SalesVPI

Relevant Video Communications

We released support for native video as a media type in Avitage Collections this week.

This got me thinking of the questions associated with using video throughout an organization.

John Chambers of Cisco has predicted 90% of internet traffic will be video in just a few years. Who will produce all this video? What will it cost? What un-intended consequences will we bear? How can we prepare for this impending reality?

Here are some questions to consider:

• Are you relying too much on live communications in an online, on demand world?
• Will your text-based content grab attention well enough?
• Do you really know how to create the volume of relevant content to address all your audience variables by roles, issues, buying stages, industries, and purpose -- without an exponential budget increase?
• Is search really the best way to direct busy salespeople to the right content for each selling situation?
• How well do your messages get delivered when your experts aren't available to deliver them directly?
• Are you sending your sales people to engage customers with documents in a video and multimedia world?
• How have you been doing e-learning -- isn't this essentially what lead nurturing is all about?
• What if your competition started sending tailored videos to prospects and customers, how would you respond, how would you feel?
• How would you make your videos relevant for every situation?
• How well do you organize and update your PowerPoint slides and shows -- so, you think you're ready for video?
• Are you losing sleep over the prospect of video as ubiquitous as PowerPoint -- should you be?
• What's the best way to enable an organization of business communicators to regularly assemble and deliver relevant videos?

Avitage Approach

What if marketing pre-produced souce video and multimedia content, not as finished programs, but as modules that could be organized into all common communication scenarios required by marketing for lead nurturing and sales for JIT learning and customer communications?

The result might look something like this.

Sales Enablement -- Revisited

I was on vacation when Gerhard's blog came out on July 29 "Is Sales Enablement just Lipstick on a Knowledge Management Pig?" I just saw it this past weekend and feel compelled to comment now.

Having read the post numerous times I'm not sure what the primary point really is: to denigrate the label sales enablement (why?), to criticize the "hype" of systems vendors, or to question the integrity of the analysts? ("Do you trust what analysts are saying about this concept?")

And what's with the non sequitur about the "delay economy" and Twitter and the "real-time economy"? I like the concept, but how does that fit with a rant about sales enablement? I think the blog comments were more useful than the blog points. The premise of the post perpetuates the problem of an over pre-occupation with technology. Let me explain.

Gerhard's comments exhibit a tool obsession. Isn't that what "Sales 2.0" (web 2.0 metaphor applied somehow to sales) is about? Comparing technology vendors and asking about ROI examples and comparison for each vendor seems to me to completely miss the mark and to focus on the wrong things. ROI attends more to the initiative than a specific vendor. The real differences between products are about fit and preference rather than ROI. When I insert the names Mercedes, BMW and Lexus in place of the vendor names he tries to compare,the comments reveal a peculiar perspective.

Definitions Get at Thinking

Gerhard's definition of the purpose of sales enablement: "to help sales organizations save time finding relevant information, create and organize sales content and create quick access to all experts across the enterprise."

Let's take a quick trip to the dictionary to be clear about the word "enable": "to make able; to make possible or easy; to make ready; equip." Interesting that "equip" is the third definition. But for Gerhard, sales enablement is mostly about knowledge management, becoming better prepared, and about technology. Pretty limited.

What of "the analysts" definitions?

Forrester defines sales enablement as: "a strategic, ongoing process that equips all client-facing employees with the ability to consistently and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer's problem-solving life cycle."

IDC: "The delivery of the right information to the right person at the right time and in the right place, to assist moving a specific sales opportunity forward."

Gartner: "[providing] the sales force with communications programs and tools to drive activity and enhanced productivity."

Interesting. These definitions tell me it's about process, equipping a valuable conversation to help solve customer's problems. It's about delivery of information to assist. And, it's about providing the sales force with communication programs. These definitions are much more expansive and strategic.

I don't see a technology focus in these definitions? Learning and preparation is clearly a part -- it's part of everything in life. These definitions focus much more on the improving the primary selling activity -- communicating an organization's value to help solve customer problems.

Vendor Assessment

Well, what of the vendors? Gerhard criticizes vendor messages. (Is the language provocative -- a trendy concept these days -- or antagonistic do you think?)

I actually like Savo's "Never sell alone!" Gerhard doesn't know many lonely salespeople. Again, let's take another trip to the dictionary regarding the word "alone": "separate, apart, or isolated from others" For comparison, here's "lonely": "causing a depressing feeling of being alone; destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship." I agree, few sales people are lonely.

But in fact, sales people often feel they are alone in their responsibilities. The are alone in their quota responsibilities, alone in the way a significant part of their compensation is based on a high variable component, alone in the clarity with which their performance is measured and known throughout the organization, alone in picking up the phone and performing the task few like to do, engaging strangers, alone in getting the right support (anyone heard of the "marketing and sales disconnect" that's prompted all this activity) and often alone in figuring out how best to sell a product or service.

Actually, a significant part of sales enablement involves shifting the mindset of sales people from that of the "lone gunman" to the collaborative seller and manager of a process that involves multiple roles selling to buying committees.

I suspect if you ask the vendors what their biggest challenges are, top of the list would be customer's lack of proper content, or even a process to create the right content, to take advantage of their systems.

Peter Senge has said, "structure drives behavior." I think the vendors mentioned in this blog all help provide a better structure that changes not only their customer organizations but the industry that is now talking in a much different way than just a few years earlier.

Consider how we've:

• moved past "sales process," to conversation about "buying process"
• stopped complaining about the marketing/sales disconnect and actually have agreement that it IS marketing's job to help sales, and we have effective ways to make this change
• discovered that vendor/product focused content won't work with buyers today
• acknowledged that the internet has indeed made a fundamental change in the way customers buy, even if it hasn't yet changed the way we sell
• getting a much higher appreciation for the importance of content that is tailored so it is relevant to buyers based upon their role, needs and interests, stage of the buying process, industry, and other factors
• created sales guides and playbooks with less focus on intense product oriented information to better "how to sell" information with "ideal customer profiles", sales ready messages, and more
• started thinking about nurturing leads to "sales ready" status instead of taking every new contact and sending them to sales as a "lead," usually demoralizing the sales force and wasting their time!

Don't get me wrong, I agree with Lee Levitt, "we've only scratched the surface with sales enablement," especially with execution. But the knowledge of WHAT to do and the tools to help us do it are far better today than even five years ago.

Highlights from Blog Comments

Below are the comments posted to the blog by different individuals. I've extracted the sentences that provided value to me.

"Cohesive program that includes not only technology but sales assets, a common sales process, sales training and an accountability platform
Moreover the content of those sales assets is both relevant and compelling to the target audience
Highly differentiated message"

Jay Mitchell

"Most sales people are overwhelmed with too much information (and too much difficulty finding what they need)"

Chuck Carey

"I hold the organizations they (sales enablement vendors) sell to more accountable"

Mike Berman

"We focus less on definition and more on execution"

Tim Lambert

"Not too many VPs of Sales care about content
Issue is how to scale a sales organization
Drive repeatable behavior
Surface best practices -- activities, strategies and conversations that work
Have a sales enablement person spend one hour to save 1000 salespeople an hour"

Jeff Ernst

"Focus on enabling buyers to establish their desire to engage, and more a sales cycle along
New ways of thinking"

Michael Damphousse

"Too many companies lack the foundational work required to measure progress"

Trish Bertuzzi

"Sales enablement is a business process
Impact on new reps
ROI not as important as Competitive Advantage
We've only scratched the surface with sales enablement
Potential could be on the order of 30-50% or more
Net savings is substantial --
Higher sales productivity and lower cost"

Lee Levitt

My Perspective

I embrace the analyst definitions of sales enablement. I'm dismayed that so many people focus so heavily on technology instead of the much more important elements of a shift in thinking, strategy, process, sales messaging, content, the right investments and more.

I also think there is too much focus on "information" and not enough on "communication."

Communication: "the act or process of communicating; the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs."

Information: "knowledge communicated or received; knowledge gained through study, communication"

The distinction IS important because the issues are quite different, and therefore the remedies are also different. We need both. But the way we define our problems sets us off in a particular direction looking for answers. (Look at Sharepoint pre-occupation with managing content rather than improving the delivery of relevant information to buyers, as the analyst definitions suggest.)

A sale's person's objective isn't to make himself or his prospect "knowledgeable," it is to motivate a buyer to make changes and take action to work with his company -- preferably sooner rather than later.

Sales Enablement is an all encompassing label. The outcome we are after is to enable ALL sales people to conduct better conversations with prospects and customers, with relevant information (messages) for each stage of the customer's buying process, to improve the customer's business, and for the customer to understand how an organization can do that uniquely.

Improve Your Connect Rates

I continue to hear from sales people who still try to use email as a prospecting tool. I contend email is no longer a communication tool -- especially when unsolicited -- it's primarily a delivery vehicle.

Those who use marketing automation to track email open rates know it's probably on the low end of 1% to 5%. Even if it's "opened," unsolicited emails might not be read, let alone have the message internalized. And this is what I mean by communication.

In the email solicitations I receive I continually see "selling" in email messages. The objective of a prospecting communication must be to gain attention and to get a referral, meeting or conversation. Period. To accomplish this, the message must be compelling and relevant with a focus on the customer's problems or opportunities.

I know most people read emails on Blackberry and other portable devices. Therefore I have to write differently with a compelling title and a very short -- three to four line -- message.

I am finding the inclusion of a tailored multimedia vignette to be an important addition to this tactic. The vignette is a short, relevant, introductory streaming multimedia program that makes it easy for the person to hear our story, quickly and conveniently. Done well, it adds an emotional quality that adds to a motivation for the viewer to take action. If a referral is appropriate, the vignette makes it easier for the person to forward the email by eliminating the need to add an explanation.

These are two of several situations we've identified when sales people need a "second voice". The first is when they can't speak directly to a person. The second is when a message must be delivered through a third party -- a referral or customer sponsor for example.

Now, this is a critical point. Given the volume of emails most people receive, especially those at higher levels of an organization, you MUST call and leave a voice mail with a compelling, customer relevant message, requesting the prospect find the email. Unsolicited emails, even those with compelling titles (who's to say), requires the attention prompted by the phone message.

The message should also explain the presence of the vignette. This piques curiosity, removes any anxiety regarding what is behind the link, and entices viewing because it's a different and more interesting way to receive information. This technique will make a big impact on your connect rates.

Finally, remember the importance of timing. It might require five to eight attempts with various combinations -- voice mail, email, regular mail and ideally a referral -- to make the connection. Persistence is key.

In our business, we seldom send unsolicited emails unless we have the opportunity to make the call and leave the message. Email is the delivery system for our vignette and compelling message, not the primary prospecting tool. All three factors -- message, vignette, voice mail -- are required for maximum likelihood for success. Otherwise we know ours will be just another unread and un-acted-upon email.

Email, Newsletters and Portable Devices

We sent our September newsletter out today. We've done major work on our content, database, website and lead management system. That effort has delayed the release. But it's interesting to see how all these things are integrated.

In appreciation for the fact that most of us have two different email viewing devices, Blackberry/iPhone and computers, we've adopted a practice of writing our emails for viewing on portable devices. This means NOT sending newsletters directly as an email.

Think about how people consume information on each device. On my Blackberry, it's very transactional. I'm checking, sending quick responses, noting incoming mail to deal with later. I'm literally on the go. My mind is mostly focused on other things. I seldom read an article, blog, newsletter on my Blackberry. And I really don't want people reading my important content, or viewing my multimedia vignettes, in that situation. For that, I want them able to focus, concentrate, listen and reflect.

I have certain times for computer viewing of blogs, articles, downloads, whitepapers, etc. My mind is in learning mode. I am focused on taking on new information. I find I retain it better, and link ideas with other ideas or problems I'm working on.

To deal with this reality, we send a very short email with a link to the newsletter.

With our marketing automation system, this has the additional benefit of telling us who actually looked at the newsletter and for how long. This is not the irrelevant "email open" indicator that comes from many email tracking systems. These often give false positives due to the "preview" window in Outlook.

People who are interested in our newsletter must click to view it. It opens as a separate web page. Those pages link to additional resources. The articles can be read on a portable device. But viewing videos, vignettes, downloads or longer articles is not practical today for most of us on most devices.

Here is our recent newsletter email and link:

Content Rubik's Cube Newsletter -- Your content marketing strategy

“A revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new tools, it happens when society adopts new behaviors” -- Clay Shirky

Lead management, marketing automation, content marketing and a plethora of social media technologies are changing behaviors.

But the content engine to drive these initiatives with quality, consistent content is often lacking.

A content strategy, supported by a well defined and implemented "publishing" process, is the key to unlocking the full potential of lead management and sales enablement initiatives.

The Avitage "Content Rubik's Cube" September newsletter addresses these issues with a rich compendium of insights from customer engagements, videos, whitepapers, articles and links to additional resources.

Click here to view.

 

Don Hewitt and the New Producers

This summer Don Hewitt, creator and producer of 60 minutes died.

For those of us in the communications business -- most of us -- there is a lot to learn from this man.

Despite working with text from our youth, most of us don't write very well. When it comes to graphics, animation, audio and video we truly have a long way to go. But these are the new tools for communication in our age, and we are the "new producers".

As business communicators, we must learn from "publishers" how to create quality content, quickly and affordably. Digital media and the web have raised the bar making us not just publishers, but broadcasters. Don Hewitt was the master of the broadcast world.

I'd like to call your attention to this interview, and to several statements in particular that relate to web-based communication. A shorter segement is below.

Conversations at KCTS 9: Don Hewitt, December 1, 2008 - 28:00

This legendary TV producer began his career working with Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly and went on to create and produce CBS News and 60 Minutes.

Listen to this shorter excerpt and his message about Audio and Competition.

Audio: it's not about pictures, it's about the copy that goes along with the pictures. Simple, profound.

Competition: your competition for your online messages and content -- your web site, webinars, e-learning, podcasts, blogs and videos -- is the mouse. The computer equivalent of the television clicker. Hewitt compares the clicker to a gun and it's ability to shoot you instantly the minute interest lags.

Whether we're in sales, marketing, training, or the executive suite, what are our primary communication challenges?

• Attention: to capture it
• Convenience: make it easy to receive messages
• Compelling & Relevant: content
• Internalize: help people internalize messages
• Motivate: audiences to make changes and take action
• Availability: have appropriate content available to be delivered the moment it's needed
• Constraints: resolve practical production challenges of technical and creative expertise, time, desire and above all, cost

Multimedia offers a compelling remendy for these challenges. But to meet the practical constraints of quality, time, budget and volume requires a new paradigm. The traditional production paradigm based upon production professionals defining a fixed deliverable and working through a traditional process of scripting, storyboarding, producing content and assembling a final "production" product doesn't meet the needs of the web-enabled digital world.

Business communicators know their audiences. They know their communication objectives for engaging those audiences. With this they also know the right messages, timing, and preferred consumption methods of their audiences.

The relationship business communicators have with their audience is essential to capturing attention so messages are consumed. To do this, they must make the final determination of content, delivery method and timing. They must become the New Producers.

Google or YouTube his name and select from a number of excellent video clips.

Think Like a Publisher

Marketing automation for lead nurturing raises the stakes and the complexity of the content creation process.

Buyers want to view relevant content based upon their: role, specific needs or issues, stage of the buying process, industry, alternatives, and information purpose (attention, general education, customer stories, vendor point-of-view, vendor capabilities, proof points, technical explanation and more.)

To create physical documents to respond to this requirement would require hundreds, perhaps a thousand documents (4 variables for 5 factors is 4 to the 5th power). Daunting, if even possible.

Business publishers need content to be available immediately when buyers, or their sales staff, require it. But budgets are tight and quality standards must be preserved. Volume and the ability to tailor content -- perhaps even personalize it -- really ups the ante.

Business publishers need to shift their thinking from re-active, event or project driven initiatives, to a planned and continuous process to create, manage, deploy and deliver content for the new digital era.

Sales messaging is dynamic so content must also anticipate and accommodate constant iteration and updating.

And content can be delivered in many more formats than before: text, audio, Flash and video. To personal devices, through web conference technology, streaming, downloaded and more. So content must be created in anticipation of, and to enable delivery using ALL practical media.

Publishers use databases, templates and a process that is considerably different than the traditional "production" process to produce quality output, quickly and affordably.

I recently did a podcast with Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor in which we discussed specific principles and practices that can have you thinking like a publisher right away.

This link is to a page with the source podcast and transcripts, as well as a link to a BtoB magazine webcast featuring Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 talking about Content Management. In the webcast Joe recommends thinking like a publisher, but is limited by time in delivering specific prescriptions. This webcast and his book, Get Content, Get Customers are highly recommended.

We've used this page to create several examples of thinking like a publisher. You will see how just a 20 minute podcast can be turned into many different content elements for different purposes. In fact, we'll be adding to this page over time.

Here is a starting checklist of what it means to "Think Like a Publisher":

1. Shift thinking from a traditional production process that is event or project driven to a continuous "publishing" process
2. Develop and document a process to create, manage, update, deploy, assemble and deliver content for multiple purposes and delivery modes, and to collect and iterate feedback
3. Define standards, policies and procedures, templates
4. Have a methodology: map your customer's buying process, customer needs, issues and interests, by stage of buying process, industry, their alternatives (your competition) and primary communication scenarios
5. Develop "value maps" and "message maps," the business equivalent of an editorial plan
6. Think of content as assets -- continuously acquire, edit into modules, convert into multiple formats, store in a database base for sharing and re-use
7. Pre-produce content based upon your message map so it is ready for instant use and delivery
8. Produce content for multiple purposes: train, remediate, share knowledge, market/promote, educate, support the buying/sales process
9. Organize deliverables as modules that can be easily and instantly converted into final work products
10. Collect feedback, track, report, analyze, learn, iterate

What techniques have you found to think and work like a publisher?

Sales Guy Gets Lead Management

Over the last year I've realized a personal epiphany about lead management using marketing automation for companies of all sizes, even smaller companies.

As a long time seller I've always felt confident of my ability to sell my way to business success.

In the last few years the world has moved from the rhetoric of the internet to the reality of the internet.

Let's look at three changes this new web reality and the availability of marketing automation impacts:

• Selling Scope
• Buyer Behavior
• Competitive Realities

Selling Scope

The web has expanded target markets, even for smaller companies. The reach provided by phone and web communications makes it practical for businesses to expand targets beyond a regional focus previously served by in person meetings as a primary selling method, to national and even international markets.

Along with geographical expansion comes vertical market expansion. This means businesses are now communicating with more and different buyers than ever before.

Buyer Behavior

With this has come a shift in how B2B customers buy. The internet provides access to most of the information buyers need to start their buying process. This means they often operate in stealth mode from vendors far into their buying process.

This raises a significant challenge of finding appropriate prospects, or even being found by new buyers investigating solutions to new business problems.

Previously, buyers viewed sales reps as the access to important ideas and buying information. Today, that is much less the perception. How often do we hear, "I'm not ready to talk to a sales person yet," translated, "I'm not yet ready to buy, to give you an order."

Competitive Realities

While only about 10% of business-to-business sellers have implemented marketing automation to support defined lead management programs, it is clear to those following the results of these initiatives that this is a real game changer.

Lead management programs, supported by good content and marketing automation, fill the top end of the selling funnel more effectively and efficiently than ever before.

Ultimately, they will enable the complete shift of the B2B sales professional from "hunter" to trusted advisor, by providing the time and interested prospects for sales people to engage and support.

Said negatively, those who fail to embrace and effectively implement lead management programs will miss opportunities, discover potential opportunities too late, experience diminished brand, and realize in-efficient selling that will put them at a significant competitive disadvantage.

Using Twitter to Sell

Maybe there is something to this Twitter thing, even for sales professionals.

I've dabbled with Twitter for over six months, mostly as spectator. Last week I listened to a streaming audio conversation hosted by John Jantsch, Taking Your Brand Online, with Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott and Chris Brogan, and it's worth checking out.

In response to the question, "what 2 or 3 things should a small business do first with social media?" Guy Kawasaki resonded, "Twitter, Twitter, Twitter!"

Co-incidentally, I read Dave Stein's blog on using Twitter. So, I took a couple of hours for additional research.

My specific selling interest was to find people at key companies who are running virtual events or virtual shows. I used Twitter Search with those keywords and instantly discovered several people with whom I wished to connect. Given the several weeks spent trying to accomplish this objective, this was a major achievement.

But, my story doesn't end there.

Next, I created a short multimedia vignette from my Avitage Collection. In this vignette I invited the person to try one particular feature of our service -- iNgage Presenter -- a live streaming audio and video communication console that also delivers visual support during a conversation.

Within two hours, I conducted three online conversations, responded to two email requests and had two phone conversations. I have three immediate follow on meetings scheduled. It was truly an exciting and mind blowing experience. And, did you hear me? TWO HOURS!

Lessons Learned

First, a little context: To me, marketing and selling is all about resolving some fundamental communication challenges:

• Find interested people


• Capture their attention


• Capitalize on attention with compelling, relevant content


• Enable viral communications to make sharing easy


• Deliver the right information, the right ways, at the right time -- timing is everything


• More marketing and sales "conversations" are conducted over the phone, through email or on the web, especially at the early stages of the customer buying process


• In a complex sale, a key communication challenge is to enable third parties to carry our messages: customer sponsors, partners, referral sources, etc.


• Even after live meetings, we need ways to sustain and extend conversations and deliver our messages

This objective is significantly enhanced by using multimedia programs, and this is a main part of our business.

Now, my Twitter lessons:

• Twitter can help find individuals and companies at the time they are focused on a specific topic


• Twitter provides a direct, personal way to deliver a targeted and well timed message


• Today, people on Twitter are eager to receive appropriate messages through this medium


• Like all good communication tools, Twitter can accelerate the selling process by helping us find and engage people who are interested, and possibly ready to buy.

Consider the communicaton tools that were in use in this example:

• Twitter


• Multimedia vignette for dynamic, but asynchronous communcations


• Email


• Phone


• Web site -- everyone checkout out our website before contacting me


• Real time web-based communcations using streaming video, audio and graphics (aka PowerPoint).

I'm sure there are many other selling uses for Twitter I'm not yet familiar with, please share your insights.

What Really Creates Sales Excellence?

Dave Kurlan's blog raises this question in response to webinar invitations from Avitage and other companies. He makes good points, although I think it's hyperbole to suggest that these invitations "promise the solution to all of our sales problems".

His point is, "the only way to make them (sales people) better is through evaluation, training and development."

And I certainly agree that, "these (vendor) applications are far more effective when you've already worked with a sales force development expert, developed a sales process and developed your sales people."

But it also reminds me of the adage, "when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

We use Dave's assessments, believe completely in sales process and have documented our selling process since 1998. Sales development should be seen as a continuous process, not a periodic event as some organizations do.

But is that all there is to creating sales excellence, to improving sales effectiveness?

"Competent" means "the state of being adequately or well qualified." It is a function of skill, knowledge and ability. "Effective" means "producing or capable of producing a desired effect." We focus on supporting sales performance with information, knowledge, content, tools and assistance that indeed make sales people more effective.

Our customers who are involved with a complex sale tell us that to help their sales people shift from product providers to consultative sellers requires support to help them take their skills and awareness and actually execute to produce the desired sales results.

After they've hired the right horses, worked on development and implemented a sales process, their sales people need help conducting better conversations. This goes beyond ability and skill issues.

Often this requires a "four legged sales call" where SEs (pre-sales engineers), product managers or sales managers are brought in for conversation support.

For over 12 years, customers have asked us to help them with remediation (coaching), call preparation and physical delivery of key messages to customers. They tell us sellers need:

• Selling messaging and diagnostic questions, especially given expanding sales bags and a more competitive environment;
• Compelling and relevant content to deliver messages that support the customer's buying process;
• Knowledge aids that help sales people prepare for sales conversations quicker and easier;
• Selling tools and aids that help them engage customers more effectively, especially over the telephone, and communicate proof points relevant to the value they can provide a prospect;
• Convenient, opportunity specific coaching to assist with strategy and provide actionable next steps.

Avitage provides a process to build sales communications that are aligned to, and in support of, conversations that occur at each stage of the sales process, relevant to different stakeholder types, business needs, value points, competitive context and industry factors, among others.

This process supports an organization's training, marketing, coaching and sales communication needs with coordinated messages, shared content, and cost effective deployment.

The long-standing rap on sales training is that it's deployed as a periodic event and the benefits atrophy as early as 90 days out. But skills training without supporting selling information means sales people (each) have to figure it out for themselves, resulting in wasted time, opportunities and inconsistent selling.

To become a "trusted advisor" means sales professional have to have knowledge, and access to information, that makes them an advisor in the eyes of the customer.

Selling is fundamentally about communication. Communication is about delivery. Delivery today occurs in far more ways than face-to-face conversations. More selling over the phone, especially in the early stages of the process, require new engagement methods. Selling is more collaborative and it is necessary to bring experts to the customer in timely and cost effective ways. Web meetings and multimedia vignettes help here.

Sales people need to develop and cultivate leads. Multimedia vignettes help capture customer attention, and capitalize on that attention with compelling delivery of messages. Lead nurturing involves customer education. Customer portals with relevant (multimedia) content help here.

After the challenges of getting prospects to engage, the next biggest challenges involve accelerating the buying cycle, creating and demonstrating value, closing business -- not losing to "no decision". While skills are essential to this process, they are not sufficient. Knowledge, content and new delivery methods are also essential.

Coaching vs. Training

This year we helped our colleague Rob Scanlon launch a truly unique sales coaching and benchmarking company and product called PrivateSalesCoach (www.privatesalescoach.com).

This has been a fascinating experience on several levels which I will share across a number of blogs:

• A product that assists sales people in convenient and non-invasive ways to improve their odds in specific opportunities
• Executed through a simple, web diagnostic, that in less than 10 minutes answering questions provides instant advice for account strategies and next steps
• Benchmarks sales efforts against a best practice standard
• Provides qualitative assessments for how opportunities are being worked
• Can be applied in both direct and channel selling
• Low cost, hosted and easily implemented

A product that initially provokes skepticism and incredulity -- indeed I almost missed the opportunity to assist with this project due to my own initial negative assessment.

Dave Stein had a similar reaction when I first described this product.

Through this work I've gained a heightened appreciation for:

• The challenge of launching something new into the cacophony of today's market
• The difference between coaching and training -- as well as distinctions about coaching
• The importance of coaching on sales performance
• The value of sales benchmarks for sales performance and coaching
• The value of multimedia vignettes for leveraged selling and support of customer advocates conducting internal enrollment conversations.

It will be interesting to see how open people are to evaluate an innovative way to gain an early advantage with something others don't yet have.

Sales coaching and benchmarking appears to be of high interest for sales managers today. There is just not enough time or bandwidth for managers to touch every opportunity. How does a manager quickly assess which opportunities in the large portfolio of deals really needs his attention? How much time does it take to diagnose each opportunity with each rep to get the information needed to help? How much of this assessment is based upon a documented standard vs. intuitive gut feel?

Pilots use a "flight check" to make sure they don't miss any important steps, despite years of flying. Doctors send us for x-rays and lab work before meeting patients. That way they receive technical confirmation of a diagnosis and can spend more of their valuable time prescribing remedies and treatment. Many doctors today use online diagnostic tools to research or confirm a diagnosis despite years of education far beyond that of the typical sales rep.

CRM systems give us quantitative insight to sales opportunities, but do little to reflect a qualitative assessment of how opportunities are actually being worked, or what could be done to improve selling of each opportunity.

As we continue to support this effort I'll report on these questions and other lessons.