Category Archives: Customer Success

Who Owns the Innovation?

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I like the word “innovation”. As opposed to its come-up-with-something-completely-new-completely-from-scratch cousin “invention”, I like the idea of coming up with new uses for that which we already have. Innovative pursuits often lead to the discovery of capabilities that no one had previously considered and can do so in a more economical fashion. Additionally, innovation provides a creative outlet for those types who once turned their mother’s hair dryer into a toy gun or modified their first car so an unused fog light switch in the dash could be used to operate the stereo without the hassle of putting the key in the ignition (many of you will recall when ALL cars required the keys to be inserted into a hole and turned before the car could function).

I have recently read about how companies are paying more attention to how much they are able to innovate or, taken a step further, “reinvent” their businesses. Many are even exploring and implementing methods of tracking and rating these efforts. Whether by exploring the true needs of their customer’s customer or expanding their ecosystems around complimentary products & services, innovative organizations are constantly looking at what they already do (whether they do it well or not) and considering methods to modify those capabilities to engage in or even create new markets. This begs the question of how, as technical sales professionals, can we assist our customers in this regard? Although we have the ability to bring new customer requirements back to our respective labs and R&D organizations for future product enhancements, our mission is to help our customers invest in the here and now in solutions that are currently available (i.e. the old “sell what is on the truck” adage). In effect, we are primarily here to help our customers make money, save money, or mitigate risks in the immediate rather then the longer-term future. (Don’t get me wrong, obviously we also want to help customers for the long term with strategic ideas and solution, but we cannot get there without first securing short term business. And at the speed of today’s business, it is what we are providing NOW that matters the most). So how can we, as a part of the field sales force charged with aiding customer success in the here and now, be innovative?

Be a Customer of Your Customer – There is no better way for you to get to know your customer than to be a consumer of their products and services. This truly puts you in a position to provide them with feedback on how they are doing as well as ideas for what else they can do for you. I have a colleague who, upon getting assigned to work exclusively with a large financial services customer, moved all of his personal financial services business to that customer. Being “all in” with his customer has enabled him to provide ideas and recommendations based on first hand experience working with several of their lines of business. In taking a similar approach, your unique position as both a customer and a supplier could result in a scenario where you get to create a better consumer experience for yourself, while helping your customer expand their business, while also selling more of your company’s offerings. Forget win-win, this is win-win-win.

Know Your Customer’s Industry & Competitors – Knowing your customer’s industry is sales 101. However, knowing how their competitors run their businesses and, if possible, how their competitors may be using some of your company’s solutions will provide you with insight into proven ways that they can also utilize those solutions. There are obviously situations in which confidentiality may prevent you from disclosing specifics about new offerings, differentiating processes, etc. However, those situations are likely few and far between, as most industries already collaborate on similar issues and problems via trade associations, user groups, and good old-fashioned human networking. Knowing how CompanyX used your offerings to streamline their roll out of ProductX will undoubtedly help you help CompanyY as they seek to roll out ProductY.

Know Other Industries’ Application of Your Solutions – Pay attention to how customers from other industries are using your company’s products. There are many examples of customer contact scenarios, business processes, and supply chain situations that can be easily adapted across industries. For example, from a solution perspective, there are parallels between warranty claims processing and the adjudication of insurance claims. Methods for delivering a first class retail sales experience can be leveraged to meet the packing and shipping needs of small businesses. With a little knowledge and creativity, it is not hard to share ideas from other industries to help your customer drive their innovation.

A senior executive once told my team, “in the final analysis, it is the CUSTOMER who owns the innovation”. Having been a customer before I was a supplier, I can guarantee that this is true. But it does not absolve us from the responsibility of bringing innovative ideas to our customers. If we are constantly provoking our customers with new ideas on how they can use our solutions to run their business, as well as providing them with ideas for how they can get more value out of their existing investment with us, we will be viewed as innovators. Because we are part of the sales organization, we do not necessarily “innovate” in terms of directly developing or enhancing new products for our customers. Rather, we must be innovative in the manner in which we bring them new ideas, develop relationships with new buyers, and contribute to the success of their business.

Optimizing Opportunity Pursuit Plans

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One cliched phrase after another has been appropriated from the military (as well as athletics) and used to illustrate points and concepts used in business. Like all cliches, they continue to be used because they are effective descriptors of situations. And few are more effective at accomplishing objectives under incomprehensible-to-most-of-us pressures than the free world’s best military organizations. So how, once an opportunity to help a customer has been identified and qualified, does the technical seller plan the engagement and get themself into the best position to win the business? The United States Special Forces have a simple framework that is used to guide leadership judgement that is also useful in technical sales. The framework is known as METT-T: Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops, & Time.

Mission:

What is the CUSTOMER’S true objective? What do they need to accomplish? It is easy to focus on sales methodologies and textbook opportunity progression techniques & deliverables and overlook the entire reason that you are in business in the first place – to provide your customers with solutions. Although their objectives are ALWAYS business driven (make money, save money, mitigate risk), sometimes they are more obvious than others. They may be driven by a new business initiative such as launching a new product or increasing the effectiveness of their employees; or technology driven, such as fixing an overly complicated existing duct-tape-and-baling-wire systems integration solution. Understanding your customers’ motivations and desired outcomes is key. This should be well documented and communicated to both your team and the customer to ensure that everyone stays on target.

Enemy:

This element deals with the human elements that will hinder your success. Who might keep the customer from choosing you? Who – politically, financially, or otherwise – might keep you from being selected? Why, and how? How will you address their objections or help them understand the benefits of your solution? Is there a group within your customer who feels that they can build everything themselves faster, for less money, and with better results than an enterprise technology provider? Each of these should be documented and a plan put in place for how their concerns will be addressed.

Terrain:

This deals with the non-human elements that will hinder your success. What are the customer’s alternatives? Is there an incumbent solution already in place that might meet their needs with minimal modification by the customer or a competitor? Is their something unique to the customer’s specific business or their overall business environment that would prevent them from selecting your solution? What about conditions that might make the customer choose to simply do nothing? Similar to the Enemy, risk mitigation plans should be developed for each of these.

Troops:

What skills do you need on your team? This includes not only the technical skills but an examination of who might have the most appropriate relationships with the decision makers at the customer. Do you need to bring in additional financial expertise to establish the right level of ROI with the customer? Do you need to get your management involved to further demonstrate your company’s commitment to delivering the customer’s solution in the timeframe that they need it? Who else is in the best position to help you win this business? Documenting who is going to do what when is crucial and will help ensure that both your team and your customer know what the next steps are.

Time:

When does the customer need to have the solution in place? Your plan should backtrack from this date and use that timeframe to plan your opportunity pursuit and establish a decision date with the customer. As the saying goes, “time kills all deals”, so the sooner you can demonstrate the superiority of your solution, the better off you will be. Similar to the mission mentioned above, this date should be highlighted in all of your communications with your team and the customer to ensure that everyone remains in agreement with when a decision will be made.

My personal respect for those who serve and have served in the armed forces of the free world runs deep. I would never dream of suggesting that the enterprise technical sales profession is comparable to the challenges that they face or that the skills we require compare to theirs. But as a method for organizing a team and rapidly pursuing an objective in a fluid environment, METT-T serves as an enabling framework that can help you win more business.

Your 3 Critical Customer Conversations

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Ensuring that your customers are getting maximum value out of their investment in your solutions is the most fundamental aspect of any enterprise technology sales organization. It ensures the development of deeper relationships, which lead to an expansion of mutually beneficial business opportuntiies and higher levels of customer satisfaction. It lays the foundation for everything you do to differentiate your organization from your competitors. This requires constant follow up and regular discussions with your customers. Of all of the possible topics, trials, and tittle-tattle that you might engage in, there are three conversations that you should ALWAYS be having with your customers.

1) Thank you

Thank you for your business. Thank you for the opportunity to help you run your business. Thank you for the trust that you place in my organization and my people to contribute to the success of you and your team. Thank you for your investment in our solutions, which helps us continue to invest in enhancing those solutions for the benefit of your business. A simple expression of heartfelt gratitude always goes a long way (and if you do not truly feel at least a little heartfelt gratitude towards your customer, a gut check on your career choice may be in order). This is still a universal truth. I find it amazing how rarely that I, as a consumer, am actually THANKED by the individuals at establishments with which I do business. It seems that more often I am the one verbally expressing thanks to them, which far too often elicits the tepid response of “no problem” (I won’t waste space here splitting hairs in the ever-evolving English language between the implied meaning of “no problem” vs. “you’re welcome”).

2) Are you hiring?

Are you hiring for new positions on your team? Are you backfilling recently vacated roles? How about in other areas of the company? Are you targeting recent graduates or experienced candidates? What sort of skills are you/your company looking for? Questions like these can lead to all kinds of discussions about your customer’s business, their needs, and their plans for the future. It will help you get an idea of which areas of their business are growing and which are contracting. From a practical prospecting perspective, it will help you uncover new opportunities for your solutions in other areas of their company. Depending on your tenure in the industry, experiences with other customers, and the breadth of your professional network, you may also be able to provide them with references of skilled individuals who can help them meet their staffing needs. As a manager, I have also found that the conversation eventually traverses into my own hiring needs. This has led to some outstanding hires on my part over the years. If you are not in management, I am sure that you are equally interested in increasing the talent level at your own company.

3) Are you getting everything you need from us?

At the risk of splitting hairs again, this is not “are we giving you everything you need?” because the focus should always be on the value the customer is getting from your business relationship rather than what they may think you should be “giving” them.  This should drive a discussion towards the specific products, services, & intangibles that you are providing and how they are benefitting the customer. It should lead to discussions of other technical or business domains in which you can provide assistance. It will give you some idea as to how you stack up in terms of post-sales support vs. your competitors. It will provide you with some headlights into areas of dissatisfaction for you to proactively address. It reiterates to your customer that you view your relationship as a long-term partnership and that you are always interested in providing more value to their business.

Continually having these three discussions with each of your customers will help you further cement and expand your business and professional relationships. There is no simpler way to affirm your appreciation for their investment in your organization and put you in the best position to expand that investment.

Do You Have the Technical Win?

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It typically happens in the latter sales stages. Your team and management are engaged in forecasting and reviewing all of the details of an opportunity and trying to make a meaningful estimation of whether you have or will actually win the business. Inevitably, the question comes up, as it well should, “do we have the technical win?”

As the sales engineer on the opportunity, everyone looks to you for the answer. Well, do we? How do you know and how can you be sure? Or, what exactly is the “technical win”?

The technical win is assurances from the customer that the product or solution that we are proposing meets their needs and the subsequent support to whomever is responsible for making the purchase to go ahead and do so. The “win” is determined by customer stakeholders who are typically responsible for ensuring that the technology meets the specific requirements of their project or initiative and fits well into their existing technology environment. It is essentially a vote of confidence and support that the solution can be successfully implemented to meet the needs of the business and produce value for the organization. There are many potential indicators that can let you know if you have the technical win. Such as:

  • The customer is investing in or has expressed significant interest in the necessary training to enable them to implement the solution on their own.
  • The customer has informed you of their implementation timeline, the details of the project and it’s supporting business case, and has asked you to be involved throughout the entire implementation lifecycle.
  • The customer is asking for skilled resources from your organization or from your business partners to help them implement the solution.
  • Your outstanding relationship with the technical stakeholders before and during the opportunity sales cycle has established trust such that they have shared the results of any evaluations or proofs of concept that they have conducted with your and your competitors’ products. You have seen that your product emerged as the most appropriate for their business.
  • The customer responded favorably to the simple question, “when will you be moving forward with implementation of our solution?”

Opportunities are often won and lost based on existing business relationships, strategic direction of either the customer or the supplier, contractual Ts & Cs, and even pricing. Most of these conditions are beyond the influence of the technical sales professional. What IS within the sales engineer’s scope of responsibility, however, is ensuring that you never lose because you failed to demonstrate the technical merits of your solution to the customer, how it fits in their environment, and how it will help them run their business. In other words, it is up to you to gain the technical win.

Technical Sales Balanced Scorecard: Customer Perspective

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The final perspective of the Technical Sales Balanced Scorecard is the most important. Arguably, it is by far the most important, as it is concerned with how the organization is viewed throught the eyes of its customers. A thorough understanding of how customers perceive the company, its products, and its people is the true measure of the organization’s viability in the marketplace. Not necessarily specific to technical sales, this category also considers any corporate initiatives that contribute to the betterment of customers’ communities.

Some attributes to consider might include:

  • Frequency, responsiveness to new requirements, and ease of product upgrades
  • Market share (as previously mentioned in the Financial Perspective)
  • Post sales product support incidents, time to resolution, frequency by product or solution, and their nature (question, problem, outage, etc.)
  • Consumption of white papers, guides, etc. designed to ensure customer implementation success
  • Customer satisfaction surveys
  • Implementation of pre-purchased offerings (in the software business, for example)
  • Community volunteer hours & participation
  • Educational support and involvement in STEM academic initiatives within local schools and universities

“Perception is reality” as the saying goes. And the organization that is perceived by its customers to offer the best products that deliver the greatest value and is supportive of their customers’ local communities has the best shot at gaining and maintaining market share relative to competitors.

The “Unquantifiables”

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Few people have ever been able to summarize business situations like the late Peter Drucker. I believe I am now on my 5th year of regularly reading through “The Daily Drucker”. And his “The Effective Executive” holds the top spot on many professionals’ lists of best business books ever written. He once made a point about the “unquantifiable” impact that professionals can have beyond the actual measurable activities and objectives of the organization. The high performing technical seller will take the initiative to seek out these “unquantifiables” on their own, but often they are directly presented to those willing to step up and take responsibility.

I used to work in restaurants as a dishwasher and cook when I was growing up. Occasionally when it would get extremely busy (known as a “rush” to those in the industry), the wait staff would ask for assistance in clearing tables (aka “bussing”). The response from those of us working in the back was quite often “not my job, man”, only spoken loudly and rapidly over the din of the kitchen with a slight Caribbean accent, as in “NOTMYJOBMON!”. Typically the requester would simply glare at us and proceed to bus the table themselves rather than deal with some obnoxious male adolescent. (Then again, since many of the requesters were adolescent females, occasionally one would feel compelled to lend a hand, but that’s another story and completely beside the point). Refusing to help deal with a customer’s need is somewhat amusing when you are a high school kid working a part time job for extra cash. Not so much when you are representing an enterprise technology supplier in relationships between your company and your customers that are often worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to both parties.

I always advise technical sales professionals that they should be doing whatever is necessary to develop new sales opportunities and to ensure that the customer’s technology investment is providing them with business benefits. It is often easy to look at a given situation and say, “that’s marketing’s job”, “that’s what the support center is for”, or “that’s not in my job description” even though the individual knows that getting engaged and taking responsibility will lead to a positive business outcome for both the supplier and the customer. It is the technical seller’s equivalent of “NOTMYJOBMON!” and in many ways it is similar to what psychologists refer to as the “bystander effect” – it assumes someone else will address (or at least is responsible or better qualified for addressing) the customer’s need. I have two rhetorical “coaching” questions that I ask whenever I sense this sort of attitude:

1) What if your competitor is the one who steps up to address the customer’s need?

2) How much career growth or fulfillment do you expect to receive by deflecting responsibility to someone else?

Like much of Drucker’s insight, the rejection of “NOTMYJOBMON!” seems both simple and intuitive. In fact, to quote Drucker more directly, he once stated quite simply that, “the purpose of business is to create and retain customers.” Put in the context of a customer-facing sales organization, this translates into two priorities:

1) Generating revenue by providing customers with solutions.

2) Increasing customer satisfaction.

In fact, this is true for those in all customer-facing sales roles, technical or otherwise. It is everyone’s job.

“Service” After the Sale?

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There is an old adage in the sales profession that states, “nothing kills sales faster than post-sales support”. There is an equally old and true adage that states, “nothing ensures repeat business like service after the sale”. So which is it? Does spending time with customers who have already purchased your products keep you from selling more to new customers? Or does ensuring that customers are getting the maximum value out of their investment in your technology increase levels of customer satisfaction, your reputation, and an increase in sales? Certainly, there are many consumer and business to business industries in which time spent with customers who have already purchased products can reduce the time spent acquiring new customers (and by extension, new revenue). For enterprise technology providers operating in the business to business space, however, the answer lies somewhere in between.

Business relationships between suppliers and their enterprise customers often involve long-term arrangements in which the customer has access to a wide variety of the supplier’s offerings. This is particularly true in the enterprise software business. In order for these arrangements to provide the maximum economic and strategic value for both the customer and the supplier, both parties must focus on ensuring that the customer is taking full advantage of the technology to which they are entitled. As the investing party, it is ultimately up to the customer to take advantage of their investment and ensure that they are getting value for their business. But there is much the supplier can do to assist. The technical sales professional is often best qualified to remain deeply engaged in a post-sales relationship with the customer to ensure successful implementation of the supplier’s solutions.

The effective technical seller can categorize their efforts to enable their customer’s success into the following focus areas: 1) Information; 2) Implementation; and 3) Infusion.

Information

This is the most basic of the three categories. The technical seller must ensure that the customer fully understands the products and capabilities that the customer has purchased. This includes not only which products the customer has access to, but the functionality those products provide, how they interact, and how they can best fit into the customer’s existing IT and political environment. This also means partnering with the individuals at the customer who will be responsible for communicating the details of their investment to the rest of their organization. It means spending time with the customer’s business and technology leaders to understand their priorities and how their investment can be leveraged for those priorities. In many ways this effectively means that the technical seller will spend a great deal of time re-selling the solutions that the customer has already purchased, but such is often the nature of strategic business-to-business relationships.

Implementation

This is the true execution phase in which customers often require the most assistance. It is where the effective technical seller can make a significant difference to the business relationship between supplier and customer. The technical sales professional should strive to be a member of the customer’s project teams and ensure that the customer has everything they need to take responsibility for implementing their investment. This means providing the customer with access to education, training, and any additional implementation services (from the supplier or their partners) that may be required to install, configure, and build solutions. By remaining engaged with the customer’s implementation teams, the technical sales professional can provide all of the necessary care and feeding throughout the customer’s implementation lifecycle to address any issues that may arise. The technical seller’s continued involvement also provides a deeper understanding of the customer’s technical infrastructure, political environment, and business history. This deepens the relationship for both parties and leads to a more effective partnership for the future.

Infusion

Activities in this category enable the customer to manage and realize the true business value of their investment. It requires the technical seller to have a relationship with those at the customer who are responsible for both strategic IT planning as well as enterprise asset management. For example, the customer’s enterprise IT architects and their procurement or cost accounting organization. The technical seller should help the customer in the planning, tracking, and, to some extent, the financial management of their investment. This is done via regular checkpoint meetings in which both customer and supplier discuss the status of implementation projects, future plans, and how the customer’s ownership of the supplier’s technology is being communicated across the enterprise. The technical seller can help the customer with total cost of ownership and return on investment aspects to ensure that they are effectively managing their investment. If done properly, the technical sales professional can help to infuse the customer with a culture of effective asset management and a focus on the attainment of business value.

“Nothing kills sales faster than post-sales support” may still be true in some industries. But in the enterprise-class information technology industry, long term, business value focused partnerships between customers and suppliers will provide the greatest economic value for both parties.

Helping Customers Introduce New Technologies

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Enterprise customers typically acquire new information technology products and solutions in order to:

  1. Implement and/or expand new and/or existing capabilities for a specific project or business initiative.
  2. Replace or upgrade an existing IT capability or service, either to displace a different supplier or due to an evolution of technology.
  3. To explore the business application that new technological capabilities can bring to the enterprise.

As always, the business case for doing any of the above hinges on the customer’s need to make money, save money, or mitigate risk. Regardless of the customers’ motivation for acquiring new technology, the effective technical sales professional can do a great deal to ensure that the customer is equipped to successfully exploit and implement the new capability for their business. In all of the three cases mentioned above, technical sellers can propose that customers adopt a Center of Excellence approach to foster the usage of the new technology. This is particularly true in the third case, which is somewhat of a “build it and they will come” approach to business technology strategy. An organizational structure and high-level execution plan for creating such an organization is discussed further here: http://soa.sys-con.com/node/2028482

The exploration and addition of new IT capabilities in a domain (for example, business intelligence or big data) that is new to the enterprise is best accomplished via a disiplined approach that covers all aspects associated with the implementation of enterprise-class IT solutions. It also requires the customer’s IT staff and leadership to act as internal consultants for their company, marketing and seeking opportunities with their business leaders for the new capabilities to be exploited. As strategic partners to their customers, the technical sales professional can do a great deal to ensure that the customer is successful in these efforts. Helping customers establish a CoE by sharing best practices, recommending training, assisting in solution support planning, etc. are crucial to the successful adoption of new solutions.