Friday, September 19, 2008

Inside Growth Strategies

Old-school selling skills stay relevant in today's digital world

Go ahead, build your technology, get the venture money, roll out the buzzwords, create the blog chatter. Your new company is going nowhere without somebody who can sell. Increasingly those salespeople are encountering new challenges that extend well beyond the old pushback of “no budget.” Sales executives are dealing with issues such as short product cycles, new pricing models, raw sales recruits, more informed prospects, and the challenge and benefits of Web 2.0.

Mass High Tech recently brought together four sales professionals to discuss the state of sales in the tech sector, and how times are changing. The roundtable panel: Moderator Steven Harper is CEO and founder of Plan 2 Win Software LLC in Nashua, N.H. Charlie Allieri is CEO of sales software vendor iLantern LLC in Bedford. Jim Norton is team manager for the Agency Activation team at Google Inc. Mike LaPeters is vice president for sales and services at Core Security Technologies in Boston.

Harper: What do you see out there right now?

Allieri: I think folks are looking for a tighter alignment to some payback, either in cost cutting or in revenue generation. In either of those areas, there are more specifics required around, ‘What is that (technology) going to do for my business?’ There’s just more selling that needs to be done to get a deal closed than even a year and a half ago.

LaPeters: But what’s interesting is that our message to a large group of people has changed even more. You spent, in some cases, millions of dollars on this preventive technology. But we ask the question of how do you know it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing? So we’re trying to go back and say, “Okay, we’re the ROI mechanism. You’re going to continue investing in a firewall or IDS or IPS, all these high-falutin‘ technologies. We’re the guys who are going to tell you if that money was well spent.” So that’s kind of what we’re morphing our message to, how can we help the CSO go, “Yes, I’m spending my money wisely.” That’s because of where the economy is.

Norton: I think ROI is the operative word, and the need to make sure everything that you’re doing from a marketing standpoint is measurable, which is why you’re seeing a shift of media dollars away from less-than-measurable media to much more measurable media, which certainly searches and online advertising are. It just comes down to chief marketing officers and marketing executives and agency executives making decisions with smaller budgets and opting for media that is as measurable as possible.


Harper: So what are you seeing in terms of sales cycles: longer, shorter, more difficult, buying committees, more people involved?

Norton: In our case, we sell a variety of different products, and with each product comes a different sell cycle. Search, as an example, is in most cases built into a marketing plan now. But I think that with smaller ad budgets, some marketers, some agencies may be a little more apprehensive to delve into newer media and be a little more apprehensive to be the first mover on something like mobile or social media.

Allieri: You know that you’re going to probably need buy-in higher up the food chain because the budgets have gotten a little tighter. So it’s getting them involved a little bit earlier in the process, as well as providing different steps in the sales cycle to provide proof points earlier. So, where are we being stalled in the process? Where can we insert new techniques to get us above the fray and get into the right level, so that we can speed it along so we don’t hit a roadblock? Does it involve more people? Absolutely. From our perspective, more senior folks are getting involved because the budgets are tighter, which means they need to get approvals from higher levels.

LaPeters: That’s a great point because there was a time where our retail price for a product was $30,000. I’m not going to say that was easy to get pushed through, but it was easier. Now, even the (chief information security officer) can’t sign off on $30,000. It has to go to the CEO or the CFO. They have to make that decision, and they’re much less technically savvy. When you start talking about what we do, it scares people. Then you have to go through that whole process of saying it’s not a fear or scare thing. This is about protecting shareholder value. It’s about protecting data. A C-level person can go to jail for releasing data. You really have to tailor your message to that higher level.

Allieri: If all you did in the past was sell to the VP of sales, now there are other levels. You start trying to build your power base early, so that you’ve got those people involved. When it does get to their desk, it isn’t the first time they’ve heard about it. And your message changes, because they care about something very different than the person that has the pain. That pain translates into something else at the senior executive level that probably has the signing authority.

LaPeters: We’ve absolutely found that we’ve had to matrix our message.You’ve got to talk to the tech person. You’ve got to talk to the strategic manager. You’ve got to talk to the C-level individual. In some cases, you have to talk to people that aren’t even remotely related, but you have to be able to have a message, and it has to resonate with them. If it doesn’t resonate with them, you’ll never make that sale happen.

Norton: We run into the same issue. Certainly, when dealing with an ad agency, they’re obviously much more savvy about the products that we’re trying to sell to them, and the metrics upon which the media will be measured. But when you get to the client side, and the further up the ladder that you go, the more you’ve got to dumb it down. It tends to be a lot more emotional as well. People want to be viewed as innovative, especially in the way that they’re marketing their products or services. So you may back off metric-based discussions and talk more about the notion of being a first mover, a leader within their category.


Harper: What about sales budgets? I’m a former VP of sales, and I never had a budget.

LaPeters: And I am VP of sales, and I don’t have a budget. What’s really interesting is that a lot of money has been spent in the last 10, 20 years on making sure the supply chain was efficient and all, and the back-end delivery was efficient. But the front end of revenue generation, there really hasn’t been a lot of technology deployed to help folks really make that process more efficient, more measurable, more attainable, more repeatable. What’s interesting is that it makes a lot of sense, and everybody wants it. It’s like motherhood and apple pie, but where is the money going to come from?

Norton: In some ways, now you’re fighting for the same dollars out of the same bucket that new media’s looking for.

LaPeters: In a lot of ways, you’re right. There’s sales budget for sales training. There’s sales budget for the sales meeting, but is there a lot for tools out there? Not really. Some people have made the determination that on top of this infrastructure now that I’ve got with sales force automation, I want to start adding sales efficiency tools. They’ve got the vision, but that is not a big percentage of the population.


Harper: Does Google open more doors than if you were selling almost identical products and you weren’t Google?

Norton: Yes, absolutely. That’s the great thing about Google. You’re rarely refused a meeting. You know, people feel compelled to meet with the Google guy across all levels just because they feel like they need to be able to say, “I’m meeting with Google.” That being said, despite that the door gets open, it’s got to be relevant. It’s got to be tight, and it’s got to be about them. One of the things that I think gets lost on our side is that Google is a household name because of its products, We’ve been a very product-driven organization. However, the next generation of Google needs to become much more of a sales culture, and making it relevant. As our portfolio of products expands, we need to make sure we are talking about the right products with the right people.Whether it’s a household name company or not, it’s still all about the fundamentals of selling.


Harper: How many meetings have you gone on that they met with you just because you were Google, even though they had no reason to use you, no reason to meet with you?

Norton: Whether they use us or not, it’s rare that we come across a company that says we’re not going to use Google for search, and we’re just going to go with one of your competitors. That just, you know, doesn’t happen.

Allieri: Yeah, we have that same problem.

LaPeters: I’m openly weeping now.

Norton: It’s good to be Google. [laughter]


Harper: When you go into these meetings, sometimes they already know so much about your organization that it’s like going into a second meeting. How do you deal with that?

LaPeters: There are times where they’ll have this expectation of, “Hey, my idea of what you do is this.” If you’re off mark, off of what they think you do, then you’ve killed the sale already. We spend so much time questioning now that there is very little on that initial call where we tell them anything about what we do.

Norton: I’ve used this phrase in the past, Sales 2.0 is actually Sales 101. You know, as products have become more complicated, and technology, and especially in technology sales, sales people tend to feel the need to understand every single detail about that product. What they lose focus on is the customer. One of the things that I try to focus on with my team is to let the customer decide what you need to know about each product. The way to do that is back to the fundamentals of asking the questions. What’s working now; what’s not working; what would you like to see; if you could do something, what would it be? Make sure you’ve got your question sheet so you’re going down the list. Whether it’s 2008 or 1958, you know, what are the questions that you should be asking that client.


Harper: Let’s move on to talk about something that you were talking about a little bit, which is the technology, the sales force automation, the customer relationship management, whatever. How are you seeing that impact the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales people?

Allieri: I’ve always been a process guy, and I learned this very early in my career that the more information, the more I document, the more I track, the more I measure, the better odds I have of closing. I’m a coin-operated guy. If it helps me make money, I’m going to do it. We say if it’s not in Salesforce.com, it didn’t happen. So we’ve really mandated that everybody gets really cozy and comfortable with Salesforce. We measure in tens, 25s, 35s, 50s, like everybody else does. It’s all about process. We know what it takes to be at 50 percent. So we’re trying to make sure all those things are documented. It also really helps when I’m doing a forecast. You have to able to go to some central spot and feel confident by looking at all the 75 percenters to find out where they’re at, and what the details are.

LaPeters: I’m with you. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t have a good sense of where we are in the processes and be able to look out in a more objective way, as opposed to having conversations, and trying to weed it out.

Allieri: The outside sales reps have this perception that part of what they do is magic. And I really think there’s some of that. They feel they’re more artists than scientists. Therefore, to capture the essence of what they do inside of Salesforce.com would be beneath them.

Norton: It comes down to discipline at the end of the day, really. Whether you’re using a Salesforce type system or proprietary system, it still is about the discipline of going in and entering in the data and referring to the data and using it as part of the sales process.


Harper: I wrote down process, because I heard it so many times. It sounds like it doesn’t matter if it’s Salesforce or proprietary Google or ACT or Franklin Planner, as long as you have a process, you know the process, and you follow the process, you will be successful. Is that fair?

LaPeters: Mostly. It really comes down to making sure that you’re gathering and getting all the information that you need. Some people use processes, I think, that don’t gather all the right information. But it really comes down to Sales 101, understanding what they’re looking for, and being able to make sure that your technology does what they’re looking for it to do.


Harper: I’m almost hearing two separate processes. There’s the operational process, and then there’s the actual selling process, where your message is morphing and you’re getting to the right people and you’re going out with one, actually, underpinning and supporting the former.

Norton: Maybe a better way to look at it is there’s an individual process, and then there’s an organizational process. Sometimes the two can be very different. The goal is to make sure that they’re aligned, because when it comes to forecasting and pipelines and things like that, if it’s in your Franklin Planner, it’s only in your Franklin Planner. At Google, we have multiple teams call on the same agency. It’s important to make sure there’s a free exchange of what’s going on, and what your team is doing versus what is my team is going to do. A centralized knowledge base of all the sales process is vital. People just need to move to that direction.

Allieri: We’re a fairly new sales organization. Process becomes even more important as you get larger and you become more mature in your selling processes. That operational side becomes more important to the CEO as you start hitting bumps in growth.


Harper: Let me switch gears. How do you see Web 2.0, social media, blogging, Twitter, you name it, affecting or being used by your sales people?

Norton: What we’ve seen is a lot of it being used more and more for networking among salespeople and among the ad community.  Whether or not people are using it to do research in advance of a meeting, I’m not seeing that, but who knows?

Allieri: For a company like ours, where we’re building kind of our power base, those are great tools. It’s the most accurate view of a person’s biography you can get, because they’re updating it themselves. It’s a great way to find out that person’s real title. What is their responsibility? What is their focus? In the larger organizations, as we were talking about before, it’s not that one guy anymore. You need to have five or six or 10. And you want to expand out. You can find those names and titles through Linkedin. 

LaPeters: To build on that, we use it in a couple of different ways. Linkedin is used for everything from recruiting to working with complementary technologies. So our regional sales reps can talk to their regional sales reps and say, “Hey, we want to get inside of this opportunity. We know that they’re a big customer of yours. We want to bring you into one of our opportunities that you guys are looking to get into. Let’s do some complementary things.” We find those guys through Linkedin. It’s all grassroots.

We also find that there’s this enormous support network and buzz network that rolls about, like when we release an advisory. All of a sudden, all the blog sites, the Twitters, you name it, they’re just going everywhere about this thing. And then they get this buzz going. We didn’t do a press release on it, but all of a sudden, it’s everywhere. That’s how I think this Web 2.0 is really starting to impact the challenges or the sales opportunities.