they haven’t seen the whole picture. Too frequently, organisations compete with their core competence, and consequently in their comfort zones. Very rarely is the customer need, the same as your organisation’s comfort zone, and it’s always changing. This is where help is coming, from Sales Enablement.
Let’s view this in Metrics, from the STARPAD methodology. The Snapshot is taken when we have scoped the initial engagement- everything and everyone is focused around the Benchmark; a functional engagement. (Relevant Metrics: 12, Weighted Potential Value: 139)
Once the Declaration is made and the Whole Product – Customer Value Proposition (WP-CVP) is redefined, the Function broadens, and Delivery and Organisation become the critical factors leveraging very different conversations and trust with the customer (Relevant Metrics: 57, Weighted Potential Value: 950). Each Metric is assigned an Action and the results Aggregated.
Your Customer Value Proposition doesn’t stand still …. Or it shouldn’t. Don’t let your organisational status quo determine your success, utilise the power of Sales Enablement to leverage all your capabilities.
Most importantly, Measure where you are, and build the Whole Product to where you want to be.